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    thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of his own hind—who so perfectly understands the commercial relations of the " Republic and the Commonwealth— -who may be said to have identified himself with English commerce —* and who las had so many opportunities of acquiring an insight into the character and feelings of the English people ? He can speak to England as an American , and to America as an Englishman . Closely connected "with those classes , whose property is a gage for their peaceful tendencies , an Anglo-American merchant yet understands how essential to the best interests of the two

    countries is the vindication of that freedom which has extended English and American commerce to every part of the world . But there is a further section to that chapter . Exactly in proportion as the people of the civilized world , are free , as the incubus of despotism , bureaucracy , aristocracy , and

    exclusiveness of every kind , is removed from them , their power of production will increase , their capacity for commerce will enlarge ; and the wealth-acquiring trade which England and America already urge in every part of the world will augment proportionately to the partnership of England and America .

    We rejoice to see this testimony to the awakening of a noble ambition amongst the Americans ; we have often shown what they could do > to enlarge their influence and power , even on this-aide of the . Atlantic . If , through our own . fault , we have fallen under the sway of a reactionary bureaucracy , we might still find the power to do -something in the world , if a helping hand were held out to us ; and

    who could hold out that helping hand so well or so congenially as America ? American statesmen and the English people could , indeed , open up ' new markets , ' not only for the produce and manufactures of the two countries , but for their ideas ; and in swelling the power of the Republic and the Commonwealth , they would enlarge the blessings of mankind and open the heart of nation to nation .

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    THE GAKOTTE AND THE GALLOWS . XiIfe and property are nowhere so secure as in our favoured land , cries the Englishman complacently- —wholly forgetting the evidence of his own journals . According to themand in this at least they are true—there is a constant struggle between the orderly classes and tlxe criminal classes . No place is safe . The decent tradesman going home after business , the Government clerk asking his

    way 111 a respectable suburb , the young lady walking along Oxford-street in the evening , are garotted . ' The shopman sitting at his work is suddenly assaulted and beaten to death , actually within view of indifferent passengers . Tho respectable woman going to market is assaulted , and the purse is wrenched from her hand . The passenger in the omnibus is warned by a printed notice to take care of his packets , so common ia depredation , even by those who look most respectable . Tho house is entered by the bearer of a letter , by tho sturdy beggar , by

    the area sneak , by the maid ' s sweetheart . The elmrch is stripped . The money is drawn from tho bank by a forged cheque . The manager of the bank uses the house as an . instrument for gigantic swindling . Tho registrar of shares in the joint-stock company is daily , for years , selling forged shares . The accountant is periodically passing accounts habitually falsified , though by the system of double entry a fraud in the books , without ; collusion , ia almost a physical and moral impossibility . The merchant who sells you goods , or obtains advances on goods , is swindling you by a gigantic species of

    thim"ble-rig , in which the goods have been spirited away- The sou of a lordly house uses his name to facilitate a fraud . These events are as notorious as the opening of Parliament , as the position of Mr . Disraeli , or the relations of any member of the royal family ; neither one is singular ia its kind . We suck in fabulous accounts of " railways and revolvers in Georgia , " forgetting the real railway frauds and garottes in London . We speak of Italy as the land of the assassin , when a man may traverse Florence from one end to the other daily , and never hear of an outrage .

    The remedies suggested are as various as the forms of crime . One person recommends revolvers—not in , Greorgia ! Another advises the bowie knife—not in California ! A collar of iron , to defeat the garotter . A collar of iron , with poisoned needle spikes , to torture and kill the garotter . A life-preserver . A doubling of the police force . A special police attendant on private persons or private carriages . A sword-stiek

    a dagger ditto . A blue light , to burn and flabbergast the footpad . A boot-bayonet , set on like a spur , to . kick withal . A door chain , to keep out the sturdy beggar . A little barking spaniel , for the burglar . A small wicket peep-hole , to scan the visitor . A general raid , to kidnap all the suspicious characters . A universal transportation . A vigorous resort to the gallows , by way of counter-garotting .

