hanged; you have yourself described them as strung up by scores upon a gibbet all over the country. Even in the golden days of good Queen Bess, the executions were from three to four hundred annually. A large allowance must be made for the increased humanity of the nation, and the humaner temper with which the laws are administered: but the new crimes which increased wealth and a system of credit on one hand, and increased ingenuity, and new means of mischief on the part of the depredators have produced, must also be taken into the account. And the result will show a diminution in the number of those who prey upon society either by open war or secret wiles.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

Add your paupers to the list; and you will then have added to it not less than an eighth of your whole population. But looking at the depredators alone, perhaps it will be found that the evil is at this time more widely extended, more intimately connected with the constitution of society, like a chronic and organic disease,

return unto his former trade), that, except some better order be taken, or the laws already made be better executed, such as dwell in uplandish towns and little villages shall live but in small safety and rest."—Harrison, ut supra, p. 315. Ed. 1807.

and therefore more difficult of cure. Like other vermin they are numerous in proportion as they find shelter; and for this species of noxious beast, large towns and manufacturing districts afford better cover than the forest or the waste. The fault lies in your institutions, which in the time of the Saxons were better adapted to maintain security and order, than they are now. No man in those days could prey upon society, unless he were at war with it as an outlaw, a proclaimed and open enemy. Rude as the laws were, the purposes of law had not then been perverted: it had not been made a craft; it served to deter men from committing crimes, or to punish them for the commission; never to shield notorious, acknowledged, impudent guilt from condign punishment. And in the fabric of society, imperfect as it was, the outline and rudiments of what it ought to be were distinctly marked in some main parts, where they are now well-nigh utterly effaced. Every person had his place. There was a system of superintendence every where, civil as well as religious. They who were born in villenage, were born to an inheritance of labour, but not of inevitable depravity and wretchedness. If one class were regarded in some respects as cattle, they were at least taken care

of; they were trained, fed, sheltered and protected; and there was an eye upon them when they strayed. None were wild, unless they ran wild wilfully, and in defiance of controul. None were beneath the notice of the priest, nor placed out of the possible reach of his instruction and his care. But how large a part of your population are like the dogs at Lisbon and Constantinople, unowned, unbroken to any useful purpose, subsisting by chance or by prey, living in filth, mischief and wretchedness; a nuisance to the community while they live, and dying miserably at last! This evil had its beginning in my days; it is now approaching fast to its consummation.

95

COLLOQUY V.

DECAY OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.-EDWARD VI.

-ALFRED.

I HAD retired to my library, as usual, after. dinner, and while I was wishing for the appearance of my ghostly visitor, he became visible. Behold me to your wish! said he. Thank you, I replied, for those precious words.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

Wherefore precious?

MONTESINOS.

Because they show that spirits who are in bliss perceive our thoughts;...that that communion with the departed for which the heart yearns in its moods of intensest feeling, is in reality attained when it is desired.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

You deduce a large inference from scanty premises. As if it were not easy to know without any super-human intuition that you would wish for the arrival of one whose com

pany you like, at a time when you were expecting it.

And is this all!

MONTESINOS.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

All that the words necessarily imply. For the rest, crede quod habeas et habes, according to the scurvy tale which makes my friend Erasmus a horse-stealer, and fathers Latin rhymes upon him. But let us take up the thread of our discourse; or, as we used to say in old times, "begin it again and mend it, for it is neither mass nor matins."

MONTESINOS.

You were saying that the evil of a vagrant and brutalized population began in your days,* and is approaching to its consummation at this time.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

The decay of the feudal system produced it. When armies were no longer raised upon that system, soldiers were disbanded at the end of a war, as they are now; that is to say, they were turned adrift to fare as they could,...to

*Harrison says, "it is not yet full threescore years since this trade began; but how it hath prospered since that time it is easy to judge, for they are now supposed, of one sex and another, to amount not above 10,000 persons."- Holinshed, i. 309.