The Express.
London, England, 1851-03-15 00:00:00

but what a life is It to which he has iltroduced them ? Of
Itheir father they will most probably hear very little ; hut
at some future time, when they least wish it, they may dig-
' cover that their father was a convict and a outride. No
' human sagacity can tell what injury these two eircum-
, WM:V. may inflict upon his children. They may operate
' to their prejudice in business, in marriage, and in domestic
life. Suspicion that the child may follow the steps of father
or mother, may be detrimental in a high degree, and show
, how fearful the results of crime are, even to those who do
'not share the sin, but arc involved in the aflame.
" I ',moldier another instance. A man of education
and station was employed in an office, with several others
under hint; and, from having embarked in speculations, he
had not the means to meet his liabilities. The confidenee
with which he was treated placed auras of money within
. his reach, by adding the name of a shareholder to various
documents. lie did this, and was tried for and convicted
of forgery. There was every desire to spare him on the
part of the defrauded employers; but ha so obstinately
denied his guilt, even to the last, that they had nu alterna-
tive hut to proceed to extremities. Speculation, or in
another word, gaming, has brought many victims into
prison. The sweepstakes at public houses on the winning
horses' at the various races have induced many to take their
employers' money in the vain hope of winning the stake.
They have risked and lost their character, their liberty, end
their home. For them are substituted shame, imprison-
ment, and poverty. These things they did not contem-
blate. It was the gain only they looked at : and thee were
linded by their false seal toeonsiderations infinitely higher
and more important. The young man I have referred to had
' several children ; he had been at one of the universities,
and was a person of superior degree. Of his guilt there
could be no reasonable doubt; the papers had all passed
through his hands, and through a small private lurking ac.
count he kept ; and his full intention to pay back the money
' when he was able probably blinded his understanding
to the enormity of the crime he had committed. His wife
was misled by his declarations of innocence; and the
thought that he was suffering innocently aggravated her
; trouble. She did not know the fact that few persons he
come dishonest without losing the love of truth. Almost
cecry thief tells falsehood ; and it is exceedingly difficult to
believe what they say. I had subsequent infisrmation re-
specting this person, that took away every shadow of a
doubt that his convietion soul transportation was right.
' " Penny theatres are generally situated in very claw and
crowded neighbourhoods, where house property is of little
value; and where some of the most abandoned and
profligate of the poor live. The destruction that these
places of amusement work in some instances may he ilium-
' trsited by the following fact : a poor woman was left a
' widow with four children, the eldest of which was a boy..
Her character was exemplary. By incessant labour and
care she brought up thew children entirely without assist-
' once from the parish. The eldest, however, got a taste for
the penny theatre ; and in order to he able to go there, he
used to steal the halfpence• of his mother whenever he could
find them. lie subsequently went into the service of a
' tradesman, to which the gosidness of his mother's character
recommended hint ; but before long he stole a shilling. lie
motioned the practice till he was sent to prison. All
the circumstances were known to the judge : and he
was sentenced to be imprisoned for ri week and whipped.
The day he was liberated he went home and stole the
only half-crown his mother had. The entire of her
money was taken by this hard-hearted child. The only
return he made for her care in infancy, and the diligence
with which she educated him in the duties of religion,
as well les in good secular instruction in the National
and Sunday Schools, was, that he robbed her of every
penny she had in the world, that he might go to the
theatre and enjoy its delusive pleasures. For this
offence he was tried at the Old Bailey ; and had to scree
six months in the House of Correction. Afterward,' he':
left his home and took to street singing; a result of
the vicious taste in which he indulged; lodging in the
worst part of Westminster, where dishonest people live
in large numbers; and where, for three-pease a night,
lodgings and other conveniences are provided. By the
' perseverance of his mother, he was reeovered from the
degraded life to which he haul betaken himself, and was
' again placed in service : but the old habit returned. The
love of theatricals induced him to rob his master to get
' the means of going to the play : and a third time he was
tried and convicted front Newgute, and sentenced to twelve
months' imprisonment. To make short of this sad story, '
he was a fourth time convicted and transported as an
incorrigible youth, whom no gotsd education, nor good
' I example at home could reform ; hut who being often re-
' proved and hardened his neck, was suddenly cut of, and
'1 that without remedy."

