The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1805-09-04 00:00:00

4, 18.05.

CIRCUIT INTELLIGENCE.

ERLCON AND CARMARTIIFN ASSIZES.

Brecon and Carmarthen Great Sessions were
held last week. We are happy in {sting able to
present our readers with the charge delivered by
Mr. Justice HARtalNce, at Brecon
0 GENTLEMEN Of THE GRAND JERr,
" The calendar which is put into tips hands, even
in its present state, is almost a perl,dl blank.
" In yours, I hope, it will completely vanish.
" It has, indeed, onefelane, a theft of cattle, but
which is likely to be converted into a mere trespass,
Or et.fßtitsiOn of elk.
Here, then, I should have dismissed you (with
pride of thanks to you for your exemplary vigilance
over the police, which has brought so light a calen-
dar before me), had it not been for a most painful
subjea, upon which a sense of humanity, as well as
honour, compels me to detain you.
" I will, however, spare eve as much as I can ;
we are fellow-sufferers; I will .park myself too. The
subjea fills me with horror!
" A motfuer of an illegitimate child, in the month
of April la at, WAS tried in this Court, for the murder
of that child.
" A verdia. of perhaps unexampled compassion
(hut it is a fault which I never can blame), has ena-
bled her to he alive at this hour.
" That she had concealed the birth of that child,
and had concealed its death, was in proof.
She is now in prison for the offence of that con-
cealment.
4. Imprisoned (I blush for the law in stating it) for
two years! the severest punishment left us for that
offence, which is the root and principle of these
murders.
.. In a very few days after this acquittal, another
of a similar de.cription, was tried in one
of the bardering counties, was conviCted, and was
executed.
.. It these two faels were unaccompanied. they
would he unparalleled in the history of the island,
RS far as I can learn it from toe annals of any
Cir-
cuit, English or Welsh, and would, in that view, he
alarming. But they are accompanied by ether cir-
cums: Aiwa, which are of dreadfui importance.
"'the two offenders lived, at the time of corn.
mining the offence, within a few miles of each other.
slost of the leading fiefs in the two cars were the.
Ram... The offence, lam sorry to add, is • •t late mire
prerdent than eve-, in England, in Waits, and in
part of it, the most.
" the difficulty of reaching it by legal proof is
increased fifty-fold by a new Aa of Parliament,
passed upon grounds of p.licy, which I dare so it, as
a Judge, arraign, 1.1:: which I am not able to fathom.
The peculiar nature of this crime, and tif the
motives to it, appear to me either overlooked, ur
sopetficially examined.
" These are the circumstances which call upon
me to solicit year powerful aid, in averting such a
reproach from the county which rise inhabit; which
your personal charaters adorn, and which you are
so calculated, by your public as well as domestic
wor.h, to civilise into the virtues that can be re-
quired of the rich, or of the poor.
If the offence comes in juslrutsai before me, I
know too well how to aia upon it, that is, how to
proi4 it.
" But the humane and Christian spirit of preven-
tion, which nips the isff nee in the bud, will be found
the best and sures: policy of justice.
4. I said, that in you were entrusted the hopes to
civilise the lower classes of life into virtue, The
term civilire carries with it a force upon which 1
mean to lay stress.
" This offence has no root but in the barren soil
of uneducated nature.
4. it is the guilt of savage ignorance ; of unen-
lightened fear ; or, perhaps, in two better words, of
undisciplined .self-love.
" The savage, truly defined, is a merely and btu-
tally selfish charafter.
.. Ile cares for nothing. detached from his own
personal figure, in the whole system of the world.
" lf, in this generous county. a man of a leltiSll
charaaet is to be found (which I cannot believe;, let
him refute me, if he can, when I tell him, that in
proportion as he indulges that propensity, he ap-
proaches donna arils to the Indian, with his tot taring
scalp in his hand, ur to the cannibal, who eats the
man he has slain.
" This crime never occurs in the higher classes of
life. It is the guilt of the poor alane ; and almost
universally in the pale of domestic servitude.
44 It springs From a distempered conscience ; a
desperate and frantic remorse; a fear of poverty, or
of shame.
44 Two principles cover these ntot;ves ; one of
them is a total absence of religion from the mind, the
other is a weakness, or a perversion of the reasoning
faculties, not from the want i l rapacity, but ot cul-
ture alone.
" To meet the offence thus explained, and repel
the mischief, appears to me no very arduous task.
" Three words bind the charm; rehgnia, Asonandy.

and frolue.
" 1 believe it will almost universally be found,
that coronas of this crime have been thoroughly &s-
-aute of retiziorts impressions.
" The poor creature, who perished at Presteigne,
had not the faintest image of them.
" She had scarce ever heard of the Saviour's name.
Of Chrirtianity, as revealing a future state sit
judgment, and as redeeming the sins of the world,
she had never been told.
" She had no religious abhorrence of her crime,
till a lew short hours before she terminated her exist-
ence. Ot her acquittal bs interest, she had very san-
guine hopes, and had prepared gay apparel fir the

event. •
" After the bare statement of such a plaur.., can
one hear (with temper) of ohjealons to charitiev for
the religious education of the poor ?
" f tom all that I have yet heard of this devoted

