is one word which should put the continent upon its guard; -and that word is Poland! What new aggrandisement is 'desired? what new partition is meditated?

Yet we hope much from the mediation of England assisting the natural buoyancy, and unconquerable energies of freedom. We would not threaten either Alexander, or Francis, or Frederic with

"the strange fate

Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns:"

>

but we imagine that they may soon find sufficient employment for their standing armies at home, without attempting or projecting the dismemberment of foreign states.

"We turn to our colonial dominions, but nothing particularly remarkable presents itself to our notice, as having occurred during the year. A change is about to take place in the chief government of India: and there have been some occasional disturbances in the Ionian islands. But in a rapid sketch like the present, to enlarge upon such transactions is an obvious impracticability.

The internal condition of England has been much chequered with good and evil fortune. There exist many sources, both of regret and consolation. Among the agricultural portions of the community distress and bankruptcy prevail, and have prevailed-nor have the causes of these disasters been ever fully and satisfactorily explained. At the same time, they have been endured, we are proud to say, with admirable and ́exemplary patience. They have given rise to no tumults, except in a single instance, where the commotion subsided almost as soon as it arose-to no popular effervescence—to no furious indignation against the government. Mr. Hunt has been released from his incarceration; and made what was meant to be a triumphant entry into London; but the real triumph was to the friends of peace, order, and reason. We mention the circumstance, not from its own importance-for what earthly importance can it claim?-but as marking the spirit of the times. The rabies of radicalism is no more; ́although perhaps the general impression has been strengthened in favour of a moderate reform. Nor has it escaped us, that there is a latent feeling, neither inoperative, nor confined

to a few persons, against many institutions of the state, and the whole system of the established church.

Among the particular events, which have most struck and agitated the public mind, is the death, occasioned by his own hand, of the late Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Marquis of Londonderry.-Unhappy Castlereagh !—we could gladly stop to pay a tribute to his virtues, while we marked the faults of his administration, and deplored his lamentable end. He is dead: and it is now the fashion to abuse his memory. We never admired his foreign policy: but he possessed some noble and sterling qualities, which might adorn at once the statesman and the gentleman.

Scotland has been made happy with a visit from the king. For the rest, the Scotch people are too wise, too tranquil, and too comfortable, to afford many materials for contemporary history.

But Ireland-that most unfortunate of countries-must it then always be a contrast to the picture of quiet happiness? always the theatre of discord and calamity? We sicken at the contemplation of its actual state. With pleasure would we avoid the task, which must soon force itself upon us. In the course of the past year outrage has produced famine :and famine has led back to outrage. Ireland has been compelled to sue, "in formá pauperis," to the sister kingdom: and is, at this very moment torn by contending factions, of which the madness is equally violent, and equally deplorable -filled with dissensions, which disgrace even more than they afflict her. Yet the present Lord Lieutenant appears to have begun well. We hope he will not relax: we are sure he is not to be frightened.

*

On the whole, a retrospect of the year 1822 conveys, amidst its momentous vicissitudes, warnings and moral lessons, which must not be disregarded. Without indulging, too, in prognostications either bright or dark, we yet find something cheering and consolatory in the posture and prospect of affairs. America is proceeding with enormous strides in the career of enterprise and improvement. Asia and Africa can hardly retrograde; and may possibly advance. But for Europe the conjuncture is most critical. It is far more critical than when a battle, however decisive, has been lost or

won. The universal ferment of men's minds will not subside, and leave Europe as it is. The present state of things must lead to vast and important changes. It may lead to convulsion or to despotism-or to a larger portion of practical and regulated freedom, than the world ever has enjoyed. Much depends upon England. She may direct the tide of events, Her weight will turn the balance. Of human instruments, of secondary causes, England may have the greatest share in conferring happiness on man. In this place we shall not say a word of the merits or demerits of Mr. Canning; or the probable strength or weakness of the existing ministry: we would only express a hope that its measures may contribute to the prevention of bloodshed, to the repose of Europe, to the prosperity and honour of the British empire.

THE TREAD-MILL.

