of him. How much ashamed he looks -how he averts his eyes from the impudent stare of the vulgar throng, and with what evident reluctance he dribbles out shilling after shilling, then, lifting his hat as much as possible to conceal his chagrin, slinks shamefacedly away.

When the disciple of Bacchus evaporated, the jailer came into court, conducting a little precocious urchin, who seemed about twelve, or at most thirteen years of age, with a pale hungry face, a sharp roving eye, and the most unmitigated impudent expression we ever yet beheld in man or boy. He was dressed in a ragged blue jacket and fustian trousers, in the pockets whereof were thrust his tiny hands. He now and then hitched up his inexpressibles, sailor fashion; and, turning round to the mob, winked with either eye several times, at the same time putting his tongue in his cheek -expressions, as we understood them, at once of his respect for the bench, and of an easy indifference to his present peculiar situation. When the turnkey's eye fell upon him, he assumed an air of ludicrous gravity; altogether, he appeared a thoroughly depraved little rascal; nor did his dialogue with the worthy magistrate at all tend to weaken our first impression.

When the charge was read, and the evidence gone into, his worship addressed the culprit.

Magistrate. I am afraid you are a very bad boy. You have been here before-what was that for?

Urchin. Oney for breakin' a vin. der. Magistrate. I presume, with the intention of stealing something.

Urchin. No-for ven I'd a broke it, there war'n't nuffin to steal.

Magistrate.-1 must send you to prison for three months. Uchin. Werry well.

Magistrate. And when you come out, I hope you'll be a reformed cha

racter.

Urchin, (with energy.) -Ven I does come out, I'opes as how I'll make a man of myself by doin' a summut.

Turnkey now seizes the urchin by the collar, lifting him as you would a cod-fish, and bundling him off to a cell, immediately returning with a couple of juvenile delinquents, a size larger, but without the remarkable shrewdness and vivacity of the departed culprit.

These Spartan youths having failed in an attempt to extract a pocket handkerchief, must pay the penalty consequent on being found out, and are punished for this culpable want of professional dexterity.

The magistrate, in consequence of the younger of the two being what is technically called an old offender, sentenced him to imprisonment for one calendar month; the elder, upon receiving the mitigated sentence of a fortnight's durance, burst into tears, crying out, " Please you, my lord, give me the same as Bil; Bill didn't do no more nor me, nor I didn't do no more nor he give me a calendar the same as Bill!"

The laughter of the spectators, in which the bench participated, could not be restrained, while this modern Pythias continued blubberingand praying for his " calendar." His worship, however, was deaf to the urchin's entreaties, and the friends were pitchforked unceremoniously out of court.

Another group enter upon the changeful scene. _ an ironfaced master and idle runaway apprentice. Indentures are handed by the former to his lord. ship, and complaint prepared. It appears that, notwithstanding the apprentice ge's fifteen shillings a-week for the work he does while learning his trade, he chooses to absent himself from his master's premises, for the purpose of participating in the diversions of Epsom races. The youth, on being asked to account for his conduct, raises a point of law-namely, that where a premium has not been paid with the boy, masters have no legal controul over their apprentices. This the bench overrules, not without an admonition to the youth for assuming such a line of defence. Turning to the master, his worship asked whether he wishes the boy to be sent to prison, at the same time benevolently deprecating such a conclusion, if it can be possibly averted, observing that a prison is a bad school for any one, much more for an apprentice, and so forth. The master, however, is a hard, inexorable man, and he inclines not to mercy; he leaves matters entirely in the hands of the magistrate. Now, his worship, evidently with pain, sentences the boy (a respectable looking lad) to a month's imprisonment. The female relatives of the culprit open the floodgates of their eyes, and look im

ploringly now at the magistrate and now at the prisoner. The latter is about to be removed, when a poor, hard-working lad slips forward, introducing himself as brother-in-law of the prisoner. He makes an appeal to the bench on the score of the youth of the prisoner, and condemns his conduct; he turns to the master, imploring him not to send the lad to a jail, and disgrace his family: finally, he hopes the magistrate will at least mitigate the sentence; and concludes a prudent, manly, and judicious speech, by offering himself as security for the prisoner's future conduct.