(11tCE .S:%lD.X.Tre(*.
• ,4

creature; I believe, in my contelinitas tl-
M tel ur. , waela have saved her life, het virtue, and
her charade,.
" The atte-clanee of infants upon re.gireas4n.les,
if ranted in early days, becomes a i h ear.
which clings to them with admirable edesa wise*
th-v are grown up.
,t I said, that such offenders were generally' :Oa
i 1 ?lb
" Masters will do well to reflea npnn .he
done by M. mto their servants, and tiro' ;bees jai
community at large, if they are themselves V 19.4
at
dissolute haltits, or of low pursuits, if they ore k
contempt of religions duties, by an habitual ab ac.:
from the'remple of their God.
" Hamra is a most powerful implemeet
and liberal hands. It has its limits, or it Ati‘JA
mmit the office it bears in the weld.
It may, surely. in softie degree, •rinetet
fence to the purity of moral decorum, endtavosur to
mitigate the shame of an Mepitimate birth.
" I ctri not mean that it should reward tha rtsie
tent mother. and, much less, that it shod-'
nance the impenitent one. But it may well prie
in a whisper, at least, many cases of sedftri o.i. •t
which it would be the most cruel of all tyrannies to
be severe, if the indiscretion is openly confessed in
terms of remorte.
" In cases even of a less favourable aspefl, but
short of profligacy in the habit, mercy, withJn pro-
per Emits, would at once he religious, humane, and
politic. I think no master of a reputable familyshotild
keep a female servant, in whom it is known by the
other servants, that he has detested her incnntinence;
because it we.uld be of bad example to the other
servants. Best mercy is open still : he could recom-
mend the discarded servant for other virtues, not
suppressing, this fault ; and many are the humane,
who would gratefully accept a female servant thus
recommended, with a generous oblivion at this
Many Are the female servants who have turned out
excelient members of the community, under circum-
stance, like mese.
• Pol,ce follows up bunmaaa. It should he upon
the alert; and should give an alarm at the brut
hint rn suspicion Of perenaarv•
• li the fart is be ieved. though it is nut proved.
ev:ry imaginable expedient should be Adopted for
the purpose of encouraging the disclosure, and Si
discovering the concealment.
•**l he peaalta of eonrealmeta, as the law now stands,
is perteft ridicule. The aft of King James the First,
now repealed, w is admirably calculated for punish-
ment, and for rrevention of these murders, by pu-
nishing the conreament, which is the shelter aall the
motive.
" As great and as good a man as this age or
island could boast, whose death, a few months ago,
is a national misfortune, was an advocate for this
law, contemplated by hiss in its true light, as the
mercy of 'v.:or, by disarming the hope to escape
from convialion by the artifice of canrahlweat —I mean
the celebrated Paleu. But as that law is no more,
additional and peculiar vigilance is required from
nee, to guard us against the mischief thus Ist
in. That mischief is the eerier, Invent of the dime and
of the death. Humanity and police united, will 'Taws
with a suspeeted mother of a bastard-child unborn.
They can tell her that concealment of preguausey, en-
danger's the infant's bfe ; that concealment of the
Girth, is more dangerou, and more cruel still. 'That
murder, the last afl of concealment, is the most in-
discreet and depraved.
" The dome can be reason, d out of its madness by
topics of ',rad urr. They can lite asked, What is
the shame of illegitimate birth, to the infamy of its
deteftial concealment. or of death for the murder of
the new born child r Enemy as I am to confes-
sions um-fitly obtained, I would, in that stage of the
recommend all predicable influence—upon
hope and fear.
" Deceit would be a virtue ; but mercy is better
still. I am an habitual admirer of the orbit; ex ; and
am proud of this judicial opportunity for distin-
guishing a person of that sex, by her claim on the
public esteem. I am told, that a lady, in one of
these two cases, interrogated the mother, advised
her to confess her pregnancy, and promised her not
only to support the child, but also to recommend the
mother into a good service. Every generou. heart
will be eloquent in its homage to this humanity. It
was in the right place, tune, and shape.
" I have also heard, but I hope it is a mistake.
that a person, who should have prosecuted one of
these offenders, abandoned his trust. This inverted
the pilture. It was humanity in the wrong place,
time and shape ; humanity, which, it it could in ge-
neral. prevail, would be a charter of impunity for
murders like these.
" The reducer should be detested, high or low, and
branded with shame. The guilt of supplying me-
dicine for abortion should he punished, whether such
medicines were err/ or no. It is a deteCt of the law,
as it now stards, that for this offence there is no pu-
nishment. The medical tribe should be upon their
guard, against the sale of het bs and potions, calcu-
lated la this erred. If the lather should refuse to
maintain the child, when born, which is sites wards
killed by the mother, such a refusal should be se-
verely punished. It is, in a mural view, a construc-
tive murder of that child. 'These are my hints tor
sour better judgment.
.• The poor constitute the best wealth of the rich.
Their love, and thrir esteem, is your proudest inhe-
ritance. On the other hand, at is not their bread
alone (a degrading word), but their immortal food,
their interest hereafter, As well As here, that is re-
quired by them from the rich, from their libe-
rality, their goodness of heart, and their example in

..

virtue.
The poor female infant is an orphan of the com-
munity ; you are answerable for the culture of her
mind ; for the decent habits of her deportment ; for
the honest affeftions of her intircourse with mend.;
for the domestic worth, and for the dignified (whi
ate the natural) graces of her chazafter."