gree of accuracy; and, after several views of the subject, a conclusion is drawn, that the net expense to the public, for the maintenance of 1402 convicts in 1797, after deducting the estimated value of labour, amounted to 20,8781. 14s. 10d. being at the rate of 141. 175. 9d. per man.

It appears, however, that out of the whole number of 1402 maintained in 1797, only 1030 were actually employed. The labour or the remaining 370 was therefore in a great measure lost to the community.

At any rate, the value of this species of labour must be precarious, and the advantages resulting from it problematical. Colquhoun.

In addition to the enormous evil arising from the periodical discharge of so many criminals by proclamations, acquittals, and pardons, the hulks also send forth, at stated times, a certain number of convicts; who, having no asylum, no home, no character, and no means of subsistence, seem to have only the alternative of starving or joining their companions in iniquity; thus adding strength to the body of criminals, by the accession of men who, polluted and depraved by every human vice, rendered familiar to their minds in those seminaries of profligacy and wickedness from whence they have come, employ themselves constantly in planning and executing acts of violence and depredation upon the public; and some of them, rendered desperate from an additional degree of depravity, feel no compunction in adding the crimes of murder to that of robbery, as has been too clearly manifested by many late instances.

Ibid.

IDLE AND DISORDERLY PERSONS

Described by the act of the 17th Geo. II. cap. 5. and subsequent acts; punishable with one month's imprisonment; namely,

1. Persons threatening to run away, and leave their wives and children on the parish.

2. Persons who tipple in ale-houses, and neglect their families, &c. as described in the 3d Geo. III. cap. 45.

3. Persons who shail unlawfully return to the parish or place from which they have been legally removed, without bringing a certificate.

4. Persons who, not having wherewithal to maintain themselves, live idly, without employment, and refuse to work for the usual wages.

5. Persons begging in the streets, highways, &c. Colquhoun.

IMPOSTORS.

These are men who assume false characters, titles, &c. for the purpose of taking in the unwary. See HAWKINS, vol. i.

In September, 1801, the parish of St. Martin was thrown into the greatest consternation by the discovery of a gross impostor, who acted as clergyman of the parish, and deputy of the curate during his indisposition, though he had never been in orders or connected with the holy profession. He had married a great many couples, whose marriages were consequently void.

This impostor actually officiated a month for the curate of St. Martin's church. He was the son of an eminent currier in Crooked-Lane. He had ingenuity enough to introduce himself to Mr. Fell, the

curate,

curate, as a countryman of his (Yorkshire), saying, he was nephew to Lord Eldon, and had been in orders near twelve months, having been ordained by the Bishop of Peterborough. Mr. Fell, struck with the rank of his visitor, paid him every mark of respect, expressed how much he felt honoured by the preference shewn to him, and accepted the proffered assistance the more readily, being at the time in ill health. Every thing was settled, and the pretended nephew of Lord Eldon entered into his clerical duty the next day, by performing the marriage ceremony over nineteen couple, administering the sacrament to four persons, christening several, and burying twelve. In a conversation the next day with his clerk, he said, that he was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, where he had taken his degree of Bachelor of Arts about a month before. On the Saturday following, he went to a mercer's shop in Holywell-Street, in the Strand, and ordered a set of canonicals, to be made by four o'clock in the afternoon; in the interim, he borrowed a set, told the shopkeeper his name was Smith, and that he was chaplain to Lord Eldon.

The mercer took the trouble to call at Lord Eldon's, to make the enquiry; when the steward informed him no person of the name of Smith was engaged by his lordship in that capacity. In consequence of this information, the mercer called, on his way back, on the deputy curate of St. Martin's, and saw Mr. Smith in the vestry; when he told him he had an opportunity of disposing of the set of ca nonicals he had lent him in the morning; but, to prevent Mr. Smith's being put to any inconvenience, he should have the set he had ordered by three o'clock precisely. By this finesse, the mercer got back his goods.

IMPRISONMENT.

This new species of depredation might have continued a short time longer, had not the forged draft exposed the character of the party, and occasioned an enquiry; from which it was discovered, that the hero in question was educated at Peckham school, and had been employed as a rider to a wholesale house in the city.

The

During the time this impostor officiated as a priest, he was very attentive to duty, read prayers morning and afternoon; with administering the sacrament, attending christenings and burials, marriages, &c. his time was wholly taken up. clerk was known to say, he was a little aukward at first, but respect for the dignity of his new master prevented comment, and rendered him extremely willing to give every assistance in his power.

The above impostor was only twenty-three years of age, middle stature, in person thin, and, when he stood at the bar at Bow-Street, stared around him with an unmeaning eye, apparently quite indifferent as to his situation. Editor.

IMPRISONMENT.

When a criminal is condemned to severe imprisonment in Germany, he has no bed but the floor, no nourishment but bread and water; and all communications with relations or even strangers is refused him. When condemned to milder imprisonment, better nourishment is allowed; but he has nothing to drink but water.

Imprisonment is a punishment which differs from all others in this particular, that it necessarily precedes conviction; but this difference does not destroy a circumstance which is essential and common to it with all other punishments, viz, that it should

P

never

never be inflicted but when ordained by the law. The law should therefore determite the crime, the presumption, and the evidence, sufficient to subject the accused to imprisonment and examination. Public report, his flight, his extrajudicial confession, that of an accomplice, menaces, and his constant enmity with the person injured, the circumstances of the crime, and such other evidence, may be sufficient to justify the imprisonment of a citizen. But the nature of this evidence should be determined by the laws, and not by the magistrates, whose decrees are always contrary to political liberty when they are not particular applications of a general maxim of the public code. When punishments become less severe and prisons less horrible, when compas sion and humanity shall penetrate the iron gates of dungeons, and direct the obdurate and inexorable ministers of justice, the laws may then be satisfied with weaker evidence for imprisonment.

A person accused, imprisoned, tried, and acquitted, ought not to be branded with any degree of infamy. Among the Romans, we see that many accused of very great crimes, and afterwards declared innocent, were respected by the people, and honoured with employments in the state. But why is the fate of an innocent person so different in this age?-it is because the present system of penal laws presents to our minds an idea of power rather than of justice: it is because the accused and convicted are thrown indiscriminately into the same prison; because imprisonment is rather a punishment than a means of securing the person of the accused; and because the interior power, which defends the laws, and the exterior, which defends the throne and kingdom, are separate, when they should be united. Beccaria.

See