the return was petitioned against, and the petition ordered to be taken into consideration on the 21st of May. The following alterations have also been made in the representation since the commencement of the session :vice Lord Lowther,elected but they are the most material. So far as they go, they constitute, we think, unquestionable improvements on the existing law. But the subject, we repeat, is one of very considerable difficulty; and it would require much consideration to say what in all respects would be the most perfect measure for the legislature to adopt. It is probable that the investigations of the committee, which has just been ap- Cumberland (west) S. Irton pointed, will be productive of some valuable suggestions in correction of, or in addition to, those upon which the present Bill proceeds. ELECTION PETITIONS. In our first number, at page 12, we gave a list of the returns petitioned against. The following is the result of the petitions or the state in which they remain where they are not yet decided upon :— 1. Barnstaple, borough-Petition abandoned. 2. Bath, city-Election affirmed. 3. Bedford, borough-Election affirmed. 4. Bristol, city-Committee appointed, April 25. 5. Bury St. Edmund's, borough-Ballot for committee May 2. 6. Carlow, county-Ballot for committee May 14. 7. Carmarthen, borough-Petition abandoned. 8. Carnarvon, borough-Sir C. Paget declared not duly elected, and the return amended with the name of O. J. E. Nanney, Esq. The return of Mr. Nanney was petitioned against, and the petition ordered to be taken into consideration on the 16th May, but has been abandoned. 9. Carrickfergus, borough-Election of C. R. Dobbs declared void the suspension of the issue of a new writ recommended, and the serious attention of the House called to the gross bribery and corruption which have prevailed at the last and previous elections. 10. Clonmell, borough-Ballot for committee May 16. 11. Coleraine, borough-Ballot for committee May 7. 12. Cork, city-Petition abandoned. 13. Coventry, city-Election affirmed. 14. Ennis, borough-Election affirmed. 15. Galway, county-Ballot for committee May 14. 17. Harwich, borough-Petition abandoned. 18. Hertford, borough-Viscount Ingestrie and Viscount Mahon declared unduly elected; and, on the ground that bribery and treating had prevailed, the suspending of the issue of a new writ recommended until after April 22; subsequently extended till May 2. 19. Knaresborough, borough-Petition abandoned. 20. Launceston, borough-Petition abandoned. 21. Limerick, city-Ballot for committee May 14. 22. Lincoln, city-Ballot for committee May 2. 23. Linlithgow, county-Ballot for committee April 30. 24. Londonderry, borough-Election affirmed; the petition declared frivolous and vexatious. 25. Longford, county-L. White and J. H. Rorke declared unduly elected, and the return ordered to be amended with the names of Viscount Forbes and A. Lefroy. 26. Mallow, borough-W. J. O'Neil Daunt declared not duly elected, and the return ordered to be amended by substituting the name of C. D. O. Jephson. 27. Montgomery, borough-Election of D. Pugh declared void. At the subsequent election, Col. J. Edwards was returned. 28. Newry, borough-Election affirmed. 29. Norfolk, county (east. div.)-Ballot for committee May 2. 30. Northumberland, county (south. div.)-Petition abandoned. 31. Norwich, city-Election affirmed. 32. Oxford, city.-The election, as far as regarded T. Stonor, declared void. At a subsequent election, W. Hughes Hughes was returned, and now sits. 33. Petersfield, borough-J. G. Lefevre declared unduly elected, and the return ordered to be amended by substituting Hylton Jolliffe. 34. Portarlington, borough-Election affirmed. 35. Ripon, borough-Election affirmed. 36. Salisbury, city-Ballot for committee April 30. 37. Southampton, town-J. B. Hoy declared unduly elected; and the return amended with the name of J. S. Penleaze. 38. Stafford, borough-Petition abandoned. 39. Stirling, burghs-Petition abandoned. 40. Tiverton, borough-Ballot for committee May 9. Mr. C. P. Thomson having been returned for Dover and Manchester, made choice to sit for the latter place. On a new election for Dover, Mr. Halcomb was returned, but Gloucester, city London Malton H. T. Hope G. Lyall to sit for Westmoreland, having been returned for both places. vice Hon. M. F. Berkeley. Ald. Waithman, dec. Hon. W. W. Fitzwilliam (now Lord Milton). Ald. Thompson vacant Sir H. Parnell . ·{ vacant - E. B. Portman. - Lord Milton (now Earl Fitzwilliam). - Hon. G. Barrington. - Hon. T. H. Foley, succeeding his father, as Lord Foley. G. Kinloch, deceased. - Col. J. Baillie, by the death of. ABSTRACTS OF PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS. Number of Holders of National Stock, and amount of Shares.