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try, have they not leagued against a minister who would have been the protector of their properties? Far from voluntarily yielding to the voice of reason, and making flight facrifices to the public interett, they have aggravated their vexations, and immolated men to the prefervation of their animals; yet, instead of reproaching their own injuftice, and attributing to their pride and unfeeling fternnels the vengeance of their former vaffals, they impute it to philofophy. Ah! let her no longer be calumniated! she forefaw all our misfortunes, the braved and hazarded perfecution to avert them: but her efforts have been fruitless! Princes have more heavily burthened their people inttead of relieving them; the great have humbled inftead of fuccouring them; pontiffs have scandalized inftead of edifying them; magiftrates have outraged inftead of protecting them. The moment of their power arrived. Then they recollected nothing but the insults and fufferings which they had fo long endured. If their vengeance has been terrible, it is not philofophy that has directed it; on the contrary, the has tried to alleviate its effects: but it has no more been in her power to ftop the exceffes at which the deeply groaned, than it was to realize the good which the proposed.

It is not during the flame of revolutions that the voice of fages has any empire over the human paflions. What could the Roman orators and philofophers do amidst the proferiptions of Sylla and the triumvirs? no more than the de Thous and l'Hofpitals in the rage of the League. Could Fene

lon, Montefquieu, Voltaire, and Rouffeau himself, were they ftill living, by their difcourfes or writings put a stop to the fanguinary acts which tarnish our liberty and excite the lamentation of our legiflators? Reduced to fruitless reble the pilot, who, during the grets, we fhould fee them refemfury of a horrible tempeft, contemplates with ftupefaction the veffel which he can no longer govern. Let a fingle philofopher, worthy of the name, be mentioned to me, who has excited the people to murder and conflagration; who has not recommended to them to be generous in victory, to respect legitimate property, to fpare imbecility, to condemn the guilty by the rules of juftice alone!

Of the Caufes of the Increase of Crimes.
From Colquhoun's Treatise on the
Police of the Metropolis.

have fo multiplied and increafed IN developing the caufes which thofe various offences and public wrongs which are at prefent felt to prefs fo hard upon fociety, it may be truly affirmed in the first indeficient and inapplicable laws, and ftance, much is to be imputed to to an ill-regulated police.

Crimes of every defcription have their origin in the vicious and imwant of attention to the education moral habits of the people; in the of the inferior orders of fociety ;— and in the deficiency of the fyftem which has been established for guarding the morals of this useful clafs of the community.

in a great capital where crimes are Innumerable temptations occur

reforted

reforted to, in order to supply imaginary wants and improper gratifications, which are not known in leffer focieties and against which the laws have provided few applicable remedies in the way of prevention.

The improvident and even the luxurious mode of living which prevails too generally among various claffes of the lower ranks of the people in the metropolis, leads to much mifery and to many crimes. Accustomed from their earliest infancy to indulge themfelves in eating many articles of expenfive food in its feafon, and poffeffing little or no knowledge of that kind of frugality and care which enables well-regulated families to make every thing to go as far as poffible, by a diverfified mode of cookery and good management :Affailed alfo by the numerous temptations held out by fraudulent lotteries, and places of public refort and amulement; and above all, by the habit of spending a great deal of valuable time as well as money unneceffarily in publichoufes; and often allured by low gaming, to fquander more than they can afford, there is fcarce an inftance of accommodating the income to the expenditure, even in the best of times, with a confiderable body of the loweft orders of the people inhabiting the capital: and hence a melancholy conclufion is drawn, warranted by a generally affumed fact; that above twentythousand individuals rife every morning in this great metropolis, without knowing how, or by what means they are to be supported during the paffing day, or where they are to lodge on the fucceeding might.

Poverty is no where to be found cloathed in fo great a degree with the garb and emblems of the extremeft mifery and wretchedness, as in London.

Develope the hiftory of any given number of these miferable fellowmortals, and their diftreffes will be found, almost in every instance, to have been occafioned by extravagance, idleness, profligacy, and crimes:-and that their chief fupport is by thieving in a little way.

Allured and deceived by the facilities which the pawn-brokers and the old-iron fhops hold out, in enabling the labouring people, when they marry, and firft enter upon life in the metropolis, to raise money upon whatever can be offered as a pledge or for sale; the first step with too many, is generally to difpofe of wearing apparel and household goods, which is frequently done upon the leaft preffure, rather than forego the ufual gratification of a good dinner or a hot fupper. - Embarraffments are fpeedily the confequence of this line of conduct, which is too often followed up by idleness and inactivity. The alehouse is reforted to as a defperate remedy, where the idle and the diffolute will always find affociates, who being unwilling to labour, refort to crimes for the purpofe, of fupplying an unneceffary extravagance.

It is truly melancholy to reflect upon the abject condition of that numerous clafs of profligate parents, who, with their children, are conftantly to be found in the tap-rooms of public houses, spending in two days as much of their earnings as would fupport them a week comfortably, in their own dwel

lings;-deftroying their health;wafting their time, and rearing up their children to be prostitutes and thieves before they know that it is a crime.

So early as the reign of Queen Anné, this abandoned and mifchievous race of men feem to have attracted the notice of the legislature in a very particular degree, for the act of the 9th of her majefty reciting" that divers lewd, and diffolute perfons live at great expences, having no vifible eftate, profeffion, or calling, to maintain themselves; but fupport these expences by gaming only; and enacts that any two juftices may caufe to be brought before them, all perfons within their limits, whom they fhall have juft cause to suspect to have no visible eftate, profeffion, or calling, to maintain themselves by, but who for the most part fupport themselves by gaming, and if fuch perfons fhall not make the contrary appear to fuch juftices, they are to be bound to their good behaviour for a twelve month, and in default of fufficient fecurity, to be committed to prifon, until they can find the fame, and if fecurity thall be given, it will be forfeited on their playing or betting at any one time, for more than the value of twenty fhillings."

