1826.) Letter on Affairs in general. - B99 
of ‘apples. The great ‘probability, that these’ young delinquents are 
‘coitimon, reputed pests to the whole neighbourhood in which they Jive 
“continually engaged in petty theft, with a hope that their youth will 
sereen them from punishment—is never adverted to. In ‘fact, othe 
veneral question of crimes and penalties is one upon which it will always 
‘be extremely difficult to content the world. So many circumstances'go 
‘to determine the punishment of offences—expecially those which are 
‘mala prohibita—which are satisfactory to one class, yet will not be so to 
another. The trader in London, who thinks it hard justice to send a 
boy to the tread-mill for stealing apples, or a poacher to Botany Bay for 
shooting hares, hangs a man outright, without mercy, for writing a name 
not his own upon a morsel of paper. He sees no incongruity in appor- 
tioning precisely the same measure of punishment to him who murders 
a whole family, and to him who breaks open a two-penny post letter. 
The atrocity of a crime is only one circumstance (as regards the eye of 
_the Jaw), which we look at in apportioning its punishment. We look 
quite as much—nay, even more—to the degree of facility with which it 
is committed ; to the difficulty that there may be of guarding against it ; 
and to the extent of general inconvenience which its commission is 
likely to produce. Our convictions for “ burglary,” in the agricultural 
districts, afford a curious illustration of this fact. In nine cases out of 
ten where a man is convicted of burglary in a farming country, the 
- property stolen is not worth ten shillings. From the last assize cal- 
dendars only, it would not be difficult to show sentence of death re- 
corded against a hundred offenders for burglary, five in six of them 
under twenty years of age, and the whole amount of property stolen 
not so high as twenty pounds. These criminals are always trans- 
ported; not for the magnitude of their theft, but because it is one which 
the sufferers cannot guard against:—they watch the labouring people 
when, they leaye their huts to go to work, and strip them of all they 
have during their absence. I do not know any thing of Mr. Chamber- 
Jayne ; but I doubt very much whether he sent four very young boys of 
good character, and the children of honest and industrious parents, to 
the tread-mill. If he did this, he did what was harsh and inhuman; 
but I think I see the case standing with more probability in another 
way: he found four very notorious urchins robbing his premises; if he 
_had caned them and let them go, he would have had an action from some 
attorney for assault and battery; if he had suffered them to escape 
altogether on that occasion, he would have had to watch for, and catch 
.them again three days after; and the only difference would have been 
then, that, instead of four, he. would probably have caught five, the 
impunity granted to the original offenders having by that time enticed 
one or two others to take the chance of similar good fortune. ; 
? ABER" to assault and battery, I am quite shocked to observe that 
oth ish, the lottery-oftice keeper, was. brought before the Lord Mayor 
the, other day,. charged with whipping a man who was drawing a truck 
_mpon London. bridge, because, he did not. make haste enough in getting 
out, of his way ! ; . | 
soda ben, bo», Tuqui summa potes, ne despice parva potenti! eae 
», Mr, Bish should have some mercy, if other people’s wheels do not go 
found quite so fast,as his have done. There is a difference as regards 
vthe, degree of labour employed (as well as in the usefulness of the 
Operation), between drawing a ngs one drawing a ticket, _ Bish will 