-By a return, ordered to be printed by the House of Commons on the 17th of April, it appears that the total number of accounts on which a half year's dividend was due at the last half-yearly payment thereof, on each description of public stock, and on each description of terminable annuities, was 279,751. The amounts of the halfyearly dividends, received by these holders, are classified as follows: Gold and Silver Coinage.-In the twenty years from 1790 to 1809, both inclusive, the amount of gold coined was 21,493,6407, 38. 6d. The greatest amount in any one year was 2,967,5047. 158., in 1798. The silver coined during the same period amounted only to 12167. 158. 2d. In the twenty years from 1810 to 1829, both inclusive, the coinage of gold amounted to 45,387,4231. 88. 4d.; the greatest amount in any one year being 9,520,7587. 138. 10d. in 1821. During the same period, 9,149,4117. 48. 1d., were also coined in silver; 2,436,2977. 128. of which was coined in 1827. Milbank Penitentiary. The annual Report of the superintending Committee of this establishment states that, on the 31st December, 1831, the number of convicts in the prison amounted to 538, of whom 144 were females. On Dec. 31, 1832, the number was 519, of whom 136 were females. During the year, 178 males and 42 females had been admitted; 24 had died, and 215 had been discharged for various causes; the far greater part, namely, 132 males and 29 females, having received free pardons in consequence of their good conduct. The earnings of the prisoners amounted to 2683/. 10s. Of this sum a proportion is reserved for the prisoners and for the officers of the establishment; leaving a net amount, toward the expenses of the Penitentiary, of 2012. 128. 7d. The total net expense, after deducting the above, was 17,1787. 6s. 9d. Taking the average number of prisoners at 530, this gives an expenditure of upwards of 321. per head per annum. The Report states, also, that the conduct of those discharged in former years has been in general very satisfactory; that a large proportion have applied for, and received, the gratuities allowed for good conduct since their liberation; and that greater exertions have been made latterly to extend moral and religious instruction in the Penitentiary, and apparently with the most beneficial effects. Debtors.-The number of prisoners, confined for debt in the several prisons of England and Wales, in the year ending Michaelmas, 1832, amounted to 16,661. Game Laws.-The number of commitments under the Game Laws, in England and Wales, from Nov. 1, 1831, to Nov. 1, 1832, was 2845. POST OFFICE ARRANGEMENTS WITH THE improvements which are understood to be contemplated in the transmission of letters to and from Paris ought to have taken place many years ago. The delay of them has proceeded, less from any direct obstacle, whether physical or political, than from the slowness with which an alteration in almost any department of the civil service is effected in France. "We are very raw," said an intelligent Frenchman several years ago, "in all that regards the management of civil affairs. Madame de Staël had abundant reason to affirm, that for a long time past we have managed nothing well except war." In the year 1814, when the intercourse between London and Paris was re-opened, an answer to a letter was not obtained from one capital to the other until the fifth day from the original despatch, while it is only within these two or three years, and by means of estafettes, or couriers on horseback, that greater expedition has been attained. The post-days, or days for the despatch of the mail, have been only four in the week, viz., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday; omitting Wednesday and Saturday: although the extent of mercantile business, to say nothing of political, was assuredly such as to call for a daily post as much as between London and Edinburgh or Dublin. In proof of this, we have merely to refer to the number of expresses for Messrs. Rothschild and other members of the Stock Exchange, the whole of which might have been spared, had the mail been, as was perfectly practicable, conveyed from one capital to the other in thirty-six hours. que But if we censure the French for slowness in the introduction of such improvements, we by no means attribute that slowness to a feeling of repugnance or indifference in respect to connexion with England. They have long held in high esteem our commercial institutions, and have acknowledged our superiority in commerce, navigation, and the useful arts generally. Only admit to a Frenchman " Paris brille dans les beaux arts," (that Paris excels in the fine arts,) and you will find him perfectly disposed to give to England the lead in a variety of more important points. A century ago, Voltaire, after passing some years in this country, apprized his readers when he returned to France, that we could reckon among our eminent men many besides Marlborough; and in the present age ample justice has been done to us by Dupin and other Frenchmen who have visited our capital, our dock-yards, and the seats of our manufactures. Contrasting