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produced by his constantly moving Police boats, on the river.

Have you found, within these late years past, that the offences committed on the River have been greater or less than in the years preceding-This last winter, that I expected would be the worst, has been the calmest that I have ever known. They

have been lessening gradually; indeed may say for the last eighteen years they have been lessening. The River now, compared to what it has been, is as smooth as a mill-pond. No person can have any conception upon this subject, but those who

are witnesses.

or by purchase, with the different publichouses in the Metropolis, is one greatly inthat it would be highly desirable that jurious to the Metropolis?-I am of opinion neither brewers nor distillers should be proprietors of public-houses. But I should think that any law that tended to disqualify them from holding such property, in the present state of the trade, would be such an Parliament would be loth to encourage: at invasion of private property as the British the same time I think that if a law were passed having only a prospective operation licences to any houses which shall, after to prevent Magistrates from granting the enactment of such law, become the property of such brewers or distillers, it would have a very beneficial effect, and would, I should think, be equally satisfactory to the brewers and to the public.

There is something included in this, beside the furnishing of better beer to the public.

We are, also, in this case, to consider the immense property always floating on the river, in a thousand different forms; the too frequent negligence of sailors and watchmen, who have it in charge ;the innumerable vessels lying in various places and masses, entering, departing, lading goods, unlading goods, &c. &c. Now, it might have been supposed, on both sides of the river, for several that, on occasion of complaints, public miles. These furnish thousands of ophouses of evil resort, would be punished portunities can it be wondered at, that depredations should sometimes occur

effectually, as it might be done without expense: but,-the fact has not proved so. In other instances the parish, with other public spirited persons, have put themselves to the expense of three hundred pounds ; to no permanent avail. In truth, the cost of prosecuting criminals to justice, is a very great cause of the continuation and spread of injustice. For this defect in our Administrative Police, the public pays ten thousand fold. Mr. Fielding (son of Henry Fielding, the distinguished writer) who has been in the Magistracy of Westminster very many years, speaking of such expenses, says,

A great portion of the immoralities which infect the metropolis may be traced to the associations of infamous persons who meet each other at public houses for what they call enjoyment.This is notorious, on the banks of the river it will certainly, not be passed over lightly, in the further enquiries and remedies which may be looked for, from authority: we, therefore, do not enlarge on it here; but merely hint at the evil consequences to the morals of the people, arising from the favouritism shewn to men of wealth in the brewing trade; the public believes that this is substantially true; and the public demands a redress of this grievance for time and manner they look to the Com-In the first place, persons object to the mittee.

The following is the opinion of John Gifford, Esq. a magistrate, who complains of having formerly! presented petitions against improper houses on the licensing day-repeatedly-till he was tired-without any attention being paid to his remonstrances, on any beneficial effect whatever following.

Do you think that the system of brewers Connecting themselves, either by mortgage

State to the Committee what you think are the leading obstructions to the conviction of criminals against the public peace?

expense; we all know that the expense is not conducted by attorney and counsel; not so much, provided the prosecution is but we cannot beat that into the public; and if that is done there comes a bill of twenty or thirty pounds. Others do not like it because there is such a waste of time; sometimes they must wait three, four or five days at the Old Bailey before their

trial comes ou, besides the examination at the Office, all of which are existing circumstances, that are daily occurring, and therefore a great many people will not pre

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secute; and in some cases persons are deterred from an unwillingness to have their names brought in.

I think their are a great number of offenders escape merely because persons will not go to the expense and trouble of prosecuting.

Another great cause certainly is, the incumbrance attending the lower offices of magistracy. By the British Constitution, a Constable is among the most honourable officers of the land; by the practice of our days, a Constable is a person who discharges the office, because he cannot help it; who has never had any previous preparation for it; and who looks for no reward, honorary or pecuniary, after it.

umstances. The real morals may be one thing; the apparent morals, another. Mr. Fielding thinks the vices of the town' are increasing,—that "there must be a vast increase of immorality, assuredly;" yet he acknowledges, speaking of a fine Sunday, the prevalence of an exterior decency, which should indicate better things.

I have observed, however, that there is an increase of decency, in proportion to the attention we have been able to pay to the behaviour of the lower orders of the people in this neighbourhood. The journeymen tradesmen are not so frequently met with in their daily working habits, you do not see them with their dirty aprons on, and so forth; but I am persuaded, from what I have heard, although it has not come within my own observation, that there is a great deal more decency amongst the lowest orders of the people than there used to be, in their respect for churches and places of worship. The doors of places for sectary meetings used to be surrounded by the lowest blackguards; the conduct of the lower orders in this particular, is now very different to what it used to be; it used to be a habit of the lowest blackguards to attend about the doors of those places, and make the greatest disturbance and annoy the frequenters of them in their religious worship. deal-That practice has not altogether yet ceased; within our power to suppress it, and we but however, we have used every exertion have suppressed it in a great many instances where complaints have been made.

