1827.] Notes for the Month. 519 



would be better worth the people's having, they would he more anxious and 

 active to preserve them ; and, in this way, the first part of the duty of our 

 watch would be executed pretty efficiently. 



But the second part of the work that is the watching the guarding 

 premises, by observation and vigilance, from being entered by thieves 

 this, looking to the facilities and ingenuity with which such entries are 

 now performed is a more nice and expensive matter. In most of our 

 streets, the arrangement of the open area, provides a trench regularly built 

 and furnished for the thief: he descends into it in a moment; and it covers 

 his after operations, which he stops during the momentary passage to and 

 fro of the watchman. In other places, where doors are left upon lock and 

 key, the " skeleton key" opens a door in less than half a minute. It sel- 

 dom happens, we take it, that a burglary is committed (in town), where 

 the first entry into the house is a work of more than five minutes ; and 

 this (with a spy out to observe) is managed perfectly well, while a watch- 

 man goes from one part of his beat to the other. 



The only arrangement which could afford anything like full security 

 against this last danger, would be the employment of a large additional 

 number of watchmen ; and, even then, the arrangement of every division, 

 must be so set out, that the watchman to whom it belonged should be 

 able, from any position, to see from one end to the other of it. A watch- 

 man, who has to turn two or three corners, cannot possibly be responsible 

 for the security of any of the houses entrusted to him. Such a change as 

 that which we suggest would be a measure of expense ; and it may perhaps 

 be a question, whether the added protection is worth so much expense. 

 But even under any circumstances the thief and the watchman watch 

 one another. The first watches for a booty of a hundred pounds, and the 

 last for a hire of eighteen-pence or two shillings. It will happen some- 

 times, with the best organized system in the world, that the thief will 

 prove the more vigilant of the two. 



Pedestrianism Extraordinary. The Chronicle of this morning contains 

 a calculation, worked upon unerring arithmetical principles, of the extent 

 of ground walked over daily by the prisoners in all the tread-mills of 

 England. The following is an exact copy of this valuable piece of 

 statistics : " At Lewes, each prisoner walks 6,500 feet in ascent in a day ; 

 at Ipswich, 7,450 ; at St. Alban's, 8,000 ; at Bury, 8,950 ; at Cambridge, 

 10,750 ; at Durham, 12,000; at Brixton, Guilford, and Reading, 13,000 ; 

 and at Warwick (recollecting, probably, that ' the thief of all thieves/ 

 according to the song, 'was a Warwickshire thief), the penalty is to go 

 farther than any where else : the summer rate (at Warwick) will be 

 17,000 feet in ten hours." Now, 17,000 feet in ten hours, and all up 

 hill ! might it not answer we .put it to any gentleman of the turf this 

 sort of exercise, as " training" for prize-fighters ? Because, some of the 

 sporting characters would find it a great convenience if it would; as they 

 might be discharging an occasional debt to society, and be labouring in 

 their own vocation at the same time. 



The law of Libel continues, as usual, to form a fruitful source of dis- 

 cussion, equally to the lawyers and essayists of the day. Every fresh 

 verdict commonly gives the newspaper writers something to complain 

 about ; and every fresh charge from the Judge contains a covert reply 

 to previous complaints as far as the dignity of the Bench will allow of its 

 making one. But the oddest verdict as taken together with the direction 

 that we have met with lately, is the verdict in a cause of Haywood, v. 

 Green ; in which the jury found, with Fifty pounds damages, for the 



