5 46 59 49 SUGAR. ,7236 Fair ,93 47 Fair Fine or Canary, 24 to 30 lbs. 96 32 Cloudy Lumps ordinary or large 32 to 40 lbs... 110s 124s .. 8 57 66 57 ,89 54 Fair Loaves, fine. 124s 957 60 57 ,600 Rain Powder, ordinary, 9 to 11lbs.......... 117s 10 58 67 52 ,82 36 Fair COTTON TWIST. ,90 40 Fair 12 50 65 54 Sep. 20. Mule 1st quality, No. 40 3s. 4d. 30,05 57 Fair 13 53 66 60 ,17 54 Fair ,10 57 Fair 15 61 70 57 No. 120 7s. Od. -2d quality, No. 40 2s. 10d. Discount-15 per cent. ,07 58 Fair ,09 65 Fair ,0145 Fair 18 56 60 55 19 55 60 50 02 33 Cloudy ,05 52 Fair .. Sep. 7. 34s Od to 38 9 32s 9d to 46 6 14. .. 36s Od 39 0 20 50 60 54 ,06 46 Fair Home. At 15s. to 30s. Southern Whale Fishery out and home. 7 10 0 770 Daily Prices of STOCKS, from 21st August, to 20th September. 1478 AMERICAN FUNDS. 50 99 50 50 55 55 55 51 59 Old 6 per cent....... New Loan 6 per cent. 85 Louisiana 6 per cent. Bank Shares By J. M. Richardson, 22, Cornbill. سريحة 5 per Cent. Bank consols Actions. 17 57 90 1100 19 57 40 1101 21 57 70 11025) LITERARY PANORAMA, AND National Register : For NOVEMBER, 1816. NATIONAL AND PARLIAMENTARY NOTICES, (British and Foreign,) PROSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE. POLICE OF THE METROPOLÍS. REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON THE STATE OF THE POLICE in the METROPOLIS : WITH MINUTES OF EVIDENCE, &C. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, July 1, 1816. WHOEVER affects to profess the Science of Politics, yet overlooks the importance of morals to the happiness and prosperity of a people, has yet to learn the very first rudiments on which his profession should be founded. He may indulge his reveries in forming schemes worthy of Utopia; he may dream of felicities beyond compare; but his lucubrations have no practical utility in the general conduct of life, and manThe study of Politics includes the art of governing men as they are; neither placing them on too low a de ners. gree of the scale of intellect or rectitude, for that were to treat them as brutes; nor elevating them too highly either as to talent or virtue; -for then they would cease to be men, and would approximate to angels. The ways of life are innumerable; and the classes which follow those ways, partake of their numbers and variety. They afford means infinitely diversified, for the activity of the human passions and propensities. Not that the human passions themselves are so numerous; but, that they are moulded by events; they asVOL. V. No. 26. Lit. Pan. N. S. Nov. 1. sume shapes conformable to opportunity, to temptation, to habits induced by cir cumstances beyond controul, and beyond the ordinary conception of those not deeply involved in them. To some, human life is like the arid desert, little other than a boundless waste: to others, it is a boggy Syrtis, and affords no firm footing, either to the right hand, or to the left. It is here, a congeries of barren rocks; and there a mass of faithless quicksands, which delude the expectations of confidence, and betray the hopes, and exertions, of simple integrity. A few, find their progress enlivened by verdant groves and pellucid streams; these they enjoy: or if, from indisposition in themselves, they fail of enjoyment, these very beauties of nature produce satiety; and satiety is closely followed by disgust. The verdant grove, too, may lead to the entanglements of the forest; and the pellucid stream may become pestiferous, in its progress, from the miasmata of the marshes, beside which it passes. In plain English, every state and station of life is exposed to deterioration; and the chief origin of this is laxity of morals. No where is that laxity so con spicuous as in a great city: for, here association of every kind leads to improvement; and improvement is as fre quently obtained in crime, from criminal companions, as in excellencies from emulation, instruction, and practice.A great city is a prodigious conflux of contradictions: nothing superior to what a great city assembles can embellish human nature: nothing more pain H fully degrading can be imagined, than what may be found in some part or other of a great city. This is no new discovery: every metropolis has borne witness to the fact.It is not peculiar to the present age; all antiquity confirms the proposition. It afflicts not the metropolis of the British empire, alone; every Capital on the Continent, might be brought into comparison with London, and most of them would be found, so far as public morals are concerned, liable to censure still more severe, and to charges still more heinous. The stiletto, the dagger, and the poisoned drug, do not lurk in our city, wreaking private vengeance; nor does any consecrated edifice by the privilege of sanctuary, skreen a murderer from the authority of Justice. The carriage of the Holy Office, less religious than political, rolls not in thunder, making night hideous, in search of its victims; neither does the vigilance of the Police, watch every family, intrude into every company, listen to every conversation, betray every gaiety, and torture into crime against the state, the thoughtless sally of humour; or the equivocal expressions of dissatisfaction, whether with self, or with society. nation of public morals. A time of war is unfavourable to such enquiries: the passions are then let loose, and policy is pleaded for much that nothing but policy could endure. The Legislature, too, can act with that supremacy which the object demands: inferior magistrates may do much; but they often complain of want of power: no such restraint enfeebles the enquiries of the legislature. Magistrates being appointed to particular districts cannot obtain an enlarged and general view of the subject: the Legislature by bringing conflicting evidence under repeated explanation, by comparing the parts, surveys the whole. Magistrates may do their duty, according to rule or precedent, as others have done before them; the Legislature can judge how far the rule demands variation, or needs invigorating: it can both vary and invigorate. The Legislature calls before it the lowest rank of those appointed to guard the public peace, and to watch for the public security: it derives information from the experience of these practical men; and notes in what point of duty