perfluous wealth which, according to your own method of reasoning, is to decorate and dignify the order of men to whom he belongs! The bishops constitute the first class in the church; the beneficed clergy the second; the curates the last. Why are you to take from the second to give to the last? Why not as well from the first to give to the second,-if you really mean to contend that the first and second are already too rich?

It is not true, however, that the class of rectors is generally either too rich, or even rich enough. There are 6000 livings below 801. per annum, which is not very much above the average allowance of a curate. If every rector, however, who has more than 5001. is obliged to give a fifth part to a curate, there seems to be no reason why every bishop who has more than 10007. should not give a fifth part among the poor rectors in his diocese. It is in vain to say this assessment upon rectors is reasonable and right, because they may reside and do duty themselves, and then they will not need a curate ;-that their non-residence, in short, is a kind of delinquency for which they compound by this fine to the parish. If more than a half of the rectories in England are under 801. a year, and some thousands of them under 401., pluralities are absolutely necessary; and clergymen, who have not the gift of ubiquity, must be non-resident at some of them. Curates, there fore, are not the deputies of negligent rectors ;-they are an order of priests absolutely necessary in the present form of the Church of England: and a rector incurs no shadow of delinquency by employing one, more than the king does by appointing a lord-lieutenant of Ireland, or a commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, instead of doing the duty of these offices in person. If the legislature, therefore, is to interfere to raise the natural, i. e., the actual wages of this order of men, at the expense of the more opulent ministers of the Gospel, there seems to be no sort of reason for exempting the bishops from their share in this pious contribution, or for refusing to make a similar one for the benefit of all rectors who have less than 1007. per annum.

The true reason, however, for exempting my lords the bishops from this imposition, is, that they have the privilege of voting upon all bills brought in by Mr. Perceval, and of materially affecting his comfort and security by their parliamentary control and influence. This, however, is to cure what you believe to be unjust, by means which you must know to be unjust; to fly out against abuses which may be remedied without peril, and to connive at them when the attempt at a remedy is attended with political danger; to be mute and obsequious towards men who enjoy church property to the amount of 8 or 19,000l. per annum ; and to be so scandalized at those who possess as many hundreds, that you must melt their revenues down into curacies, and save to the eye of political economy the spectacle of such flagrant inequality!

In the same style of reasoning, it may be asked why the lay improprietors are not compelled to advance the salary of their perpetual curacies, up to a fifth of their estates? The answer, too, is equally obvious Many lay improprietors have votes in both houses of Parliament; and the only class of men this cowardly reformation attacks, is that which has no means of saying anything in its own defence.

come. In a year or two his rector dies, or exchanges his living; and the poor man is reduced, by the effects of comparison, to a much worse state than before the operation of the bill. Can any person say that this is a wise and effectual mode of ameliorating the condition of the lower clergy? To us it almost appears to be invented for the express purpose of destroying those habits of economy and caution, which are so indispensably necessary to their situation. If it is urged that the curate, knowing his wealth only to be temporary, will make use of it as a means of laying up a fund for some future day, we admire the good sense of the man: but what becomes of all the provisions of the bill? what becomes of that opulence which is to confer respectability upon all around it, and to radiate even upon the curates of Wales? The money was expressly given to blacken his coat,-to render him convex and rosy,-to give him a sort of pseudo-rectorial appearance, and to dazzle the parishioners at the rate of 2501. per annum. The poor man, actuated by those principles of common sense which are so contrary to all the provisions of the bill, chooses to make a good thing of it, because he knows it will not last; wears his old coat, rides his lean horse, and defrauds the class of curates of all the advantages which they were to derive from the sleekness and splendour of his appearance.

It is of some importance to the welfare of a parish, and the credit of the church, that the curate and his rector should live upon good terms together. Such a bill, however, throws between them elements of mistrust and hatred, which must render their agreement highly improbable. The curate would be perpetually prying into every little advance which the rector made upon his tithes, and claiming his proportionate increase. No respectable man could brook such inquisition; some, we fear, would endeavour to prevent its effects by clandestine means. The church would be a perpetual scene of disgraceful animosities; and the ears of the bishop never free from the clamours of rapacity and irritation.

