greater value than many reviewing men living in the | libel. Are visiting justices to doom such a prisoner garrets of the north. to bread and water, or are they to make an invidious distinction between him and the other prisoners? The diet should be ordered by the judge, or it never will be well ordered-or ordered at all.

The most extraordinary clause in the bill is the fol

The society offer some comments upon the prison bill now pending, and which, unfortunately for the cause of prison improvement, has been so long pending in the legislature. In the copy of this bill, as it stands at present, nothing is said of the limitation of num-lowing:bers in any particular class. We have seen forty felons of one class in one yard before trial. If this is to continue, all prison improvement is a mere mockery. Separate sleeping cells should be enacted positively. and not in words, which leave this improvement optional. If any visiting justice dissents from the majority, it should be lawful for him to give in a separate report upon the state of the prison and prisoners to the judge or the quarter sessions. All such reports of any visiting magistrate or magistrates, not exceeding a certain length, should be published in the county papers. The chairman's report to the secretary of state should be published in the same manner.The great panacea is publicity; it is this which secures compliance with wise and just laws, more than all the penalties they contain for their own preserva

tion.

And be it further enacted, that in case any criminal prisoner shall be guilty of any repeated offence against the rules of the prison, or shall be guilty of any greater offence which the jailer or keeper is not by this act empowered to punish, the said jailer or keeper shall report the same to the visiting justice, or one of them, for the time being; and such justices, or one of them, shall have power to inquire upon oath, and determine concerning any such offence so reported to him or them, and shall order the offender to be punished, either by moderate whipping, repeated whippings, or by close confine-Act, p. 21. ment, for any term not exceeding

Upon this clause, any one justice may order repeated whippings for any offence greater than that which the jailer may punish. Our respect for the committee will reconsidered. We beg leave to add, that there should only allow us to say, that we hope this clause will be be a return to the principal secretary of state of recommitments as well as commitments.

We object to the reading and writing clause. A poor man, who is lucky enough to have his son com. initted for a felony, educates him, under such a sys- discipline travelling from England to the detestable It is no mean pleasure to see this attention to jail tem, for nothing; while the virtuous simpleton on the and despotic governments of the continent, to see the other side of the wall is paying by the quarter for health and life of captives admitted to be of any im these attainments. He sees clergymen and fadies busy with the larcenous pupil; while the poor lad, who reportance, to perceive that human creatures in dunspects the eighth commandment, is consigned, in some geons are of more consequence than rats and black beetles. All this is new-is some little gained upon dark alley, to the frowns and blows of a ragged peda- tyranny; and for it we are indebted to the labours of gogue. It would be the safest way, where u prisoner the Prison Society. Still the state of prisons, on mais kept upon bread and water alone, to enact that the allowance of bread should not be less than a pound and "y parts of the continent, is shocking beyond all a half for men, and a pound for women and boys. We description. strongly recommend, as mentioned in a previous numIt is a most inconceivable piece of cruelty and ab. ber, that four sorts of diet should be enacted for every sel, when he is tried for any capital felony, is not alsurdity in the English law, that the prisoner's coun prison: 1st, Bread and water; 2d, Better prison diet; lowed to speak for him; and this we hope the new 3d, Best prison diet; 4th, Free diet-the second and prison bill will correct. Nothing can be more ridicuthird to be defined by the visiting magistrates. All sentences of imprisonment should state to which of lous in point of reasoning, or more atrociously cruel these diets the prisoner is to be confined; and all de. and unjust in point of fact. Any number of counsel viation from it on the part of the prison officers should They are at full liberty to talk as long as they like ;— may be employed to take away the poor man's life.be punished with very severe penalties. The regula- but not a syllable is to be uttered in his defence-not tion of prison diet in a prison is a point of the very a sentence to show why the prisoner is not to be hung. highest importance; and to ask of visiting magistrates This practice is so utterly ridiculous to any body but that they should doom to bread and water a prisoner, lawyers (to whom nothing that is customary is ridicwhom the law has left at liberty to purchase whatever he has the money to procure, is a degree of severity which it is hardly fair to expect from country gentlemen, and, if expected, those expectations will not be fulfilled. The whole system of diet, one of the mainsprings of all prison discipline, will get out of order, if its arrangement is left to the interference of magistrates, and not to the sentence of the judge. Free diet and bread diet need no interpretation; and the jailer will take care to furnish the judge with the definitions of better prison diet and best prison diet. A knowl. edge of the diet prescribed in a jail is absolutely necessary for the justice of the case. Diet differs so much in different prisons, that six weeks in one prison is as severe a punishment as three months in another. If any country gentleman, engaged in legislation for prisons, is inclined to undervalue the importance of these regulations, let him appeal to his own experience, and remember, in the vacuity of the country,how often he thinks of his dinner, and of what there will be for dinner; and how much his amenity and courtesy for the evening depend upon the successful execution of this meal. But there is nobody so gluttonous and sensual as a thief; and he will feel much more bitterly, fetters on his mouth than his heels. It sometimes happens that a gentleman is sentenced to imprisonment, for manslaughter in a duel, or for a