the calm steadiness of our workmen, with the lively, but often inefficient bustle of the French, Dupin says, "There reigns in the workshops of England a silent activity;" while another of his countrymen, adverting to several of our minor regulations in civil matters, and explaining their origin, adds, “ We find that, in general, the arrangements of the English bear the stamp of reflection and good sense." The late Jean Baptiste Say, the political economist of France, visited England in 1814, when his penetrating eye detected much that was hollow in our imagined prosperity, and foresaw a great deal of the distress that afterwards took place; but even he, unsparing as he was in animadversion, and wholly unaccustomed to the language of compliment, pronounced us "Une nation admirablement industrieuse;" by which he meant a nation where the division and subdivision of industry was better understood and practised than in any other. was the cause of the long continuance of the war, the inveterate enemy of the tranquillity of France. The escape of that adventurer from Elba was attributed by the majority of the French to a plan on the part of our government to embroil their country anew in war; and they had little confidence in the maintenance of peace on our part until the year 1823, when we remained neutral after their invasion of Spain; and still more in 1830, when we so promptly relieved them from anxiety by acknowledging the title of the Orleans branch to the crown. The public roads in France are greatly inferior to those of this country, and the cross-roads are hardly passable. The stage-coaches are nearly as large and heavy as those of England were a century ago; the average rate of travelling by them does not exceed four or five miles an hour; while by the mail it is hardly six miles. This slow progress arises not from the country being in general more hilly than England, nor from the want of road materials, but from the insufficient care and labour hitherto bestowed on the roads. There are in France no tolls or turnpikes; no road trustees; all is under the charge of government, who seldom find it convenient to make an addition to the sum (about 1,200,0007.) usually appropriated to this purpose in the budget. As to the postage on letters to France, the practice hitherto has been to divide it; half, or nearly half, being paid here by the persons despatching letters, the other half by the receivers of the letters in France. It was proposed, on the part of the French, that persons forwarding letters either to or from Paris, should do as with letters to a country town in Great Britain or Ireland; either paying the whole postage, or no part of it; or lastly, continuing as at present to pay the half. This, we understand, is not likely to be acceded to. It might be useful in particular cases; in a general sense, it will be less important than would be a reduction of the charge, the present rate (2s. 4d. per letter) being considerably beyond what can be afforded by the low prices of merchandise, and the diminished profits of trade in a season of profound peace. But whether the charge be reduced or not, the accelerated despatch of the mails, and the increase of post-days from four to six a-week, will prove highly acceptable to the merchants on both sides of the channel. With such favourable impressions of the state of productive industry in this country, the public in France will receive with pleasure the assurance of a more speedy and frequent intercourse between the two capitals. They will regard it as a further ground for the expectation of continued peace between the two governments, a point on which they were for many years in doubt, so deeply had Exeter, Balle. Buonaparte impressed them with the notion that England & Rees. Lynn, Smith. Manchester, Robinson; and Webb & Simms. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Charnley. Norwich, Jarrold & Son; and Wilkin & Fletcher. | Nottingham, Wright Dublin, Wakeman. Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Stamford-street. THE TO BE CONTINUED MONTHLY. No. 5. JUNE 1, 1833. 65 Inquest on Robert Culley -69 Public Petitions Abstracts of Parliamentary Pa . 70 pers 79 80 80 WE are now to present a few notices illustrative of the diminution or disappearance of certain descriptions of crime in the metropolis, and of the causes by which the change has been brought about. In the most flourishing times of the Saxon kings a very strict system of police seems to have existed in England, which is said to have operated with remarkable effect in reducing the amount of crime. Under the institutions established by Alfred the Great, by which all the individuals composing a tithing became securities for the good conduct of each other, the law, if we may believe some of our old writers, was maintained in almost unviolated authority. The songs of Moore have made every reader familiar with the golden age of Ireland, when, under