It is some slight defect in such a bill, that it does not proportion reward to the labour done, but to the wealth of him for whom it is done. The curate of a parish containing 400 persons, may be paid as much as another person who has the care of 10,000; for, in England, there is very little proportion between the value of a living, and the quantity of duty to be performed by its clergyman.

The bill does not attain its object in the best way. Let the bishop refuse to allow of any certain curate upon a living above 5001. per annum, who is not a Master of Arts at one of the universities. Such curates will then be obtained at a price which will render it worth the while of such men to take curacies; and such a degree and situation in society will secure good curates much more effectually than the complicated provisions of this bill: for, prima facie, it ap pears to us much more probable, that a curate should be respectable who is a Master of Arts in some English university, than if all that we knew about him was, that he had a fifth of the profits of the living. The object is, to fix a good clergyman in a parish. The law will not trust the non-resident rector to fix both the price and the person; but fixes the price, and then leaves him the choice of the person. Our plan Even if the enrichment of curates were the most im- is, to fix upon the description of person, and then to perious of all duties, it might very well be questioned, leave the price to find its level; for the good price by whether a more unequal and pernicious mode of ful-no means implies a good person, but the good person filling it could be devised than that enjoined by this bill. Curacies are not granted for the life of the curate; but for the life or incumbency or good-liking of the rector. It is only rectors worth 500l. a-year who are compelled by Mr. Perceval to come down with a fifth to their deputy; and these form but a very small proportion of the whole non-resident rectors; so that the great multitude of curates must remain as poor as formerly, and probably a little more discontented. Suppose, however, that one has actually entered on the enjoyment of 2501 per annum. His wants, and his habits of expense are enlarged by this increase of in

* The first unfortunately make the laws.

will be sure to get a good price.

Where the living will admit of it, we have commonly observed that the English clergy are desirous of putting in a proper substitute. If this is so, the bill is unnecessary; for it proceeds on the very contrary supposition, that the great mass of opulent clergy consult nothing but economy in the choice of their curates.

It is very galling and irksome to any class of men to be compelled to disclose their private circumstances; a provision contained in and absolutely necessary to this bill, under which the diocesan can always compel the minister to disclose the full value of his living.

After all, however, the main and conclusive objec

tion to the bill is, that its provisions are drawn from low such a leader. We are extremely happy the bill such erroneous principles, and betray such gross ig- was rejected. We have seldom witnessed more of norance of human nature, that though it would infalli- | ignorance and error stuffed and crammed into so very bly produce a thousand mischiefs foreseen and not narrow a compass. Its origin, we are confident, is foreseen, it would evidently have no effect whatsoever from the Tabernacle; and its consequences would in raising the salaries of curates. We do not put this have been, to have sown the seeds of discord and as a case of common buyer and seller; we allow that treachery in an ecclesiastical constitution, which, unthe parish is a third party, having an interest ;* we der the care of prudent and honest men, may always fully admit the right of the legislature to interfere be rendered a source of public happiness. for their relief. We only contend, that such interference would be necessarily altogether ineffectual, so long as men can be found doing the duty of curates, and willing to do it for less than the statutory minimum.

If there is a competition of rectors for curates, it is quite unnecessary and absurd to make laws in favour of curates. The demand for them will do their business more effectually than the law. If, on the contrary (as the fact plainly is), there is a competition of curates for employment, is it possible to prevent this order of men from labouring under the regulation price? Is it possible to prevent a curate from pledging himself to his rector, that he will accept only half the legal salary, if he is so fortunate as to be preferred among an host of rivals, who are willing to engage on the same terms? You may make these contracts illegal: What then? Men laugh at such prohibitions; and they always become a dead letter. In nine instances out of ten, the contract would be honourably adhered to; and then what is the use of Mr. Perceval's law? Where the contract was not adhered to, whom would the law benefit ?-A man utterly devoid of every particle of honour and good faith. And this is the new species of curate, who is to reflect dignity and importance upon his poorer brethren! The law encourages breach of faith between gambler and gambler; it arms broker against broker; but it cannot arm clergyman against clergyman. Did any human being before, ever think of disseminating such a principle among the teachers of Christianity? Did any ecclesiastic law, before this, ever depend for its success upon the mutual treachery of men who ought to be examples to their fellow-creatures of every thing that is just and upright.