BEFORE, in this article, speaking of the tread-mill, upon general principles, we consider it due to ourselves, to point out to our readers how completely we have been supported by the occurrences of the last two or three weeks, in all we said on the monstrous injustice and fearful impolicy of making it an engine of punishment in the case of persons captured in the gambling-houses of the metropolis. It will be recollected, that sixteen individuals were, a short time ago, brought up from one of these places of resort, and convicted as rogues and VAGABONDS, upon the oaths of the officers, that they must have been gambling, inasmuch as the implements of gambling were at hand, and a terrible bustle was audible, as they approached the innermost shrine of the VAGABONDS devotion. Upon these depositions, which were summed up with peculiar effect by that meritorious staff officer Ruthven, who, from having seen play in France, was enabled to enlighten the worshipful magistrates as to the mysteries of roulette, and the chances of rouge et noir:-and who that saw his dexterity, or admired his address, when turning to T. Halls, Esq. in an impassioned tone of voice he exclaimed4 Oprios de σoi Neryw❞— Your worship!-who indeed could

hesitate to declare that these VAGABONDS were, as the act expresses it, found playing at unlawful games of chance." No one; nor did T. Halls, Esq. He, just man! condemned the VAGABONDS, forthwith, to imprisonment and the treadmill. How mischievous are the effects of eloquence sometimes! How completely it put out the head of the worthy magistrate that some of the servants of a "hell" never can be found playing, because it is their business, as the deponents might have testified, to be ever found watching! How entirely it caused him to overlook the fact that persons might be present from curiosity, as one of the gentlemen of the long-robe declared he had been, on occasion, very properly informing us, that his curiosity had cost him nothing, the last eighteen years!-How absurdly-" unkindest cut of all!"it prompted him to insinuate that there were sundry "pickers and stealers” among the VAGABONDS; because, as some of them were conscious of empty pockets on entering pandæmonium, and were nevertheless announced to the world and the keeper of the house of correction, as "found playing," to reconcile the statement with the fact, they must have borrowed of their neighbours or " the bank."-How totally must it have shut his eyes to the probable consequences of an appeal, and darkened the vista of quashed convictions!

To return to our own justification, it must be premised, that the sixteen VAGABONDS appealed to the Quarter-sessions against the conviction, and the conviction was without hesitation QUASHED; not merely for its finding some of the sixteen guilty of that, of which they were not guilty, but because, as the chairman, Mr. Const, very wisely declared, "There were other and properer means of punishing such offenders, than that attempted to be adopted in this case." We beg two or three of our correspondents, who have misinterpreted our remarks on this subject in our 5th and 6th numbers, to examine well this opinion of Mr. Const and his brother magistrates. The operation may be somewhat facilitated by casting their eyes over a new caricature of THE MAGISTRATES' MILL, at which some of the first personages in the country, with the sovereign himself, are represented as working. We would say, put the real authors of the caricature in solitary confinement, were we not afraid that T. Halls,

Esq. and another magisterial character, by name George Rowland Minshull, would be understood by the public as the persons whom we should propose thus to chastise. Now, when our correspondents have taken due time for consideration, they must discover, or we strangely miscalculate their common sense, that what Mr. Const said, in the name of the magistrates, on the impropriety of dealing with this given vice in that given way, is NEITHER MORE NOR LESS than what we had already and repeatedly said. Really, some people argue, as if there were no degrees of punishment, and that severity could not be too severe, nor inequality of application the curse of a law.

We sorrow, when we assert it, that the spirit of gambling seems to be inherent in human nature. Gambling is nearly as old as society :-any community, then, that agrees to attempt the eradication of any branch of this vice, must not tolerate some other branch of it, equally pernicious. Burglary must not be committed to get at the players of rouge et noir, while parliament votes for lottery after lottery. The very word lottery signifies a game of chance, a gambling speculation! But supposing the lottery were suppressed, according to the wishes of all thinking people, still since gambling is an epidemy, the measures to be adopted towards removing it, or narrowing the sphere of its contagion, must be very judiciously selected, to the end that they may restrain some, and yet have no tendency to exasperate every body. Had the late attacks upon the gamblinghouses been made in the height of "the season," among "the captured" would have been men of title, and men of the first consideration for family or property.-Would the magistrates have DARED to have sentenced any such characters to the tread-mill?—It is laughable to make it a question.We use the term dared deliberately, and will show how it is the only term fit for the occasion.-Let it not be supposed that we are advocating one punishment for the great, and another for the little " participes criminis," in using the expression "dared."-No, we put it thus to show, that inasmuch as they would not have DARED to sentence men of consequence to the tread-mill, it is monstrous injustice that they should have DARED to sentence any persons to a punishment to which, the whole frame and feelings of society would