ulous), that men not versant with courts of justice will not believe it. It is, indeed, so utterly inconsistent with the common cant of the humanity of the English law, that it is often considered to be the misthe system. We must take this opportunity, theretake of the narrator, rather than the imperfection of fore, of making a few observations on this very strange

and anomalous practice.

the judge is counsel for the prisoner. But the defenThe common argument used in its defence is that first make their election, whether they consider the ders in this piece of cruel and barbarous nonsense must prisoner to be, by this arrangement, in a better, a were allowed to plead for him. If he is in a worse worse, or an equally good situation as if his counsel situation, why is he so pleased? Why is a man, in a advantage which any suitor in any court of justice solemn issue of life and death, deprived of any fair possesses? This is a plea of guilty to the charge we make against the practice; and its advocates, by such concession, are put out of court. But, if it is an adthe choice of this advantage, in the greatest of all huvantage, or no disadvantage, whence comes it that man concerns, is not left to the party, or to his friends? If the question concerns a footpath-or a fat oxter to tell it for him. The law leaves the litigant to every man may tell his own story, or employ a barrisdecide on the method most conducive to his own in*The county of York, with a prison under presentment, has terest. But, when the question is whether he is to been waiting nearly three years for this bill, in order to pro- live or die, it is at once decided for him that his counceed upon the improvement of their county jail. It would be an entertaining change in human affairs to de-sel are to be dumb! And yet, so ignorant are men of termine every thing by minorities. They are almost always in the right.

their own interests, that there is not a single man tried who would not think it a great privilege if