One glaring omission in this bill we had almost forgotten to mention. The chancellor of the exchequer has entirely neglected to make any provision for that very meritorious class of men, the lay curates, who do all the business of those offices, of which lazy and non-resident placemen receive the emoluments. So much delicacy and conscience, however, are here displayed on the subject of pocketing unearned emoluments, that we have no doubt the moral irritability of this servant of the crown will speedily urge him to a species of reform, of which he may be the object as well as the mover.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1809.)

Statement of the Proceedings of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, from July 9 to November 12, read at their General Meeting, held November 12, 1804. With an Appendix, containing the Plan of the Society, &c., &c., &c. London, 1804.

An Address to the Public from the Society for the Suppression of Vice, instituted in London, 1802. Part the Second. Containing an Account of the Proceedings of the Society from its original Institution. London. 1804.

A SOCIETY that holds out as its object the suppression of vice, must at first sight conciliate the favour of every respectable person; and he who objects to an institution calculated apparently to do so much good, is bound to give very clear and satisfactory reasons for his dissent from so popular an opinion. We cer tainly have, for a long time, had doubts of its utility; and now think ourselves called upon to state the grounds of our distrust.

We have said enough already upon the absurdity of punishing all rich rectors for non-residence, as for a presumptive delinquency. A law is already passed, Though it were clear that individual informers are fixing what shall be legal and sufficient causes for useful auxiliaries to the administration of the laws, it non-residence. Nothing can be more unjust, then, would by no means follow that these informers should than to punish that absence which you admit to be be allowed to combine to form themselves into a legal. If the causes of absence are too numerous, body-to make a public purse-and to prosecute unlessen them; but do not punish him who has availed der a common name. An informer, whether he is himself of their existence. We deny, however, that paid by the week, like the agents of this society-or they are too numerous. There are 6000 livings out of by the crime, as in common cases-is, in general, a 11,000 in the English church under 801. per annum : man of a very indifferent character. So much fraud many of these 201., many 30l. per annum. The and deception are necessary for carrying on his trade whole task of education at the university, public-it is so odious to his fellow subjects-that no man of schools, private families, and in foreign travel, de- respectability will ever undertake it. It is evidently volves upon the clergy. A great part of the literature impossible to make such a character otherwise than of their country is in their hands. Residence is a very odious. A man who receives weekly pay for prying proper and necessary measure; but, considering all into the transgressions of mankind, and bringing them these circumstances, it requires a great deal of mode- to consequent punishment, will always be hated by ration and temper to carry it into effect, without doing mankind; and the office must fall to the lot of some more mischief than good. At present, however, the men of desperate fortunes and ambiguous character. torrent sets the other way. Every lay plunderer, and The multiplication, therefore, of such officers, and the every fanatical coxcomb, is forging fresh chains for extensive patronage of such characters, may, by the the English clergy; and we shall not be surprised, in management of large and opulent societies, become an a very little time, to see them absenting themselves evil nearly as great as the evils they would suppress. from their benefices by a kind of day-rule, like pri- The alarm which a private and disguised accuser ocsoners in the king's bench. The first bill, which was casions in a neighbourhood, is known to be prodigious, brought in by Sir William Scott, always saving and not only to the guilty, but to those who may be at excepting the power granted to the bishops, is full of once innocent, and ignorant, and timid. The destrucuseful provisions, and characterized throughout by tion of social confidence is another evil, the consegreat practical wisdom. We have no doubt but that quence of information. An informer gets access to my it has, upon the whole, improved the condition of the house or family-worms my secret out of me-and English church. Without caution, mildness, or infor- then betrays me to the magistrate. Now, all these mation, however, it was peculiarly unfortunate to fol- evils may be tolerated in a small degree, while, in a greater degree, they would be perfectly intolerable. Thirty or forty informers roaming about the metropolis, may frighten the mass of offenders a little, and do some good: ten thousand informers would either create an insurrection, or totally destroy the confi dence and cheerfulness of private life. Whatever may

We remember Horace's description of the misery of a parish where there is no resident clergyman.

