were utterly unable not only to write, but to read. To this accomplished judge it seemed as difficult for educated
men to appreciate all that those words exacted of consideration and pity for men so circumstanced, as to
ascertain the precise value of the instincts by which the lower orders of brute creation were impelled; and
he drew from it the conclusion, that "some larger and more extended scheme must be adopted for the
education of the people," not simply for the higher motives that concern us in relation to another life, but
for self-defence against classes whom our neglect makes dangerous in this. In the same journal which
contains that charge we find the report of an Assize sermon also at Stafford couched in a tone not less
earnest and thoughtful. Inspired by the courage and gentleness of the Gospel he represented, this true
minister sketched the career of a youth brought up in ignorance, quite uncared-for by laws or institutions
till he began to violate them, and at last hunted to the felon's dock before the judges then listening to Christ's
word. "My lords," he continued, "I do not ask your mercy for that man's guilt—it is not yours to bestow;
but I claim your pity for his misfortune. I entreat your tender recollection of imperfect laws, which, in
abandoning so much ignorance and mischief to its fate, are in part accessory before the fact in the guilt they
indirectly generate."

Unhappily, the mercy which crime too often meets is not of this Christian character. It is a mercy
hardly less vicious than the guilt it spares, as the Assizes on which we are commenting offer also remarkable
proof. A woman who was tried for the murder of her two children, three years ago, and acquitted in
the teeth of the clearest evidence of guilt, has now been convicted on evidence not more clear, not only of
the murder of her husband, but of having used the interval of life which an English jury had given her, in
pursuing successfully the assassin's trade. There cannot be a doubt that upon the authors of the impunity
(from whatever motive) given to her first crime, there rests some part of the awful responsibility of the load of
guilt afterwards laid upon this woman's soul; yet hardly had such misplaced mercy received that terrible
illustration, when another woman was acquitted against evidence hardly less clear, and sent forth into society
with like encouragement to sink deeper and deeper into crime. Connected with these cases, the hope
may be expressed that some check to the sales of poison shall have been provided by Lord Carlisle's timely
legislation on the subject.

Another clear and admirable act of proposed protection to the community, well worthy of special
commemoration in these days of much senatorial talk and small legislatorial work, is the bill introduced
by Mr. Barnes (and already read a second time) to remedy the defective state of the law in regard to parish
apprentices, and prevent the possible future scandal of comparative encouragement to such atrocious guilt
as that of the Birds and the Sloanes. As the law now stands, incredible as it may seem, it is not a legal
crime to starve an apprentice or servant unless the latter be a child of tender years; and even this enormous
gratification (to the lusts of cruelty) of starving a child, is purchasable at the trifling charge of a brief
imprisonment or fine, without the addition of hard labour. In such prosecutions, moreover, no costs are
allowed; and, in the case of guardians of workhouses, not a single restraint exists to their abandonment of
parish children to any kind of misery or deprivation, when once they have signed the indenture
committing them to service. A simple but effective remedy for all this is provided by Mr. Baines. The period
of "infancy" is extended, in the case of parish apprentices, to eighteen years of age; the liability of the
master to supply needful sustenance until that age, is to be enforced by the penalties of the criminal
law; any master or mistress who shall inflict upon a parish apprentice injuries calculated to affect life or
"health," will henceforth be obnoxious to a lengthened term of imprisonment with hard labour; and not
only will the court before which the indictment for injuring a parish apprentice may be tried have the
power of allowing the costs of the prosecution if it shall see fit, but an excellent clause is inserted enabling
any magistrate to certify for a prosecution, which is thereupon immediately to be instituted by the guardians
or overseers of the union in which the offence shall have been committed. Nor is this all; for, by another
provision of the bill, proper persons are to visit every parish apprentice at least four times a year, under the
authority of the various union guardians. Thus a remedy has been found at last (and how easy are such
remedies, when sensible and honourable men desire to apply them!) for a scandal by which our English
reputation for humanity has suffered more in the eyes of foreigners during the last ten years, than perhaps
by any other. Thanks to the prompt interference of Mr. Baines, the most helpless and destitute of all the
various creatures to whom society owes care and support, the pauper child, the parish orphan, the
workhouse apprentice, are no longer left to be starved or trampled to death without inquiry or redress.

Scotland and Ireland present a contrast in respect of the Ecclesiastical Titles' discussion sufficiently
marked to claim from us a word in conclusion. Cries are heard from the former country of such singular
feebleness that it is difficult to suppose them human, till they are discovered to proceed from that smallest
and most insignificant of "cruel small" things, the Episcopate of the Scottish Church. On the other hand,
from Ireland, the roar and clamour is so incessant that nothing else is audible. Even primate Cullen's
Lenten injunctions to his faithful lieges "to say each day, at least, one Hail Mary, or any other prayer, for
the conversion of England," appear to pass unheeded. The boys are too busy burning Lord John and the
heretics, to trouble themselves with saying prayers for them. So the worthy Romish primate is fain to
comfort himself with the monies which he describes to be pouring in from all quarters for the new Roman
Catholic University, where all sorts of praying will be sure to flourish, to the confusion if not to the
conversion of unbelievers who do not belong to "the true Church, outside of which" (we are quoting Doctor
Cullen) "there is no salvation." And having thus, in his pastoral, consigned the whole Protestant and
dissenting communities to the flames, the holy man refreshes himself with the prospect of a similar fate for
the literature that has encouraged them in their evil courses. No longer is the world to be satisfied with
books as they have heretofore been written. An Index Expurgatorius, of unprecedented range, is to be set
up by the new University. "Works must be furnished, written not on latitudinarian but on Catholic
principles, and breathing a Catholic spirit." To which end the candid and philosophic Cullen, already famous
for having denounced the astronomy of Galileo and Copernicus as an insult to the wisdom of Moses and
the son of Sirach, exultingly recounts the subscription of sixteen hundred pounds.by Dublin alone, in
proof that the good work is certain of accomplishment, and that "we have within ourselves, here at
home, and in the persons of our brethren, who are scattered not only through the sister kingdoms and the
British colonies, but the continent of America, ample resources, zeal, learning, talent, and: the pecuniary
means for the foundation of a University." To all which we have only to repeat, what we said on a former