counsel were allowed to speak in his favour, and | casions, should be considered as so improper on the who would not be supremely happy to lay aside the greatest of all occasions, where the life of a man is fancied advantage of their silence. And this is true concerned? If an acre of land is to be lost or won, not merely of ignorant men; but there is not an Old one man says all that can be said on one side of the Bailey barrister who would not rather employ another question-another on the other; and the jury, aided Old Bailey barrister to speak for him, than enjoy the by the impartiality of the judge, decide. The wit of advantage (as the phrase is) of having the judge for man can devise no better method of disentangling difhis counsel. But in what sense, after all, is the judge ficulty, exposing falsehood, and detecting truth. Tell counsel for the prisoner? He states, in his summing me why I am hurried away to a premature death, and no up, facts as they have been delivered in evidence; man suffered to speak in my defence, when at this very and he tells the jury upon what points they are to de-moment, and in my hearing, all the eloquence of the bar, cide he mentions what facts are in favour of the on the other side of your justice hall, is employed in de prisoner, and what bear against him; and he leaves fending a path or a hedge? Is a foot of land dearer to the decision to the jury. Does he do more than this any man than my life is to me? The civil plaintiff has in favour of the prisoner? Does he misstate? Does not trusted the smallest part of his fate or fortune to his he mislead? Does he bring forward arguments on oun efforts; and will you grant me no assistance of suone side of the question, and omit equally important perior wisdom, who have suffered a long famine to purarguments on the other? If so, he is indeed counsel chase it-who am broken by prison-broken by chainsfor the prisoner; but then who is judge? Who takes and so shamed by this dress of guilt, and abashed by the care of the interests of the public? But the truth is, presence of my superiors, that I have no words which you he does no such thing; he does merely what we have could hear without derision-that I could not give way stated him to do; and would he do less, could he do for a moment to the fulness and agitation of my rude less, if the prisoner's counsel spoke for him? If an heart without moving your contempt?' So spoke a argument was just, or an inference legitimate, he wretched creature to a judge in our hearing! and what would not omit the one, or refute the other, because answer could be given, but Jailer, take him away?' they had been put or drawn in the speech of the pri We are well aware that a great decency of language soner's counsel. He would be no more prejudiced is observed by the counsel employed against the pri against the defendant in a criminal than in a civil soner, in consequence of the silence imposed upon the suit. He would select from the speeches of both opposite counsel; but then, though there is a decency, counsel all that could be fairly urge for or against as far as concerns impassioned declamation, yet there the defendant, and he would reply to their fallacious is no restraint, and there can be no restraint, upon the reasonings. The pure administration of justice re-reasoning powers of a counsellor. He may put toge quires of him, in either case, the same conduct.ther the circumstances of an imputed crime in the Whether the whole bar speak for the prisoner, or most able, artful, and ingenious manner, without the whether he was left to defend himself, what can the slightest vehemence or passion. We have no objecjudge do, or what ought he to do, but to state to the tion to this, if any counter statement were permitted. jury the facts as they are given in evidence, and the We want only fair play. Speech for both sides, or impression these facts have made upon his own mind? speech for none. The first would be the wiser sysIn the mean time, while the prisoner's counsel have tem; but the second would be clear from the intolera been compelled to be silent, the accuser's, the oppo- ble cruelty of the present. We see no harm that site party, have enjoyed an immense advantage. In would ensue if both advocates were to follow their own considering what bears against the prisoner, the plan without restraint. But, if the feelings are to be judge has heard, not only the suggestions of his own excluded in all cases of this nature (which seems very understanding, but he has been exposed to the able absurd), then let the same restraint be exacted from and artful reasoning of a practised advocate, who has both sides. It might very soon be established, as the been previously instructed in the case of which the etiquette of the bar, that the pleadings on both sides judge never heard a syllable before he came into were expected to be calm, and to consist of reasoning court. Suppose it to be a case depending upon cir- upon the facts. In high treason, where the partiality cumstantial evidence; in how many new points of of the judge and power of the court are suspected, this view may a man of genius have placed those circum-absurd incapacity of being heard by counsel is remo stances, which would not have occurred to the judge ved. Nobody pretends to say, in such cases, that the himself! How many inferences may he have drawn, judge would be counsel for the prisoner; and yet, how which would have been unnoticed, but for the efforts many thousand cases are there in a free country of a man whose bread and fame depend upon his exertions, and who has purposely, and on contract, flung the whole force of his understanding into one scale !In the mean time, the prisoner can say nothing, for he has not the gift of learned speech; his counsel can say nothing, though he has communicated with the prisoner, and could place the whole circumstances, perhaps, in the fairest and clearest point of view for the accused party. By the courtesy of England this is called justice-we in the north cannot admit of the correctness of the appellation.

which have nothing to do with high treason, and where the spirit of party, unknown to himself, may get possession of a judge? Suppose any trial for murder to have taken place in the Manchester riots,—will any man say that the conduct of many judges on such a question ought not to have been watched with the most jealous circumspection? Would any prisoner would any fair mediator between the prisoner and the public-be satisfied at such a period with the axiom that the judge is counsel for the prisoner? We are not saying that there is no judge who might not be so trusted, but that all judges are not, at all times, to be so intrusted. We are not saying that any judge would wilfully do wrong; but that many might be led to do wrong by passions and prejudices of which they were unconscious; and that the real safeguard to the prisoner, the best, the only safeguard, is full liberty of speech for the counsel he has employed.