Illacrymabiles

Urgentur, ignotique longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.'

be said, therefore, of the single and insulted informer, | no means trust to an unknown combination. A vast it is quite a new question when we come to a corpora- distinction is to be made, too, between official duties tion of informers supported by large contributions. and voluntary duties. The first are commonly carried The one may be a good, the other a very serious evil; on with calmness and moderation; the latter often the one legal, the other wholly out of the contempla characterized, in their execution, by rash and intemtion of law-which often, and very wisely, allows in-perate zeal. dividuals to do what it forbids to many individuals assembled.

If once combination is allowed for the suppression of vice, where are its limits to be? Its capital may as well consist of 100,000l. per annum, as of a thousand its numbers may increase from a thousand subscribers, which this society, it seems, had reached in its second year, to twenty thousand: and, in that case, what accused person of an inferior condition of life would have the temerity to stand against such a society? Their mandates would very soon be law; and there is no compliance into which they might not frighten the common people, and lower orders of tradesmen. The idea of a society of gentlemen, calling themselves an association for the suppression of vice, would alarm any small offender to a degree that would make him prefer any submission to any resistance. He would consider the very fact of being accused by them, as almost sufficient to ruin him.

An individual accuser accuses at his own expense; and the risk he runs is a good security that the subject will not be harassed by needless accusations-a security which, of course, he cannot have against such a society as this, to whom pecuniary loss is an object of such little consequence. It must never be forgotten, that this is not a society for punishing people who have been found to transgress the law, but for accusing persons of transgressing the law; and that before trial, the accused person is to be considered as innocent, and is to have every fair chance of establishing his innocence. He must be no common defen. dant, however, who does not contend against such a society with very fearful odds ;-the best counsel engaged for his opponents-great practice in the particular court and particular species of cause-witnesses thoroughly hackneyed in a court of justice-and an unlimited command of money. It by no means follows, that the legislature, in allowing individuals to be informers, meant to subject the accused person to the superior weight and power of such societies. The very influence of names must have a considerable weight with the jury. Lord Dartmouth, Lord Radstock, and the Bishop of Durham, versus a Whitechapel butcher or a publican! Is this a fair contest before a jury? It is not so even in London; and what must it be in the country, where a society for the suppression of vice may consist of all the principal persons in the neighbourhood? These societies are now established in York, in Reading, and in many other large towns. Wherever this is the case, it is far from improbable that the same persons, at the Quarter or Town Sessions, may be both judges and accusers; and still more fatally so, if the offence is tried by a special jury. This is already most notoriously the case in societies for the preservation of game. They prosecute a poacher;-the jury is special; and the poor wretch is found guilty by the very same persons who have accused him.

If it is lawful for respectable men to combine for the purpose of turning informers, it is lawful for the lowest and most despicable race of informers to do the same thing; and then it is quite clear that every species of wickedness and extortion would be the consequence. We are rather surprised that no society of perjured attorneys and fraudulent bankrupts has risen up in this metropolis, for the suppression of vice. A chairman, deputy-chairman, subscriptions, and an annual sermon would give great dignity to their proceedings; and they would soon begin to take some rank in the world.

