Such, then, is the efficacy of Mr. Miller's tests, and such are the consistency and coherence of his arguments. We shall now advert to the author's statements with regard to the expense of the Penitentiary-system; first pointing out a singular and important error into which he has fallen in one of his calculations on this subject. His statement is this: In 1818 there were 2052 persons condemned to transportation for the different periods of 7, 10, 14 years, and for life; and 1254 convicted capitally, of whom only 97 were executed. The remaining 1157 must consequently have had the capital punishment commuted for transportation, so that the whole number of persons transported or condemned to transportation in a single year must have been upwards of 3000. Supposing 1500 of these, under a mitigated code of criminal law, to be transported, and the other 1500 to be confined in penitentiaries for an average of three years each, their number at the end of that time would have swelled to 4500, and continue to stand at that amount unless the annual number of convicts diminished. This would be the case, even suppos ing prosecutions not to be more frequent than at present; but it must have been observed, that an immense increase in prosecutions is one of the effects most confidently anticipated from the abolition of capital punishments by those who object to them. It has never been stated to what degree prosecutions would thus increase; but, from the reasoning and expressions employed, it may be gathered that they would at least be tripled or quadrupled. If they were only doubled, the constant total number of convicts to be disposed of would amount to 9000; which would render nine cities of refuge, each as large as that at Milbank, necessary for their reception.' Granting the writer's violent assumption that it is admitted by the advocates of more lenient laws that prosecutions will probably be doubled by the repeal of capital punishments, in many cases, he will not surely be hardy enough to maintain that they have ever asserted that prosecutions, where the punishment at present is not capital, will be doubled also; and yet, in the ingenious calculation which we have just presented to our readers, Mr. Miller has proceeded on that supposition. The correction of this error will cause the deduction of about one-third from the number of prisoners. Having thus secured a sufficient supply of inmates for his nine cities of refuge,' the author lays down the following axiom: If a gaol or penitentiary is a flourishing manufactory, it must be a bad place of punishment; if it is a good place of punishment, it must, on the other hand, be an unprofitable manufactory; and if it is an unprofitable manufactory, it must be expensive.' (P. 249.) It may be as well to observe that we are not furnished with the premises which led the writer to this conclu F S - sion, sion, so favorable to the views which he entertains; and we might therefore be pardoned if we neglected to notice a position, which appears to be supported only by its extraordinary boldness. As, however, that very circumstance may give it effect with some minds, we shall endeavor to manifest the incorrectness of it, even on this writer's own principles. Unless it be shewn that the hard and regular labor, which is practised in all the penitentiaries, is preferred by the generality of the prisoners to idleness and the absence of work, it is evident that a place of confinement, in which they will be compelled thus to exert themselves, must be a greater terror to criminals than one in which they will be allowed to sit unemployed. Where the most work is done, we shall find the most flourishing manufactory;-where most work is done, the criminals will pass a harder and more disagreeable life than where they have more leisure on their hands;-and this, even in Mr. M.'s own opinion, will constitute a good place of punishment.' There is, indeed, one most ingenious mode in which this argument may be answered. It has been proposed, and in several instances the proposal has been carried into execution, to employ the inhabitants of our gaols in labors which are absolutely unproductive, as, for instance, the treadwheel and the capstan; and it is true that, by the operation of this system, it will be very possible to keep the criminals in constant occupation, yet not enable them to contribute a single farthing to their own support, so that an unprofitable manufactory may thus be made, in Mr. M.'s estimation, a good place of punishment. Some persons have, indeed, asserted that these gaol-labors should be unproductive, in order that they may be made more harassing and disgusting to the prisoner: but, of all the inconsiderate proposals which have ever been suggested, (we say nothing of its harshness and cruelty,) this is, to our apprehension, the most remarkable. If it be really necessary to render our prisons the abodes of misery and despair, can it not be done but at the expense of the immense charge from which the community might be relieved, if the prisoners were allowed to support themselves by their own exertions? Is it so difficult a task to discover fresh bitters for the cup of the captive, and heavier weights for the heart of the unfortunate? Cannot the gaoler be instructed to render his prisoners sufficiently wretched, by industriously taking advantage of every opportunity to wound their feelings and oppress them? Can he not be directed to "lay knives under their pillows, and ratsbane by their porridge," and to answer with a brutal denial their requests to be allowed the smallest comforts? Cannot he compel each individual to subsist on the food to which he he manifests the most aversion? Cannot he deny them intelligence of their nearest friends, and disturb their slumbers by night, lest they should enjoy freedom and happiness even in dreams? In short, by every feasible mode cannot he render their existence a burden and a curse to them, and all this be accomplished while the criminals are employed in productive labor? It is not so difficult as the patrons of treadwheels and capstans seem to suppose, to render a prison a scene of suffering. The collections of our criminal trials but too plainly prove that many individuals have existed, who have been eminently successful in their superintendence of gaols; and who have converted them into places of such acute suffering and impressive terror, that the prisoners who have been once confined there can never forget the dreadful lesson which they have been taught. Mr. Miller will perhaps tell us that we are rhetorical.' In plain truth, and in sober common-sense, then, where is the justice or policy of saddling the public with an enormous charge, when it has been proved that by good management it may be avoided; or