conduct, but to burn or crush a whole with the customary penalties against train merely to prevent a few immoral the companies for disobedience of insides from not paying, is I hope a orders, and then the board may use little more than Ripon or Gladstone this power as the occasion may require. will bear. We have been, up to this point, very careless of our railway regulations. The first person of rank who is killed will put everything in order, and produce a code of the most careful rules. I hope it will not be one of the bench of bishops; but should it be so destined, let the burnt bishop-the unwilling Latimer-remember that, however painful gradual concoction by fire may be, his death will produce unspeakable benefit to the public. Even Sodor and Man will be better than nothing. From that moment the bad effects of the monopoly are destroyed; no more fatal deference to the directors; no despotic incarceration, no barbarous inattention to the anatomy and physiology of the human body; no commitment to locomotive prisons with warrant. We shall then find it possible "Voyager libre sans mourir." June 7, 1842. SYDNEY SMITH. BURNING ALIVE ON RAIL- To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. SIR, To pass a one-legged law, giving power over one door and not the other, would, perhaps, be too absurd for human endurance. If railroad companies were aware of their real and extended interests, they would not harass the public by vexatious regulations, nor, under the plea of humanity (though really for purposes of economy), expose them to serious peril. The country are very angry with themselves for having granted the monopoly, and very angry for the instances of carelessness and oppression which have appeared in the working of the system: the heaviest fines are inflicted by coroner's juries, the heaviest damages are given by common juries. Railroads have daily proofs of their unpopularity. If Parliament get out of temper with these metallic ways, they will visit them with Laws of Iron, and burst upon them with the high pressure of despotism. The wayfaring men of the North will league with the wayfaring men of the West; South and East will join hand in hand against them. All the points of the compass will combine against these vendors of velocity, and traders in transition. I hope a clause will be introduced, compelling the Board of Trade to report twice a year to Parlia ment upon the accidents of railroads, their causes, and their prevention. The public know little or nothing of what happens on the rail. All the men with letters upon the collars of their coats are sworn to secrecy nothing can be extracted from them; when anything happens they neither appear to see nor hear you. HAVING gradually got into this little controversy respecting the burning human beings alive on the railroads, I must beg leave, preparatory to the introduction of the bill, to say a few more words on the subject. If I could have my will in these matters, I would In case of conflagration, you would introduce into the bill a clause abso-be to them as so many joints on the lutely prohibitory of all locking doors on railroads; but as that fascinating board, the Board of Trade, does not love this, and as the public may, after some repetitions of roasted humanity, be better prepared for such peremptory legislation, the better method perhaps will be to give to the Board of Trade the power of opening doors (one or both), spit. It has occurred to 500 persons, points have been properly considered; instead of wrapping themselves up in they should know that there are a set transcendental philosophy, and the of officers paid to watch over their in- principles of letting-aloneness, why do terests, and to guard against the per- they not at once do what ought to be petual encroachments, the carelessness, done-what must be done - and the insolence, and the avarice of mo- what, after many needless butcheries, nopoly. they will at last be compelled to do?— Yours, SYDNEY SMITH. Why do not our dear Ripon and our youthful Gladstone see this, and come cheerfully to the rescue? and, June 18, 1842. LETTERS, ETC. ON AMERICAN DEBTS. THE HUMBLE PETITION of the REV. SYDNEY SMITH to the HOUSE OF CONGRESS at WASHINGTON. I PETITION your honourable House to institute some measures for the restoration of American credit, and for the repayment of debts incurred and repudiated by several of the States. Your Petitioner lent to the State of Pennsylvania a sum of money, for the purpose of some public improvement. The amount, though small, is to him important, and is a saving from a life income, made with difficulty and privation. If their refusal to pay (from which a very large number of English families are suffering) had been the result of war, produced by the unjust aggression of powerful enemies; if it had arisen from civil discord; if it had proceeded from an improvident application of means in the first years of self-government: if it were the act of a poor State struggling against the barrenness of nature-every friend of America