The present society receives no members but those who are of the Church of England. As we are now arguing the question generally, we have a right to make any supposition. It is equally free, therefore, upon general principles, for a society of sectarians to combine and exclude members of the Church of England; and the suppression of vice may thus come in aid of Methodism, Jacobinism, or of any set of principles, however perilous, either to church or state.The present society may, perhaps, consist of persons whose sentiments on these points are rational and respectable. Combinations, however, of this sort may give birth to something far different: and such a supposition is a fair way of trying the question. We doubt if there be not some mischief in averting the fears and hopes of the people from the known and constituted authorities of the country to those selfcreated powers;-a society that punishes in the Strand, another which rewards at Lloyd's Coffee. house! If these things get to any great height, they throw an air of insignificance over those branches of the government to whom these cares properly devolve, and whose authority is by these means assisted, till it is superseded. It is supposed that a project must necessarily be good, because it is intended for the aid of law and government. At this rate there should be a society in aid of the government, for procuring intelligence from foreign parts, with accredited agents all over Europe. There should be a voluntary transport board, and a gratuitous victualling office. There should be a duplicate, in short, of every department of the state,-the one appointed by the king, and the other by itself. There should be a real Lord Glenbervie in the woods and forests, and with him a monster, a voluntary Lord Glenbervie, serving without pay, and guiding gratis, with secret counsel, the axe of his prototype. If it be asked, who are the constituted authorities who are legally appointed to watch over morals, and whose functions the society usurp? our answer is, that there are in England about 12,000 clergy, not unhandsomely paid for persuading the people, and about 4000 justices, 30 grand juries, and 40,000 constables, whose duty and whose inclination it is to compel them to do right. Under such circumstances, a voluntary moral society does indeed seem to be the purest result of volition; for there certainly is not the smallest particle of necessity mingled with its existence.

It is hardly possible that a society for the suppression of vice can ever be kept within the bounds of good sense and moderation. If there are many members who have really become so from a feeling of duty, there will necessarily be some who enter the society to hide a bad character, and others whose object it is to recommend themselves to their betters by a sedulous and bustling inquisition into the immoralities of the public. The loudest and noisiest suppressors will always carry it against the more prudent part of the community; the most violent will be considered as the most moral; and those who see the absurdity will, from the fear of being thought to encourage vice, be reluctant to oppose it.

It is of great importance to keep public opinion on the side of virtue. To their authorized and legal correctors, mankind are, on common occasions, ready enough to submit; but there is something in the selferection of a voluntary magistracy which creates so much disgust, that it almost renders vice popular, and puts the offence at a premium. We have no doubt but that the immediate effect of a voluntary combinaIt is true that it is the duty of grand juries to inform tion for the suppression of vice, is an involuntary comagainst vice; but the law knows the probable number bination in favour of the vices to be suppressed; and of grand jurymen, the times of their meeting, and the this is a very serious drawback from any good of description of persons of whom they consist. Of volun- which such societies may be the occasion; for the tary societies it can know nothing-their numbers, state of morals, at any one period, depends much more their wealth, or the character of their members. It upon opinion than law; and to bring odious and dismay therefore trust to a grand jury what it would by gusting auxiliaries to the aid of virtue, is to do the ut

technical skill. Here, then, is a society of men. who invite accusation,-who receive it (almost unknown to themselves) with pleasure, and who, if they hate dulness and inoccupation, can have very little pleasure in the innocence of their fellow-creatures. The natu ral consequence of all this is, that (besides that portion of rumour which every member contributes at the weekly meeting), their table must be covered with annonymous lies against the characters of individuals. Every servant discharged from his master's service, every cowardly assassin of character,-now knows where his accusation will be received, and where they cannot fail to produce some portion of the mischiev ous effects which he wishes. The very first step of such a society should be, to declare, in the plainest manner, that they would never receive any anonymous accusation. This would be the only security to the public, that they were not degrading themselves into a receptacle for malice and falsehood. Such a declaration would inspire some species of confidence; and make us believe that their object was neither the love of power, nor the gratification of uncharitable feelings. The society for the suppression, however, have done no such thing. They request, indeed, the 'signature of the informers whom they invite; but they do not (as they ought) make that signature an indispensable condition.

