The Sun.
London, England, 1849-06-14 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

EXPERIENCES OF A GAOL CHAPLAIN.
New Edition. 1 Vol. Bentley, New Burlington-
street.

This new edition of this most popular, most inte-
resting, and most instructive work, forms the 115th
number of the Standard Novels, publishing by Mr.
Bentley, and is got up with all attention to typo-
graphical beauty and correctness, which is so dis-
tinguishing a characteristic of this series. The
author has added to this standard edition a new pre-
face, containing his views on the causes and pre-
vention of crime. "Legislative enactments," he says,
" H ill never crush it. Nor will it be banished from
among us by the solitary system' or the treadmill.'
Education, CHEAP FOOD, and employment, may do
much to arrest its progress." After paying a well-
merited tribute of respect to those "leaders of the
forlorn hope in the moral world," the promoters of
the ragged schools and of the Scripture Readers'
Society, he thus proceeds to point out the various
incentives to crime .

I. A dense population is favourable to crime.
" ' Great cities,' it has been well remarked, invite
all the scum and off scourings of society to nestle within
them. They find hiding-places there, and there they
find their prey.' Add to this, that in great cities are
to be found wealth and luxury. These hold out invi-
tations to crime, more or less seductive, and afford at
the same time greater opportunities for its concealment.
" 2. Crime in England is fed by the constant acces-
sions to our population of the wretched outcasts from Ire-
land. The records of crime kept at Liverpool are con-
clusive on this point. But not at Liverpool only is the
propensity in the Irish character to crime borne out by
facts and figures. A barrister connected with the
Northern Circuit ascertained that out of one hundred
and twenty-six prisoners at one assizes in York, twenty-
seven were Irish, 'or twenty-five per cent.; and that out
of twenty-nine serious offences, nineteen, or sixty-six
per cent., were committed by Irishmen!:
" 3. DEA.R FOOD is a powerful incentive to crime.
" This conclusion can be established by statistical
returns. Contrast years of scarcity with years of
plenty:-1805 was a- dear year. Wheat was within
threepence of ninety shillings per quarter: crime rose.
he following yerr, 1806, was a cheap year; wheat was
seventy-nine shillings per quarter: crime fell. The next
year, 1807, was a cheap year; wheat was seventy-nine
shillings and fourpence a quarter: crime fell. Take
another three years, 1816, 1817, and 1818. The first
and last were cheap years: crime felt The other, 1817,
was a dear year; wheat was ninety-six shillings and
eleven-pence a quarter: crime rose. It; then, you desire
to check the progression of crime, give the artizan CHEAP
FOOD.

4. Another incentive to crime will be found in that
prolific source of every evil, social, national, and domestic
—the existing GAME- LAWS. Tender ground this to ven-
ture on! Loud is the clamour instantly raised, if the
policy of totally repealing these odious enactments be
eve!' hinted at; but ask any clergyman who lives in a
parish where game is strictly preserved, what are the
peculiar features of his parish ? Ask him what it its
aspect in a religious, industrious, and moral point of
view ? Ask him how the church—or any place of wor-
ship in it—is attended; and also how the public-house
is frequented ? Ask him how the marriage tie is re-
spected in his parish—if chastity is even known there ?
Ask him what the records of the neighbouring petty
sessions have to say touching CRIME in that parish? And
heed well his answer.

" 5. Another incentive to crime is want of employment.
Here the farmer is grossly culpable. He treats his
labourer as a slave. Consideration for him there is
none. If corn be at a famine price, very, very little or
no advance is made on the labourer's wages. If corn
decline in value, that is instantly made a pretext for
summarily reducing the number of labourers on a farm-
stead, and consigning those who are thus turned adrift
to starvation, or to the tender mercies of an union work-
house. What follows ? An incendiary fire in the most
unprotected rickyard. VIRTUALLY who lighted it?
"6. Finally. Crime is fostered by ignorance.—But
do not the employers as well as the Qmployed require
instruction ? Does not the occupier as well as the la-
bourer need the good offices of the schoolmaster?"
With some of the causes the Legislature cannot deal,
they must be left to the care of the promoters of
ragged schools, and the friends of education, but
with other causes the Legislature must and can deal.
Be it remembered that whoever endeavours to make
food dear is the friend, the patron, the promoter, the
cause of crime; let this he cast in the teeth of the
Protectionist landlords whenever they come whining
for protection, and let them be told plainly that even
the benefit of a territorial aristocracy may be pur-
chased too dearly, and that it is so purchased when
purchased at the cost of increase of crime. Again
with regard to the game-laws. It is the moral duty
of every legislator to do all in his power
to remove those laws from the statute-bock forthwith.
Is it to be borne that our people are to be demora-
lised, our gaols filled, and the commission of every
species of crime encouraged in order that
our landed squirearchy may be permitted to
indulge in a barbarous sport, which, if practised
by costermongers and unprivileged animals,
would infallibly bring them acquainted with
the treadmill—e. g., a man the other day was com-
mitttd for a month from one of. the metropolitan
police-offices for setting a dog to hunt a cat. W hat
is the difference so tar as cruelty is concerned between
hunting a cat and hunting a hare ? The gatne-l•iws,
therefore, must be repealed, even although the squire-
archy should turn sulky and emigrate.