If in conformity to the fpirit of this wife ftatute, fharpers of every denomination who fupport them feives by a variety of cheating and fwindling practices, without having any vifible means of fupport, were in like manner to be called upon to find fecurity for good behaviour in all cafes where they cannot fhew they have the means of fubfifting themfelves honeftly, the number of the fe pefts of fociety,

under an active and zealous magl ftracy, would foon be diminifhed, if not totally annihilated.

By the 12th of George the Second "the games of Faro, Hazard, &c. are declared to be lotteries, fubjecting the perfons who keep them to a penalty of two hundred pounds, and thofe who play, to fifty pounds."- One witnefs is only neceffary to prove the offence before any justice of the peace, who forfeits ten pounds if he neglects to do his duty-and by the 8th of George the First, "the keeper of a Faro table may be profecuted for a lottery, where the penalty is five hundred pounds."

Such has been the anxiety of the legiflature to fupprefs Faro tables and other games of chance, that the feveret penalties have been inflicted, founded on the fulleft impreffion of the pernicious confequences of fuch practices, and yet to the difgrace of the police of the metropolis, houfes are opened under the fanction of high founding names, where an indifcriminate mixture of all ranks are to be found, from the finished fharper to the raw inexperienced youth. And where all thofe evils exift in full force which it was the object of the legiflature to remove.

When a fpecies of gambling, rainous to the morals and to the fortunes of the younger parts of the community who move in the middle and higher ranks of life is fuffered to be carried on in direct oppofition to a pofitive ftatute;Surely blame muft attach fome where!

The idle vanity of being introduced into what is fuppofed to be genteel fociety, where a fathionable name announces an intention

of

of feeing company, has been productive of more domeftic mifery and more real diftrefs, poverty, and wretchedness to families in this great metropolis, (who but for their folly might have been easy and comfortable,) than many volumes could detail.

A mistaken sense of what conftitutes human happiness, leads the mafs of the people who have the means of moving, in any degree, above the middle ranks of life, into the fatal error of mingling in what is called genteel company, if that can be called fuch where Faro Tables and other games of hazard are introduced in private families.-Where the leaft recommendation (and fharpers fpare no pains to obtain recommendations) admits all ranks who can exhibit a genteel exterior, and where the young and the inexperienced are initiated in every propenfity tending to debafe the human character, and taught to view with contempt every acquirement connected with thofe duties which lead to domeftic happiness, or to thofe objects of utility which can render either fex refpe&table in the world.

To the horde of sharpers at prefent upon the town, thefe places of rendezvous furnish a moft productive harveft.

Many of this clafs, ruined perhaps themselves in early life in feminaries of the fame defcription, to which they foolishly reforted, when vanity predominated over

prudence and difcretion, have no alternative but to follow up the fame mifchievous trade, and to prey upon the ignorant, the in experienced, and the unwary, until they too fee the fatal delufion when it is too late.

When fuch abominable prac❤ tices are encouraged and sanctioned by high-founding names,-when fharpers and black legs find an eafy introduction into the houses of perfons of fathion, who affemble in multitudes together for the purpose of playing at those most odious and deteftable games of hazard. which the legislature has ftigmatized with fuch marks of reprobation, it is time for the civil magiftrate to ftep forward: and to feel, that in doing that duty which the laws of his country impofe on him, he is perhaps faving hundreds of families from ruin and deftruction, and preferving to the infants of thoughtless and deluded parents that property which is their birth-right: but which, for want of an energetic police in enforcing the laws made for the protection of this property, would otherwise have been loft, leaving nothing to confole the mind but the fad reflection, that with the lofs of fortune, thofe opportunities (in confequence of idle habits) were also loft of fitting the unfortunate fuf ferer for any reputable purfuit in life, by which an honest livelihood could be obtained.

POETRY

POETRY.

ODE for the

NEW YEAR.

By H. J. PYE, Efq. Poet-Laureat.

I.

WHERE is immortal Virtue's meed,

Th' unfading wreath of true renown,
Beft recompence by Heaven decreed

For all the cares that wait a crown;
If Induftry, with anxious zeal,
Still watchful o'er the Public Weal
al;
If equal Juftice' awful arm,
Tempered by Mercy's feraph charm,
Are ineffectual to affuage

Remorfelefs Faction's harpy rage?

But the fell Dæmons, urg'd by Hell's beheft,
Threaten, with frantic arm, the royal Patriot's breast!

II.

Yet not, Imperial George, at thee,

Was the rude bolt of Malice sped,

E'en fiends that Crown with rev'rence fee

Where Virtue confecrates th' anointed head

No-at thy bofom's fondest claim,

Thy Britain's peace, their fhafts they aim.

Pale Envy, while o'er half the world

War's bloody banners are unfurl'd,

Beheld our coafts from ravage free,

Protected by the guardian fea,

Where Commerce spreads her golden ftores,

Where fleets waft triumph to our fhores :

She faw, and fick'ning at the fight,

Wish'd the fair profpect of our hopes to blight;

Sought out the object of our dearest care,

Found where we moft could feel, and try'd to wound us there.

The

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