most possible good to the cause of vice. We regret, that mankind are as they are; and we sincerely wish that the species at large were as completely devoid of every vice and infirmity as the president, vice-president and committee of the suppressing society; but, till they are thus regenerated, it is of the greatest consequent to teach them virtue and religion in a manner which will not make them hate both the one and the other. The greatest delicacy is required in the application of violence to moral and religious sentiment. We forget that the object is, not to produce the out--every villain who hates the man he has injured,ward compliance, but to raise up the inward feeling, which secures the outward compliance. You may drag men into church by main force, and prosecute them for buying a pot of beer, and cut them off from the enjoyment of a leg of mutton; and you may do all this, till you make the common people hate Sunday, and the clergy, and religion, and every thing that relates to such subjects. There are many crimes, indeed, where persuasion cannot be waited for, and where the untaught feelings of all men go along with the violence of the law. A robber and a murderer must be knocked on the head like mad dogs; but we have no great opinion of the possibility of indicting men into piety, or of calling in the quarter sessions to the aid of religion. You may produce outward conformity by these means; but you are so far from producing (the only thing worth producing) the inward feeling, that you incur a great risk of giving birth to a totally opposite sentiment.

Nothing has disgusted us so much in the proceedings of this society, as the control which they exercise over the amusements of the poor. One of the specious titles under which this legal meanness is gratified is, Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Of cruelty to animals, let the reader take the following specimens:

Running an iron hook in the intestines of an animal; presenting this first animal to another as his food; and then pulling this second creature up, and suspending him by the barb in his stomach.

Riding a horse till he drops, in order to see an innocent animal torn to pieces by the dogs. Keeping a poor animal upright for many weeks, to communicate a peculiar hardness to his flesh. Making deep incisions into the flesh of another animal, while living, in order to make the muscles more firm.

ter.

Immersing another animal, while living, in hot wa

The violent modes of making men good, just alluded to, have been resorted to at periods when the science of legislation was not so well understood as it now is; or when the manners of the age have been peculiarly gloomy or fanatical. The improved knowledge, and the improved temper of later times, push such laws into the back ground, and silently repeal them. A suppressing society, hunting every where for penalty and information, has a direct tendency to revive ancient ignorance and fanaticism, and to re-enact laws which, if ever they ought to have existed at all, were certainly calculated for a very different style of manners, and a very different degree of information. To compel men to go to church, under a penalty, appears to us to be absolutely absurd. The bitterest enemy of religion will necessarily be that person who is driven to a compliance with its outward ceremonies, by informers and justices of the peace. In the same manner, any constable who hears another swear an oath, Now we do fairly admit that such abominable cruhas a right to seize him, and carry him before a ma- elties as these, are worthy of the interference of the gistrate, where he is to be fined so much for each exe-law: and that the society should have punished them, cration. It is impossible to carry such laws into exe- cannot be matter of surprise to any feeling mind. But cution: and it is lucky that it is impossible,-for their stop, gentle reader! these cruelties are the cruelties execution would create an infinitely greater evil than of the suppressing committee, not of the poor. You it attempted to remedy. The common sense and must not think of punishing these. The first of these common feeling of mankind, if left to themselves, cruelties passes under the pretty name of angling; would silently repeal such laws; and it is one of the and therefore there can be no harm in it-the more evils of these societies, that they render absurdity particularly as the president himself has one of the eternal, and ignorance indestructible. Do not let us best preserved trout streams in England. The next be misunderstood: upon the object to be accomplish- is hunting and as many of the vice-presidents and of ed, there can be but one opinion;-it is only upon the the committee hunt, it is not possible there can be any means employed, that there can be the slightest dif- cruelty in hunting.* The next is, a process for making ference of sentiment. To go to church is a duty of brawn-a dish never tasted by the poor, and therefore the greatest possible importance; and on the blasphe- not to be disturbed by indictment. The fourth is the my and vulgarity of swearing, there can be but one mode of crimping cod; and the fifth of boiling lobopinion. But such duties are not the objects of legis- sters-all high-life cruelties, with which a justice of lation; they must be left to the general state of pub- the peace has no business to meddle. The real thing lic sentiment; which sentiment must be influenced by which calls forth the sympathies, and harrows up the example, by the exertions of the pulpit and the press, soul, is to see a number of boisterous artisans baiting and, above all, by education. The fear of God can a bull, or a bear; not a savage hare, or a carnivorous never be taught by constables, nor the pleasures of re- stag-but a poor, innocent, timid bear-not pursued ligion be learnt from a common informer. by magistrates, and deputy lieutenants, and men of *How reasonable creatures' (says the society) can entheir own amusement, to stimulate those animals, by means animals, or how they can consider themselves entitled, for of the antipathies which Providence has thought proper to place between them, to worry and tear and often to destroy each other, it is difficult to conceive. So inhuman a practice, by a retribution peculiarly just, tends obviously to render the human character brutal and ferocious,' &c., &c. sees clearly that no part of this description can possibly ap(Address, p. 71, 72.) We take it for granted, that the reader ply to the case of hunting.

