5. Treatment, of Untried Prisoners.

PRISON discipline is an object of considerable importance; but the common rights of mankind, and the common principles of justice, and humanity, and liberty, are of greater consequence even than prison discipline. Right and wrong, innocence and guilt, must not be confounded, that a prisonfancying Justice may bring his friend into the prison and say, 'Look what a spectacle of order, silence, and decorum we have established here! no idleness, all grinding! — we produce a penny roll every second,—our prison is supposed to be the best regulated prison in England. . .

There seems to be in the minds of some gentlemen a notion, that when once a person is in prison, it is of little consequence how he is treated afterwards. The tyranny which prevailed, of putting a person in a particular dress before trial, now abolished by act of Parliament, was justified by this train of reasoning:-The man has been rendered infamous by imprisonment. He cannot be rendered more so, dress him as you will. His character is not rendered worse by the tread-mill than it is by being sent to the place where the tread-mill is at work. The substance of this way of thinking is, that when a fellow creature is in the fryingpan, there is no harm in pushing him into the fire; that a little more misery—a little more infamy—a few more links, are of no sort of consequence in a prison-life. If this monstrous style of reasoning extended to hospitals as well as prisons, there would be no harm in breaking the small bone of a man's leg, because the large one was fractured, or in peppering with small shot a person who was wounded with a cannon-ball. The principle is, because a man is very wretched, there is no harm in making him a little more so.

The steady answer to all this is, that a man is imprisoned before trial, solely for the purpose of securing his appearance at his trial; and that no punishment nor privation, not clearly and candidly necessary for that purpose, should be inflicted upon him. I keep you in prison, because criminal justice would be defeated by your flight if I did not; but criminal justice can go on very well without degrading you to hard and infamous labour, or denying you any reasonable gratification. For these reasons, the first of those acts is just, the rest are mere tyranny. . .

A prisoner before trial who can support himself, ought to be allowed every fair and rational enjoyment which he can purchase, not incompatible with prison discipline. He should be allowed to buy ale or wine in moderation,—to use tobacco, or any thing else he can pay for, within the abovementioned limits. If he cannot support himself, and declines work, then he should be supported upon a very plain, but still a plentiful diet (something better, we think, than bread and water); and all prisoners before trial should be allowed to work. By a liberal share of earnings (or rather by rewards, for there would be no earnings), and also by an improved diet, and in the hands of humane magistrates, there would soon appear to be no necessity for appealing to the tread-mill till trial was over.-Edinburgh Review, 1824.

6. Francis Horner.

I REMEMBER the death of many eminent Englishmen, but I can safely say, I never remember an impression so general as that excited by the death of Francis Horner. The public looked upon him as a powerful and a safe man, who was labouring not for himself or his party, but for them. They were convinced of his talents, they confided in his

moderation, and they were sure of his motives; he had improved so quickly, and so much, that his early death was looked on as the destruction of a great statesman, who had done but a small part of the good which might be expected from him, who would infallibly have risen to the highest offices, and as infallibly have filled them to the public good. Then as he had never lost a friend, and made so few enemies, there was no friction, no drawback; public feeling had its free course; the image of a good and great man was broadly before the world, unsullied by any breath of hatred; there was nothing but pure sorrow! Youth destroyed before its time, great talents and wisdom hurried to the grave, a kind and good man, who might have lived for the glory of England, torn from us in the flower of his life! -but all this is gone and past, and, as Galileo said of his lost sight, 'It has pleased God it should be so, and it must please me also.'-Letter to Leonard Horner, Esq.

7. The Profession of the Law.

ENDURE any thing rather than the loss of character; cling to character as your best possession; do not envy men who pass you in life, only because they are under less moral and religious restraint than yourself. Your object is not fame, but honourable fame: your object is not wealth, but wealth worthily obtained: your object is not power, but power gained fairly, and exercised virtuously. Long-suffering is a great and important lesson in human life; in no part of human life is it more necessary than in your arduous profession. The greatest men it has produced have been at some period of their professional lives ready to faint at the long, and apparently fruitless, journey; and if you look at those lives, you will find they have been supported by a confidence

(under God) in the general effects of character and industry. They have withstood the allurement of pleasure, which is the first and most common cause of failure; they have disdained the little arts and meannesses which carry base men a certain way, and no further; they have sternly rejected also the sudden means of growing basely rich, and dishonourably great, with which every man is at one time or another sure to be assailed; and then they have broken out into light and glory at the last, exhibiting to mankind the splendid spectacle of great talents long exercised by difficulties, and high principles never tainted with guilt.

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After all, remember that your profession is a lottery in which you may lose as well as win; and you must take it as a lottery, in which, after every effort of your own, it is impossible to command success: for this you are not accountable; but you are accountable for your purity; you are accountable for the preservation of your character. It is not every man's power to say, I will be a great and successful lawyer; but it is in every man's power to say, that he will (with God's assistance) be a good Christian and an honest man. Whatever is moral and religious is in your own power. If fortune deserts you, do not desert yourself; do not undervalue inward consolation; connect God with your labour; remember you are Christ's servant; be seeking always for the inheritance of immortal life.

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It is impossible in the profession of the law but that many opportunities must occur for the exertions of charity and benevolence: I do not mean the charity of money, but the charity of time, labour and attention; the protection of those whose resources are feeble, and the information of those whose knowledge is small. In the hands of bad men, the law is sometimes an artifice to mislead, and sometimes an engine to oppress. In your hands it may be, from time to time, a

buckler to shield, and a sanctuary to save: you may lift up oppressed humility, listen patiently to the injuries of the wretched, vindicate their just claims, maintain their fair rights, and show, that in the hurry of business, and the struggles of ambition, you have not forgotten the duties of a Christian-and the feelings of a man. It is in your power, above all other Christians, to combine the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove, and to fulfil, with greater energy and greater acuteness, and more perfect effect, than other men can pretend to, the love, the lessons, and the law of Christ.

I should caution the younger part of this profession (who are commonly selected for it on account of their superior talents), to cultivate a little more diffidence of their own powers, and a little less contempt for received opinions, than is commonly exhibited at the beginning of their career: mistrust of this nature teaches moderation in the formation of opinions, and prevents the painful necessity of inconsistency and recantation in future life. It is not possible that the ablest young men at the beginning of their intellectual existence can anticipate all those reasons, and dive into all those motives which induce mankind to act as they do act, and make the world such as we find it to be; and though there is doubtless much to alter, and much to improve in human affairs, yet you will find mankind not quite so wrong as, in the first ardour of youth, you supposed them to be; and you will find, as you advance in life, many new lights to open upon you, which nothing but advancing in life could ever enable you to observe. I say this, not to check originality and vigour of mind, which are the best chattels and possessions of the world; but to check that eagerness which arrives at conclusions without sufficient premises; to prevent that violence which is not uncommonly atoned for in after