the renowned Brien Boromhe, a solitary female, attired in richest and rarest jewels, might have passed unharmed and without danger from one end of the country to the other, "on she went, and her maiden smile In safety lighted her round the Green Isle." In the same age, the tenth century, our own historians state that the protection of person and property was equally perfect in England. Brompton, for instance, affirms that in Alfred's time, although gold bracelets were wont to be hung up at the meeting of several high-roads, no man durst touch them. Other authorities state that the robbery of a traveller in any part of the country was a thing altogether unknown. This degree of security, however, was obtained by a system of universal interference and restriction quite incompatible with the existence of anything like freedom, in the modern sense of the term, or even with that of a progressive civilization. It was, in fact, as has been remarked, exactly the same system which has prevailed from time immemorial in China; and proceeded mainly upon two principles,-first, that already mentioned, of holding each individual security for his neighbour; and, secondly, that of fixing down every man for life to the place in which he was born, and preventing all removals from one district to another. So long as the people could be made to submit to this system of government, it probably answered its end of keeping down crime tolerably well; and there is reason to believe that it held together longer than is commonly supposed. We have, indeed, some remnants of it even at the present day in the still surviving provisions of the law of settlement, and in the custom by which the hundred, in case of the destruction of property by riots, is made liable for the damage. It is interesting and instructive, however, to remark the evidences, which present themselves in the latter days of this system, of its constantly-increasing unsuitableness to the state of the country. We will only quote, as one example of the severe measures to which it was at last deemed necessary to resort, in order to uphold so much of it as had not then entirely passed away, the following atrocious act, of the reign of Edward VI. "If any person shall bring to two justices of peace any runagate servant, or any other, which liveth idly and loiteringly by the space of three days, the said justices shall cause the said idle and loitering servant or vagabond to be marked with an hot iron on the breast with the letter V, and adjudge him to be slave to the same person that brought and presented him, to have to him, his executors, and VOL. I. Price 2d. assigns, for two years, who shall take the said slave, and give him bread, water or small drink, and refuse meat; and cause him to work, by beating, chaining, or otherwise, in such work and labour as he shall put him, be it never so vile. And if such slave absent himself from his master within the term by the space of fourteen days, he shall be adjudged by two justices of the peace to be marked on the forehead or the ball of the cheek with a hot iron, with the sign of an S, and shall be adjudged to be slave to his said master for ever; and if the said slave shall run away a second time, he shall be adjudged a felon." It is not by regulations of this description that even so important an object as the repression of crime can ever be attempted in a country pretending to the possession of any portion of liberty. The remedy is a thousand times more dreadful than the disease. It would brutalize the community, and crush out the life of the social principle, much more completely than would the prevalence of mere disorder and licence to any extent to which they have ever spread under the most relaxed and feeble forms of government. But fortunately there are other means which may be applied to effect the same end, and upon the success of which, in so far at least as some of the most flagrant violations of the law are concerned, sure dependence may be placed. A comparison, in regard to some particulars, of the present with the past state of London will put this in a clear light. In the year 1285, the 13th of Edward I., a statute was passed, of which the following is an extract:-" Whereas many evils, as murders, robberies, and manslaughters, have been committed heretofore in the city by night and by day, and people have been beaten and evil-entreated, and divers other mischances have befallen against his (the king's) peace; it is enjoined that none be so hardy as to be found going or wandering about the streets of the city after curfew tolled at St. Martin's-le-Grand, with sword or buckler, or other arms for doing mischief, or whereof evil suspicion might arise, nor any in any other manner, unless he be a great man, or other lawful person of good repute, or their certain messenger, having their warrants to go from one to another, with lantern in hand." How different is the picture here presented