The auditory seemed pleased with the propriety of the young man's speech and demeanour. The worthy justice compliments him highly, and reduces the term of imprisonment to seven days. The culprit testifies his gratitude by pulling his forelock, but the affectionate brother-in-law is not yet satisfied; he makes another and more earnest appeal to his lordship to overlook the matter this time, and he will never hear more of it; he points out the boy's mother weeping in the crowd, and insists upon the injury the boy will sustain in his character by having been, even for seven days, the inmate of a house of correction. Although the matter is so trivial, yet the earnestness of the amicus curiæ is so sincere, his affection so apparent, and his tact so considerable, that he has awakened an interest in the Bench; the spectators look as much as to say, we hope your worship will not refuse the petition of this good-hearted fellow. His worship does not refuse; he admonishes the boy in a feeling and impressive, but considerate and friendly, address. He gives the master a hint about injudicious severity; and, having recommended all parties to the performance of the duties in their several relations, not without again taking favourable notice of the conduct of the brotherin-law, dismisses the parties, every body looking pleased and satisfied. It is very pleasing to see justice thus disarmed of its severity, and judges, without compromising their dignity, condescending to mild reproof and wholesome admonition. Sure we are, that the heart must be hard, and the nature incorrigible, of him who would not profit more by a scene like this than by months at the tread mill. Punishment, when severe, defeats the inten

YOL. LII. NO, CCCXXI,

tion of its infliction; the good it makes bad, the bad it makes worse. Vindictive in its own nature, it generates vindictiveness; humiliating and disgraceful, it sinks men to the level of humiliating and disgraceful things. We were, therefore, pleased and grateful to the worthy magistrate for the salutary dread he evidently showed of introducing a foolish youth into the contaminating atmosphere of a prison, and of affording him the opportunity of maturing his folly into crime.

Next enter upon the scene sundry publicans, charged with having " conjured spirits from the vasty deep" of their cellars, after the hour prescribed by law and superstition, beyond which those etherial essences are not permitted to communicate with mortal lips-that is to say, twelve o'clock at night a prowling policeman, whose hang-dog countenance is quite enough to carry an instinctive conviction to your mind of his readiness to swear any thing, filippantly kisses the book, and proceeds, in a drawling official nasal tone, to recount-" how, at fifteen minutes past twelve on Saturday night, (here he interpolates the date with much exactness,) as he was a-going of his rounds, he hears the sound of a noise in the house of the defendant, and peeping through the shutters he sees a light; then he knocked at the door, and had to wait till he got in. When he got in, he seed men a-going to bed, and heerd them a-hollering for candles." Upon cross-examination, the fellow's prevarication tallies with his expression of face so exactly, that the worthy magistrate is compelled to dismiss the case, it being quite clear that the inmates were domiciled in the tavern, and that there was no ground for any charge in the present instance.

Exit Boniface rejoicing, and enter a knot of omnibus cads and drivers, charged with violently racing in the public streets: the look of conscious innocence these fellows-the most outrageous ruffians of the town-have the

art

of screwing upon their carbunculated physiognomies when before a magistrate, is the most amusing thing in the world; it says more eloquent than words, as much as "what a hinjured mortal I is, to be pulled up this here fashion afore the beak, jist for doing nuffin to nobody."

A gentleman of evident respectabi

lity comes forward, and swears that the worthies, now in custody, formed their ponderous vehicles, three abreast, in the Strand, at eight o'clock on the Sabbath evening; that they galloped literally at the top of their speed along half the Strand, was sworn to by several witnesses; and that nothing could have saved the lives of those whose vehicles met theirs, save the course that was adopted of driving out of the way of these reckless vagabonds, upon the footway, to the great terror and danger of her majesty's liege subjects. The case was so gross, that some of the defendants pleaded guilty, and were immediately fined forty shillings each. Some of the most cunning made blundering defences, with a palpability of falsehood perfectly ludicrous. We observed, with regret, that those superior scoundrels were not mulcted in a greater sum than the others.

