culation from some modern Sibyl, who has taken this public way of proclaiming her profound knowledge in the Divine Art of Foretelling Future Events, and the cheap method by which information of so much consequence may be obtained.

"Mrs. S. W. respectfully begs leave to inform the Nobility and Gentry, that she practises the Art of DiscOVERING FUTURE EVENTS incidental to either Sex, in a friendly way. Letters, post paid, attended to. Hours from 10 in the morning till 9 at night. [We omit the Resi dence.] Fine Powder sold."

It was not without astonishment that I perused this novelty in Divination ; and I could not help reverting in thought to those unenlightened ages, when, favoured by the ignorance and blind superstition, of which they were the encouragers, and which swayed the minds of the wisest of men; with no other preten sions to divine influence than a horrid distortion of feature and body, too shocking even for modern practisers to imitate, the primogenitors of this designing woman, by a few ambiguous answers, and incoherent expressions, left for the interpretation of interest or artifice, could strike terrors into hearts before invincible, and make cowards, that bowed to them as slaves, exult over them as victors. I revolved this in my mind, Mr. Urban, and, returned my grateful thanks for the abundant knowledge and truth enjoyed by the present race of men at this enlightened period, to that Being who alone cau unveil the paths of futurity, and in whose breast alone things past, and to come, are together recorded. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

JA. GS.

June 5. HE false philanthrophy which

sequent imprisonment. If this power be thought too great to intrust to a Magistrate (which is necessarily intrusted to every School-master, high and low, in the Kingdom) let him form a Jury of the by-standers (four or five would be enough) and take their verdict before he passes sentence. If the Culprit be under sixteen years of age, let the punishment be inflicted in the same manner, and with the same implements, as are used at our Public Schools; and most of our Legislators, past, present, and to come, Whigs, Tories, Rats, or Ra dicals, will feelingly attest the efficacy of it. If he be above sixteen, let him, for decency sake, be honoured with a cat upon his shoulders; and after the punishment, let him be restored to his parents or friends, if he has any that will receive him; and if not, let him be sent to some place of refuge, to be provided by Government for the purpose, till he can be placed in some way of getting an honest livelihood; the Magistrate should in such cases take the depositions of the witnesses in writing, as well for as against the Prisoner, and should transimit them, together with his judgment, to the Clerk of the Peace, to be filed of record for his own justification.

With respect to the Ladies, Mr. Urban, I hope I shall not shock you or your Readers by professing the barbarous opinion, in opposition to the gallant, and let me add gáilant General who advocated their cause so successfully in the last Parliament, that a proper measure of the same discipline, applied discreetly, and not publicly, by persons of their own sex, to the very young and depraved part of them, if it did not produce a reformation in their morals, would at least be a check to some of those dis

comfortable Hotels, and that morbid sensibility which cannot bear to see or hear of the infliction of pain or ignominious punishment upon a criminal, are, I am satisfied, among the prime causes of the increase of petty offenders. With respect to young Culprits, I am convinced that nothing would so much diminish their num bers as severe corporal chastisement, and that summarily inflicted, upon proof of the offence before a Magisrate, and without previous or sub

June 21. ILL some of your Correspondents, learned in the Law, take the trouble to afford me information upon a question arising out of a statement, which was some time ago made in the public newspapers, relative to a proceeding at a Country Quarter Sessions. The case alluded to is that of a depraved youth, who,

being convicted of picking pockets, was sentenced to six months imprisonment, and to be whipped. Upon hearing his punishment, the offender, in a transport of rage, took off his shoe, which is related to have had an iron heel, and hurled it at the Chairman, between whom and one of his Brother Magistrate it passed, however, without striking either of them. The report proceeds, that the Bench, after a short consultation, made an alleration in their former sentence; viz. that the party should be imprisoned two years, instead of six months, and be whipped three times, instead of once: the first flagellation being thereupon immediately inflicted.