they, or others, may be caught tripping. It expects from the higher ranks, that openness and candour, that abhorrence of subterfuge and chicane, which marks integrity and rectitude. If it detects equivocation and subtlety, the Legislature can press for explanation, fearless of the truth, when obtained; if it suspects collusion, it can obtain evidence on the point in doubt, from other quarters, and render vain every palliation, or excuse, every pretence, or misappre But, in proportion as morals deteriorate, the danger of these calamities increases: they have been elsewhere established under pretence of securing public morals; they have been adopted as remedies for morals too dangerous to the Body Politic to be suffered; too deeply seated in the vitals of the community to be eradicated by means less severe, we had almost said, less destruc-hension. In short, neither abuse of tive. It is wise, therefore, to anticipate the worst, when public evils are under contemplation. The progress of the gangrene may not be visible from day to day; but, as the full operation of its destructive powers strengthens, the consequences cease to be doubtful. That which, if taken in time, might have been checked, eventually defies cure; and negligence becomes a secondary cause, too powerful to be repelled; it spreads around a mass of deformity, or accelerates premature dissolution. We are glad, to see the first leisure of the Legislature, devoted to an exami power, nor partiality in the exercise of power, nor perversion of principle, nor, connivance at guilt, nor insufficiency of exertion, nor indifference to duty, can escape the penetration of the Legislature ; and happy is the man who, after close examination, has nothing with which to reproach himself, and nothing with which the Legislature may reproach him! The object of the Legislature is truth: an officer may persuade himself, but he cannot persuade his examinants: he may think his conduct exemplary; but unless his sentiment be echoed by his superiors, and in the present case, by the public, his own good opinion will be 1 liable to many a rude rebuff; and to whatever else the voice of the public may sentence him. A leading principle of morals is selfcontroul: but this is the very reverse of innate among mankind. The selfish passions display themselves in the earliest infancy, and uuless repressed by the kindly hand of affectionate goodwill, they increase in vigour as their subject increases in strength, until at length they bear down all before them.- But man is a rational agent: he acts or should act on principle: his mind should regulate his conduct, as conviction regulates his mind. But convic tion implies the exercise of understanding, together with the influence of instruction. Unhappily, the evidence annexed to this Report, discloses a most la work of a cut-throat gang, associated for the purpose; as the Black-Boy Alley gang, the Chick-lane gang, and others, formerly. We have heard old inhabitants of Holborn allude to times, when it was not safe to walk that street, even in day light; and, we believe, that, at last, the nest of these villains was destroyed, by surrounding every avenue to their abode with a military force, and arresting at once every individual found on the premises. The mail has not been robbed, for years; stage coach passengers, are not stopped on the road, as heretofore; even foot pad robberies are less frequent. Now, if these criminal enormities are not practised, to the same extent, as they once were, to what is this owing?are they suppressed, by official vigilance? are they prevented by a more mentable want of instruction, the preva- general effect of instruction, pervading in lence of ignorance incredibly gross, in a country calling itself Christian; and this supported, augmented, directed to auswer the most nefarious purposes, -on SYSTEM! The youthful offender acts under instruction, he forms a part of the performing whole: the more advanced transgressor at once gives lessons and receives: the hardened villain does his duty, with unequalled dexterity, in the superior branches of his calling, boasts of his hair-breadth 'scapes, and recounts the number of times he has outfaced stern Justice at her own bar; or eluded the perquisitions of her fleetest and most indefatigable blood-hounds. Among the most painful particulars of public morals at this moment, is the great number of young miscreants employed in pillage and plunder. This has struck the most unreflecting; and several of the witnesses examined by the Committee attempt to assign reasons for it. The quantity of crime has increased. On the other hand, the atrocity of crime, generally speaking, has decreased. We have few robberies, planned to include murder; few (or, no) highwaymen, putting the traveller in fear; A Turpin, (the flying highwayman) has not been heard of for many years. The town was certainly convulsed with agony by the murders at Rateliffe, a few years ago; but there was no reason to conclude that they were the some degree these unlettered culprits, through the medium of public decorum and opinion? The next stage of life, when youth approaches to manhood, which is perhaps the most hazardous of any, is not so closely examined on this occasion, as we presume it will be. Much remains to be done, to detect the causes of ruin to the young men; to the young women, also; the annual consumption of whom, in this metropolis is tremendous. The difficulties attending attempts to enforce the laws on this subject, are stated in strong terms; and no doubt, will receive a full consideration hereafter. The houses of rendezvous for the profligate of both sexes, and, indeed, the conduct of public houses ge nerally, has been strictly enquired into; the deficiencies of the laws, or rather of the practice, are pointed out; the methods used to defeat the law are described; and, certainly, will be remedied. Late events have given importance to the conduct of officers attached to the Police Offices: thisis partly explained; and the system is in some respects elucidated. The conduct of the Magistrates in licensing public houses, comes under very close review; their attendance to their duties, their clerks, their patroles, &c. are examined into; and a foundation is laid for future proceedings: H2 |