PRATT’S GLEANINCS IN ENGLAND. 
computists, that the inhabitants of England 
do not exceed six millions, of which twenty 
thousand is the three hundredth part. What . 
shall we say of the humanity or the wis- 
dom of a nation that voluntarily sacrifices 
ong in every unree hundred to lingering de- 
struction! , 
« The misfortunes of an individual do not 
extend their influence to many; yet if we 
consider the effects of consanguinity and 
friendship, and the general reciprocation of 
wants. and benefits, which make one man 
more dear.or necessary to another, it may 
reasonably be pita that every man lan- 
4o two others who. love or need him. By 
this multiplication of misery we see distress 
extended to the hundredth part of the whole 
society. 
« Tf we estimate at a shilling a day what is 
Jost by the inaction, and consumed in the 
support, of cach man thus chained down to 
enee idleness, the public loss will rise 
in one year to one hundred thousand pounds ; 
in ten years to more than a sixth part of our 
coin. 
“ Tam afraid that those who are best ac- 
quainted with the-state of our prisons will 
confess that my conjecture is too near the 
truth, when I suppose that the corrosion of 
“resentment, the heaviness of sorrow, the cor- 
ruption of confined air, the want of exercise, 
and sometimes of food, the contagion of dis- 
eakes, from which there is no retreat, and the 
severity of tyrants, against whom theré can 
be no resistance, and all the complicated hor- 
_ - Fors of a prison, put an end every year to the 
life of oneim four of those that are shut up 
from the common comforts of human life. 
«* Thus perish yearly five thousand men, 
overborne with sorrow, consumed by famine, 
or purified by filth; many of them in the 
most vigorous and useful part of life; for 
the thoughtless and improdent are commonly 
young, and the active and busy are seldom 
«« According to the rule generally received, 
which sup that one in thirty dies yearly, 
the race of man may be said to be renewed at 
the end of thirty years. Who would have 
believed till now, that of every English ge- 
neration, an hundred and fifty thousand pe- 
rish in our gaols? that in every century, a 
nation, eminent for science, studious of cosm- 
merce, ambitious df empire, should willingly 
' lose, in noisome dungeons, five thundered 
thousand of its inhabitants; a numer greater 
than has ever. been destroyed in the same 
time by the pestilence and sword !”. 
Without calling Mr, Pratt a moralist | 
or a malcontent, we wil] forgive him his 
671 
synonims for the humanity-of this pas- 
sage. 
In his advertisement the author ex- 
presses an earnest wish that the ten con- 
cluding sheets might be.first perused, as 
they are devoted tova heart-felt consi- 
deration of thelimportant circumstances 
of the country at the present moment. 
Gentle reader, what were we to expect. 
when thus requested to begin the book 
atrthe end on, account of: its immediate 
importance? We looked for a scheme 
guishing in prison gives trouble of some kind - - to pay off the national debt, or a method 
of securing our fleet against a submarine 
attack, or a plan of fortification for Lon- 
don, or directions how to march to Paris, 
or ing equally important and 
equally practicable. No, gentle reader, 
we have first, 4 picture of the gaicties of 
London taken from the newspapers, pa- 
ragraphe respecting routs, and balls, and 
grand dinners, and the fashionable ar- 
rangements of the week from the Morn- 
ing Post; and this iscalled agrand metro«. 
politan moving picture! It is indeed an 
important picture: the country must in- 
deed be miserably d in morals 
and intellect when the public papers are 
filled with such trash; when the “ fa- 
shionables,” as are called, can take 
a pride in having their follies and prodi- 
galities advertised, and when-they are 
not punished for the publication, with 
general contempt. Next comes a sketch 
ot the debates ogg the war, remarks 
upon the speed of the mail coaches, an 
account of the arrival of the definitive 
treaty, a list of publie charities, and an 
extract from Langhorne’s Hymn to Hu- 
manity.' In crash, after having perused 
these ten’ sheets we Loy conceive 
how the country is to be benefited by 
them at the present moment, unless they 
be served out to the volunteers as cat- 
tridge paper. 
€ have now finished the Gleanings; 
if Mr. Pratt will give us for the future pic- 
tures with less varnish, we shall be glad 
to take up his volumes. The present 
work has too many extracts, and too 
much prittle prattl; but Mr. Pratt has 
taken measure of the public taste, ard 
knows ‘how to fit it. That his works 
should last is a secondary considerzs 
Yon. 