Beginning with the best intentions in the world, such societies must, in all probability, degenerate into a receptacle for every species of tittle-tattle, imperti-joy a pastime which is the cause of such sufferings to brute nence, and malice. Men, whose trade is rat-catching, love to catch rats; the bug-destroyer seizes on his bug with delight; and the suppressor is gratified by finding his vice. The last soon becomes a mere tradesman like the others; none of them moralize, or lament that their respective evils should exist in the world. The public feeling is swallowed up in the pursuit of a daily occupation, and in the display of a

where they have directed the attention of the society to this higher species of suppression, and sacrificed men of consideration to that zeal for virtue which watches so acutely over the vices of the poor? It would give us very little pleasure to see a duchess sent to the Poultry compter; but if we saw the society flying at such high game, we would at least say they were honest and courageous, whatever judgment we may form of their good sense. At present they should denominate themselves a society for suppressing the vices of persons whose income does not exceed £500 per annum; and then, to put all classes upon an equal footing, there must be another society of barbers, butchers, and bakers, to return to the higher classes that moral character by which they are so highly benefited.

the circulation of their notices among the printsellers, warnYour committee have good reasons for believing, that ing them against the sale or exhibition of indecent representations, has produced, and continues to produce the best effects.

education, but by those who must necessarily seek their relaxation in noise and tumultuous merriment by men whose feelings are blunted, and whose understanding is wholly devoid of refinement. The society detail, with symptoms of great complacency, their detection of a bear-baiting in Blackboy Alley, Chick Lane, and the prosecution of the offenders before a magistrate. It appears to us, that nothing can be more partial and unjust than this kind of proceedings. A man of ten thousand a-year may worry a fox as much as he pleases-may encourage the breed of a mischievous animal, on purpose to worry it; and a poor labourer is carried before a magistrate for paying sixpence to see an exhibition of courage between a dog and a bear! And cruelty may be practised to gorge the stomachs of the rich-none to enliven the holidays of the poor. We venerate those feelings To show how impossible it is to keep such societies which really protect creatures susceptible of pain, and within any kind of bounds, we shall quote a passage incapable of complaint. But heaven-born pity, now-respecting circulating libraries, from their proceedings. a-days, calls for the income tax, and the court guide; and ascertains the rank and fortune of the tormentor before she weeps for the pain of the sufferer. It is astonishing how the natural feelings of mankind are distorted by false theories. Nothing can be more mischievous than to say, that the pain inflicted by the dog of a man of quality is not (when the strength of the two animals is the same) equal to that produced by the cur of a butcher. Haller, in his Pathology, expressly says, that the animal bitten knows no difference in the quality of the biting animal's master; and it is now the universal opinion among all enlightened men, that the misery of the brawner would be very little diminished, if he could be made sensible that he was to be eaten up only by persons of the first fashion. The contrary supposition seems to us to be absolute nonsense; it is the desertion of the true Baconian philosophy, and the substitution of mere unsupported conjecture in its place. The trespass, however, which calls forth all the energies of a suppressor, is the sound In the same spirit we see them writing to a country of a fiddle. That the common people are really enjoy-magistrate in Devonshire, respecting a wake advering themselves, is now beyond all doubt: and away tised in the public papers. Nothing can be more prerush secretary, president, and committee, to clap the sumptuous than such conduct, or produce, in the minds cotillion into the compter, and to bring back the life of impartial men, a more decisive impression against of the poor to its regular standard of decorous gloom. the society. The gambling houses of St. James's remain untouched. The peer ruins himself and his family with impunity; while the Irish labourer is privately whipped for not making a better use of the excellent moral and religious education which he has received in the days of his youth.

