ing heard by counsel is removed. Nobody pretends to say, in such cases, that the judge would be counsel for the prisoner; and yet, how many thousand cases are there in a free country 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.

What would be the discipline of that hospital, where medical assistance was allowed in all trifling complaints, and withheld in every case of real danger? where Bailey and Halford were lavished upon stomach-aches, and refused in typhus fever? where the dying patient beheld the greatest skill employed upon trifling evils of others, and was told, because his was a case of life and death, that the cook or the nurse was to be his physician?

Suppose so intolerable an abuse (as the Attorney and Solicitor-General would term it) had been established, 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 heard 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 criminal justice. In all criminal cases that require the intervention of a jury in Scotland, a prisoner must have a copy of the indictment, which must contain a minute specification of the offence charged; 2dly, a list of witnesses; 3d, a list of the asizse; and, 4th, 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?

The truth is, it proceeds from the error which, in all dark ages, pervades all codes of laws, of confounding the accused with the guilty. In the early part of our State trials, the prisoners were not allowed to bring evidence against the witnesses of the Crown. For a long period after this, the witnesses of the prisoner were not suffered to be examined upon oath. One piece of cruelty and folly has given way after another. Each has been defended by the Attorney and Solicitor-General for the time, as absolutely necessary to the existence of the state, and the most perfect performance of our illustrious ancestors. The last grand hope of every foolish person is the silence of the prisoner's counsel. In the defence of this, it will be seen what stupidity driven to despair can achieve. We beg pardon for this digression; but flesh and blood cannot endure the nonsense of lawyers upon this subject.

The Society have some very proper remarks upon the religious instructions of the chaplain-an appointment of vast importance and utility; unfortunately 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 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 jailor 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 be a great perversion of justice. The greatest of all prison improvements, however, would be, the delivery of jails four times in the year. It would save expense; render justice more terrible, by rendering it more prompt; facilitate classification, by lessening numbers; keep constantly alive, in the minds of wicked 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 seventy-seven 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 being considered a sufficient punishment for half the felonies that are committed; but the case is stronger, when we consider the number acquitted; seventeen of the twenty-seven 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' imprisonment, or under, the longest period of whose confinement did not therefore exceed the shortest of the seventeen acquitted, or that of the nine, against whom no charge was adduced; there were three, who, after being about seven months in prison, were then discharged, whilst various convicted felons suffered six-sevenths only of the punishment, including the time before trial as well as after condemnation. By the returns from the Lent Assises at Chelmsford, the same year, the cases were not less striking than those of Maidstone; the total number was one hundred and sixty-six, of these twenty-five were in prison before the 1st of October, of whom eleven were acquitted, and of these eleven, six were discharged without any indictment preferred; two were in prison eight months; three, seven months and fifteen days; three, six months and fifteen days. On the other hand, sixteen convicted of felony, were considered to be sufficiently punished by imprisonment under six months. Upon the whole, it appeared that four hundred and five persons had been in gaol before the first of October, whilst eight hundred convicted felons were sentenced to a lighter punishment, to a shorter duration of imprisonment, than these four hundred and five had actually undergone.

It is a curious fact, that, upon an average, more than one third of the total number committed for trial are acquitted. In the seven years ending 1819, seventy-two thousand two hundred and sixteen persons were committed; of these, fourteen thousand two hundred and ninety-one were acquitted on trial, eleven thousand two hundred and seventy-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 the 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 remedy. The public attention has never been earnestly and steadily fixed and devoted to the attainment of a better system.'-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.

Within the distance of ten miles round London, thirty-one fairs are annually held, which continue eighty days within the space of seven months. The effect of these fairs in filling the prisons of the metropolis, it is easy to imagine; and the topic is very wisely and properly brought forward by the Society.

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 find, in such places, the prisoners of whom they are in search! But the very place where the thief is found, is most probably the place which made him a thief. If it faclitates the search, it creates the necessity 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 flagrant, 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.

But although these considerations are highly encouraging, there is yet much to accomplish in this work of national improvement. So extensive are the defects of classification, that in thirty gaols, constructed for the confinement of 2985 persons, there were, at one time in the last year, no fewer than 5837 prisoners; and the whole number imprisoned in those gaols, during that period, amounted to 26,703. There are yet prisons where idleness and its attendant evils reign unrestrained where the sexes are not separated-where all distinctions of crime are confounded-where few can enter, if uncorrupted, without pollution; and, if guilty, without incurring 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 spirit and letter of English law.'-Report, pp. 63, 64.