of the state of London, at this remote era, from the comparative quiet and security with which nearly every part of it may now be traversed both by day and by night! It is curious, however, to observe up to how recent a period its streets retained no small part of the dangers in which they abounded in the thirteenth century. Even not much more than a hundred years ago, it seems to have been considered unsafe to venWho, ture out after dark on horseback or in a coach. exclaims Gay in his Trivia, published in 1712, In 66 -" through night would hire the harnessed steed? The Square of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields is now, perhaps, as safe at all hours as any part of London; but, for a good many years after this time, it continued to be notorious for the dangers which Gay describes. This arose in a great measure from its vicinity to a nest of profligacy, occupying F the space now lying between the Great and the Little Turn-offenders that were in it; and appeared with cutlasses, bludstiles, on the south side of Holborn, where a formidable geons, and pistols, and through the windows of the said crew of the most abandoned and desperate characters were round-house gave in arms to the prisoners that were in it; congregated together, forming a body which the arm of the and then began a formidable attack both within and without, law hardly dared to touch. When this colony of criminals which gave so great an alarm that a party of horse-grenawas rooted out, and the square was properly lighted and diers and foot-guards were sent for, and four of the villains watched, the dangers for which it had been so long infamous were taken, and brought before Sir Thomas de Veil, and, were at an end. after an examination of near five hours, were committed to Newgate." This is an example of one of the expedients which may be applied with the greatest efficacy in the suppression of crime. It is a disgrace to the authorities of a great city, or to the system of its government and police, that there should be suffered to exist in it any spot or district which is notorious as the retreat merely of the profligate and lawless part of society. There are unfortunately several places-for instance, a place called Field Lane-which still insult and defy the sovereignty of the law in the heart of modern London. Field Lane is a wild tract lying in the way between two important sections of the town, which is never to be crossed without precaution and some danger. Such a place ought long ago to have been swept away, simply because of its injurious effects upon the moral health of the city. If there are at present in London other places as bad as Field Lane, no considerations of expense ought to prevent the adoption of the requisite means to obliterate such ulcers from the body of our social system. We must now, however, proceed to another head. "On Wednesday last," says a notice in the Evening Post of the 16th March, 1716, " four gentlemen were robbed and stripped in the fields between London and Marylebone." These fields are now covered by some of our most populous streets, in which the notion of four gentlemen being stripped is sufficiently ridiculous; but in those days things nearly equally bold were attempted every day in the heart of the metropolis. About 1728 it is recorded that street robbers had become extremely numerous and daring; and “their audacious villany," says Maitland, "was got to such a height that they formed a design to rob the queen in St. Paul's Churchyard, as she privately returned from supper in the city to the palace of St. James's, as confessed by one of the gang when under sentence of death. But those execrable villains being busily employed in robbing Sir Gilbert Heathcote, an alderman of London, on his return in his chariot from the House of Commons, her Majesty luckily passed them in her coach without being attacked." This attempt, it is added, produced so general and strong an alarm, that the magistrates applied themselves with unusual energy to the remedy of the evil; and the consequence was that the streets were soon cleared of the desperate characters by whom they had been infested, many of whom were taken and executed. About this time, indeed, the evil seems to have suddenly grown to a height greatly transcending the degree in which it had for some time before prevailed. In one of their presentments, we find the Grand Jury of 1729 characterizing it as " a wickedness that, till within these few years, was unheard of among us." They attribute its prevalence to the unusual swarms they had of late observed of sturdy and clamorous beggars; and they add that, unless this nuisance be put down, "many quiet and inoffensive people will hardly venture to stir out of their houses on their lawful callings, for fear of being saucily importuned in the day and audaciously attacked and robbed in the night." But a good many years after matters seem to have been no