servation of health, which do not attach to the lower classes of the people, whose irregularities not being restrained, while their pursuits and labours are seldom directed by good judgment and intelligence, often produce bad health, and extreme indigence and distress.

The difficulty which has heretofore been experienced with respect to productive labour in the Provincial Houses of Correction will vanish, when the System shall be exemplified in the National Penitentiary Establishment. To conduct a Plan of this nature with advantage to the Public and to the individual, an assemblage of qualities, dispositions, and endowments, which rarely meet in one man, will be necessary namely, education, habits of business, a knowledge of the common affairs of life-an active and discriminating mind-indefatigable industry—the purest mo rals, and a philanthropic disposition, totally divested of those hurtful propensities which lead to idle amusements.

Such men are to be found, and would come forward, as Contractors, with ample security as often as opportunities offered, after the System became matured. It is only by the uncontrolled energy of talents, where duty and interest go hand in hand, that labour is to be obtained from Convicts.-No fluctuating management, nor any superintendance whatsoever, where a spring is not given to exertion by motives of interest, can perfect any Penitentiary design; or, indeed, any design where profit is to be derived from labour. Hence the ill success of almost

all the well meant establishments with respect to the Poor, and to most of the local Penitentiary Houses. In some instances a few establishments at first hold out prospects of success; but at length they dwindle and decay, and in the result they have mostly all been unprofitable. The death or removal of an active or philanthropic Magistrate produces a languor, which terminates often in the ruin or the abandonment of the design.

The National Penitentiary System is guarded against this contingency; and until the local Establishments can enjoy equal advantages, success in any degree is scarcely to be expected, and permanent success is altogether hopeless.

The object to be attained is of great magnitude.— Let an appeal be, therefore, made to the good sense of the country, and to the feelings of humanity in behalf of an unfortunate and noxious class of individuals. Let the effects of the present System be candidly examined, in opposition to the benefits which may result from that which is proposed, and let the decision be speedy, that Society may no longer be tormented by the evils which arise from this branch of the Police of the country.

The suggestions which are thus hazarded on the subject of punishments, are by no means the refinements of speculation doubtful and uncertain in their issue.

The System accords either with what has been already enacted by the Legislature or recommended by

500

THE SYSTEM OF PUNISHMENTS.

the Finance Committee. And the whole has been admitted to be practicable under an able and permanent superintendance. A hope may, therefore, be indulged, that where the interest of Society and the cause of Humanity is so deeply concerned, a design which holds out so many advantages, will experience that general support which it unquestionably merits; since its object is not only to reclaim the Out-casts of the present generation, but also to rescue thousands yet unborn from misery and destruction.

CHAP.

CRIMINAL POLICE OF THE METROPOLIS. 501

CHAP. XVII.

The Police of the Metropolis examined-Its organization explained, with regard to that branch which relates to the prevention and suppression of Crimes.The utility of the new System, established in 1792, examined and explained.—Reasons assigned why this System has not tended, in a greater degree, to the suppression and prevention of atrocious CrimesIts great deficiency from the want of funds, by which Magistrates are crippled in their exertions, with regard to the detection and punishment of Offenders.-Reasons in favour of a New System. The Police of the City of London (as now constituted) explained and examined. Suggestions relative to established Justices, and the benefits likely to result from their exertions in assisting the City Magistrates: from whose other engagements and pursuits, that close and laborious attention cannot be expected which the Public interest requires.— The Magistrates of London the most respectable, perhaps, in the world.—The cast labour and weight of duty attached to the chief Magistrate.-The Aldermen have certain duties assigned them, which ought not, in justice, to be augmented,' as they act gratuitously. The benefits which result to the Community from established Police Magistrates, considered in different points of view; and erem

plified in the advantages which have arisen from the System under the Act of 1792.-General Reflections on the advantages which would arise from the various remedies which have been proposed in the course of this Work.-These benefits, however, only of a partial nature, inadequate to the object of complete protection, for want of a centre point and superintending Establishment, under the controul of the first Minister of Police.-Reasons assigned in favour of such à System.-The advantages that would result from its adoption.-The ideas of enlightened Foreigners on the Police of the Metropolis explained.-Reflections suggested by those ideas.-Observations on the Police of Paris previous to the Revolution in France: elucidated by Anecdotes of the Emperor Joseph the Second and Mons. de Sartine.--The danger of an inundation of Foreign Sharpers and Villains on the return of Peace. The situation of Europe requires, and the necessity of a well-regulated Police points out the utility of, a Central Board of Commissioners for Managing the Police.-This measure recommended by the Select Committee of Finance, since the publication of the last Edition of this Work.

*

HAVING in the preceding Chapters endeavoured to bring under the review of the Reader, not only those prominent causes which have occasioned that great increase of Public Wrongs, which every good

man