remains to repent, to amend, and to acquire that second innocence which will restore your confidence in God and in yourselves, and which may even place you honestly in the world. I do not speak to you of the present advantages which industry and obedience will procure for you; I need not remind you that, for the present, you are cut off from your families, and that few of your former friends will notice you, or hear of you—(Here one of the elder prisoners shed a few tears-another, a country lad, who seemed not to be prepared for this pathetic address, turned away to hide the contraction of his features.)- But,' continued the priest, God is always ready to receive the guilty who repent: if you are prodigals, he is the father of the prodigal. I entreat you to think of what I say to you on your long journey, and when you arrive at your destination. And now, my children, I give you my blessing in the name of the Father.' Few of the convicts remained insensible to this language: but if three or four of them gave way to their emotion, the majority concealed their feelings by an increased affectation of levity.

"After the chaines were again seated on their benches, the other détenus seemed more and more anxious to send them keepsakes and little comforts. One of them complained that he was hungry, and immediately three great loaves were thrown down to him; another, that he was cold, and they sent him a blouse, which he contrived to put on, notwithstanding the ring on his neck, to the great amusement of the company. At last the pay-time came: the forçats are allowed the money they have earned in prison; but if it is a considerable sum, it is given in charge to the lieutenant of the detachment: many of them had a masse of forty or fifty francs. One man received a box containing ten francs, and a lock of hair from his mistress-a token of that inexplicable attachment which so often unites the most unfortunate of females to the worst of men; and which induces them to share their perils, to alleviate their sorrows, and to support their ingratitude. The ceremony which we came to witness was now terminated; but such was the interest which I had acquired in the fate of the criminals who were to depart upon their long journey with the morrow's dawn, that I loitered for some time to converse with the most interesting individuals, as the several cordons filed off across the yard, until a garde-chiourme tapped me on the shoulder, and said, Monsieur, on ne parle pas aux condamnés;' upon which I left the cour des fers."

We need scarcely advert to the palpable evils of a punishment which drags the convicts of the northern districts through the hamlets and the cantons of France; furnishing incentives to that feverish excitement in the population, which produces crime more frequently than it represses it; and exposing the criminals to the injudicious pity of the people, and the brutal treatment of a mercenary band (which does not deserve, and which does not bear, the name of soldiers), during the course of a journey of 500 miles, which is usually performed in twentyseven days. The expense of the transport of the different chaines amounted, in the year 1833, to 127,500 francs (52001.); contracts are undertaken by persons who agree to furnish the necessary escort, provision, and occasional vehicles for the whole number of convicts. But the journey, although it is the

most painful part of the whole punishment, is only a foretaste of the infamy and the brutality of the bagnes themselves; where every debasing influence is exerted upon the criminal during the term of his sentence, and from whence he is flung back upon the world totally destitute of resources. The yellow passport which he thenceforward bears, denotes his past infamy at every town he enters, and deprives him of the means of earning an honest livelihood; no master will employ him, and no workmen will mess with him. It is believed that between two and three hundred thousand liberated galley-slaves exist in various parts of France, an object of suspicion to the government, and of terror to the population.

But notwithstanding the imperfections of the highest secondary punishment-imperfections which result from the twofold absence of a penitentiary system and of colonies—the modifications of the penal code, and the authority vested in the jury by the law of 1832, have nearly abolished the practical application of the punishment of death. The following are the numbers of capital convictions for the four last years:—

The statistical documents, which will in time show the effect of this important change, are not yet published; nor can they, with so short an experience, be said to exist. On no point do testimonies conflict more than on the fear which great criminals entertain of the punishment of death; and it is not our intention, at the close of an article which has already led us over so wide a field, to enter into this important question. We cannot refrain, however, from adducing two striking anecdotes which illustrate the controversy :

Amurder had been committed in one of the maisons centrales by several of its inmates, on the person of a turnkey: two of the murderers were condemned to death; upon which a third, a lad of twenty-one, who had been condemned for a rape at fifteen, and a murder at twenty, but who was not included in their sentence, wrote to the public prosecutor to assert his guilt, and to beg to share their sentence; adding, that he had rather die upon the scaffold than live in close confinement without tobacco.

A. B., a prisoner, in a maison centrale, formally announced his intention of killing some one, in order that he might be brought to the scaffold: he was a remarkably well-conducted man; and he expressed his regret for his future victim, saying that he hoped that it would not be the governor, who had always treated him kindly—but that when the hour should be come, the blow must be struck. Of course he was carefully watched; but five months afterwards he killed a task-master, and then walked of his own accord to the cell of confinement. On his trial, he remained perfectly calm and silent; till, when the judge was summing up the evidence at some length, he exclaimed, "Allons, M. le Président, vous m'ennuyez; tout ce que vous dites là est vrai; j'ai tué cet homme; tuez-moi sans tant de paroles."

