hereafter it is our intention to express cur opinion upon the limits to which it ought to be confined. Upon this point, however, we do not much differ from Mr. Headlam; although, in his remarks on the treatment of prisoners before trial, we think he has made a very serious mistake, and has attempted (without knowing what he was doing, and meaning, we are persuaded, nothing but what was honest and just) to pluck up one of the ancient landmarks of human justice.†

gentlemen a notion, that when once a person | an improved diet, and in the hands of humane is in prison, it is of little consequence how he magistrates,* there would soon appear to be no is treated afterwards. The tyranny which pre- necessity for appealing to the treadmill till vailed, of putting a person in a particular trial was over. dress before trial, now abolished by act of Par- This treadmill, after trial, is certainly a very liament, was justified by this train of reason-excellent method of punishment, as far as we ing:-The man has been rendered infamous are yet acquainted with its effects. We think, by imprisonment. He cannot be rendered at present, however, it is a little abused; and more so, dress him as you will. His character is not rendered worse by the treadmill, than it is by being sent to the place where the treadmill is at work. The substance of this way of thinking is, that when a fellow-creature is in the frying-pan, 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.

Mr. Nicoll, in his opinion, tells us, that he has no doubt Parliament would amend the bill, if the omission was stated to them. We, on the contrary, have no manner of doubt that Parliament would treat such a petition with the contempt it deserved. Mr. Peel is too much enlightened and sensible to give any countenance to such a great and glaring error. In this case, and we wish it were a more frequent one-the wisdom comes from within, and the error from without the walls of Parliament.

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 above-mentioned 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

*All magistrates should remember, that nothing is more easy to a person entrusted with power than to convince himself it is his duty to treat his fellow-creatures with severity and rigour,-and then to persuade himself that he is doing it very reluctantly, and contrary to his real feeling.

We hope this article will conciliate our old friend Mr. Roscoe; who is very angry with us for some of our former lucubrations on prison discipline,-and, above all, because we are not grave enough for him. The difference is thus stated:-Six ducks are stolen. Mr. Roscoe would commit the man to prison for six weeks, perhaps, -reason with him, argue with him, give him tracts, send clergymen to him, work him gently at some useful trade, and try to turn him from the habit of stealing poultry. We would keep him hard at work twelve hours every day at the treadmill, feed him only so as not to impair his health, and then give him as much of Mr. Roscoe's system as was compatible with our own; and we think our method would diminish the number of duck-stealers more effectually than that of the historian of Leo X. The primary duck-stealer would, we think, be as effectually deterred from repeating the offence by the terror of our imprisonment, as by the excellence of Mr. Roscoe's education-and, what is of infinitely greater consequence, innumerable duck-stealers would be prevented. Because punishment does not annihilate crime, it is folly to say it does not lessen it. It did not stop the murder of Mrs. Donatty; but how many Mrs. Donattys has it kept alive! When we recommend severity, we recommend, of course, that degree of severity which will not exeite compassion for the sufferer, and lessen the horror of the crime. This is why we do not recommend torture and amputation of limbs. When a man has been proved to have committed a crime, it is expedient that society should make use of that man for the diminution of crime: he belongs to them for that purpose. Our primary duty, in such a case, is so to treat the culprit that many other persons may be rendered better, or prevented from being worse by dread of the same treatment; and, making this the principal object, to combine with it as much as possible the improvement of the individual. The ruffian who killed Mr. Mumford was hung within forty-eight hours. Upon Mr. Roscoe's principles, this was wrong; for it certainly was not the way to reclaim the man:-We say, on the contrary, the object was to do any thing with the man which would render murders less frequent, and that the conversion of probably prevented the necessity of reclaiming a dozen the man was a mere trifle compared to this. His death murderers. That death will not, indeed, prevent all murders in that county; but many who have seen it, and many who have heard of it, will swallow their revenge from the dread of being hanged. Mr. Roscoe is very severe upon our style, but poor dear Mr. Roscoe should remember that men have different tastes, and ters as deeply as he does. But why so cross upon this different methods of going to work. or any other subject?