What wish to know is, whether this sentence is to be considered as a punishment of the offence of picking pockets, or of his conduct in Court? If the latter, whether the Court is constitutionally empowered to inflict such punishment summarily and with out trial, and to what extent and degree their authority legally reaches? I am aware that, in the case of a Libeller, convicted and brought up for Judgment before the Court of King's Bench, the Attorney-General of the day implored the Court to visit his conduct in Court (the bringing forward matter, which, in the opinion of that officer, was an aggravation of his original offence) with an augmentation of punishment: but I can not believe that any attention was paid to the request. The Libeller was punished justly, and no doubt in due measure for the offence of which he had been tried and found guilty, by a Jury: but the Jury being the proper judges of the fact, and of the quo animo, it seems (1 speak it with great deference) as if their decision ought to precede the adjudication and apportionment of all punishments what

and afflicted by it, as to be for the time deprived of his proper senses, and of all command of himself. I can conceive that such an one might be guilty of the utmost violation of decency and decorum, indeed I remember a case in point: but I presume that either due allowance should be made, as was done in the instance to which I have just alluded, by a very humane and merciful Judge, now no more; or that, if the circumstances of the affair were extremely atrocious, they ought to be made a separate, distinct, and future cause for consideration: when all passion and all personal feelings might have subsided, and when it would be impossible that an otherwise perhaps, lenient sentence should be attributed to any thing like resentment or irritation.

Every body knows that all Courts of Justice must be constitutionally authorized to maintain and enforcetheir own dignity, and to punish contempts. But I think it may be fairly questioned whether a sentence once pronounced should either be mitigated or aggravated in consequence of the after-conduct of the party sentenced. Would not such a practice be an infringement of the rights of Jurors, and of course of the British subject? Without the most distant intention to defend or extenuate the atrocity of such an attack on the Magistrates before alluded to, it may not be amiss to agitate the general question, whether the proceedings were quite regular in the above instance, in order to discover the grounds on which rests that great axiom of British Jurisprudence, that proof is necessary to constitute guilt. I say we have no proof at all that the man was not as mad as Peg Nicholson ; and I believe that nobody ever thought of proposing a flagellation for that lady, however shocking and detestable the attempt which brought ber into public notoriety. Perhaps there may have been some error or misstatement in the reported account of the proceedings; and if so, your widely circulating pages will afford an opportunity to the parties to correct it, and to remove the doubts which have occasioned the present intrasion of

A KNUTSFORD MAN. P. S. Since writing the above, I have read in the newspapers an account of the sentence of 18 months

imprisonment, changed into that of seven years transportation, by a Judge, to whom an offender, after sentence, but before it was recorded, had been impertinent. I forbear to make any remark on this statement; of the correctness or incorrectness of which I know nothing but by the report of the press; but it induces me the more earnestly to desire to know the law on a subject so important to the rights of an Englishman. To what extent might not such a discretion be sometimes extended?

LETTERS FROM THE CONTINENT. (Continued from p. 581.) LETTER VII.

and

Paris, Aug. 13, 1818. Ythe street ESTERDAY morning we met in We walked along with them to the Pantheon. The Pont Neuf, which we crossed in our way, is not new, but is the oldest bridge in Paris; on this bridge, before the Revolution, stood the statue of Henry IV. who laid the first stone of it; this statue, which had stood 200 years, was pulled down in 1792, and entirely demolished; a new one in place of it has been prepared by public subscription, and this was the day which the news-papers had announced for the fixing it, when there was to be a grand military procession: the statue was to be drawn by oxen with gilded horns, &c. but unfortunately for us, it is not quite ready, and the ceremony is postponed for a few days. In the Place Louis XV. which I mentioned before, there was a statue of that King, which was also destroyed in Sept. 1792, and in its place the Goddess of Liberty was set up, and in front of her a guillo

tine; and this was the chief scene of the butchery which attended the Revolution. Here Louis XVI. was beheaded. This statue, as well as the other, is to be restored. After all that has been said, and truly, of the horrors of the French Revolution and its pernicious consequences, I seriously think that its ultimate consequences are already proving less pernicious than we could ever have expected; and greatly less so than those of our English Revolution in the 17th century, which apparently was not half so horrible. But the

