cided on by men, destitute of legal education and connexion.

Farther, divers of the magistrate's duties have nothing to do with law, and his discharge of them must be governed by his discretion. He has the power to prevent the holding of public meetings in case of apprehended or actual disturbance, he has under his command both the civil power and the military; therefore, he possesses the means of suppressing all manifestation of popular feeling the exercise of popular rights is, to a large extent, under his control he reports on the state of public feeling to government-and in several cases he forms a court of appeal against the agents of the Executive. Without mentioning other matters, it is very evident that other essentials ought to be found in him than legal education; that the latter must tend to lead him into abuse and error in the exercise of his discretionary powers; and that a briefless barrister or unsuccessful attorney is about the very last person who ought to be made a magistrate.

The unpaid magistrates are so numerous, that every village has one in or near it; their time is so little occupied, that they can mix largely with society, and in emergencies they act in bodies, which has the best effects in regard to both counsel and influence. Stipendiary magistrates would be far less numerous, because the country could not afford to have men to do nothing the greater part of their time. These would be some of the consequences-most parts of the country would be many miles distant from a magistrate-the benefits drawn from law and order would be greatly reduced the magistrate would be constantly confined to his office, and have no leisure for acquiring the information and spirit called for by many of his duties, and in emergencies he would have to act almost alone on his own judgment and without moral weight.

The unpaid magistrates are men of great political influence; they have a deep stake in the public weal and the preservation of popular liberties; they are divided into opposite political parties; and they expect to draw no promotion from their office. All this, combined with their num

bers and connexion, places them rather above, than under the Execu tive. While it is their personal interest to exercise their discretionary powers in the best manner, it is hopeless for the Executive to attempt to intimidate or corrupt them in it. But stipendiary magistrates would have no stake in the country, and every thing in interest and circumstance would combine to make them the tools of the Ministry; they would servilely follow the commands of the latter in all things relating to national liberties and privileges. The unpaid ones, in habits, feelings, intercourse, and interest, really form part of the people; but stipendiary ones would be an essential part of the Executive, as opposed to the people. The latter is now restrained and influenced by the magistrates; but the stipendiary system would make it a despot over them.

Unprejudiced people will find in all this abundant cause for believing the outcry to be ludicrously preposterous, that penniless, place-hunting, mercenary, ignorant, and shallow lawyers, are the only persons who ought to be magistrates; the more especially when they know, that it is chiefly raised by the lawyers themselves. The world proclaims custom to be second nature; a man's heart and principles must take their character in a large degree from his daily occupation. The lawyers' trade is, for hire, to support law and wrong against justice and right, to argue on the false and oppressive side, to quirk, misrepresent, intrigue, overreach, and take unjust advantage, to maintain falsehood and fraud against truth and honesty. All history and experience assert the principle-Keep political trust and power from lawyers.

But it is urged, that there is a growing reluctance in country gentlemen to enter the magistracy, and that in some places men cannot be found to act as unpaid magistrates. The country gentlemen,in plain terms, entertain this reluctance from sheer cowardice, flowing from the war waged against them in certain newspapers by barristers and attorneys, Scotch, Irish, and English. In it, they are making a dastardly surrender to the lawyers, not only of their own interests, but of those of the commu

nity, of the constitution in both principle and institution. This forms but a miserable pretext for the stipendiary system.

The alleged inability to find men willing to act as unpaid magistrates, is confined to populous places. If these had each a corporation, they would always have excellent unpaid magistrates; and what is there to prevent it?

A corporation often has privileges which are injurious to the public, but these have so little to do with its welfare, that they are generally useless to it. Considered apart from them, it is of the highest value as a local and subsidiary government. It gives to the inhabitants of a place the selection of their magistrates; it secures to them an abundance of magistrates who are men of business, perfectly independent, identified with them in feeling and interest, and possessed of the greatest moral influence in character, fortune, and counexions. They draw from it general guardians, and promoters of every thing that can benefit them. It is of the greatest national value, in causing the people to confide in, and combining them with, the magistracy. Some idea of the advantages it yields may be gained by contrasting the government of the city of London with that of Westminster.

