1823. } 
might have been unnecessary.” ‘The 
exchange is one infinitely beneficial to the 
community, by putting a stop to those 
horrid scenes of bloodshed and confusion, 
which the indulgence of private revenge 
for injuries unavoidably produces.” We 
are sorry that our narrow limits prevent 
us from giving even an outline of this va- 
luable work. Asa specimen of the anthor’s 
manner of reasoning, we will give an ex- 
tract on a much controverted subject. 
“ Among the things justly requiring the 
infliction of Jegal punishment, must not 
be included offences committed only to- 
wards the Deity; or any such bréach of 
the duties of morality or religion, as con- 
cerns ouly the offender himself, and .does 
not immediately injure other members of 
society. Human laws are not intended to 
enforce a general observance of moral and 
religions duties, or coucerned to inflict 
punishment in any other cases than where 
the protection of society requires it. 
hey are not to inflict punishment for the 
purpose of advaneing the authority, or 
of exalting the dignity, of the Supreme 
Being.’”—* The yight of inflicting punish- 
ment is confined to what may be neces- 
sary for our own safety, and must not be 
supposed to extend to what does not 
concern ourselves.”—*‘ How far the mere 
example of immorality, or irreligion, can 
be a proper ground of punishment, is a 
question that requires to be more parti- 
cularly examined. Certainly it has often 
been held so. There seems, however, to 
be an obvious inconsistency in saying, 
that though a breach of moral or religious 
duty shall not be punishable merely for 
being offensive to the Deity, yet that: it 
shall be punishable for its possible or pro- 
bable tendency to produce what may be 
offensive to the Deity.”—‘‘If the first of- 
fence be not one that the safety of society 
requires to be suppressed, why should it 
become so, by its possible tendency to 
produce one which the safety of society 
would not require to be suppressed ? 
Take the example of profane swearing, 
an offence towards the Deity.— We 
punish a murder, because the safety of 
socicty requires that another murder 
should not happen; but the safety of so. 
ciety does not require that another person 
should not swear, for the second act of 
swearing would do no more injury, to 
society than the first had done.” What- 
ever may be thought of this conclusion, it 
will be obvious from these extracts, that 
the writer is no ordinary reasoner; and, 
on that account, we would bestow upon 
the work our highest recommendation, 
Dy. Joun Mason Goow’s Letter to Sir 
John Cox Hippisley, bart. on the Mischiefs 
incidental to the Treud Wheel, as an Instru- 
ment. of Pris Discipline, is another 
pamphlet well worthy of consideration. 
With regard to the advantages to be de- 
MonTHLy Maa. No, 387. 
Literary and Critical Proémium. 
265 
tived from this recently-invented instru- 
ment of punishment, there are different 
Opinions, but that of its predominaut 
evils appears to be gaining ground, Dr. 
Good is not one of those modern philo- 
sophers who would abolish all punishment, 
and believe that, by the powers of rea- 
soning, they could coua a criminal into 
virtue. His objection to the tread-wheel 
is, that instead of inuring the prisoner to 
labour, it tears his frame to pieces and 
undermines his constitution; that it pro- 
duces ruptures and various other diseases ; 
and, with regard to females, is most in- 
decent, tormenting, and destructive. It 
has been asked, by Mr. Dent, of York- 
shire, ‘‘ where is the labourer whose daily 
task does not exceed a walk of two miles, 
even admitting it to be up-hill? Yet this 
is as great a length of distance as can be 
performed by the revolution of the tread- 
wheel in sia hours, the average of each 
man’s labour at it per day.” ‘To this Dr. 
Good has a triumphant answer, founded 
on experiments made at Lancaster castle ; 
“by putting this slow aud snail-paced 
labour to the test of a pair of scales, which 
have been employed as a direct sarco- 
meter, to determine the amount of strug- 
gle between the living powers of human 
flesh and blood, and the destroying powers 
of the tread-wheel. While the pace is 
only a mile and a half, or a little more, for 
the day, it appears that the strain on the 
muscles has not hitherto been found so 
mischievous as to make any inroad on the 
living principle ; but the moment the mea- 
sure of labour is pushed on to two miles a 
day, the whole system shrinks before it, 
and the prisoners waste away, at the rate 
of from a pound to nearly a poundand 
a half every three weeks!” “* Now,” says 
the Doctor, ‘‘ what other labour under the 
sun, short of that of actual torture, to 
which men have ever been condemned, or 
in which they ever can engage, in the 
open air, has produced, or can be con- 
ceived to produce, such a loss of flesh and 
blood as that before us ; where the rate of 
progression, whether up hill, @own hill, or 
on level ground, does not exceed two 
miles for the entire day; and the labourer 
has to carry no bag of tools, or weight of 
any kind, but the weight of his own 
bodye” ‘this reasoning is infallible; and 
“while the rival instrument of the hand 
crank mii! is capable of effecting, as it ap- 
pears to be, all that the ¢read-mill can or 
ought to achieve, without the ill conse- 
quences it menaces, it should seem to fol- 
low, that the moral and benevolent heart 
must give its unreserved suffrage to the 
Jatter.” 
A Mr. Prarvenr has published an 
Eton edition of the Eton Grammar, illus- 
trated by some pertinent notes; but, in 
affecting to combine with his book the 
interrogative system, he has betrayed his 
2M inexperience 