There is a great deal of injury arising from the present system: for if a decent tradesman, or respectable inhabitant, is called upon to serve the office of parish-constable, he is indifferent to the performance of its duties, and he considers the office in some respects as an office of disgrace, and to avoid it he will give a man two or three guineas to perform the duties: the man to whom he pays the money is careless in the discharge of the duty, for it is not worth is while to give up all his time and attention to the Public for so small a sum.

On the evident increase of shops ing in ardent spirits, to the destruction of the health and morals of the public, and greatly to the promotion of crime, by producing a temporary alienation of mind;On the augmented attractions tolerated in places of public resort;on the fatal effects following Sunday parties of pleasure, of which Sayer, a Bow-street Officer, says "it is the ruin of hundreds of young men: I mean the hiring of boats on a Sunday; there are more young men fall victims from that thing, than any one thing I know," and on various other points, it is needless here to enlarge.

On the suggestions thrown out by various gentlemen called to give evidence, it would be premature at present to offer any opinion. What we have intentionally selected for this paper are partienlars which concern magistrates in all great towns: they may furnish hints, to men of spirit and integrity, generally.

Bat, we are not to suppose, that the public morals of a city so immense, do not fluctuate, in compliance with cir

This leads to further thoughts: is not

We

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the proportion of persons who attend on religions worship, in some place, and who think on religious subjects in some manner, greater than formerly? apprehend it is. But, let us hear Mr. Colquhoun on the state of morals: it is only by comparison that a just estimate of advance or retrocession can be formed. That worthy Magistrate submits his thoughts, as follows,

Do you think that the morals of the poor. er and middling classes of the inhabitants in this Metropolis have deteriorated, or improved, within these last ten years?---With regard to the middling classes, their morals are unexceptionable; those above poverty may be considered as stationary, and ge nerally good; with regard to the lowest ranks of society, I think there has been a progressive retrograde from the commencement of the revolutionary Freach war, particularly in all the large towns, in the course of the last twenty four years.

I have a general Table stating what the | 16,095. Supposing that those that have crimes were in 1805, and from 1810 progressively to 1815: the results are,

In 1805S,267 males.
1,835 females.

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Total during the last six years, from .........38,429 Out of what population?-A population

been committed and discharged by the Magistrates amount to 10,000, and those committed for minor offences were 12,000, you will have a total of upwards of 50,000 floating delinquents arising from discharges from prison after the expiration of their sentences, from acquittals, from liberation for want of prosecutors at the gaol delive. ries, from the temporary commitments and discharges of Magistrates. It is from this general view only that the actual number of criminal delinquents can be estimated; and even this will not be accurate, since almost innumerable larcenies are committed, which never come under the view of Magistrates or Courts of Justice.

The receviers of stolen goods I understand, amount to about eight thousand: principally kept by dealers in old iron, &c. -in marine stores, second-hand apparel, piece brokers,&c.—besides private receivers of every species of stolen property, &c. &c.

The following Tables shew the nature of the offences charged in the last three years; with the commitments to prison.

POULTRY COMPTER,

OFFENCES.

Felonies..........
Assaults...
Misdemeanors

1813. 1814. 1815.

454

444... 472

218

158..... 223

998. 1,101. 1,222

Total 1,670 1,698 1,917

GILTSPUR-STREET COMPTER,

OFFENCES.

Felonies...

1813. 1814. 1815.

592 528..... 542

Assaults........................ 381 355... 425
Misdemeanors

841 888. 1,132

Total 1,814 1,751 2,099

of about 10,500,000, making an increase of 2,000,000 from the former return, excluding the soldiers and seamen in both instances. In order to form a correct opinion of the general state of the country in these respects, you must look not only to the actual amount of criminals who come under the cognizance of courts of Justice, but also to the numbers, that are discharged, after their punishment expires, without character or the means of subsistence; to which is to be added, those who float in and out of goals in the metropolis and in the country, charged with offences without sufficient proof. The number imprisoned under summary convictions, and bailable offences, disorderly persons charged with assaults, disorderly prostitutes, assaults, and other petty delinquents, are extremely numerous, and make up part of the criminal catalogue of offenders, although they do not appear in the registers of the Courts of Criminal Justice. You can therefore draw no accurate conclusion from the number of offenders sent for trial, without also adding thereto the number of other delinquents who pass through the gaols periodically from year to year. The total amount, male and fe male, may be ascertained to a point, by calling on the gaolers of the different counties to make returns of prisoners (not sent for trial) who have been committed and discharged in each year. I calculate in round numbers, that about 5,000 individuals, not sent for trial, float in and out of Misdemeanors................................................................................................ the gaols of the metropolis in the course of every year; but keeping in view those that are acquitted, you must consider also those sent for trial but not prosecuted, who amount in this Table exhibited to 14,067, besides those that are imprisoned and discharged within this period, amounting to