better. In 1744 it is stated that the street robbers used to go to the houses of the peace-officers, and make them beg their pardon, and promise not to molest them; while the lives of other officers, who had particularly distinguished themselves by their activity, were conceived to be in such danger, that they dared not show themselves in the streets. Mr. Jones, the Deputy-Marshal of the city, having one day met a fellow of the name of Billingsby, a well-known offender, endeavoured to seize him; "but twelve villains," says Maitland, "armed with cutlasses, and two with pistols, came up, crying, We know what you have been about, but defy all power, and directly attacked Mr. Thomas, a constable, giving him several wounds, and fired their pistols at Mr. Jones, who received a slight wound in the forehead; but firing a pocket blunderbuss amongst them, loaded with duck-shot, wounded several, and at last they dispersed." "On Saturday, the 28th of April," again writes the same historian, under this year, near twenty desperate thieves and gamblers assembled themselves before St. Martin's round-house, about 11 o'clock in the morning, in order to rescue some notorious 66 In consequence of the alarm excited by this state of things, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, on the 13th of October, went up with an address to his Majesty, in which they stated" that divers confederacies of great numbers of evildisposed persons, armed with bludgeons, pistols, cutlasses, and other dangerous weapons, infest not only the private lanes and passages, but likewise the public streets and places of usual concourse, and commit most daring outrages upon the persons of your Majesty's good subjects, whose affairs oblige them to pass through the streets, by terrifying, robbing, and wounding them; and these facts are frequently perpetrated at such times as were heretofore deemed hours of security that the officers of justice have been repulsed in the performance of their duty; some of whom have been shot at, some wounded, and others murdered, in endeavouring to discover and apprehend the said persons; by which means many are intimidated from duly executing their offices, and others put in manifest danger of their lives." * * * * On this a proclamation was issued, offering a reward of 1007. for the conviction of any street robber; and others, to the same effect, followed in 1748 and 1751. But the evil does not appear to have been thereby abated, if we may judge from the following statements of Fielding, written in the last of these two years:-" The great increase of robberies within these few years is an evil which to me appears to deserve some attention. * * In fact, I make no doubt but that the streets of this town, and the roads leading to it, will shortly be impassable without the utmost hazard; nor are we threatened with seeing less dangerous gangs of rogues among us than those which the Italians call the banditti. What, indeed, may not the public apprehend, when they are informed, as an unquestionable fact, that there are at this time a great gang of rogues, whose number falls little short of a hundred, who are incorporated in one body, have officers and a treasury, and have reduced theft and robbery into a regular system! There are of this society men who appear in all disguises, and mix in most companies. Nor are they better versed in every art of cheating, thieving, and robbing, than they are armed with every method of evading the law, if they should ever be discovered, and an attempt made to bring them to justice. Here, if they fail in rescuing the prisoner, or (which seldom happens) in bribing or deterring the prosecutor, they have, for their last resource, some rotten members of the law to forge a defence for them, and a great number of false witnesses ready to support it." And afterwards,-" How long have we known highwaymen reign in this kingdom after they have been publicly known for such! Have not some of these committed robberies in open daylight, in the sight of many people, and have afterward rode solemnly and triumphantly through the neighbouring towns without any danger or molestation? This happens to every rogue who is become eminent for his audaciousness, and is thought to be desperate; and is in a more particular manner the case of great and numerous gangs, many of which have for a long time committed the most open outrages in defiance of the law. Officers of justice have owned to me that they have passed by such, with warrants in their pockets against them, without daring to apprehend them; and, indeed, they could not be blamed for not exposing themselves to sure destruction; for it is a melancholy truth that, at this very day, a rogue no sooner gives the alarm, within certain purlieus, than twenty or thirty armed villains are found ready to come to his assistance." Fielding's pamphlet, from which we quote this statement, appears to have produced a great effect on the