We feel these mat

AMERICA.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1824.]

you give your affirmation or your oath."Duncan's Travels, II. 328-330.

gled from 500 to 1000 chests of tea intc that province from the United States. He mentioned the name of this man who he said was growing very rich in consequence; and he stated the manner in which the fraud was managed. Now, as all the tea ought to be brought from England, it is of course very expensive; and therefore the Canadian tea dealers, after buying one or two chests at tom-house mark upon them, fill them up ever Montreal or elsewhere, which have the cusafterwards with tea brought from the United States. It is calculated that near 10,000 chests are annually consumed in the Canadas, of

which not more than 2000 or 3000 come from Canada, I was told that of every fifteen pounds Europe. Indeed, when I had myself entered of tea sold there thirteen were smuggled. The profit upon smuggling this article is from 50 to 100 per cent., and with an extensive and Indeed it every year increases, and is brought wild frontier like Canada, cannot be prevented. the English government, which is the perfec to a more perfect system. Rut I suppose that tion of wisdom, will never allow the Canadian merchants to trade direct to China, in order that (from pure charity) the whole profit of the tea trade may be given up to the United States."-Excursion, pp. 394, 395.

In fact, it is hardly possible for any nation to show a greater superiority over another than the Americans, in this particular, have done over this country. They have fairly and completely, and probably for ever, extinguished that spirit of religious persecution which has been the employment and the curse of mankind for four or five centuries; not only that persecution which imprisons and scourges for religious opinions, but the tyranny of incapacitation, which, by disqualifying from civil offices, and cutting a man off from the lawful objects of ambition, endeavours to strangle religious freedom in silence, and to enjoy all the advantages, without the blood, and noise, and fire of persecution. What passes in the mind of one mean blockhead is the general history of all persecution. "This man pretends to know better than me-I cannot subdue him by argument; but I will take care he shall never be mayor or alderman of the town in which he lives; I will never consent to the repeal of the test act or to Catholic emancipation; I will teach the fellow to differ from me in religious opinions!" So says the Episcopalian to the Catholic-and so the Catholic says to the Protestant. But the wisdom of America keeps them all down"You will readily conceive, that it is with secures to them all their just rights-gives to rican merchants talk of sending their ships to no small mortification that I hear these Ame each of them their separate pews, and bells, London and Liverpool, to take in goods or and steeples-makes them all aldermen in their turns and quietly extinguishes the fa- specie, with which to purchase tea for the gots which each is preparing for the combus-supply of European ports, almost within sight tion of the other. Nor is this indifference to asking me what our government can possibly of our own shores. They often taunt me, religious subjects in the American people, but pure civilization-a thorough comprehension mean by prohibiting us from engaging in a of what is best calculated to secure the public all the world? or where can be our boasted profitable trade, which is open to them and to happiness and peace-and a determination that this happiness and peace shall not be tion of our natural rights, to supply a monoliberties, while we tamely submit to the infrac violated by the insolence of any human being, poly as absurd as it is unjust, and to humour in the garb, and under the sanction, of reli- the caprice of a company who exclude their gion. In this particular, the Americans are at fellow-subjects from a branch of commerce the head of all the nations of the world: and which they do not pursue themselves, but at the same time they are, especially in the leave to the enterprise of foreigners, or com Eastern and Midland States, so far from being mercial rivals? On such occasions I can indifferent on subjects of religion, that they only reply, that both our governments and may be most justly characterized as a very people are growing wiser; and that if the religious people: but they are devout without charter of the East India Company be renewbeing unjust (the great problem in religion); ed, when it next expires, I will allow them to an higher proof of civilization than painted infer, that the people of England have little tea-cups, water-proof leather, or broadcloth at influence in the administration of their own two guineas a yard. affairs."-Hodgson's Letters, II. 128, 129.