It seems utterly to be forgotten, in estimating this practice, that two understandings are better than one. The judge must inevitably receive many new views against the prisoner by the speech of one counsel, and lose many views in favour of the prisoner by the silence of the other. We are not to suppose (like ladies going into court in an assize town) that the judge would have thought of every thing which the counsel What would be the discipline of that hospital where against the prisoner has said, and which the counsel medical assistance was allowed in all trifling comfor the prisoner would have said. The judge, wigged plaints, and withheld in every case of real danger?— and robed as he is, is often very inferior in acuteness where Bailey and Halford were lavished upon stomachto either of the persons who are pleading under him- aches and refused in typhus fever? where the dying a cold, slow, parchment and precedent man, without patient beheld the greatest skill employed upon tripassions or præcordia,-perhaps a sturdy brawler for fling evils of others, and was told, because his was a church and king,-or a quiet man of ordinary abilities, case of life and death, that the cook or the nurse was steadily, though perhaps conscientiously, following to be his physician? those in power through thick and thin-through right Suppose so intolerable an abuse (as the Attorney and wrong. Whence comes it that the method of get- and Solicitor General would term it) had been esta ting at truth, which is so excellent on all common oc-blished, and that a law for its correction was now first

proposed, entitled an Act to prevent the Counsel for Prisoners from being heard in their Defence !!!

What evil would result from allowing counsel to be in defence of prisoners? Would too many people be hung from losing that valuable counsellor, the judge? or would too few people be hung? or would things remain much as they are at present? We never could get the admirers of this practice to inform us what the results would be of deviating from it; and we are the more particularly curious upon this point, because our practice is decidedly the reverse, and we find no other results from it than a fair administration of cri minal justice. In all criminal cases that require the intervention of a jury in Scotland, a prisoner must have, 1st, a copy of the indictment, which must contain a minute specification of the offence charged; 2dly, a list of witnesses; 3dly, a list of the assize; and 4thly, in every question that occurs, and in all addresses to the jury, the prisoner's counsel has the last word. Where is the boasted mercy of the English law after this!

men, the dread of the law; and diminish the unjust sufferings of those who, after long imprisonment, are found innocent.

'From documents,' says Mr. Western, upon the table of the House of Commons in 1819, I drew out an account, which I have already adverted to in part, but which I shall restate here, as it places, in a strong point of view, the extent of injustice, and inconsistency too, arising out of the present system. It appeared, that at the Maidstone Lent Assizes of that year there were one hundred and seventyseven prisoners for trial; of these, seventeen were in prison before the 1st of October, eighty-three before the 1st of January, the shortest period of confinement before trial being six months of the former, three months of the latter. Nothing can show us more plainly the injustice of such confinement, than the known fact of six months' imprisonment ies that are committed; but the case is stronger, when we being considered a sufficient punishment for half the felonconsider the number acquitted; seventeen of the twentyseven first mentioned were acquitted, nine of the seventeen were discharged; not being prosecuted, or having no bill found against them. On the other side it appeared, that twenty-five convicted felons were sentenced to six months' The truth is, it proceeds from the error which, in imprisonment, or under, the longest period of whose conall dark ages, pervades all codes of laws, of confound-finement did not, therefore, exceed the shortest of the seventeen acquitted, or that of the nine, against whom no ing the accused with the guilty. In the early part of charge was adduced; there were three, who, after being our state trials, the prisoners were not allowed to about seven months in prison, were discharged, whilst vabring evidence against the witnesses of the crown. rious convicted felons suffered six-sevenths only of the For a long period after this, the witnesses of the priso- punishment, including the time before trial as well as after ners were not suffered to be examined upon oath. One condemnation. By the returns from the Lent Assizes at piece of cruelty and folly has given way after another. Chelmsford, the same year, the cases were not less striking Each has been defended by the Attorney and Solicitor than those of Maidstone: the total number was one hunGeneral for the time, as absolutely necessary to the fore the 1st of October, of whom eleven were acquitted, dred and sixty-six; of these, twenty-five were in prison beexistence of the state, and the most perfect perform- and of these eleven, six were discharged without any inance of our illustrious ancestors. The last grand hope dictment preferred; two were in prison eight months; three, of every foolish person, is the silence of the prisoner's seven months and fifteen days; three, six months and fifcounsel. In the defence of this it will be seen what teen days. On the other hand, sixteen convicted of felony stupidity driven to despair can achieve. We beg par. were considered to be sufficiently punished by imprisonment under six months. Upon the whole, it appeared that don for this digression; but flesh and blood cannot enfour hundred and five persons had been in the gaol before dure the nonsense of lawyers upon this subject. the 1st of October, whilst eight hundred convicted felons The Society have some very proper remarks upon were sentenced to a lighter punishment, to a shorter durathe religious instructions of the chaplain-an appoint- tion of imprisonment, than these four hundred and five had ment of vast importance and utility; unfortunately actually undergone. very ill paid, and devolving entirely upon the lower clergy. It is said that the present Bishop of Gloucester, Dr. Ryder, goes into jails, and busies himself with the temporal wretchedness and the eternal welfare of the prisoners. If this is so, it does him great honour, and is a noble example to all ranks of clergy who are subject to him. Above all, do not let us omit the following beautiful anecdote, while we are talking of good and pious men.