men who murdered Charles I. were professedly saints; they had the Bibles always in their pockets, were seeking the Lord, and thought they were doing God service in killing the King; and hence for a whole century afterwards, any thing like serious religion fell under contempt; a very dead era succeeded, which continued till about the middle of the last century. Now the actors in the French Revolution were professed Atheists, and therefore nothing which they did could be considered out of character, however wicked. They proceeded to such lengths as disgusted the rest of mankind. The same abhorrence of the principles of the actors has been the result, which followed in the case of Cromwell and the Puritans; and now we see a general spirit stirred up of spreading the Bible, and of educating the rising generation in Christian principles: this is the case as to education at least in France, as well as in England. A large church in Paris, is open twice every Sunday, in which the service of the Church of England, and Sermons are given in English; it is very near the Louvre; the Rev. Mr. Forster is the Minister. A Bible Society is about to be established in Paris, with the consent of the Government. The Church of St. Genevieve was built by Louis XV.: it is an uniform Grecian building with a large dome; and the vanity of the French leads them to compare it to St. Peter's at Rome, though not half the size; it is, however, handsome. The Revolutionists converted this into a PANTHEON, a place of sepulture and monumental fame for their clau. If I had expected any gratification from seeing their monuments, I should have been disappointed; the whole interior is empty, not a statue or monument, or furniture of any kind is to be seen. You are then conducted into the vaults below, where they shew two ugly wooden tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau, a statue of the former, and the burial places of some of Buonaparte's Generals, who are not honoured even with monuments. Over the entrance into the Pantheon, the following revolutionary inscriptions are still suffered to remain uneffaced, "Unité et Indivisibilité de la Republique.” "Liberté, Egalité, ou la Mort." "La Loi est l'expression de la volonté gé. nérale." The Commissary, who shews

the

the building, attributed the unfinished state of the Pantheon to the poverty of the French King, but the French King will know better how to employ his money than in garnishing the sepulchres of Rousseau and Voltaire. From the Pantheon we proceed ed to the Luxemburg Palace, which is large and handsome, and has very extensive gardens in excellent order, though open to the public. In the palace we found some good statues, but all the valuable paintings which composed the Luxemburg Gallery have been taken to the Louvre. lo this palace is the Chamber of Peers, a handsome room, though small compared to our House of Lords; here Marshal Ney was tried: adjoining it is the Royal Chamber of Audience, with the King's throne, on which he receives the homage of the Peers. In returning through the front of the Thuilleries Palace, I noticed a subterranean passage from the Palace, which emerges into one of the walks at some distance; this, it seems, was made by Buonaparte, who did not choose to pass through the thoroughfare in the immediate front of the Palace, and made this road for privacy. The walk to which it leads is surrounded by pallisadoes, and capable of excluding the public when desired, which of course was done when the Emperor chose to walk. When he issued from the subterranean passage, the Parisians used to say that the Lion was coming out of his den. This made him very angry.-All the CHARITIES in Paris, if they may be so called, are Institutions maintained and directed by Government: there is no voluntary subscription from private individuals, nor have they any controul. As there are no poor laws, there are several hospitals in which the old, infirm, sick, mad, vagabonds, and others who are in danger of perishing, are placed but whether they are sufficiently spacious or numerous for receiving all objects, I should doubt. The principal of these hodge-pot hospitals (or hospices as the French call them, for they confine the word hospital to a place for the sick) is the Bicêtre, a sort of house of correction for men; and the Salpetriere, a similar place for women: the Bicêtre stands about two miles from Paris, the Salpetriere at the S. W. extremity of the town. In

the general rummage which took place at the Revolution in 1792, it was found that both these institutions were in a wretched state of mismanagement: there was no classification, no employment, no attention to morals, none to cleanliness or health; the different cases were then classed, order and regularity introduced, an attention to the wholesomeness of the diet began to be paid, and all, of whatever sex, in both establishments who were able to work were compelled to do so. There are about 6000 women and girls in the Salpetriere, and between 2 and 3000 men in the Bicêtre. What is the exact proportion of male lunatics in the latter I have not ascertained, but the female lunatics in the former are about 600; Dr. Pinel is the Physician. The male lunatics in the Bicêtre are said to be in a damp unwholesome part of that building, and only 100 of them have separate beds. Not having much time left, I thought it more material, instead of visiting either of these Institutions, to make inquiry after another upon a different plan, appropriated entirely for lunatics, and in which no paupers are admitted. This is the Royal House of Health at Charenton, a village about three miles from the barriers of Paris, and about six from the middle of the town. Immediately on returning from the Luxemburg Palace yesterday afternoon, I took a hackney coach, which in something less than an hour and a half brought me to the place. Charenton is a pleasant village, situated on the river Marne, near its confluence with the Seine. The situation reminded me a little of that of the Asylum at Nottingham. The house stands near the foot of a hill, with a large garden behind it, extending nearly to the summit, The house is a very irregular pile of building, and seems to have been added to at different times; it was originally a small lunatic institution founded by monks, but in 1797 the Government put it on its present footing. I was introduced to Mr. Goven, pupil to the second Physician, who is employed as an assistant; he has not yet graduated; he is an intelligent young man, and has translated into French a medical work by Dr. Thomas, of Salisbury: he told me I could not possibly be