America is exempted, by its very newness as a nation, from many of the evils of the old governments of Europe. It has no mischievous remains of feudal institutions, and no violations of political economy sanctioned by time, and older than the age of reason. If a man finds a partridge upon his ground eating his corn, in any part of Kentucky or Indiana, he may kill it, even if his father is not a doctor of divinity. The Americans do not exclude their own citizens from any branch of commerce which they leave open to all the rest of the world.

"One of them said, that he was well acquainted with a British subject, residing at Newark, Upper Canada, who annually smug

Though America is a confederation of republics, they are in many cases much more Britain. If a citizen of the United States can amalgamated than the various parts of Great make a shoe, he is at liberty to make a shoe Orleans, he may sole on the Mississippiany where between Lake Ontario and New heel on the Missouri-measure Mr. Birkbeck on the little Wabash, or take (which our best politicians do not find an easy matter) the length of Munroe's foot on the banks of the Potomac. But wo to the cobbler, who, having made Hessian boots for the aldermen of Newcastle, should venture to invest with these coriaceous integuments the leg of a liege subject at York. A yellow ant in a nest of red ants

a butcher's dog in a fox-kennel-a mouse in a | dollars per acre, would be 29,000,000 dollars bee-hive, all feel the effects of untimely in- These facts are very properly quoted by Mr. trusion; but far preferable their fate to that Hodgson; and it is impossible to speak too of the misguided artisan, who, misled by six- highly of their value and importance. They penny histories of England, and conceiving quite put into the back ground every thing his country to have been united at the Hept- which has been done in the Old World for the archy, goes forth from his native town to stitch improvement of the lower orders, and confer freely within the sea-girt limits of Albion. deservedly upon the Americans the character Him the mayor, him the alderman, him the of a wise, a reflecting, and a virtuous people. recorder, him the quarter sessions would wor- It is rather surprising that such a people, ry. Him the justices before trial would long spreading rapidly over so vast a portion of to get into the treadmill;* and would much the earth, and cultivating all the liberal and lament that, by a recent act, they could not do useful arts so successfully, should be so exso, even with the intruding tradesman's con- tremely sensitive and touchy as the Amerisent; but the moment he was tried, they would cans are said to be. We really thought at push him in with redoubled energy, and leave one time they would have fitted out an armahim to tread himself into a conviction of the ment against the Edinburgh and Quarterly barbarous institutions of his corporation- Reviews, and burnt down Mr. Murray's and divided country. Mr. Constable's shops, as we did the American Capitol. We, however, remember no other anti-American crime of which we were guilty, than a preference of Shakspeare and Milton over Joel Barlow and Timothy Dwight. That opinion we must still take the liberty of retaining. There is nothing in Dwight comparable to the finest passages of Paradise Lost, nor is Mr. Barlow ever humorous or pathetic, as the great bard of the English stage is humorous and pathetic. We have always been strenu ous* advocates for, and admirers of, America

Too much praise cannot be given to the Americans for their great attention to the subject of education. All the public lands are surveyed according to the direction of Congress. They are divided into townships of six miles square, by lines running with the cardinal points, and consequently crossing each other at right angles. Every township is divided into 36 sections, each a mile square, and containing 640 acres. One section in each township is reserved, and given in perpetuity for the benefit of common schools. In-not taking our ideas from the overweening addition to this, the states of Tennessee and Ohio have received grants for the support of colleges and academies. The appropriation generally in the new states for seminaries of the higher orders, amounts to one-fifth of those for common schools. It appears from Seybert's Statistical Annals, that the land in the states and territories on the east side of the Mississippi, in which appropriations have been made, amounts to 237,300 acres; and according to the ratio above mentioned, the aggregate on the east side of the Mississippi is 7,900,000. The same system of appropriation applied to the west, will make, for schools and colleges, 6,600,000; and the total appropria- | tion for literary purposes, in the new states and territories, 14,500,000 acres, which, at two