NEW PRISON, CLERKENWELL. OFFENCES. 1813. 1814. 1815. 1,424... 1,576... 1,677

Felonies
Assaults....
Misdemeanors

558... 692... 819 558... 513... 712

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The History of Ancient Wiltshire. By Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart. Parts I, II, III, Imperial folio, with many Plates. Price £12 12s. Murray, London. 1810. 1812. &c.

SIR RICHARD begins his history by quoting a passage of Pliny, importing that "we undertake long voyages both by sea and land, to behold those curiosities, which, if placed before our eyes, we totally neglect. Whether it is, that we are so formed by Nature as to be incurious about the nearer, and intent only on the more distant objects; or, that our desire grows languid to such things, as may be enjoyed without difficulty; or, that we are apt to defer taking a single view of what we can at any time, see as often as we please." Whether either of these causes be the real one; or, whether they act in conjunction, the fact certainly is true, as it respects many of our countrymen; and,

even

we ourselves, perhaps, have too long delayed to notice a work that does honour to the spirit of research equally with the munificence of our country. As reviewers, we may, however, be allowed to plead in mitigation of judgment, that among the works which have come under report, some have been of a nature to form a suitable preparation for the perusal of this History. Whoever recollects, and has well considered, the immense tumuli formed of earth

thrown up into barrows, described by Dr. Clarke, who saw many such in the steppes of Russia, will accompany with great advantage the activity of Sir Richard, and his friend Mr. Cunnington. It must be acknowledged, that the foreign mounds surpass in dimensions the generality of those in our island; and, together with the vastness of the plains on which they are placed, possess features more sublime than the Wiltshire barrows can boast of.* And

Throughout the whole of this country are scen, dispersed over immense plains, mounds of earth covered with a fine turf; the sepulchres of the antient world, common to every habitable country. If there exist any thing of former times, which may afford monuments of antediluvian manners, it is this mode of burial. They seem to mark the progress of population in the first ages after the dispersion; rising

though in some places, they may be seen from one to another, and in one or two instances are grouped together, yet their comparative fewness assists their magnitude, in impressing the idea that they commemorate chiefs, leaders, great men, commanders of mighty armies; or possibly, actions in which the mighty armies, themselves, after deeds of valour, fell in the arduous conflict.

Not so, the majority of our British tumuli. Of smaller dimensions, but of more frequent occurrence, more varied in form, and marking more distinctly the long succession of ages, they are rather domestic than military, they denote rather a settled population than migrating hordes; and they seem, or we are mistaken, to have been venerated by descending generations; who, when their turn came to bid the world farewell, claimed society with the kindred dust below, and were literally and truly gathered to their fathers." While, therefore, the mounds seen by Dr. Clarke mark the depositories of heroes,

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wherever the posterity of Noah came. Whether under the form of a Mound in Scandinavia, Russia, or North America; a Barrow in England; a Cairn in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; or of those heaps which the modern Greeks and Turks call Têpe; or lastly, in the more artificial mode of a Pyramid in Egypt; they had universally the same origin. They present the simplest and sublimest monument any generation could raise over the bodies of their progenitors; calculated for almost endless duration, and speaking a language more impressive than the studied epitaph upon Parian

marble.

horizon, skirted by the rays of the setting sun, When beheld in a distant evening and, as it were, touching the clouds which hover over them, imagination pictures the spirits of heroes of remoter periods descending to irradiate a warrior's grave. Some of them rose in such regular forms, with so simple wise perfectly flat and level, that no doubt and yet so artificial a shape, in a plain otherwhatsoever could be entertained concerning them. Others, still more antient, have at last sunk into the earth, aud left a hollow place, their pristine situation. Again, others, by the encircled by a kind of fosse, which still marks passage of the plough annually upon their surface, have been considerably diminished. I know no appearance of antiquity more interesting than these Tumuli. They are the identical Tombs referred to by Herodo us, in the earliest accounts history has recorded of such sepulchral mounds. Scythian kings are said, by him, to be in the The sepulchres of the remotest parts of Scythia, where the Borysthey are further described as constructed prethenes is first known to be navigable; and cisely according to the appearance they now exhibit.-Clarke's Travels in Russia, Vel. 1. p. 212.

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