would have been contented to wait for better times; but the fraud is committed in the profound peace of Pennsylvania, by the richest State in the Union, after the wise investment of the borrowed money in roads and canals, of which the repudiators are every day reaping the advantage. It is an act of bad faith which (all its circumstances considered) has no parallel, and no excuse. Nor is it only the loss of property which your Petitioner laments; he laments still more that immense power which the bad faith of America has given to aristocratical opinions, and to the enemies of free institutions, in the old world. It is in vain any longer to appeal to history, and to point out the wrongs which the many have received from the few. The Americans, who boast to have improved the institutions of the old world, have at least equalled its crimes. A great nation, after trampling under foot all earthly tyranny, has been guilty of a fraud as enormous as ever disgraced the worst king of the most degraded nation of Europe. It is most painful to your Petitioner to see that American citizens excite, wherever they may go, the recollection that they belong to a dishonest people, who pride themselves on having tricked and pillaged Europe; and this mark is fixed by their faithless legislators on some of the best and most honourable men in the world, whom every Englishman has been eager to see and proud to receive. It is a subject of serious concern to your Petitioner that you are losing all that power which the friends of freedom rejoiced that you possessed, looking upon you as the ark of human happiness, and the most splendid picture of justice and of wisdom that the world had yet seen. Little did the friends of America expect it, and sad is the spectacle to see you rejected by every State in Europe, as a nation with whom no contract can be made, because none will be kept; unstable in the very foundations of social life, deficient in the elements of good faith, men who prefer any load of infamy however great, to any pressure of taxation however light. out the greatest of all political problems, and upon that confederacy the eyes of thinking men are intensely fixed, to see how far the mass of mankind can be trusted with the management of their own affairs, and the establishment of their own happiness. May 18, 1843. LETTER I. To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. SIR, You did me the favour, some time since, to insert in your valuable journal a petition of mine to the American Congress, for the repayment of a loan made by me, in common with many other unwise people, to the State of Pennsylvania. For that petition I have been abused in the grossest man Nor is it only this gigantic bank-ner by many of the American papers. ruptcy for so many degrees of longitude and latitude which your Petitioner deplores, but he is alarmed also by that total want of shame with which these things have been done; the callous immorality with which Europe has been plundered, that deadness of the moral sense which seems to preclude all return to honesty, to perpetuate this new infamy, and to threaten its extension over every State of the Union. After some weeks' reflection, I see no reason to alter my opinions, or to retract my expressions. What I then said was not wild declamation, but measured truth. I repeat again, that no conduct was ever more profligate than that of the State of Pennsylvania. History cannot pattern it: and let no deluded being imagine that they will ever repay a single farthing-their people have tasted of the dangerous luxury of dishonesty, and they will never be brought back to the homely rule of right. The money transactions of the Americans are become a byword among the nations of Europe. In every grammar-school of the old world ad Græcas Calendas is trans To any man of real philanthropy, who receives pleasure from the improvements of the world, the repudiation of the public debts of America, and the shameless manner in which it has been talked of and done, is the most melancholy event which has hap-lated - the American dividends. pened during the existence of the I am no enemy to America. I loved present generation. Your Petitioner and admired honest America when she sincerely prays that the great and respected the laws of pounds, shillings, good men still existing among you and pence; and I thought the United may, by teaching to the United States States the most magnificent picture c the deep disgrace they have incurred human happiness: I meddle now i in the whole world, restore them to these matters because I hate fraud moral health, to that high position because I pity the misery it has occ they have lost, and which, for the sioned - because I mourn over the happiness of mankind, it is so impor-hatred it has excited against free institant they should ever maintain; for tutions. the United States are now working Among the discussions to which the Headlam, John, review of his Letter on Helots, the Irish Catholics treated as, i. 304. Herbert, Hon. and Rev. William, review of his Heretics, Arians burnt as, in 1612, i. 215. Heywood, Samuel, review of his Vindication of Hindoo faith, the Mussulmans of India not converts from it, i. 117. Hindoos, anecdote of their feelings relative to caste, i. 117; their religion, 117-119; their persecution by Tippoo, 144. Historical Apology for the Irish Catholics, Parnell's review of, i. 80-84. Hodgson, Adam, review of his Letters from North America, ii, 42-52. Holford, George, review of his work on Prisons i. 337. Holstein, exportation of horses from, i. 51; its soil, 53; canal, advantages of its, 60. Homer, morality of, i. 8. Honeybird, its habits, i. 44; common informer likened to, 44. Hope, Mr., eulogium on his Anastasius, i. 316. 