'The Committee cannot refrain from extracting from the Report of the Paris Society, the interesting anecdote of the excellent Père Joussony, who being sent, by the Consul at Algiers, to minister to the slaves, fixed his residence in their prison; and, during a period of thirty years, never quitted his post. Being compelled to repair to France, for a short period, he returned again to the prison, and at length resigned his breath in the midst of those for whose interests he had laboured, and who were dearer to him than life.'-Report, p. 30.

It is a curious fact, that, upon an average, more than one-third of the total number committed for trial are acsand two hundred and sixteen persons were committed; of quitted. In the seven years ending 1819, seventy-two thouthese, fourteen thousand two hundred and ninety-one were acquitted on trial, eleven thousand two hundred and ninety-four were discharged, there being no prosecutions, or no bills found against them. This large proportion of acquittals aggravates the evil and injustice of long confinement before trial; but were it otherwise, what possible right can we have to detain a man in custody six months, upon any charge exhibited against him, before he is brought to trial? What excuse or palliation can be found for so barbarous a violation of all the principles of justice and humanity? How contemptible it is, by way of defence, to talk of the inexpediency of increasing the number of Judges, the expense, inconvenience, trouble,&c.! It is wrong to contend with such arguments against the unanswerable claims of justice, as it is only to admit they are entitled to weight. The fact is, we are so completely under the influence of habitual respect for established practice, that we do not stop to question the possibility of the existence of any serious defects in the administration of the law that can be capable of remesteadily fixed and devoted to the attainment of a better sysdy. The public attention has never been carnestly and tem.'-Western, pp. 80—83.

The public cannot be too grateful to Mr. Western for his labours on this subject. We strongly recommend his Tract for general circulation. It is full of stout good sense, without one particle of nonsense or fanaticism;-good English stuff, of the most improved and best sort. Lord Londonderry has assented to the measure; and his assent does him and the government very great credit. It is a measure of first-rate importance. The multiplicity of imprisonments is truly awful.

It seems to be a very necessary part of the prison system, that any poor person, when acquitted, should be passed to his parish; and that all who are acquitted, should be immediately liberated. At present, a prisoner, after acquittal, is not liberated till the grand jury are dismissed, in case (as it is said) any more bills should be preferred against him. This is really a considerable hardship; and we do not see, upon the same principle, why the prisoner may not be detained for another assize. To justify such a practice, notice should, at all events, be given to the jailer of intention to prefer other charges against him. To detain a man, who is acquitted of all of which he has been accused, and who is accused of nothing more, merely because he may be accused of something more, seems to Within the distance of ten miles round London, be a great perversion of justice. The greatest of all thirty-one fairs are annually held, which continue prison improvements, however, would be, the delivery eighty days within the space of seven months. The of jails four times in the year. It would save expen- effect of these fairs, in filling the prisons of the metroses; render justice more terrible, by rendering it more polis, it is easy to imagine; and the topic is very prompt; facilitate classification, by lessening num-wisely and properly brought forward by the Society. bers; keep constantly alive, in the minds of wicked

This has since been done away with.

Nothing can be so absurd as the reasoning used about flash houses. They are suffered to exist, it seems, because it is easy to the officers of justice to

1822.)

find, in such places, the prisoners of whom they are PERSECUTING BISHOPS. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, in search! But the very place where the thief is found is most probably the place which made him a thief. If it facilitates the search, it creates the neces-1. sity for searching, and multiplies guilt while it promotes detection. Wherever thieves are known to haunt, that place should be instantly purged of thieves.