LECTURES on the CAUSES and TREAT-
iIIENT of ULCERS of the LOWER EX-
TREIIII7'Y, delivered at the London Hospital
during the Summer of 1848. By George Critchett,
Esq., F.R.C.S. Churchill, Princes-street.
It is refreshing in these days of book-making to
meet with a work emanating from a man evidently
full of his subject, and Set compresFed within such
limits that both the medical protesion and the public
can rapidly acquaint themselves with the views and
opinions contained withiri its pages. Here is no
lengthened and tedious detail of cases, no empirical
vaunting of one remedy to the exclusion of all others,
but a clear and condensed digest of the varicus aspects
under which this dizease presents itself, of the causes
to which it owes both its origin and its continuance,
and of the principle upon which alone a scientific
method of treatment can be founded. The book is
nicely got up, and reflects credit both upon author
and publisher.

PEDESTRIANISM.—PAYNE AND Fox.—These men
met an Monday, according to appointment, at Harlington
Corner, to decide their match of two miles, for 25 sove-
reigns aside. There was a tidy muster of spectators
present, and the betting opened at 5 to 4 o❑ Fox, but
before the men came to the mark it had gone to 2 to 1,
with takers. The race requires but little comment; suf-
fice it to say, that Fox gave in,after he had tried(the first
mile, dead beat, and he was compelled to be taken to a
public-house close by, where it was found that he had
been drugged to an alarming extent. The person who
administered the drug is a well-known runner at Bir-
mingham. The time for the first mile was nearly six
minutes.

THE ACCIDENT RELIEF SOCIETY.—The anniver-
sary dinner of this society, for giving food, &c., to
families when plunged into distress by accident, was
held last evening, at the Albion Tavern, Aldersgate-
street. The duties of the chair were most efficiently
discharged by W. Evans, Esq., M.P. for North Derby-
shire. After the usual toasts had been proposed, in
terms which rt fleeted not less credit upon the good sense
than the loyalty of the chairman, the toast of the
" Army and Navy" was given, accompanied with an ex-
pression of hope that, as well on their own account as
that of their country. their services would henceforward
be but little required. After a liberal subscription had
been announced by Mr. R. Croxton, the secretary, in-
cluding donations of 5/. from Lord Skelmersdale, 51.
from Lord Amherst, 11/. from Miss Wedgwood, 101.
from G. B. Hart, Esq., 101. from Charles Hoare, Esq.,
101. from Lord Bletchley, and 251. from the Chairman.
—Mr. George Thompson, M.P., proposed the health
of the worthy Chairman, and paid a high tribute
to his unostentatious and benevolent character. He
said he did not know how he could bear better
evidence to the usefulness of the society than by re-
cording a circumstance that had come under his own
knowledge during the past year. The wife of a person
who had met with an accident, and was thrown into the
hospital, was so overcome by the feeling of the helpless-
ness of the situation in which she and her large family
was thereby placed, that iu a moment of despair she
terminated her life by cutting her throat with a
razor. The Chairman, in acknowledging the toast,
i
had exceeded by 300/ an
past year
said there weren
the course ot, noteae
each
lessy etahrr
a4nod,o
althoughoO or 50,0t0410e at cucni
dd
se net af
the society during the
those of any preceding year, they were still lamentably
inadequateth e
mto meet The the
meeting
numerous
was
afterwardscalls thatwereaddressed made
upon
by the Rev. Mr. Gibson, the Rev. Mr. Embley, and
other gentlemen, and the companyseparated after having
evinced the warmest feelings of interest in behalf of the
charity.
NEW CHURCHES IN LANDETII--It is intended to
erect a new church in the borough of Lambeth, which
will be dedicated to St. Andrew. An ecclesiastical dis-
trict has been assigned to it, and the Rev. Agmond C.
Carr, M.A., will be the officiating minister. Another
new church, dedicated to St. Thomas, will also be erected
in the Borough, of which the Rev. J. W. Weeks, M.A.,
formerly principal of the Church Missionary Soci•43r
College at Sierra Leone, will be the incumbent. The
patronage of both the new churches will be vested in the
Crown and the Bishop of Winchester alternat.ly.
BRITISH AND FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETY.--The
annual examination of the Girls Modtl School took
Once yesterday, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell in
the chair. The room was crowded, and the examina-
tion appeared to give the highest satisfaction to,the com-
pany present. The acquirements of the children in his-
tory, geography, and especially in the Scriptures, were
highly creditable to them. The singing in parts was ex-
cellent, and the specimens
needlework numerous and
beautiful. At the close of the proceedings, Sir Walter
Siirling, Bart., moved a vote of thanks to the chairman,
whichexwparsessseecd very stronglyondedbyProessor Pillow, of Edinburgh,
who
the gratification he, in
ei
.common with others, had experienced. The children
and spectators were addressed very suitably by the Rev.
and Nobre Chairman.
PUGILISM.—GRIFFITHS
SM—ath for
Tches
light weights met an
After a severee6dily to ANDd
fight,AcißdßeAtHhAerli which lasted one
45 sovereigns, and
hour sad a 414 Ciriatibowas dcoltzta the Tiotor.