public mind. From this time, partly through certain new measures of police, and partly by means of the more resolute determination awakened in the public generally to put down the evil, the robberies, both by footpads and mounted highwaymen, which had been so frequent on various roads in the vicinity of the metropolis, began rapidly to decline. Sir John Fielding informed the Committee of 1772" that for twenty years a footpad had not escaped; that highwaymen cannot escape, upon account of the early information given to the aforesaid office (that of Bow Street), and the great number of prosecutors who always appear against them, which he thinks must in time put an end to the evil." These causes, and the greater extension which was afterwards given to the police establishment of the metropolis, eventually brought about the result here anticipated,-in regard, at least, to the more daring order of these violators of the law. In his amusingly characteristic, but still interesting and valuable, evidence, given before the Committee of 1816, Townsend, who had at that time been a Bow Street officer for thirtyfour years, makes the following statement :-" There is one thing which appears to me most extraordinary, when I remember, in very likely a week, there should be from ten to fifteen highway robberies. We have not had a man committed for a highway robbery lately; I speak of persons on horseback; formerly there were two, three, or four highwaymen, some on Hounslow Heath, some on Wimbledon Common, some on Finchley Common, some on the Romford road. I have actually come to Bow Street office in the morning, and while I have been leaning over the desk, had three or four people come in and say, I was robbed by two highwaymen, in such a place; I was robbed by a single highwayman, in such a place. People travel now safely by means of the horse-patrol that Sir Richard Ford planned. Where are these highway robberies now? as I was observing to the Chancellor (Lord Eldon) at the time I was up at his house on the Corn Bill. He said, Townsend, I knew you very well so many years ago.' I said, 'Yes, my Lord, I remember your first coming to the bar, first in your plain gown, and then as King's Counsel, and now Chancellor. Now, your Lordship sits as Chancellor, and directs the executions on the Recorder's report; but where are the highway robberies now?' And his Lordship said, Yes, I am astonished.' There are no footpad robberies or road robberies now, but merely jostling you in the streets. They used to be ready to pop at a man as soon as he let down his glass: that was done by bandittis." So the late Sir Richard Birnie, in his evidence given in 1828, says, "There has not been a mounted highwayman these thirty years." assailants either of person or property, and rendered perfectly safe to every one passing along them, at all hours of the day and night. Now this great change for the better has not certainly been brought about by the establishment among us of any oppressive system of inquisition and espionage, but simply by the abatement of universally-acknowledged nuisances, and by other regulations of police and civic economy, for which we have paid no other penalty but the money-tax necessary for carrying them into effect. Ancient London, for example, abounded in places legally, or claiming to be privileged, where not only debtors but felons of every description sought an asylum from the law, to which from these retreats they offered, in their banded numbers, the most daring defiance. Such sanctuaries, as they were called, were in fact nothing else than permanent nurseries of crime. Besides the celebrated Whitefriars, or Alsatia, of which the pages of Scott have given us a picture so full of life, and Whetstone Park, already mentioned, to the north of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, there were the sanctuaries of St. Martinle-Grand, of the Minories, of Salisbury-court, of Ram-alley, of Mitre-court, of Fulwood's-rents, of Baldwin's-gardens, (Gray's-Inn-Lane,) of the Savoy, of the Mint, of the Clink, in Southwark, and others. These nuisances, strange as it may be thought, although attempts had repeatedly been made to regulate them, were not finally suppressed by the legislature till 1697, nine years after the Revolution. Nay, it was a good many years later before they were all effectually rooted out. Again, it is not yet quite a century since the streets of this great capital could be almost said to be lighted at night at all. Until the year 1736, there were only a thousand lamps hung out throughout the whole city, and these were kept burning only till midnight; and, for one half of the year, namely, from Lady-day till Michaelmas, were never lighted at all: nay, even during the winter months, there were ten nights every moon, from the sixth day after full to the third day after new moon, on which, however cloudy the sky, not a wick lent its feeble aid to dissipate the