THE
AGRICULTURAL DISTRICTS.

SOUTH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE,

TO THE NIOTOR OF Till DAILY NEWS.

Ste,—After a somewhat lengthened interval, I
mane my comments on some of our rural districts,
and the state and prospects of the owners and occu-
piers of land there, who now, with a kind of exult-
ing despair, refer to a paragraph in the Queen's
Speech to prove that they are really and deeply dis-
tressed. 'though much occupation since November
has prevented me from addressing you, and perhaps
a feeling that plain and business-like accounts of
farmers and farming would scarcely be listened to
amid the more exciting din created by the echoes of
the " drum ecclesiastic, may have oecasionally staved
my hand, I have not been unobservant or unmindful
of what has been passing in the agricultural
' districts since the late autumn. Neither do events
follow, or circumstances alter so rapidly in English
rustic life as to render observations made in October
in danger of becoming obsolete or irrelevant, though
the recording of them be delayed till February. Be-
fore, however, taking up my account of the manage-
' ment of land in this district, let me note a few
general facts of recent occurrence, which may have
considerable, though I hope only temporary in-
fluence, on English husbandry. And first let me ex-
press my extreme regret that ministers should have
been so ill-informed or ill-advised as to insert in the
Queen's Speech that dolorous paragraph about the dis-
tress of the owners and occupiers of land. I speak thus
j more as an economist than as a politician, and as
having a special interest in the welfare of the
tenant-tanners of England. Possibly there may
have been party or political reasons for that pa-
ragrapli too recondite for my apprehension ; it
may have been thought necessary to conciliate
half-friends, or to mollify fierce opponents by such
expressions of sympathy, but on the economical
interests of husbandry, and the moral and material
condition of harmers, its effect has been most mis-
chievous. It has raised hopes of the most vague and
futile description; it has re-called to the "agricul-
tural mind" its old hallucination that something is
about to be done by parliament, the "something" in
the protectionist vocabulary, meaning a law to raise
1 the price of farming produce, or to place the farmer's
, taxes on somebody else's shoulders ; and has done
i almost as much as it was possible for a Queen's
I speech to do to stay and impede the adjuatmeuts and
arrangements amongst themselves which landlords
and tenants were making, or preparing their minds
to make.

Nor is this surprising when it is recollected that
nine-tenths of the actual occupiers of land at this
day have been bred up under the notion that parlia-
ment would, could, and ought to do "something" for
them. Their landlords, their political leaders, have
always told them this, and no sooner has one scheme
failed to afford "remunerating prices" than another
has been suggested to be eagerly followed, attained,
and found wanting, like its precursor. Still failure
after failure scarcely lessened the reliance of the
farmers on the omnipotence of parliament. or their
confidence that in some way or other the right mea-
-1 sure for "protecting British husbandry" would be
hit upon by the owners of hereditary wisdom and
hereditary acres, until the corn laws were actually
repealed ; and it required several years to fully real-
ise to them the astounding fact, that Britisli coin
growers were to be exposed to " foreign competi-
tion."

I have no hesitation in saying that before the
meeting of parliament the great majority of farmers
had became accustomed to the notion that they could
not escape that competition, and they were for the
most part manfully making up their minds to meet
it. But that miserable paragraph has gone fur to
unsettle all, and taken in connexion withMr..Dis-
melt s not unskilful speech, and his large minority, I
fear that it has put back the period at which English
farmers will become entirely sound and self-reliant for
several years. Though politicians seem generally to
understand that Mr. Disraeli and his followers have
abandoned protection, as unquestionably they were
obliged to do, the farmers read it in quite another
sense. They say he has only laid aside protection
during this present parliament. I have again and
again been told by protectionist farmers—men, too,
who had been weaning their minds from such
!sickly delusions, " Only let us have another
election, and the restoration of
"protection
will be absolutely certain and immediate. I verily
!believed nothing could have revived these baseless
hopes to the extent they have been revived by her
Majesty's government. Assuredly the advent of
Lord Stanley to power could not have done more to
unsettle and disturb the minds of the farmers, and
divert them from the rational, nay, only means of