This puts us in mind of our friend Mr. Headlam, who, we hear, has written an answer to our Observations on the Treadmill, before Trial. It would have been a very easy thing for us to have hung Mr. Headlam up as a spectacle to the United Kingdoms of England, Scotland. and Ireland, the principality of Wales, and the town of Berwick-on-Tweed; but we have no wish to make a worthy and respectable man ridiculous. For these rea

decline entering into a controversy upon a point, where,

vanity of the weaker part of the Americans themselves, but from what we have observed of their real energy and wisdom. It is very natural that we Scotch, who live in a little, shabby, scraggy corner of a remote island, with a climate which cannot ripen an apple, should be jealous of the aggressive pleasantry of more favoured people; but that Americans, who have done so much for themselves, and received so much from nature, should be flung into such convulsions by English reviews and magazines, is really a sad specimen of Columbian juvenility. We hardly dare to quote the following account of an American route, for fear of having our motives misrepresented, and strongly suspect that there are but few Americans who could be brought to admit that a Philadelphia or Boston concern of this nature is not quite equal to the most brilliant assemblies of London or Paris.

"A tea party is a serious thing in this country; and some of those at which I have been present, in New York and elsewhere, have beeil on a very large scale. In the modern houses the two principal apartments are on the first

sons we have not even looked at his pamphlet, and we among men of sense and humanity (who have not heat-floor, and communicated by large folding ed themselves in the dispute), there cannot possibly be doors, which on gala days throw wide their any difference of opinion. All members of both houses of Parliament were unanimous in their condemnation ample portals, converting the two apartments of the odious and nonsensical practice of working pri- into one. At the largest party which I have soners in the treadmill before trial. It had not one single advocate. Mr. Headlam and the magistrates of the North Riding, in their eagerness to save a relic of their prison system, forgot themselves so far as to petition to be entrusted with the power of putting prisoners to work before trial, with their own consent-the legislature was, "We will not trust you,"-the severest practical rebuke ever received by any public body. We will leave it to others to determine whether it was deserved. We have no doubt the great body of magistrates meant well. They must have meant well-but they have been sadly misled, and have thrown odium on the subordinate administration of justice, which it is far from deserving on other occasions, in their hands. This strange piece of nonsense s, however, now well ends 1.-Requiescat in pace!

Ancient women, whether in or out of breeches, will of course imagine that we are the enemies of the institutions of our country, because we are the admirers of the institutions of America: but circumstances differ. American institutions are too new, English institutions are ready made to our hands. If we were to build the house afresh, we might perhaps avail ourselves of the improvements of a new plan; but we have no sort of wish to pull down an excellent house, strong, warm, and comfortable, because, upon second trial, we might be able to alter and amend it,-a principle which would perpetuate demolition and construction. Our plan, where circumstances are tolerable, is to sit down and enjoy ourselves.

seen, there were about thirty young ladies | tress, he would willingly lend an helping hand; present, and more than as many gentlemen. but he thinks it no part of neighbourhoc to Every sofa, chair, and footstool, were occupied talk to a person because he happens to be near by the ladies, and little enough room some of him. In short, with many excellent qualities, them appeared to have after all. The gentle- it must be acknowledged that the English are men were obliged to be content with walking the most disagreeable of all the nations of up and down, talking now with one lady, now Europe, more surly and morose, with less with another. Tea was brought in by a cou- disposition to please, to exert themselves for ple of blacks, carrying large trays, one covered the good of society, to make small sacrifices, with cups, the other with cake. Slowly making and to put themselves out of their way. They the round, and retiring at intervals for addi- are content with Magna Charta and trial by tional supplies, the ladies were gradually gone jury: and think they are not bound to excel over; and after much patience the gentlemen the rest of the world in small behaviour, if began to enjoy the beverage which cheers they are superior to them in great institutions. but not inebriates;' still walking about, or leaning against the wall, with the cup and saucer in their hand.