allowed

allowed to see the patients, there being a rule that prohibited it, as it was considered that the friends of patients, or themselves, if restored to sanity, might dislike their being shewn; in fact, that it was a private mad-house, though under the management of government. We walked into the garden, which is extremely pleasant, and he gave me the following particulars: there are 430 patients; 280 men, and 150 women, who are in distinct parts of the building; they are admitted at the rate of payment adequate to their circumstances; persons who can pay nothing are sent to the Bicêtre or Salpetriere. The establishment costs government nothing; the payments of the patients being adequate to the salaries and expences. The highest payments of patients is 1300 francs or 547. sterling; the lowest is half that sum. The 1st physician, Mr. Roger Collard, has a salary of 6000 francs or 2501. a year; he resides in Paris. The 2nd physician lives in the house, and has a salary of 2500 francs or 1057. There is a Superintendant or Director whom I saw; I did not inquire his salary, but should suppose it not more than half that of the 2nd physician: there is also an Apothecary.

I saw two or three Clerks in the Director's Office who seemed fully employed in keeping accounts, making out bills, &c. The establishment provides servants: there are 40 at present: they reckon one to ten patients. A patient may have his own servant by paying extra. Each sex of patients is attended by servants of the same. The rules are voluminous, but are not in print; they are approved by the Minister of the Interior. The patients are classed as their cases may be; the furious, the composed, and the convalescent, are kept separate; all have separate beds. Chains have not been used in any of the three Lunatic Establishments of Paris for 20 years; the patients are confined by strait waistcoats and straps. Patients play at cards and other games; some of them are employed in different kinds of work. They are taken into the garden daily, and take exercise; there are no airing Courts; and only one garden, which is laid out with shrubs and flowers, and is in such a stile of neatness, that it is evident the pa

not

tients are never for a moment left to themselves. The males and females are brought out at different parts of the day. A Priest lives in the house and performs religious offices to the convalescent patients, and others ca. pable of attending; the number of these is about 60. The rules prohibit the servants from punishing or ill-treating patients. The Physicians take no fees from the patients' friends, but there is no rule against it. Visitors appointed by government come four times a year, at fixed periods. The other two Lunatic Establishments, Mr. Goven believes are visited at all. The number of servants in proportion to patients in those is fewer, but Mr. Goven has not heard of any want of attention to cleanliness. At the Maison de Sante, escapes seldom happen, as the patients are always under the eye of the servants; yet the walls of the building and garden are not high, and it does not present the appearance of a place of confinement. There have been no suicides amongst the patients, but four or five deaths by suffocation in eating; one was choked by a mutton bone, and when Mr. Goven opened the body he found another bone had entered the lungs of the same man. Mr. Goven had not heard of the Quaker's Retreat, or of the existence of such a religious Society as Quakers. He was extremely attentive, and spoke English as well as he could, in order to assist in giving me information. On my road to Charenton, I passed within about a mile of the famous old gothic Castle and Tower or Dunjon of St. Vincennes, the place where Buonaparte murdered the Duke D'Enghien; I had a distinct and full view of it; I had not, however, time to visit it, for I had engaged to dine with at five at a Restaurateurs, and when I got back from Charenton it was past seven, and they begau to think me lost. Having been prevailed on to postpone our departure to-day, and to accompany in a visit to Versailles, I am just returned from thence.

THE

(To be continued.)

X.

Mr. URBAN, THE Regalia of Scotland are: — The Crown, Sword, aud Sceptre : these were constantly kept by the Keiths,