supported by the fact that, prior to the Crofton
administration, the Irish convict's character
was so hopelessly bad, that " a special
request was sent from Australia" begging that
no more of that article might be supplied to
the colony: the superintendent despondingly
remarking that " coercion appears to be the only
force they are capable of appreciating."

Another point that struck the Four Visiting
Justices was, a comparison of the prison bills
furnished to the respective countries. They
found that Mr. Sheppard, in England, cost
some thirty-three pounds yearly for his board
and lodging, and treatment generally; whereas
Mr. Sheppard, in Ireland, can be supported for
some seven pounds less. They discovered, too,
that no less than six prisons have been closed in
Ireland, from an absolute dearth of criminal
boarders to fill them with. That the number
of government convicts in Ireland actually
diminished during five years, in a very large
proportion; while in England they increased. Again,
the Irish prison bill has decreased fifty thousand
pounds a year, while the English has increased
by nearly eighty thousand pounds.

The Four Visiting Justices made also some
further discoveries. They found that, while for
a light offence a " short sentence" is a suitable
punishment, such punishment is wholly inadequate
for the case of hardened offenders who have
yet been guilty of only a light offence. A short
term in the case of "an habitual offender"
affords no opportunity for the treatment necessary
in so serious an instance. And yet under
the system the Four Visiting Justices left
behind them at home, there can be, beyond
exceptional cases, no difference between a first
offender and a hardened criminal both convicted
of the same offence! But in Ireland, had they
found opportunity to be present at the assizes,
they would have heard the judge use some
such language as this—curiously varying the
accustomed formula of passing sentence:
"Patrick Callaghan, you have been found guilty
of a larceny, &c. It also appears from the
books that you have been convicted no less than
five times on former occasions. In such a case
as yours a light sentence would be perfectly
idle, therefore," &c. This is now the common
practice, and in Dublin Castle a monster
criminal record is kept, with which the case of
every newly arrested prisoner is compared. His
life and criminal adventures are here carefully
registered, indexed, and are accessible at a
moment's notice.

The Four Visiting Justices also bethought
them of the popular objection to that police
surveillance over what are called ticket-of-leave
men. It was so " un-English," so " degrading,"
so subversive of manly self-relying independence.
Anything like foreign espionage was to be
deprecated. But somehow it occurred to the Four
Visiting Justices, and occurred with much
force, that " these sensitive British natures,
whose susceptibilities were wounded by observance,
were virtually prisoners under sentence—
not, indeed, in cells or confined in prison-yards—
and who, if they were not allowed this special
grace, would be under degrading and 'unmanly'
restraint."

HEREDITARY HEADSMEN.

FROM 1685 to 1847—that is, during a period
of one hundred and sixty-two years—the office
of executioner in France has passed through
seven generations of one family, who have
adopted as their heraldic device a cracked bell
between three red stars on a silver shield, having
two greyhounds as supporters, with the motto,
"SANS SON," "Without Sound"—a rebus on
their common surname, soon to become extinct.
Their present representative, Monsieur H. Sanson,
"Ancien Exécuteur des Hautes Œuvres de
la Cour de Paris" (Late Executor of the High
Works of the Court of Paris), has employed his
leisure in putting in order, drawing up, and
publishing, memoirs of himself and his ancestors.

The first volume has lately appeared. In
two days the edition was gone, which will
surprise no one who remembers that it was a
Sanson (our author's grandfather) who had to
do all the deadly work commanded by the first
French Revolution. His great-grandfather's
destiny had been perhaps even more terrible.
Charles Jean Baptiste Sanson, born in Paris on
the 19th of April, 1719, succeeded his father on
the 2nd of October, 1726; and as it was
impossible for a boy only seven years of age
personally to fulfil the office which fell to his
lot, the parliament allowed him to employ, as
a substitute, a torturer named Prudhomme;
exacting, however, that the ill-starred child
should be present at all executions—which
included, at that time, abominable cruelties—in
order to sanction them legally by his presence.
It is remarkable to find a case of minority and
regency amongst the potentates of the scaffold.

The Sansons, though isolated from general
society by their peculiar position, have long
enjoyed the reputation of being humane, well-
educated, and even polished persons. To crown
all, the ex-executioner is an advocate for the
abolition of the punishment of death. He did
not at all like the task of killing people. The
receipt of a big official letter, with the familiar
big official seal, containing, as he knew, some
terrible order which his duty compelled him to
obey, made him shudder with grief and terror,
and tremble while he read the message. It
may be an idea new to many people that an
executioner is a person greatly to be pitied.

One day, a big letter came as usual. M.
Sanson took for granted that it was a judicial
order to inflict the final penalty. He slowly
mounted the flight of steps in front of his hotel,
and entered his cabinet to break open the
envelope and ascertain the appointed time and
place. He found, instead, his "Révocation:"
an order releasing him from his functions as
executioner. A strange and indefinable feeling
came over him. He raised his eyes to the
portraits of his ancestors; he gazed successively,
he says, at their sombre meditative countenances,