    Carry them all off to the colonies , renew transportation , cries the practical man . Ay , why not do that ? asks the man of sense . Eor the simple reason , my dear sir , that the threatened rebellion , of the transport-receiving colonies obliged us to give up transportation , and the actual rebellion of the Cape Colony just told us what the free colonies would do if we attempted " to distribute our convicts over the colonial empire . "

    reason . Worn-out debauchees sometimes learn ifc . They know it in the lowest haunts of vice , such as those frequented by " the Old Marquis . " The audience which assembles to see a hanging , knows and cracks unspeakable jokes upon the subject . But that conclusive reason against hanging as the form of slaughter is never told , because , forsooth , it is not decent ! Some keep up the spectacle , because the fate would frighten and deter us ; while it is but fun to the classes whom we want to

    awe . Perhaps we might alight upon the remedy of this social disease , if we were to resort to a course which has been found very effective in other difficulties—if we were to investigate the causes . " It is all the ticket-of-leave system ! " exclaims Practical Man . Now it is a ' curious ' feature' that in a hundred cases of outrage , not more than three are by

    ticket-of-leave men ; so that the chances are thirty-two to one that it is not a ' ticket-ofleave man . ' Just in the same way we call all sudden attacks in the street " garotting , " when no garotte is used . We used to say that a footpad stopped a traveller ; we now say that the traveller is " garotted . " We might as well say that-he was bowstrung or lassoed . None of the most notorious

    crimi-. Take them , then to a desert island , and keep them there . Ay , why not do that . Because , some years back , we had a pure convict settlement at Norfolk Island ; and then the habitual manners and customs of a place peopled wholly by felons so rivalled the abominations described in the most accursed places mentioned by the Old Testament , that sheer horror compelled us to declare that such a place must not be , and it was broken

    nals are tieket-of-leave men . Thttbtell , Tawell , Cottrvoisier , Mannin g , Rttsh , Palimeb , and Dove were not tieket-of-leave men , any more than Windle Com :, Goedon " , Sadxeib , Patti / , Villiebs , Kobson , Redpath , Cameron , or Pattl the Second-Neither in eonspicuousness , magnitude of crime , nor more than fractional numbers , do we find the ticket-of-leave men involved . So the cause cannot be the tieket-of-leare system .

    " It is then the ' philanthropic' plan of Mr . M . D . HiLii and . other prison reformers , who are for cosseting the prisoner . " This is triply impossible—because M . D . Hill and his coadjutors are not for indulgence , but for long imprisonment , strict discipline , and hard labour ; because the plan of letting loose

    culprits once detected and caught , after a short imprisonment or an bypocrital pretence of good behaviour , ia one invented by the Home Office , Colonel Jebh , and such persons as oppose Mr . M . D . Hilt * and the prison reformers ; and because tJieir system has never yet been carried out ot even tried , but only a partial imitation of it .

    up . The gallows then—that is your only resort . " The London Scoundrel , " who has been sore frightened by burglars and garottcrs , declares that it is a pleasure to see a hanging . So do most London scoundrels . " When " an execution" is advertized they go in large flocks—the worst dressed , the most reckless , the low , the squalid , the tawdry—the pickpocket , the garotter , the burglar , the area sneak , the fence , tlie bully , the footpad , the broken soldier , the tieket-of-leave man , and the harem of that aristocracy . It is as good as a play ; they like it as muoli as the " London Scoundrel" does .

    It is possible indeed that among the many causes for the insecurity of life and property in this country may be the neglect to carry out the system of M . D . Hill and his friends ; since that would provide for the more effectual detention of known and convicted offenders . The glutton alderman was fool enough to say that tho cause of his apoplectic fit waa " the last pea" which he took at supper ; but he was not dolt enough to say that his fit was caused by the abstemious regimen which his doctor had been constantl ) ' recommending , and which he had not adopted .

    A committee ot Parliament sat some } r ears ago , and found out what wo have just stated ; for committees annually discover what any man may see for himself . Next session there is to be a committee to inquire the way from St . Giles ' s to Tyburn , with power to call for what it likes , and to report the same . But in this country wo never say out tho one essential thing to bo said . There ia a reason

    The real causes of the multitude of crimes and criminals , however , are obvious enough , if we will only look that way . The state of society which produces the creatures and their crimes must comprise the efficient causes . The crimes and the criminals are no more tho causes of that state than the apoplexy is the cause of gluttony or debauchery , or tho medicine is the cause of tho apoplexy We can readily detect the peculiar symptoms We havo whole classes alienated from others

    why hanging is 'i ' un' to a ribald mob , and a moat hideous spectacle to those who understand the said ' i ' un of tho thing . ' It is tho same reason why Motteux , the l <\ reneh translator of " Don Quixote" into English , hanged himself ; the same why we read of mysterious hangings by persons who are known not to have intended suicide . Most well-informed medical men know the

    the child is brought up in rags , ignorance , and bad example ; he ia refused work because lie has not a calling or a character ; the fence will buy what ho will prig . Ia tho gallows ttie proper instrument for putting that student in the right path of life ? Wo have no

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    ' ¦ . "ms . : January 3 , 1857 ] THE LEADIS , 1 $

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 3, 1857, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2174/page/13/