It could not be a difficult matter to found corporations, free from the defects and errors of the old ones, in the populous places which are now nearly destitute of local government. If the name be obnoxious, such go vernment might be established under a new one, and limited in its objects to the creation of a proper magistra cy, ready and cheap law, and efficient guardians of the peace. If this were done, it would not only remove all necessity for stipendiary magistrates, by providing different ones of far better character, but yield other great advantages.

The very heavy expense which stipendiary magistrates would impose on the community, not only in salary, but also in increase of litigation, is a matter not to be overlooked.

These hateful changes are defended on the ground, that the fearful extension of vice,crime, turbulence, and disorder amidst the people, makes them

necessary. It is one of the worst signs of the times, that while the conduct of the people is exactly calculated to supply bad rulers with pretexts for establishing arbitrary government, nothing but such government is thought of as a means of correcting it. The two evils have continually enlarged each other-popular misconduct has been met with despotic law, and despotic law has increased popular misconduct, until it has become a question, whether the freedom of the empire can be longer preserved. Before the last plunge into tyranny is taken, it may be as well to suspend this savage cry for coercion and punishment; and enquire whether better means of ruling cannot be employed than the iron arm of the law and the brute force of hired mercenaries. ⠀

Self-government in the peoplemeaning by the latter term not the lower orders only, but the population at large-forms the end and essence of national freedom. The great fathers of English liberty had too much knowledge and wisdom to content themselves with merely establishing a representative form of government; independently of this, they secured to the people the right to govern themselves to the farthest point, without the use of delegated authority; and then to do it by means of functionaries of their own selecting, armed only with powers of their own defining. They studiously laboured to make the people, and not only the Legislature, but also the general Executive, one in feeling, interest, and even person to connect the whole in both deliberation and action-to incorporate the Executive with the people in every thing. The English monarchy, in its best days, was, much more than many republics ever were a popular government.

Without this, there can be no national freedom, either really or nominally. If the people be thrown out of the government, despotism-no matter what forms of freedom may be retained is practically established; and they must be thrown out of it, if they be not combined with the Executive as well as the Legislature. Separate them from the former in sentiment and functionary, and they will be arrayed against it as an ene

my; nothing but brute force, or their proper spiritual and bodily incorporation with it, can keep them from waging against it regular warfare. Such warfare must fill them with the worst feelings, and make the command of the Legislature a matter of eternal contention between them and the Executive. They will use the elective franchise to return unprincipled demagogues, merely on the ground of their being enemies to the latter, and then it will buy up the demagogues, who are always the most easy of purchase, or adopt their destructive doctrines. The Legislature must either, in corrupt alliance with the Executive, fiercely oppose national feeling, or, in destructive obe dience to such feeling, incapacitate the Executive for the discharge of its duties. A wicked, imbecile, revolutionary, denationalized, anti-popular Legislature-one, in respect of honour and patriotism, drawn from the scum of society-must inevita bly flow from the warfare we have named: and whether it support the people or the Executive, it must, combined with such warfare, insure arbitrary government.

It has been the system in late years to throw the general population out of the government. Public meetings and petitions have been wholly disregarded, and they have nearly fallen into disuse. A greater mockery could hardly be conceived than to call that a popular government, the functionaries of which, without distinction or discrimination, treat with contempt the sentiments and feelings of the body of the people. While the Executive has thus been separated from the people in opinion and spirit, it has been continually engrossing their right of self-rule in regard to person; and thus the separation has been extended to every thing. The consequences are before the eyes of

all.

By the laws of nature, therefore, tranquillity and freedom cannot exist if the people at large and the Executive be not combined as we have stated; and, in order to produce and maintain the combination in its proper character, it is essential to keep the people under the influence of right principles and feelings. To To keep them thus, it is evidently essential:-1. To promote morals to the

utmost; 2. To preserve the sources of public opinion free from error and impurity; and, 3. To make local government as perfect and as independent of the Executive as possible. These three matters form the root of free government; they must give to a representative system its value, and prevent it from being a plague.