It is not true, as urged by the society, that the vices of the poor are carried on in houses of public resort, and those of the rich in their own houses. The society cannot be ignorant of the innumerable gamblinghouses resorted to by men of fashion. Is there one they have suppressed, or attempted to suppress? Can anything be more despicable than such distinctions as these? Those who make them seem to have for other persons' vices all the rigor of the ancient Puritans --without a particle of their honesty, or their courage. To suppose that any society will attack the vices of people of fashion, is wholly out of the question. If the society consisted of tradesmen, they would infallibly be turned off by the vicious customers whose pleasures they interrupted: and what gentleman so fond of suppressing as to interfere with the vices of good company, and inform against persons who were really genteel? He knows very well that the conseqence of such interference would be a complete exclusion from elegant society; that the upper classes could not and would not endure it; and that he must immediately lose his rank in the world, if his zeal subjected fashionable offenders to the slightest inconvenience from the law. Nothing, therefore, remains, but to rage against the Sunday dinners of the poor, and to prevent a bricklayer's labourer from losing, on the Seventh day, that beard which has been augmenting the other six. We see at the head of this society the names of several noblemen, and of other persons moving in the fashionable world. Is it possible they can be ignorant of the innumerable offences against the law and morality which are committed by their own acquaintances and connections? Is there one single instance

'But they have to lament that the extended establishments of circulating libraries, however useful they may be, in a knowledge, are extremely injurious to morals and religion, variety of respects, to the easy and general diffusion of by the indiscriminate admission which they give to works of a prurient and immoral nature. It is a toilsome task to any virtuous and enlightened mind, to wade through the catalogues of these collections, and much more to select such books from them as have only an apparent bad tendency. But your committee being convinced, that their atsess such powerful and numerous means of poisoning the tention ought to be directed to those institutions which posminds of young persons, and especially of the female youth, have therefore begun to make some endeavours towards their better regulation.'-Statement of the Proceedings for 1804, pp. 11, 12.

The natural answer from the members of the society (the only answer they have ever made to the enemies of their institution) will be, that we are lovers of vice,-desirous of promoting indecency, of destroying the Sabbath, and of leaving mankind to the unrestrained gratification of their passions. We have only very calmly to reply, that we are neither so stupid nor so wicked as not to concur in every scheme which has for its object the preservation of rational religion and sound morality:-but the scheme must be well concerted,―and those who are to carry it into execution must deserve our confidence, from their talents and their character. Upon religion and morals depends the happiness of mankind;-but the fortune of knaves and the power of fools are sometimes made to rest on the same apparent basis; and we will never (if we can help it) allow a rogue to get rich, or a blockhead to get powerful, under the sanction of these awful words. We do not by any means intend to apply these contemptuous epithets to the Society for the Suppression. That there are among their number some very odious hypocrites, is not impossible; that many men who believe they come there from the love of virtue, do really join the society from the love of power, we do not doubt: but we see no reason to doubt that the great mass of subscribers consist of persons who have very sincere intentions of doing good. That they have, in some instances, done a great deal of good, we admit with the greatest pleasure. We believe that in the hands of truly honest, intrepid, and, above all, discreet men, such a society might become a valuable institution, improve in some degree the public morals, and increase the public happiness. So many qualities, however, are required to carry it on well,-the temptations to absurdity and impertinence are so very great, that we ever despair of seeing our wishes upon this subject realized. the present instance, our object has been to suppress the arrogance of suppressors,-to keep them within

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