ground is so very open to the temptations of distress, and the means of committing the crime within the reach of clumsy ignorance and poverty?

The Bank was before driven to an expedient in discord with English criminal jurisprudence, and the ends of justice in the abstract-that of encouraging prisoners to plead guilty to the minor offence, under a pledge that the capital punishment should be remitted. Surely this compromise-of which a civilized, well-governed people should be ashamed-will not be resorted to again. The Bank of England is reduced to the alternative of fencing its property from depredation by rendering the invasion of it reasonably difficult, or of concerting with the Government to mitigate the punishment. One of the fairest and commonest questions in criminal trials for the violation of property is, whether the prosecutor exercised due care and vigilance for the protection of the property and the prevention of the crime.

Impressment of Seamen-March 13, 1834.

Ir is quite as difficult to defend the practice of Impressing Seamen, upon any ground of justice or morality, as to defend negro slavery; and why? They are both the exercise of the tyranny of the strong on the defencelessness of the weak. They are both a robbery of the person and liberty of man, by the hand of power, unchecked by justice. Commercial cupidity first tore the simple African from his native shores and his wild freedom, to toil and crouch in chains beneath the overseer's whip, in the "house of bondage" of our sugar plantations. What is called a State necessity first introduced the indefensible practice of manning our vessels of war with seamen, torn from their homes and their families by the hand of savage violence. Such "necessity" may well be called the " "tyrant's plea." The necessity which makes the Arab of the desert plunder the unprotected traveller is an equally valid excuse for violence and spoliation.

*

What signifies it that some lawyers, anxious to recommend

themselves to power by finding reasons for any established abuse, have pleaded immemorial usage in its favour? The argument of usage was as valid in support of ship-money without vote of Parliament; and yet, after HAMPDEN's glorious struggle with the Crown, and the opinions of Crown Lawyers and Judges in its favour, it was declared to be unconstitutional and illegal. So was the argument of immemorial usage in favour of general warrants; yet it did not avail, because the principle of general warrants violated all notions of justice; and it is a maxim of the law of England that usage or custom cannot make any practice legal which is obviously unreasonable, unjust, or absurd.

Sir Michael FOSTER endeavoured to trace the practice of impressing seamen to the Common Law. It was a bold attempt, no doubt, to try to reconcile the "perfection of reason" with the perfection of injustice. Sir Michael FOSTER failed in showing that the common law ever sanctioned impressment; but had he succeeded, what then? He would have still left the question where he had found it, for it would not have brought him one inch nearer to being able to prove that any practice so monstrously unjust and oppressive should not be abolished, as violating not only the principles of a free Constitution, but being utterly at variance with the genius of civilised society.

He who uproots this ferocious custom from the land, will deserve the thanks of his country and of human nature. * We, therefore, advise Mr. BUCKINGHAM, who has, very creditably to himself, taken up this great question, to persevere. It is a cause that will bear repeated repulses, at the hands either of the avowed opponents, or the renegade friends of liberal principles and enlightened policy. Whatever defeats it may suffer, it has that within itself which must make victory certain something that demands the support of every heart and mind not callous to the cries of humanity-not insensible to the demands of justice. The glory of the British flag will not be less bright by being cleansed from the stain of oppression.

A Centralized Rural Police-Force.-Jan. 16, 1836.

A CORRESPONDENT has expressed some anxiety lest an attempt should be made in the ensuing session to introduce a government police-force into country towns and rural districts. We should strongly deprecate and strenuously oppose such a proceeding, from whatever party it may emanate. We prefer the local and popular government of our Anglo-Saxon Constitution to the centralising French system of the liberty-hating BOURBONS. We have no respect for the heads or hearts of those leaders of new fashions who would Gallicize us in taste, morals, or government. It is far from being an improvement to the substantial and comfortable broad cloth of England to tag it with the copper lace and glittering frippery of France. Nor less does the genius of the English Constitution abhor the fantastic inventions of our Gallic neighbours, which take from despotism its dignity, without giving any security to freedom.

