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"make an injustice, but not enough to affect his purse to a degree worth thinking about; but the ploughman and labourer, in his strong heavy "boots, paid the tax in sevenfold proportion, and "ate the less bread in consequence! Here was a wrong of trifling concernment to the middle "classes, and of the greatest to the labouring."

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Whig: "Aye, but remember the grievance was "redressed."

Radical: "True, but because leather was used "in other things than poor men's shoes."

Our Tory cheers up at this altercation, and, offering his hand to Radical, says, "Come, though "we differ about the signification of omnibus, I see

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we are both of one mind about this infernal Bill, “which, you see, is only to create a Plutocracy in "lieu of the aristocracy, under which old England "has flourished. You will join with me in opposing "the Bill, and flinging this fellow, with his omnibus "of 107. householders, out of window."

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Not at all," exclaims Radical earnestlyevery little helps; and oddly as he construes "omnibus, he goes a long step on my road. His

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plan has some hitches, and may, for want of a "better principle, work with some inconveniences, "but it removes many more than it leaves; and, "further, we Radicals consider the feasible as well

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as the desirable, and know that things cannot go

"from the end of mischief to the end of perfection, "without passing through a middle. If the Reform

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prove sufficient, it leaves us nothing to desire, "and corrects our theories; if it prove

insufficient, "it has yet in it virtue enough to work out its own completeness. We would not commit the mis"take of Robinson Crusoe."

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Tory: "What mistake could any reasonable "being commit like any thing which you unrea"sonable Radicals could avoid?"

Radical: "Why, to effect his deliverance from "the desart island, he made him a boat, as big as "he could desire for the passage of the ocean. "With infinite pains and labour, he dubbed it into "form, and delighted himself with thinking that it 66 was as handsome and fine a boat as a man could "wish, and with capabilities for a voyage of any "length, and stowage for every thing needful. "When it was finished, he found that there was "only one fault in its plan—namely, that it was

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impossible to get it to the water, and equally im"possible to get the water to it. Because the boat "was so very complete and full-sized, it was good "for nothing. He then built him another, on a "fitter scale for launching, which he succeeded in "setting afloat."

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Tory: "Aye, and it nearly upset him, as the Whigs will upset themselves, at sea.'

Radical: "That was because he timidly hugged "the shore, instead of boldly stretching his course from the land of desolation."

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out away

Tory: "Lord Grey's boat is too large now."

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Radical: "You would have him put to sea in a washing tub. He has hit the precise size for the "combination of stowage and handiness; and no"thing smaller would bear him upon the element "of public opinion.”

Tory: "Public opinion! Bah!"

NEGLECT OF PROMULGATION.

AT the Bristol Special Assize, after the indictment had been read against six prisoners at the bar, his Majesty's Attorney-General as counsel for the prosecution stated

"An act, passed in the 7th year of Geo. IV., "applies to the offence with which the prisoners "are charged-I need not observe that it is of the "last importance that this act should be made generally known, and that the violation of it, by riotously assembling and demolishing buildings, "leads to the punishment of death."

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Aptly are the words chosen-"it is of the last importance that this act should be made generally known," and how is it to be made generally known? How does the barbarous system of English law provide for the publicity of the last importance? why by putting the halter round the necks of the six miserable creatures who have in

ignorance erred against the Statute, and incurred the punishment of death! If the knowledge of the law is of such importance-as surely the knowledge of a capital punishment is,—why is there no method of giving the warning before the blow? Why is the knowledge of "the last importance” suffered to lie hid, till the offence of the unwary gives the occasion for publicity?—Why is the knowledge of "the last importance" first heralded by sentence of death? Why must the law lie like a snare till blood marks the place of danger?

The name of PROMULGATION is unknown to English jurisprudence. How do the great mass of the people learn the existence of a new law, or the slumbering law for an unusual offence?—why, by seeing men hanging, who, like themselves, have been ignorant of the consequences of the particular crime. The gallows is the great teacher, the only guide, the only popular index to our sanguinary criminal code. The maxim says, that ignorance of law does not excuse offence; the Attorney-General says it is of "the last importance" that the law should be known, and by what means is it known,— what is the process?—Why, what we see at Bristol, -men by the half-dozens on trial for their lives! The poor wretches find out the law when they are placed in the dock; their prosecutor is the promulgator, who teaches them that they have done what it is death to do; and while, for the first time, the principal law officer of the Crown, the King's

Attorney-General makes this terrible truth known to them, he emphatically declares it of "the last importance" that the law, which has not been known to them, should be known to others--and why? To prevent crime, and save others from its penal consequences, is the answer. And why, the prisoners would rejoin, were not their crimes prevented by timely warning?—why were they not saved from consequences by the fore-knowledge, now pronounced so important?—Why is society, through their fates, first to learn the law that condemns them, and threaten others? Are acts of Parliament diffused? is it even supposed by the Legislature that the debates in which capital punishments are discussed and enacted, are reported to the people; and even if the Statute-book were accessible to the mass of the people, would it be intelligible? Is it not written in a jargon obscure to the clearest understandings, wanting the technical skill? But there is a frontispiece which all can comprehend, there is a picture which illustrates the most perplexed text, there is a guide, an index to the darkest passages, to the obscurest enactments, and it is an execution. The rope is the clue to all the mysteries of English law, Death the great instructor. By destroying one set of ignorant creatures, another set are made acquainted with the provisions of justice. This is the English system of promulgation. It is teaching by example, which saves

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