402 Notes for the Month. [OcT. 



large; inasmuch as the greater part of them would probably come 

 forward at the time of trial ; and if any failed, it would be a slighter evil 

 to incur the trouble of apprehending such again, than it is at present to 

 retain numbers of persons needlessly and unjustifiably in confinement. 

 We should have no objection to the enforcement of such a prison regula- 

 tion as should ensure the separation of all offenders committed for civil 

 misdemeanours, from those in custody for larceny or felony ; but we 

 certainly cannot agree with the Globe that the practice of holding to 

 bail, or committing in default of bail, for such offences, should be aban- 

 doned. We think that the practice does a great deal of good; and modi- 

 fied as it is by the magistrates to circumstances, very little, if any, mischief. 

 The chief parties concerned in the question are the poorer classes ; and 

 the bail which is demanded in their cases is very low. The sureties (unless 

 in atrocious cases, where u notice" is directed to be given,) are never very 

 closely examined; the amount seldom exceeds 20.; and, in trifling or 

 vexatious charges, the magistrate takes the recognizance of the party accused, 

 which costs him half-a-crown or three-and-sixpence. Now, decidedly, it 

 seems to us that a vast deal of mischief is prevented by this simple process. 

 If six Jews happen to quarrel (which does happen about five times a 

 week), because they live in one house, or in one court, in Petticoat-lane, 

 if it were not for the power of the magistrate to confine the original offender, 

 or demand sureties from him, such a contest might continue, either until one 

 half of the disputants were killed, or the first day of the Quarter Sessions 

 came there would be no natural or official termination to it. The impri- 

 sonment, or holding to sureties, of a man who has been guilty of 

 rioting, or of assaulting his neighbours, abates the nuisance : it either 

 puts the offender under restraint, or removes him from the scene of 

 action. If such a man be liberated without conditions, he returns to 

 the place, and to the parties, in which or against whom his offence has 

 been committed ; and in a temper which almost certainly leads to its 

 repetition. Sheen, the murderer, was no sooner discharged from custody, 

 in consequence of the error in his indictment, than he conducted himself 

 in such a manner in the house where he resided, that a proceeding, the 

 effect of which was (almost illegally) to deprive him of his liberty, was 

 found necessary, and resorted to. 



In fact, the abandonment of this custom would render the appeal to a 

 Police Office which now terminates a dispute effectively of no force or 

 value whatever. Jt may occasionally happen that a man, after suffering 

 imprisonment for three weeks or a month, is acquitted of the offence 

 charged against him; but this is a casualty to which the law not as 

 regards misdemeanours only, but transportable or capital crimes also is 

 subject; men are very often acquitted on charges of felony, after having 

 been several months in prison : but no one believes, therefore, that it 

 would be right to allow murderers and burglars to go at large, upon their 

 parole, from the time of their apprehension to the day of trial! The 

 necessity under which the proteges of the Globe labour, of being sent 

 to prison, or of finding bail for a misdemeanor, that journal seems to 

 forget is a part of the punishment imposed for their offence ! just as 

 completely in practice, and universal understanding, a part of their 

 punishment, though not yet sanctioned by the sentence of any court, as 

 the being locked up all night in the watch-house (although discharged, 

 perhaps, with merely a reprimand by the magistrates, next morning), is a 

 known and understood part of the penalty of a man's being found intoxi- 