The ancient and true principle of the English Constitution —that which, from early ages, has habituated the inhabitants of this country to combine a national love of freedom with a national attachment to order and the laws, is, that the Government should do nothing for the people, except what the people cannot do for themselves. The centralising system of France is founded on exactly the opposite maxim,—that the Government should substitute itself for the popular will in every thing. Hence, in France, the people are always in statu pupillari as to the science of government, and the Schoolmaster at the Tuileries accompanies his lessons with many applications of the rod. Real liberty, such as we enjoy in England, is not only unknown, but not even imagined. The Peers have but the mockery of privileges the people but the shadow of freedom-and the State in which the citizen-Despot grasps the reins of absolute power, under forms of law, oscillates continually between the violence of undisguised tyranny and the anarchy of revolution.

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When we opposed the introduction of the police system of France into this country, it was not because we did not acknowledge the abuses, or desire the reform of the old and indigenous

system of watch and ward. So far from that being the case, we took a very prominent part in representing the abuses and inefficiency into which that system had fallen. We insisted upon the necessity of reforming its practice, but we did not advocate the abolition of its principle. We would have made it imperative on the parishes to employ an efficient police force, at adequate wages, for the protection of property and the public peace; but we would have left the control, as well as the payment of that body, in the hands of the citizen rate-payers themselves. We should as soon think of taking the command of the army from the Crown, as the command of the civil force from the people. Whenever the civil force is wielded by the Ministers of the Crown, it is in danger of being employed rather for political purposes than in the discharge of its proper duties. It is an easy transition from a Home Office police to a gensd'armerie. The people pay too dear a price for the preservation of their silver spoons and pocket handkerchiefs, when, to save themselves the trouble of preventing petty depredations, they put their political liberties in danger.

When we recollect that both the Duke of WELLINGTON and Lord MELBOURNE have thrown out hints in their places in parliament of the necessity of organising a police system for the provinces, we cannot regard the apprehension expressed by our Correspondent as arising from imaginary danger.

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Neither the noble Premier nor our Correspondent, however, seems to be aware of the existence of an Act of Parliament which provides for the establishing of an effective system of watch and ward in every parish of England and Wales that chooses to adopt its provisions-a system not under the control of the Home Office, nor of "Central Commissioners," but raised and managed, as it should be, by the rate-payers themselves.

The Act to which we allude, and which, we believe, is very little known, is the 11th Geo. IV, cap. 27, which recites in the preamble, that it is desirable to make provision for the lighting and watching of the several parishes of England and Wales. It is therefore enacted" that the Act, and the several provisions thereof, shall apply to and may be adopted, under

and subject to the regulations therein contained, by all, or any, or either of the parishes in England and Wales."

By Sections from the second to the sixth, the churchwardens are, on the requisition of three rated inhabitants, to call a meeting of the rated inhabitants, and if, at that meeting, threefourths vote for the adoption of the Act, a maximum of expense is to be fixed, and inspectors appointed. Those inspectors, who are to be in number from three to eleven, must (by section ninth) be rated inhabitants to the amount of £15 a year, and are to continue in office for three years, but may be re-elected.

Need we observe that these inspectors are in reality a Police Committee, elected by the rate-payers-the very principle which we contended for in regard to the metropolitan police ? * ** Now, here we have a statutable authority for raising, organising, and paying as full and efficient a police force, upon the principle of watch and ward, as the necessities of any parish in England and Wales may require. The provincial parishes, both towns and rural districts, may avail themselves of this Act whenever they please to appoint a Police Committee, under the name of Inspectors, and obtain all the protection and security which can be afforded to property and the public. peace by a police force, under the control of such a committee of rate-payers, every one of whom may be changed at the end of three years, if the rate-payers do not approve of their conduct in office. This arrangement is more in accordance with the genius of our Constitution than a police force controlled by the Minister of the Crown.

By enacting the Beer-shop Bill the Legislature did a great deal towards demoralizing the peasantry of England. That Bill has been the inciting cause of a great deal of crime in the rural districts, as the proceedings in our criminal courts at the assizes lamentably prove. The enforcement of the Malthusian Poor-Law Bill, though not yet carried out in all its severity, has caused many parts of the country to be infested with gangs of desperate men, who take to plunder for a livelihood. It becomes doubly necessary, under these circumstances, to have an effective system of watch and ward; and the Act to which we have referred provides for its establishment.