It is of the first importance that these matters should be especially attended to in the metropolis. While it is peculiarly exposed to every thing which can operate against them, it exercises overpowering influence over the country at large, and the government. There is, perhaps, no other place in which they are so much neglected.

With regard to morals, they are pre-eminently bad in the metropolis. In looking first at the great source violation of the Sabbath we will observe, that, putting a future state wholly out of the question, there is nothing in the social system of more value to the body of the people, than a due observance of this day. Neither body nor mind can bear continual toil, and both require a seventh day of rest to keep them in health and vigour: the abolition of it would considerably reduce the demand for labour, and a vast portion of the working classes would have to labour seven days instead of six for the wages they now receive: to this must be added, the loss these classes would sustain, in respect of cleanliness, intercourse with friends, and the means of instruction. Looking beyond its religious objects, the Sabbath may be regarded as a merciful concession to human nature, an invaluable boon to the poor-a divine interposition to give that protection to the health, comforts, and privileges of the mass of mankind, which, perhaps, nothing else could bestow. The workman who establishes the precedent for making it a day of labour, attacks the best temporal interests of himself and his brethren.

The violation of the Sabbath begins with the great. Giving to Royalty its due precedence, it, in times much too recent, has given its magnificent Sunday dinners. Ministers have given theirs, and besides, have had their Sunday Cabinet meetings-and to these must be added, the Sunday entertainments of the nobility in

general. This in rulers-in the official guardians of religion and morals in those who stand at the head of society as models of conduct, is bad enough in the way of example, but this is not the whole of its evil operation. If the King give a grand Sunday dinner, it may only cause him and his guests to feast, but it compels his domestics and tradesmen to toil. Thus these Sunday entertainments of the great, collect ively, bind a vast portion of the trading and labouring orders to regular Sunday trade and labour.

Much is justly said in favour of giving religious instruction to the young. Let the children, who at charity schools receive it, and are taught to keep the Sabbath sacred, enter the service of the great, or their tradesmen, and what follows? It is made their duty to disregard what they have been taught; they are in a large degree prohibited from attending divine worship, and compelled to make the Sunday as much a day of labour as the rest of the week; thus their religious instruction is rendered useless. We need not say how this must operate when they become heads of families.

Independently of this great cause, the labouring classes of the metropolis violate the Sabbath in the most appalling manner, The lower of them, who cannot follow their respective callings on it, spend it in drunkenness, which they commence before, or immediately after, breakfast. A man cannot go to divine service in the morning, without seeing numbers of them reeling about the streets in the different stages of intoxication. Mechanics and artisans work as regularly at their respective trades, on at least great part of the Sunday, as they do on any other day; their masters' shops are closed, but they do it at their lodgings. Their wives are of course made to share the guilt, and their children are reared in it.

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Let this be looked at also, with reference to the religious instruction of youth. If the children of these classes be put to charitable schools, what they see, hear, and are made to do at home, renders the instruction they receive almost ineffectual. If they be put to labour in the lower callings, as apprentices, or otherwise,

they are incited to abandon their religious principles. Young men just out of their apprenticeship, labourers, &c., whose morals in the country have been well protected, continually pour into London in search of employment; and as soon as they enter it, they are not only led by example, but almost compelled by their brother workmen, to make the Sabbath a day of vice or labour. Thus the religious instruction of youth is in general deprived of value by the irreligion of adults.

Speaking merely as men of the world, and as infidels would speak, what flows from this conduct in the labouring classes? Those who spend the Sabbath in drinking, spend it in qualifying both themselves and their families for every kind of vice and crime; they make themselves brutal husbands, unnatural fathers, rioters, and robbers; they starve their wives into prostitution, and their children into begging and stealing. Those who spend it in labour do the same, more effectually. Nature, as we have said, requires a seventh day of rest, and because they work on Sunday, they do nothing on Monday. The latter is their day of drunkenness, when there is no religious restraint, and when the stimulants to general profligacy are the most numerous and powerful. Because these classes, as a whole, do not employ the Sabbath in acquiring moral principles and habits, they employ it in acquiring the contrary; to the use they make of it, may be clearly traced their general bad morals; and the latter form the great cause of their hatred of the better part of society, hostility to public institutions, love of demagogues, insubordination and disaffection.