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How appalling and how various are the forms of lunacy, of error, and of crime !

Nescit quid perdat; et alto

Demersus summâ rursùm non bullit in undâ.

The question of capital punishment does not, however, occupy the most prominent place in our opinions upon the subject we have been treating; the real question is, as to what secondary punishment can be discovered, which will repress the beginnings of crime, the vicious propensities, and corrupt practices which lead in the end to felony and to death. It is to the vast multitude of busy villains, from amongst whom a ruffian may occasionally proceed, that the remedy (if it exist) must be applied. The crime of blood is, thank God, an exception, and punishment of blood ought to be an exception also. But let it be remembered, that whoever has snatched a boy from the corrupting influence of a gaol, to which he has been committed for stealing apples-whoever has checked a vicious propensity by the substitution of honest reward, or stilled a passion for licentiousness by a mild and discreet exercise of authority-has done more to diminish the sum of guilt in the nation, than he who has wrung a tardy prayer from the murderer, or saved the hardened offender from the fate to which the laws which he has broken, habitually condemn him.

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ARTICLE VI.

Pencillings by the Way. By N. P. WILLIS, Esq. London: 1835.

THAT this book is, in many respects, a very silly one, we readily grant; and that the author has shown himself to be ignorant on some points and presuming on others, we are not disposed to deny. But we deprecate any sneering insinuations being directed against the talent or manners of America, from the character or writings of any individual American. It would be extremely unpleasant to have our English ladies estimated by the standard of Mrs. Trollope; and, at least, we are bound to render to the Americans the same measure of justice as we claim for ourselves; and not to form our opinion of what our trans-Atlantic brethren may be, in delicacy and information, from the specimen which they have sent over to us, in the person of Mr. N. P. Willis. In spite of all that he has shown himself, we still can believe that in America are to be found gentlemen and scholars, with minds as cultivated, and manners as refined, as are to be met with amongst ourselves. But in fact, when we examine into the circumstances of the case, we shall find that the causes of this author's failure are personal to himself; and would most probably have produced the same effect, to whatever country he had belonged.

In the first place, cockneyism is of no country; it may flourish as vigorously "on Susquehanna's side," as in Fleetstreet; and Mr. N. P. Willis-is a cockney. By cockney, we mean that unfortunate class of animals which can see only one object at a time, and that-the object nearest to them; which are deprived of the power of comparison, and believe the little cockle-boat, in which they themselves are embarked, to be larger, and taller, and grander in every way, than the Britannia at a little distance. To them the ancient oxoxoTXOS, who showed a single brick as a specimen of a building, appears a very sensible fellow-they CAN only see one brick at a time; but then, to compensate for that imperfection, the brick appears

to them as large as a whole temple-nay, seems a whole temple in itself.

We ought not, therefore, to be much surprised if the observations of a gentleman, of this description, are a little unusual, or, indeed, absurd. The only wonder is that he has not fallen into still greater mistakes. But there is another disqualification, for the task he has assumed, under which Mr. N. P. Willis labours; and which, like the cockneyism we have mentioned, has nothing whatever to do with his being either a United-States-American, or an indigenous Cherokee. In fact, it is his NOT being an American in his opinions, or even a Cherokee, of which we complain. Nothing would give us greater pleasure than to hear the sentiments of a plain, out-spoken, clear-thinking, genuine American, of us and all our doings. Both countries might derive benefit from the observations of a person who was thoroughly acquainted with the institutions of his own land, and had abilities enough to make himself familiar with those of the other. But, whilst he has no feeling of ill-will to the country he is visiting-no blind antipathy against what appears new, nor obstinate prejudice in favour of what is old-he must still, in all he says or does, retain his nationality. We do not want an American's opinion of the Americans-nor even the opinion of any Englishman, whose heart and feelings are wholly Americanised; nor, on the other hand, do we want John Bull's opinion of himself-nor, least of all, the sentiments of an Anglified "Yankee," who forgets the nationality of which he ought to be proud, and degenerates, on reaching the Thames, into the petit maîtreism of a provincial coxcomb, or the pseudoaristocracy of a country attorney's clerk.

Mr. N. P. Willis, in all that portion of his volumes which relates to this country, has placed himself in a false position; and has further disqualified himself to give any opinion of the aristocratic and literary circles to which he was admitted, by the unfortunate fancy which has seized him, that he himself belongs, as of right, to both. Stranger idea than this never entered into any person's head. The circumstance of this gentleman having received so much notice, amongst the higher classes of society, is one which we hope will show to the Americans that the prejudice against them is entirely worn off. So entirely, indeed, is it abolished, that a strong re-action has taken place