We have pushed this article to a length which will prevent us from dwelling upon that part of the plan of the Prison Society which embraces the reformation of juvenile delinquents, of whom it is calculated, there are not less than 8000 in London who gain their livelihood by thieving. To this subject we may perhaps refer in some future number. We must content ourselves at present with a glimpse at the youthful criminals of the metropolis.

'Upon a late occasion (in company with Mr. Samuel Hoare, the chairman of the Society for the Reform of Juvenile Delinquents), I visited, about midnight, many of those receptacles of thieves which abound in this metropolis. We selected the night of that day in which an execution had taken place; and our object was to ascertain whether that terrible demonstration of rigour could operate even a short suspension of iniquity, and keep for a single night the votaries of crime from their accustomed orgies. In one room, I recollect, we found a large number of children, of both sexes, the oldest under eighteen years of age, and in the centre of these a man who had been described to me by the police as one of the largest sellers of forged bank-notes. At another part, we were shown a number of buildings, into which only children were allowed to enter, and in which, if you could obtain admission, which you cannot, you would see scenes of the most fiagraut, the most public, and the most shocking debauchery. Have I not, then, a right to say, that you are growing crimes at a terrible rate, and producing those miscreants who are to disturb the public peace, plunder the public property, and to become the scourge and the disgrace of the country ?-Buxton, pp. 66, 67.

Houses dedicated to the debauchery of children, where it is impossible to enter!!! Whence comes this impossibility?

To show that their labours are not needlessly continued, the Society make the following statement of the present state of prisons :

2.

An Appeal to the Legislature and Public; or, the Legality of the Eighty-seven Questions proposed by Dr. Herbert Marsh, the Bishop of Peterborough, to Candidates for Holy Orders, and for Licenses, within that Diocese, considered. 2d Edition. London, Seely, 1821.

A Speech, delivered in the House of Lords, on Friday, June 7, 1822, by Herbert, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, on the Presentation of a Petition against his Examination Questions; with Explanatory Notes, a Supplement, and a Copy of the Questions. London, Rivington, 1822.

3. The Wrongs of the Clergy of the Diocese of Peterborough stated and illustrated. By the Rev. T.S. Grimshawe, M. A., Rector of Burton, Northamptonshire; and Vicar of Biddenham, Bedfordshire. London, Seely, 1822.

5.

4. Episcopal Innovation: or, the Test of Modern Orthodoxy, in Eighty-seven Questions, imposed, as Articles of Faith, upon Candidates for Licenses and for Holy Orders, in the Diocese of Peterborough; with a distinct Answer to each Question, and General Reflections relative to their Illegal Structure and Pernicious Tendency. London, Seely, 1820. Official Correspondence between the Right Reverend Herbert, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, and the Rev. John Green, respecting his Nomination to the Curacy of Blatherwycke, in the Diocese of Peterborough, and County of Northampton: Also, between His Grace Charles, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Rev. Henry William Nevile, M. A., Rector of Blatherwycke, and of Cottesmore in the County of Rutland. 1821.

It is a great point in any question to clear away encumbrances, and to make a naked circle about the object in dispute, so that there may be a clear view of it on every side. In pursuance of this disencumbering process, we shall first acquit the bishop of all wrong intentions. He has a very bad opinion of the practical effects of high Calvinistic doctrines upon the common people; and he thinks it his duty to exclude those clergymen who profess them from his diocese. There is no moral wrong in this. He has accordingly devised no fewer than eighty-seven interrogatories, by which he thinks he can detect the smallest taint of Calvinism that may lurk in the creed of the candidate; and in this also, whatever we may think of his reason'But although these considerations are highly encouraging, ing, we suppose his purpose to be blameless. He bethere is yet much to accomplish in this work of national im- lieves, finally, that he has legally the power so to inprovement. So extensive are the defects of classification, that terrogate and exclude; and in this perhaps he is not in thirty gaols, constructed for the confinement of 2985 per- mistaken. His intentions, then, are good, and his All this tons, there were, at one time in the last year, no fewer than conduct, perhaps, not amenable to the law. 5837 prisoners; and the whole number imprisoned in those we admit in his favour; but against him we must gaols during that period, amounted to 26,703. There are yet maintain, that his conduct upon the points in dispute prisons where idleness and its attendant evils reign uure- has been singularly injudicious, extremely harsh, and, strained-where the sexes are not separated-where all distinctions of crime are confounded-where few can enter, if in its effects (though not in its intentions), very op uncorrupted, without pollution; and, if guilty, without incur-pressive and vexatious to the clergy. ring deeper stains of criminality. There are yet prisons which receive not the pious visits of a Christian minister-which the light of knowledge never enters-and where the truths and consolations of the Gospel are never heard. There are yet prisons where, for the security of the prisoners, measures are resorted to as revolting to British feeling as they are repugnant to the letter and spirit of English law.'-Report, pp. 63, 64.