322 Horner Francis, his character, ii. 318-321. Horses, exportation of, from Holstein, i. 51. House of Commons, expectations from, when reformed, ii. 211. House of Lords, suggestions regarding it, i. 23; likened to Mrs. Partington, ii. 214. Human Nature, experiment upon it in New Humane Society, review of Dr. Langford's I. India, our empire in, i. 37; missions in. 102 — 121; consequences of the loss of caste in, 107; difficulty attending the progress of Christianity in, 108; proceedings of the evangelical party in, 114; Mahometans of, not converts from Hindooism, 117; duty of conversion in, questionable, 117-119; introduction of Christianity into, 142; difference of officers serving in, from those on European service, 192. Impropriators, lay, i. 125. Imputations, fallacy of, as an answer to expedient measures, íì. 66. Informers, odious nature of their trade, i. 131; deterred by public indignation, ii. 30. Ingram, Mr., review of his Causes of the Increase of Methodism and Dissent, i. 87-102. Innovation, source of the dislike of, i. 331; fallacy of the cry against, ii. 67. Insanity caused by Methodism, i. 99; Quaker treatment of it, 228-234; no dependence on medicine for its cure, 232; curious case of, 233. Insects the curse of tropical climates, ii. 81. Inspectors of prisons, i. 338. Institutions, good, are indispensable, ii. 65; must be defensible, 222; number marked for destruction in 1837, 279; much easier to destroy when associated with mean ideas, 285. Instruction, religious, in early life should be confined to general principles, i. 79. Interference of Providence, instances of, cited by Methodists, i. 89. et seq. Intimidation of tenants by their landlords, and of shopkeepers by their customers, ii. 174; not confined to the aristocracy, 307; ballot would afford no protection against it, 312. Intolerance, its lasting spirit, i. 203; Methodists' complaint of, 303. Inundation in Denmark, i. 53. Ireland, her conduct in the American war, ii. 141. 230; our proper policy towards her, 145; her forfeited lands, 146; danger of tyrannising over her, 147. 202; opposition to the Union in, 149; nearly lost during the American war, 149; conduct of England towards, 150; anticipated conduct of France towards her, 157; a mill-stone about the neck of England, 159; concealment of arms in, 163, probable invasion of, 163; exploits of the invading force in 1796, 164; her statistics, 166 practical evils in, 170; parallel with Hungary, 177; premium offered to invade her, 202 payment of the clergy in, 205. 228; fruits of English government in, 206; anticipated effects of emancipation in, 206; Inquisition never existed in, 226; review of Parnell's Survey of the History of, i. 80-84; never subdued till the reign of Elizabeth, 83; conduct of Elizabeth towards, 83; Brehon law of property in, 82; review of the state of, 304-316; remedies for, 315, operation of tithes in, 306, 307 ; tithes must be relaxed in, ii. 151. 174; Gamble's Travels in, 171; folland rapacity of the landlords of, 182; bigotry and party spirit of the Protestants of, 176'; absenteeism in, 180; middlemen the standing grievance of, 181. 186; injustice of the English Church in, 178. 184. 187; potatoes one cause of her wretched condition, 184; misgovernment of, 176. 185; difficulty of executing the laws in, 104; want of coal in, 185; picture of ploughing in, 185; her demoralised peasantry, 200; baseness of her treatment by England, 283; expenses of the wars in, 286; Catholic disabilities in, 286; Protestant Church in, 288; Cromwell's conduct in, 286; natives of, in America, 308; quiet of, under Queen Anne, 130; Dr. Doyle the Pope of, 131; power of the priests in, 134, 136; power of the government to obtain the nomination of the Catholic dignitaries in, 140; Orange. men of, 147. 168; disfranchisement of voters in, 211; prevented only by Grattan from separating from England, 230; increase in her wealth and power, 233; forfeited estates in, 234; conduct of Henry Cromwell in, 241; injustice to her in the present state of the Catholic Church, 337. Irish in America, ii. 83. Irreligion, stigma of the charge of, i. 78. J. Jacobinism condemned, i. 11; charged against Dissenters, 188; detestable, ii. 176. Jaffa, massacre and poisoning at, i, 64, 65. James II., Fox's view of his conduct in regard to the Catholic religion, i. 213-215; con |