With regard to remedy, the great, at any rate, are not above the reach of reproof. If one prelate be insufficient for giving it, let all unite; and if this will not do, let the parochial clergy combine with them. Every prelate has a deep interest in supporting the morals of London. If a strong remonstrance, signed by every prelate, and the whole London clergy, were presented, not generally, but to every offender, without sparing the Legislature, the Cabinet, or the Throne, it would have the best ef

fects. The great, both in authority and out of it, have now melancholy proof before them, that none have so deep a stake in the preservation of morals, as themselves.

No valid reason can be urged why gin and beer-shops should be open on the Sunday before one o'clock. If they were closed until this hour, it would narrow Sunday drunkenness greatly. At present, they are compelled to close at eleven, and during divine service; and in consequence, the better part of society, in proceeding to the latter, has its religious feelings shocked at every step, by the sight of individuals and groups half drunk, or wholly so, just turned out of them. If, in addition, these places were prohibited from selling any liquor on the Sunday, to be drank in them, it would operate mightily against drunkenness, without encroaching on the just needs of society. Exceptions might be made on proper grounds.

The custom of making Monday a holyday, is the great cause of voluntary Sunday labour amidst mechanics and artisans. It not only gives them the bodily rest, which otherwise they would be compelled to take on the Sunday; but it necessitates them to make the latter a day of toil, by expense and loss of wages. And it is a prolific source of general profligacy. A greater benefit could hardly be conferred on the working orders, than the suppression of this idle, vicious, and destructive custom. Very much might be done by masters, who are great sufferers from it, if they would, as far as possible, employ none but workmen willing to labour regularly on the Monday.

A powerful cause of Sabbath-breaking, and general immorality amidst the lower orders of the metropolis, is to be found in their separation from not only the church and the clergy, but also the chapel and the dissenting minister. We have heretofore adverted to this, and we will do it again and again, until we see something attempted in the way of remedy. If a mechanic or labourer never enter the church, or see a clergyman, save in the streets, he naturally thinks he has nothing to do with either. This is the case with the mass of the lower orders in question; they are practically as much divided

and estranged from both as the inhabitants of the other hemisphere; and in consequence they are ready to believe every thing they hear against them. The political evil of this, great as it is, is not the worst. Man has been truly called a religious animal, and the Englishman is peculiarly one; the latter has not the mercurial spirits of the Frenchman, or the crazy resolution of the Irishman, or the unconquerable self-approbation of the Scotchman, to sustain him in his guilt; but remorse tortures him at every step, and he is enabled to persevere, mainly because the voice of religion cannot reach him. Let the most depraved of men attend divine worship regularly, or be acted upon in any other way by spiritual admonition; and in most cases they will soon be reclaimed. In general, perseverance in vice, guilt, irreligion, and infidelity, is only made practicable by voluntary or compulsory separation from both the sight and hearing of religion.

Boys, on being put to many trades -young men on the expiration of their apprenticeship-servants of both sexes to a large extent-young men from the country both sexes in humble life on marrying-have no place of worship to go to. They may individually gain occasional admission into one or another; but they have none they can go to regularly. In consequence, the mass of them absent themselves wholly from divine service, and awful are both the political and the moral fruits.

New churches are built, but they are in a great measure monopolized by the wealthy; the free seats in them are totally inadequate for the accommodation of the lower orders. There is another great defect in them not only free seats, but cheap ones, and particularly cheap pews, are wanted; there are none.

Build, in proper situations, plain, neat chapels, and place in them pious and reasonably eloquent clergymen. In each, confine the pews for the rich, and even the free seats, to a small number; devote the principal part to pews capable of holding three adults, or a man, his wife, and two children; and do not let the yearly rent of each pew rise above from twenty shillings to forty; to a certain