We have no sort of intention to avail ourselves of an anonymous publication to say unkind, uncivil, or disrespectful things to a man of rank, learning, and character-we hope to be guilty of no such impropriety but we cannot believe we are doing wrong in ranging ourselves on the weaker side, in the cause of propriety and justice. The mitre protects its wearer from inWith this statement we take our leave of the sub- dignity; but it does not secure impunity. It is a strong presumption that a man is wrong,ject of prisons, thoroughly convinced that, since the when all his friends, whose habits naturally lead them days of their cleanliness and salubrity, they have been to coincide with him, think him wrong. If a man so managed as to become the great school for crimes were to indulge in taking medicine till the apothecary, and wretchedness; and that the public, though begin- the druggist, and the physician, all called upon him to ning to awake, are not yet sufficiently alarmed at it. abandon his philo-cathartic propensities-if he were Mrs. Fry is an amiable excellent woman, and ten to gratify his convivial habits till the landlord demurthousand times better than the infamous neglect that red and the waiter shook his head-we should natu preceded her; but hers is not the method to stop rally imagine that advice so wholly disinterested was crimes. In prisons which are really meant to keep not given before it was wanted, and that it merited the multitude in order, and to be a terror to evil doers, some little attention and respect. Now, though the there must be no sharing of profits-no visiting of Bench of Bishops certainly love power, and love the friends-no education but religious education-no free-church, as well as the Bishop of Peterborough, yet not dom of diet-no weavers' looms or carpenters' benchThere must be a great deal of solitude; coarse food; a dress of shame; hard, incessant, irksome, eternal labour; a planned and regulated and unrelenting exclusion of happiness and comfort.

es.

one defended him-not one rose to say, 'I have done, or I would do the same thing.' It was impossible to be present at the last debate on this question, without perceiving that his lordship stood alone-and this in a very gregarious profession, that habitually combines and butts against an opponent with a very extended front. If a lawyer is wounded, the rest of the profession pursue him, and put him to death. If a churchman is hurt, the others gather round for his protection,

The bishop not only puts the questions, but he actu ally assigns the limits within which they are to be The bishop seems surprised at the resistance he answered. Spaces are left in the paper of interrogameets with; and yet, to what purpose has he read ec- tions, to which limits the answer is to be confined;clesiastical history, if he expects to meet with any two inches to original sin; an inch and a half to justi thing but the most determined opposition? Does he fication; three quarters to predestination; and to free think that every sturdy supralapsarian bullock whom will only a quarter of an inch. But if his lordship he tries to sacrifice to the genius of orthodoxy, will gives them an inch they will take an ell. His lordnot kick, and push, and toss; that he will not, if he ship is himself a theological writer, and by no means can, shake the axe from his neck, and hurl his mitred remarkable for his conciseness. To deny space to his butcher into the air? His lordship has undertaken a brother theologians, who are writing on the most diffi task of which he little knows the labour or the end. cult subjects, not from choice, but necessity; not for We know these men fully as well as the bishop; he fame, but for bread; and to award rejection as the has not a chance of success against them. If one mo- penalty of prolixity, does appear to us no slight devition in Parliament will not do, they will have twenty. ation from Christian gentleness. The tyranny of call They will ravage, roar, and rush, till the very chaping for such short answers is very strikingly pointed lains, and the Masters and Misses Peterborough re. out in a letter from Mr. Thurtell to the Bishop of Pe