obscurity. In fact, the thousand lamps were only kept burning for about seven hundred and fifty hours in the course of the year. The streets of a town left in this state were necessarily delivered over, during a great part of every twenty-four hours, to the uncontrolled dominion of robbers and other violators of the law. But highway robbery is only one of many descriptions of crime and immorality, characterized by a portion of the same audacity and violence, which are now likewise entirely or nearly suppressed. Forty or fifty years ago there were numerous establishments in the metropolis where swarms of the most lawless characters openly congregated, and might The paving and widening of many of our most crowded be said to enjoy entire security from even the approach of thoroughfares, and the removal of many impediments by the wretched police which then existed. The names of some which passage through the streets used formerly to be of these haunts of profligacy were the Bull in the Pound, interrupted, are other improvements which have all matethe Apollo Gardens, the Dog and Duck, the Temple of rially contributed to the same result. The establishment Flora, &c. "A dreadful society of vagabonds," said Sir (in 1792) of the several police-offices, and that of the horseJohn Fielding, who remembered them well, when examined patrol, imperfect as they both are, have nevertheless unin 1816, "were certainly collected together in those places." doubtedly been the means of maintaining, throughout the Thence issued the bold ruffians by whom highway robberies space over which their jurisdiction extends, a measure of were perpetrated to such an extent in those days. "The order and general security greatly exceeding what had character of the highwayman," continues Sir John, " is cer- previously prevailed. And, lastly, the recent substitution tainly less heard of since the putting down those two infernal of the new police in the room of that long-tolerated nuiplaces of meeting, the Dog and Duck and the Temple of sance the old parochial watch, will now be confessed, we Flora, which were certainly the most dreadful places in or believe, even by the greater number of those who were at about the metropolis." Again, down to a much later period first most opposed to the change, to have been an improvethan that here referred to, it is stated to have been a generalment of the very highest value and importance. practice in the metropolis for the lower orders to amuse themselves by the brutal diversion called bull-hanking, and driving the bulls about the streets. Indeed, this practice continued to be known in certain districts of London till within the last few years. The following statement was made by the Rev. Joshua King, the clergyman of the parish of Bethnal Green, in his examination by the Committee of 1816:"Every Sunday morning, during the time of divine service, several hundred persons assemble in a field adjoining the churchyard, where they fight dogs, hunt ducks, gamble, enter into subscriptions to fee drovers for a bullock: I have seen them drive the animal through the most populous parts of the parish, force sticks pointed with iron up the body, put peas into the ears, and infuriate the beast, so as to endanger the lives of all persons passing along the streets." Such enormities as this, we presume, are now entirely put an end to. And so are such systematic atrocities as those said to have been committed in former times by the Mohocks (whom the readers of the Spectator will remember), and by the infamous associations of the Cutter-Lads, and others of a similar description. All our great thoroughfares at least may now, indeed, be said to be effectually cleared from open The grand result, as we have said, is, that in so far as London and its vicinity are concerned, all those descriptions of criminals who were wont to inspire the greatest terror have not indeed been entirely extirpated, but have at least been forced to withdraw from the systematic pursuit of their lawless courses. A burglary, a robbery on the highway, a murder, still occasionally occur; but those bands of marauders who used to make our streets and roads constantly unsafe at certain hours, are broken up and no longer exist. The law, which was formerly kept in check by these ruffians, is now master and keeps them in check. They may sometimes escape its vigilance, but they dare no longer offer it open defiance: when they succeed in breaking through its mandates, it is by running away from it, not by bearding it. The substitution of this state of things is an immense gain. It is a step forward in civilization, and an actual advantage of vast amount. While the leagued enemies of the law intimidate the law itself, society can hardly be said to be consolidated. In a perfect condition of society, crime would not exist at all; it would not require even a law to suppress it. At this ultimate limit of all improvement we certainly have |