able booty. In short, there is no device or artifice to which these vigilant plunderers do not resort: of which an example appeared in an instance, where almost in the twinkling of an eye, while the servant of an eminent silk-dyer had crossed a narrow street, his horse and cart, containing raw silk to the value of twelve hundred pounds, were driven clear off. Many of these atrocious villains, are also constantly in waiting at the inns, disguised in different ways, personating travellers, coach-office clerks, por ers and coachmen, for the purpose of plundering every thing that is portable; which, with the assistance of two or three associates if necessary, is carried to a coach called for the purpose, and immediately conveyed to the receiver.

The most adroit thieves in this line are generally convicts from the hulks, or returned transports, who under pretence of having some ostensible business (while they carry on the trade of thieving) generally open a chandler's shop, set up a greenstall, or get into a public-house: some of these old offenders are known also to keep livery stables for thieves, and horses for the use of highwaymen ; thereby forming a connected chain by which these criminal people extend and facilitate their trade; nourishing, accommodating, and supporting one another. Colquhoun.

The fields near London are never free from men strolling about in pilfering pursuits by day, and committing greater crimes by night. The depredations every Sunday are astonishingly great. There are not many gardens, within five miles of London, that escape being visited in a marauding way, very early on a Sunday morning; and the farmers fields are plundered all day long of fruit, roots, cabbages,

pulse,

pulse, and corn; even the ears of wheat are cut from the sheaves and carried away in the most daring manner, in open day, in various ways, but mostly in bags containing about half a bushel each. It has been moderately estimated, that 20,000 bushels, of all the various sorts, are thus carried off every Sunday morning, and 10,000 more during the other six days of the week; or one million and a half of bushels in a year, which, if valued at so small a sum of 6d. each, will amount to 37,500l.

The occupiers of many thousand acres round London, lose annually, in this manner, to the amount of much more than 20s. an acre.

A miller near London being questioned as to small parcels of wheat brought to his mill to be ground, by a suspected person, soon after several barns had been robbed, answered, that any explanation on that head would put his mills in danger of being burnt. Well may the farmers say, "Their property is not protected like that of other men."Middleton's View of the Agriculture of Middlesex.

The immense depredations committed on every species of commercial property in the river Thames, but particularly on West India produce, had long been felt as a grievance of the greatest magnitude; exceedingly hurtful to the commerce and revenue of the port of London, and deeply affecting the in. terest of the colonial planters, as well as every description of merchants and ship-owners concerned in the trade of the river Thames.

The West India planters alone have estimated their losses by depredations upon the river and in the warehouses at the enormous sum of 250,000l. a year. It cannot be unreasonable then to suppose, that the extent of the plunder on the other branches of commerce, which form nearly 5-6th parts of the

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whole

whole value of Imports and Exports, could not be less than 250,000l. more, making an aggregate upon the whole of half a million sterling! Colquhoun. See PLUNDERERS.

DEPREDATORS, MORALS OF.

When the object in view is to acquire money, the power of example, sanctioned by usage and custom, will reconcile men by degrees, to enormities and frauds which at first could not have been endured.-Acting under this influence, it too often happens, that a distinction is made, as regards moral rectitude, in the minds of many individuals, between the property of the Nation, and private property. While the most scrupulous attention to the rules of honour prevails in the latter case, principles, the most relaxed, are yielded to in the for

mer.

And thus it is, that in such situations, inferior agents also, induced by example, become insensibly reconciled to every species of fraud, embezzlement, and peculation.

It is no inconsiderable source of the evil, that large gratuities are given under the colour of fees, to those who can assist in promoting the views of the fraudulent, or in guarding them against detection. What was at first considered as the wages of turpitude, at length assumes the form, and is viewed in the light of a fair perquisite of office.

In this manner abuses multiply, and the ingenuity of man is ever fertile in finding some palliative.-Custom and example sanction the greatest enormities; which at length become fortified by immemorial and progressive usage: it is no wonder

there

therefore, that the superior officers find it an Herculean labour to cleanse the Augean stable.

DUCKING STOOL.

Colquhoun.

This was one of the lesser punishments formerly used, but now abolished.

DUELLING.

From the necessity of the esteem of others have arisen single combats, and they have been established by the anarchy of the laws. They are thought to have been unknown to the ancients, perhaps because they did not assemble in their temples, in their theatres, or with their friends, suspiciously armed wish swords; and, perhaps, because single combats were a common spectacle, exhibited to the people by gladiators, who were slaves, and whom freemen disdained to imitate.

In vain have the laws endeavoured to abolish this custom by punishing the offenders with death. A man of honour, deprived of the esteem of others, foresees that he must be reduced either to a solitary existence, insupportable to a social creature, or become the object of perpetual insult; considerations sufficient to overcome the fear of death.

What is the reasons that duels are not so frequent among the common people as amongst the great? Not only because they do not wear swords, but because to men of that class reputation is of less importance than it is to those of a higher rank, who commonly regard each other with distrust and jealousy.

It may not be without its use to repeat here what, has been mentioned by other writers; viz."

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that

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that the best method of preventing this crime, is to punish the aggressor, that is, the person who gave occasion to the duel; and to acquit him who, without any fault on his side, is obliged to defend that which is not sufficiently secured to him by the laws. Beccaria.

EGYPTIAN LAW FOR PARRACIDE.

The Egyptians punished the crime of parracide with the utmost severity :-they put the delinquents to death by the most cruel of all tortures-mangling the body and limbs, and afterwards laying it upon thorns to be burnt alive.

EXECUTIONS.

It is a notion entertained by many, that persons afflicted with the protuberances called wens, will infallibly receive a cure by having the hand of a hanging criminal passed over the affected part. This has been frequently done during executions.

In the year 1748, in the bishopric of Wurtsburg, an old woman was convicted of witchcraft, and burnt. This was an extraordinary phenomenon in the eighteenth century. But how incredible it seems, that a people who boasted of their reformation, and of having trampled superstition under their feet, and who flattered themselves that they had brought their reason to perfection, is it not wonderful, I say, that such a people should have believed in witchcraft, should have burnt old women accused of this crime, and that above a hundred years after the pretended reformation of their reason.

In the year 1562, a country-woman, named Michelle Chaudron, of the little territory of Geneva,

met