of rendering the prisoners averse to or unfit for every kind of labor, which must necessarily compel them on their release from confinement to return to their old habits of dishonesty and crime? It is a mistake to suppose that the friends of the penitentiary-system are endeavoring to lessen the wholesome and proper terrors of a prison: but, while the criminal is paying the penalty of his offence by strict confinement and perpetual labor, they would prevent the repetition of it by forming him to good habits, and if possible by making him sensible of his guilt. If this system should not be considered as sufficiently rigorous, let the requisite degree of terror be added by enlarging the term of confinement; which, if the criminal be capable of supporting himself, would be no additional tax on the community. Imprisonment surely affords. fewer pleasures than Mr. Miller supposes: but, if the propositions of those who think with him were to be carried into effect, it would be highly proper to change the form of sentencing a prisoner, and to acquaint him with the measure of punishment which he may expect. The form might run thus: "The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned for the space of two years in his Majesty's gaol of where you shall not be suffered to support yourself; and that you be tormented during that time, in such manner as to the keeper of the aforesaid gaol shall seem fit." In the case of the Preston House of Correction, and in the American Penitentiaries, when they were well managed. Notwithstanding Mr. Miller's assertion that reformation and prevention appear to be certain fixed points, an approach to one of which necessarily implies a departure from the other, we feel persuaded that the penitentiary-system merits, and will at last obtain, a fair trial in England. Under that system, reformation and prevention, so far from being separate 'fixed points,' cannot be severed from one another: "Take him to prison, officer, Correction and instruction both must work We perfectly agree with the author that a consolidation of our criminal laws is highly desirable, but we fear that there would be great difficulty in finding any persons capable of accomplishing so gigantic a task. We do not think, with Mr. Jeremy Bentham, that a code of laws should be the work of one hand, and we suppose that Mr. Miller is of our opinion. : ART. X. The Provost. By the Author of " Annals of the Parish," &c. 12mo. pp. 360. 7s. Boards. Blackwood, Edinburgh; Cadell, London. ART. XI. The Steam-Boat. By the Author of "Annals of the Parish," &c. 12mo. pp. 360. Blackwood, Edinburgh; Cadell, 'London. s we noticed one or two of the former efforts of this inA defatigable writer with good humour and indulgence, we fear that the praise, which we bestowed on those occasions, has tended to generate the equivocal productions now before us. We are anxious, however, to deprecate all responsibility for these bantlings of the writer's brain, and must remind him that rapidity of composition implies neither fertility of invention nor rectitude of judgment. As to correctness of diction, we are not disposed to say much: but the style of The Provost' is neither Scotch nor English: it is for the most part tame, dull, and insipid; and, if it occasionally rises, it reaches only that inflated and licentious phraseology, which, if not checked in time by the utmost severities of penal criticism, will leave us no just right to complain of the barbarisms of America. The Provost' purports to be a series of sketches taken from the provincial manners of some of the smaller burghs of Scotland; and it seems intended to represent the ambition of the humble, the self-importance of municipal vanity, and the artifices by which the persevering and the cunning work themselves to advancement and lucre, on those minor theatres of intrigue intrigue and ambition. Had such a design been well executed, it might have been an amusing and perhaps an useful satire! but the whole is an indistinct and unfeatured daubing, exhibiting no nicety of touch or discrimination of tint, that is much superior to the skill of the artist mentioned in the Spectator, who converted the Saracen's head into the portrait of Sir Roger de Coverley. Of the rise and fortunes of the worthy shopkeeper and magistrate who fills the station of hero in this volume, Mr. James Pawkie, it is obvious that no ingenuity could have made much. In able hands, however, even from these slender materials, something of the humors, the characteristic vanities, the petty competitions, in short, that which constitutes the broad farce of humble life, might have been extracted:-but in bumor this writer is very deficient. He has scarcely an idea of a genuine joke; and the few jokes that occur in The Provost' are of the practical kind. Mr. Pawkie proposes an important improvement in the streets of his native town, that of having the sides of the streets paved with flags, like the plain-stones of Glasgow. Now old women and antiquated virgins having, time out of mind, been lawful game with wits of a certain class, on this occasion the author treats us with the following accident that happened to Miss Peggy Dainty': But new occasions call for new laws; the side pavement, concentrating the people, required to be kept cleaner, and in better order, than when the whole width of the street was in use; so that the magistrates were constrained to make regulations concerning the same, and to enact fines and penalties against those who neglected to scrape and wash the plain-stones forenent their houses, and to denounce, in the strictest terms, the emptying of improper utensils on the same; and this, until the people had grown into the habitude of attending to the rules, gave rise to many pleas, and contentious appeals and bickerings, before the magistrates. Among others summoned before me for default, was one Mrs. Fenton, commonly called the Tappit-hen, who kept a small change-house, not of the best repute, being frequented by young men, of a station of life that gave her heart and countenance to be bardy, even to the bailies. It happened that, by some inattention, she had, one frosty morning, neglected to soop her flags, and old Miss Peggy Dainty being early afoot, in passing her door committed a false step, by treading on a bit of a lemon's skin, and her heels flying up, down she fell on her back, at full length, with a great cloyt. Mrs. Fenton, hearing the accident, came running to the door, and seeing the exposure that prejink Miss Peggy had made of herself, put her hands to her sides, and laughed for some time, as if she was by herself. Miss Peggy, being sorely hurt in the hinder parts, summoned Mrs. Fenton before me, where the whole affair, both as to what was seen and heard, |