in evil, and sink with fearful rapidity into profligacy and crime. The recreations to be offered in the new Palace of Sydenham, being in themselves innocent and attractive, would introduce at once a multitude of persons to the practice and habit of Sunday pleasure-taking;-parents and teachers, who have hitherto found no difficulty in keeping young people from the infamous gardens in and around the metropolis, open at present on Sundays by an evasion of the law, would find it in too many cases impossible to prevent their going to Sydenham Garden on that day, if, unhappily, the full sanction of the Legislature of their country could be pleaded on the side of passion and self-will; and thus it would happen, that although those vile places might suffer at the first, they would ultimately the more flourish, from the greater numbers which had contracted habits of Sunday pleasuretaking, and the innate tendency of man to pass from the more innocent and rational excitement to the more gross and sensual. "That your Petitioners further would urge upon your honourable House, that the opening of the Exhibition at Sydenham on Sundays would not prove any boon to the working classes. A single visit, with a family of average number, would cost the working man at the least a sum equal to the rent he pays for the apartments which he occupies. Unless, therefore, he launches into extravagant habits, or deserts his family for his own selfish gratification, his visit with his family must be only on such occasional holidays in the course of the year as his means and opportunities will permit. Nor is there any necessity. The operatives of London, and the country generally, keep two or three holidays in Easter or Whitsuntide; to these, others might be added by a mutual good understanding between employers and their people, with advantage to both parties, without encroaching on the sacredness of the Lord's Day. "That your Petitioners, therefore, upon a calm and thought ful consideration of the subject-confining their attention to public morals, and the interests of the humbler classes, and not going into the consideration of the obligation on Christians of preserving inviolate the whole Sabbath (which yet they firmly believe)-do earnestly implore your honourable House not to let any Bill pass permitting the Palace at Sydenham, or its grounds, to be opened on any part of Sunday; but to adhere in this, as well as all other things, to those great principles of the Scriptural religion so happily and so long established in these realms, under which England has risen to her present greatness and prosperity." All the Metropolitan Prison Chaplains signed this petition, one only excepted-that is, 19 out of 20. Some medical gentlemen having learned that petitions in favour of opening the Crystal Palace on the Lord's Day had been introduced into some of the hospitals of the metropolis for signature, conceived the design of originating a counter petition. They accordingly prepared the following, which was numerously and most respectably signed : "To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled: the Petition of the undersigned Physicians, Surgeons, and General Practitioners, resident in London, HUMBLY SHOWETH,— 64 "That your Petitioners, from their acquaintance with the labouring classes, and with the laws which regulate the human economy, are convinced that a seventh day of rest, instituted by God, and coeval with the existence of man, is essential to the bodily health and mental vigour of men in every station of life. "That the system which provides for the gain of some, and the recreation, the amusement, and the vices of others, at the expense of their fellows, who require and are entitled to a day of rest as much as they, and thus consigns a large and yearly-growing proportion of the community to a life of unbroken toil, besides being at variance with that law of charity which enjoins us to do to others as we would they should do to us, has a direct tendency to undermine the health, exhaust the strength, and shorten the lives of those who are its victims. "That the proposal to open for profit the Crystal Palace, now in course of erection at Sydenham, and to create in connexion with it an enormous amount of railway traffic during a portion of the Lord's Day, lying manifestly open to these objections, and confessedly implying a still further extension of this hurtful system, appears to your Petitioners pregnant with disastrous results to the labouring classes, because directly tending to defraud them of that boon which the Sabbath-law of a beneficent Creator provides for the whole family of man. "That while they are more especially called to minister to the physical sufferings of their fellow-creatures, your Petitioners cannot overlook the close relationship subsisting between moral and physical disease, or entertain the hope that any plans which do not make full provision for their spiritual as well as for their physical necessities, will effect any great or permanent improvement in the health and the habits of the labouring population; and that, even if your Petitioners could altogether shut their eyes to the moral aspects of the above-mentioned proposal, in favour of which their opinion has been expressly invoked by its promoters, it would, according to their experience of the wants and slender resources of the labouring poor, be a mere mockery to offer the much-needed blessings of health, fresh air, and recreation, at an expense far beyond the means of the vast majority, and sure to entail serious subsequent privation even on the few who might venture to incur it at distant intervals. "That your Petitioners, deeply sympathizing with the hard and cheerless lot of multitudes of their fellow-countrymen, of whose health they may be considered in some sense the guardians, feel bound to protest against any encroachments, from whatever quarter they may come, on that day of rest which is the birthright of the poor, and to claim for them far greater opportunities of healthful and innocent recreation than they now enjoy. Convinced that the present protracted hours of labour are not only hurtful but needless, and anxious to lighten instead of adding to the pressure of toil that now weighs so heavily on the working classes, your Petitioners desire to express their belief that the requirements of the Divine law, and the interests both of employers and artisans, may be harmonized by the concession, as in Manchester, and (to some extent) in Glasgow, of a portion of one of the working days as a weekly half-holiday; and the provision, free of cost, in all the large towns of the United Kingdom, of parks and gardens, and of public museums of art and science, fitted to elevate the habits and refine the tastes of the labouring population. "May it therefore please your honourable House to refuse your assent to any measure calculated in any way to set aside the law actually in force, and to legalize the opening of the Crystal Palace and its grounds for gain on any portion of the Lord's Day. "And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray." IV. NAMES AND LOCALITIES OF CONVICT PRISONS. THE accommodation at the disposal of the Government, and the distribution of the convicts, are detailed in the following Return, taken from the Report of Lieut.-Colonel Jebb, C.B., Surveyor-General of Prisons, Chairman of the Directors, &c., in * Exclusive of Brixton Female Convict Prison, for 600. V. FORM OF A TICKET-OF-LEAVE AS NOW GRANTED IN ENGLAND. Order of License to a Convict, made under the Statute at the on the for the day of 3 and was then and there sentenced to be transported beyond the days from the date of this Order. TRUE COPY. Signed, Chairman. NOTICE. 1.-The power of revoking or altering the License of a Convict will most certainly be exercised in case of his misconduct. 2.-If, therefore, he wishes to retain the privilege which, by his good behaviour under penal discipline, he has obtained, he must prove by his subsequent conduct that he is really worthy of Her Majesty's clemency. 3. To produce a forfeiture of the License, it is by no means necessary that the Holder should be convicted of any new Offence. If he associates with notoriously bad characters-leads an idle and dissolute life-or has no visible means of obtaining an honest livelihood, &c.-it will be assumed that he is about to relapse into crime, and he will be at once apprehended, and re-committed to prison under his original sentence. DESCRIPTION. |