Place aux Dames. - A case of assault comes next, and the bottle-nosed crier introduces Jane Maddox and Mary Davies. Jane deponeth, that by command of her spouse she waited on Mary Davis for the sum of sixpence sterling, due and owing by the said Mary Davis; who, upon demand of the same, called Jane " every nasty name she could lay her tongue to;" and finally, throwing her from the top of the stairs to the bottom, followed her down to bestow upon her a valedictory kick, and so dismissed her with many hard words and bruises, but without the casus belli-the sixpence in dispute. Ladies, on both sides, swore point blank that the assault had and had not been committed, interlarding their evidence with the domestic histories of themselves and families, with a cataract of words no power of bench or officers could oppose, until exhausted nature compelled a brief cessation, Each successive witness agreed in declaring that there was not a syllable of truth in the statement of her predecessor; nothing could be got at but that there was sixpence in dispute somewhere, but all seemed unani

mous in thinking that the sixpence was due to them; and as it was impossible to believe one party more than another, the respective spouses of the belligerents were called upon to enter into recognizances severally and individually to keep the peace.

"It's a rummy thing, sir," remarked a humorous-looking policeman, whose civility in pointing out to us what was worthy of notice we had occasion to reward afterwards with a drain of beer; "it's a rummy thing that these here women as comes to our hoffice, never by no chance lets out a word agin their own side of the question-no, not when the hevidence goes agin 'em as clear as mud; they keeps talkin' right on end, a perwaricatin' and aggre watin', till his worship's like to bust a stoppin' of 'em; but it isn't no use whatsomdever, and the end of it is, we often has to bundle the whole bilive out o' court; and arter that you'll bear 'em accusin' and aggrewatin' till they gets to Long Acre. I never was over the water myself, sir," continued the servitor of justice, "but I shouldn't be surprized if faymale cases wasn't the werry same at Union Hall."

Who the little magistrate who presided is, we know not; we never saw him before, and most sincerely hope we may never see him again. But if exemplary patience, which not even the tongues of women can disturb, if great good-nature and benevolence, if a clear head and a feeling heart, be not his portion, then we have studied human nature to very little purpose. At all events, if it were our fate to be "had up at Bow Street" upon an unfounded accusation, we hope we may be confronted with his worship; but if guilty, we beg he will at once commit us to the house of correction, for there is a mild severity in his reproofs, and a degree of pain in the discharge of his painful duties, which would cut deeper into our heart, and sink us lower in our own estimation, than the wholesome severities of the tread-mill.

Westminster Hall is a pleasant place enough to those who, like ourselves, have no business there, or, which is the same thing, who cannot get any business. There was a time, indeed, when

we paced its adamantine floor from end to end with high hopes and sanguine expectations; with well fitting wig, flowing stuff gown, clean shave and shirt, white cravat, starched bands,

of

and law-book under our arm, we fondly imagined ourselves of some importance; but a few brief, not as we then thought they would turn out, briefless years, and we should have progressed from stuff gown to silk, and have migrated from the outer to the inner bar; there how sweet the echoes our sonorous voice resounding through the precincts of the crowded court; how delicious the breathless hush of expectation when we should have risen, and the busy hum of satisfied admiration when we should have sat down again, the fixed attention of the bench, the congratulations of learned friends, the verdicts of juries, the confidence of solicitors, the grateful acknowledgement of clients, the wondering glances of listening crowds were to have been ours, not to mention glittering rouleaus of fees, to which we should, perhaps, have given precedence; then what remains to us but a seat in Parliament, thick-and-thin voting with the minister, and behold us at length upon the bench, clothed in sacred ermine, the awful representa tive of majesty-oracle of law-despiser of the God-like attribute of earthly justice!

Thus exalted, what were we to have been! in eloquence an Erskine, in law a Mansfield, in lucid precision a Lyndhurst, in dignity a Denman, yea, even upon that bench, ambition, we thought, should hunt us still we should have been the chief among chiefs, and the judge among judges.

Such are the day-dreams, unambitious, and therefore happy peruser, that bubble under frizzled hair; such the aerial phantoms that will cross the inward eye of man that wears a wig; yet how seldom are they realized-how few of these atmospheric chateaux descending, fix themselves to earth and give you unquestionable possession; ay, and when they are realized, my friends, where is the pleasure that gave anticipation the delight-possession does not show you? Where the freshness of heart, the buoyancy of spirit, the elastic step, the lightsome countenance, of the days gone by, days of your obscurity and your youth, of your struggles and your hope? Alas, if