"As soon as the first course was over, the hospitable trays again entered, bearing a chaos of preserves-peaches, pineapples, ginger, oranges, citrons, pears, &c. in tempting display. A few of the young gentlemen now accompanied the revolution of the trays, and sedulously attended to the pleasure of the ladies. The party was so numerous that the period between the commencement and the termination of the round was sufficient to justify a new solicitation: and so the ceremony continued, with very little intermission, during the whole evening. Wine succeeded the preserves, and dried fruit followed the wine; which, in its turn, was supported by sandwiches in name of supper, and a forlorn hope of confectionary and frost work. pitied the poor blacks, who, like Tantalus, had such a profusion of dainties the whole evening at their finger ends, without the possibility of partaking of them. A little music and dancing gave variety to the scene; which to some of us was a source of considerable satisfaction; for when a number of ladies were on the floor, those who cared not for the dance had the pleasure of getting a seat. About eleven o'clock I did myself the honour of escorting a lady home, and was well pleased to have an excuse for escaping."-Duncan's Travels, II. 279, 280.

We are terribly afraid that some Americans spit upon the floor, even when that floor is covered by good carpets. Now, all claims to civilization are suspended till this secretion is otherwise disposed of. No English gentleman has spit upon the floor since the Heptarchy.

The curiosity for which the Americans are so much laughed at, is not only venial, but laudable. Where men live in woods and forests, as is the case, of course, in remote American settlements, it is the duty of every man to gratify the inhabitants by telling them his name, place, age, office, virtues, crimes, children, fortune, and remarks: and with fellow-travellers, it seems to be almost a matter of necessity to do so. When men ride together for 300 or 400 miles through the woods and prairies, it is of the greatest importance that they should be able to guess at subjects most agreeable to each other, and to multiply their common topics. Without knowing who your companion is, it is difficult to know both what to say and what to avoid. You may talk of honour and virtue to an attorney, or contend with a Virginia planter that men of a fair colour have no right to buy and sell men of a dusky colour. The following is a lively description of the rights of interrogation, as understood and practised in America.

"As for the inquisitiveness of the Americans, I do not think it has been at all exaggerated.— They certainly are, as they profess to be, a very inquiring people; and if we may someThe coaches must be given up; so must times be disposed to dispute the claims of their the roads, and so must the inns. They are of love of knowing to the character of a liberal course what these accommodations are in all curiosity, we must at least admit that they new countries; and much like what English make a most liberal use of every means in great-grandfathers talk about as existing in their power to gratify it. I have seldom, how. this country at the first period of their recol- ever, had any difficulty in repressing their lection. The great inconvenience of Ameri- home questions, if I wished it, and without can inns, however, in the eyes of an English- offending them; but I more frequently amused man, is one which more sociable travellers myself by putting them on the rack; civilly, must feel less acutely-we mean the impossi- and apparently unconsciously, eluded their inbility of being alone, of having a room sepa- quiries for a time, and then awakening their rate from the rest of the company. There is gratitude by such a discovery of myself as I nothing which an Englishman enjoys more might choose to make. Sometimes a man than the pleasure of sulkiness,-of not being would place himself at my side in the wilderforced to hear a word from any body which ness, and ride for a mile or two without the may occasion to him the necessity of replying. smallest communication between us, except It is not so much that Mr. Bull disdains to a slight nod of the head. He would then, pertalk, as that Mr. Bull has nothing to say. His haps, make some grave remark on the wea'orefathers have been out of spirits for six or ther, and if I assented, in a monosyllable, he seven hundred years, and, seeing nothing but would stick to my side for another mile or fog and vapour, he is out of spirits too; and two, when he would commence his attack. when there is no selling or buying, or no busi-'I reckon, stranger, you do not belong to these ness to settie, he prefers being alone and look-parts?—No, sir; I am not of Alabama.'ing at the fire. If any gentleman was in dis-'I guess you are from the north ?—No, sir