these accompanied the honour and respect that attend him who is invested with the ermine, gratified ambition would be heaven on earth! Old or young, high or low, there is nothing more gratifying to the mind of man than success honourably acquired, and the successes of the bar are truly splendid. The proininent position of the successful advocate, the everyday publicity given by the press to his exertions, the importance of the interests committed to his skill and care, the pertinence of his legal and forensic ability to the purposes of political life, the number and value of the prizes in his professional lottery; these are the spangles upon the robe of life that attract the eyes of those whose hopes outrun their judgment, and whose expectations are jumped at rather than calculated. Crowds admire the figures upon tapestry-the splendour of the colours, the rich intermixture of its purple and gold; but who turns the array to contemplate the jagged ends of thread, tags of worsted, and unsightly patchwork, of the reversed side of the picture? and yet it is upon this side the artificer sits and works-this is the picture as he sees it--the showy outside is for the spectator. Thus it is that we look upon life; ermine, lace, gold, jewels, rank, fortune, station, ambition, glitter in our eyes, and we envy the good fortune of the possessors, and think they must be happy, seeing but the show side of their lives; yet not a life among them that has not, or has not had, its rags and tags and knotted ends, its wrong side, in short, in which the artisan has not been fingering all his days, until the splendour that he has made becomes distasteful, and only serves to enrich the eyes of ignorant spectators.

Pause, reader, and take off your hat: we are now about to be introduced to

the awful presence of the justices of our lady the Queen at Westminster. Stay, there is a full Number's work here: meet us upon this spot a month hence. Good-by for the present. Put on your hat again, virtuous reader, and take care of yourself. Good people are not by any means drugs in the market of society!

THE events of the last six months have at length reduced the question of our Affghan policy into something like a definite form. From the day when our columns first crossed the Indus in hostile array, we never ceased to proclaim that any permanent occupation of the country, as a conquest made on our behalf, could never be for an instant contemplated; and that the sole object of the expedition was the restoration of the friendly dynasty of the Suddozyes, to whom we were bound by the ties of ancient alliance, to the throne from which they were excluded by an usurping chief, the continuance of whose rule was incompatible equally with our interests and with the welfare of his own country. On this avowed principle, Affghanistan was laid waste with fire and sword, the castles of its independent nobles besieged and stormed, and the chiefs themselves slaughtered while fighting in defence of their thresholds; and all this was carried on ("with a view," as stated by a writer in the Asiatic Journal, "to the reconstruction of the social edifice!") in the name of a monarch who, as was notorious to every one, was in effect as much a state prisoner of the English at Cabul as his unfortunate competitor, Dost Mohammed, was in Hindostan, and who exercised less real power, beyond the precincts of his own palace, than the youngest subaltern of the invading army. Herat in the meanwhile, the securing which against attack was the original pretext of the war, was almost the only corner of Affghanistan into which our intrusive arms did not penetrate; and its vizier, Yar- Moham. med, was suffered with perfect impunity to insult and expel our envoy, to levy war against his own nominal sovereign Shah-Kamran, and to open correspondence with all the enemies of England, avowed or secret. Never, in fact, was the notable Whig process

*

re

of a non-intervention war more completely carried out than in this instance. All this time, every rupee of revenue extracted from the country in the name of Shah-Shoojah cost at least ten in the collecting; and as the restored monarch was bound by treaty to keep up a subsidiary force, the expense of supporting which would have considerably exceeded the income he had ever been able, even in his former days of prosperity, to levy in his dominions, the slender sources of Affghanistan must, in the natural course of things, have been utterly exhausted in a few yearswhile the current outlay could only be met by incessant draughts on the Calcutta treasury, which was forced to make constant advances, and to contract heavy loans for the sake of maintaining its grasp of a territory already mortgaged far beyond the fee-simple of its value. It appears difficult to conjecture how this blissful state of things would have terminated - whether by the bankruptcy of the Indian exchequer, or by the conversion of Affghanistan into a desertif we had been less unmolested in our philanthropic efforts to "make a solitude and call it peace," and ShahShoojah had been still suffered by his affectionate subjects to slumber, undisturbed by cares of state, within the screens of his well-stocked zenana. But the recent catastrophe has given us a chance of extrication from the dilemma. Of the country we are now no longer in possession; and if the intelligence brought by the last mail is to be relied on, both our protegé ShahShoojah, and his nephew and rival Kamran, have closed their career in death; thus virtually terminating the Suddozye dynasty, as the sous of the late Shah are utterly powerless and insignificant among the crowd of chiefs, and one at least of them (Seifdar-Jung) is actually in arms against us. It now re