Valdes at first naturally hesitated to deliver up the forts and citadel of Cadiz to the French; this was unquestionably to gain a little time for himself and other compromised persons to get away; but, on the 4th, the Spanish troops marched out to the cantonments assigned to them, and the French forces entered and took possession of the Isle of Leon, and the city, and fortifications of Cadiz, the division of Count de Bourmont landing at the same time from the squadron on board of which it had been some time embarked. The Count was himself named governor of the Gadetanean island.

The French force with which the Duke d'Angoulême effected this conquest amounted to about 25,000 men-certainly of the élite of the French army. The Spanish force within the walls was about 8000 strong, a third part of which were militiamen.

When Marshal Victor besieged Cadiz unsuccessfully, during the war of independence, his force was 30,000 strong. The garrison consisted of 5000 Spaniards, 3000 English, 700 Hanoverians, and 1500 Portuguese, in all, 10,200 men. In both instances, in point of numbers and equality of character, the combatants seem to have been as nearly as possible equally matched. How was it that the Duke d'Angoulême succeeded, and that the Duke de Belluno failed? Was it that the King's name, that tower of strength in both cases, influenced and determined the result?

(To be concluded in our next.)

AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSE AND REPRESSION OF CRIME. WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE UNITED SERVICE.

"The proper study of mankind is man."

WE Confess to having no affectionate regard for the offsets of statistical Utilitarianism which are stuck into every path of periodical literature; and we are the more grounded in this, because we verily believe that, under pretence of disseminating the science of political economy, more ignorant presumption and wilful error have been broached, than under any other branch of human knowledge. Much of the mischief which we have seen may have arisen from well-intentioned persons, who, understanding the subject but imperfectly, had not provided sufficient line for deep soundings, and were more liable to scud before passion and prejudice, than haul up by judgment and reason; such men become uncertain of their reckoning in the slightest mist, and are then easily misled by treacherous pilots and false lights, who generally strand them on the shallows. Another, and a far more numerous class, rush into the arena, obstinate as mules, mischievous as madmen, and rapacious as robbers, and it would be whistling to a squall to hint to these "Perfectionists" the attainments, experience, and penetration which are necessary for the discussion of the abstruse doctrines of legislation, finance, industry, property, subsistence, trade, and commerce. We acknowledge that we dislike the pestilent and pig-headed perverters of justice and morality, who now unblushingly proclaim their hopes of subverting our establishments,-but though such are our sentiments, we do

not profess to remain uninterested spectators of any real movement of mind, nor to withhold from our readers any remarkable advent in the cause of the social compact:-so, while for the present we commit the population department to the custody of Malthus and Miss Martineau,* we proceed to notice a question of less paradoxical character.

Crime is defined to be the breach or transgression of a law, either natural or divine, civil or ecclesiastical, to which a penalty is attached. It is distinguished into two kinds; viz. private, or that which only affects individuals; and public, or that against the social order; and the subdivisions are classed as affecting the person, property, character, or condition, of those upon whom they are committed. In taking cognizance of criminal acts, the law has the double view of redressing the injured party, if possible, and securing to the public the benefit of civilization and society, by preventing or punishing every violation of those regulations which have been established for the government and tranquillity of the whole. But we live in times when everything is to be capsized; when gaols, no longer the terror of rogues, are to resemble boardinghouses; when flogged mutinous soldiers, or rascals who murder their friends and sing jolly songs over pork-chops immediately afterwards, become objects of interesting solicitude; and when the authority of society to inflict capital, or indeed almost any other punishment, is fiercely questioned. To meet the feverish sentimentality of mild yet visionary speculators, as well as the taunts and blustering of "every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented," the government have been induced to issue a circular respecting military discipline, which cannot be looked upon but as an undignified concession. By this document, it is true, corporal punishment is to be restricted in future to cases of mutiny; insubordination; violence; drunkenness on duty; sale of, or making away with arms, ammunition, accoutrements or necessaries; stealing from comrades, or other disgraceful conduct,— but this edict was issued, without informing the public that no other offences were ever noticed in our army. Many querulous notions have been started by advertising philanthropists, and designing fanatics; and we even know an instance wherein an officer of rank went to the expense of printing a pamphlet-a copy of which he presented to us,-for the purpose of persuading the captains of his Majesty's Navy to study craniology, to the end that they may detect by his bumps whether an accused seaman be really guilty of a crime alleged against him!

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Now, according to a legislator whom we could back, any day, against Mill, or Bowring, or Cobbett,-we mean one Solon, of Athens,-the two great stimulants of human action being hope and fear, no good government can exist without an equitable system of rewards and

We could calmly enter into an investigation of this subject, and probably relieve this lady, and her Theban coadjutors, from the terrors which haunt them, respecting the pressure of population upon subsistence. We could easily establish, that paucity of inhabitants has, on every soil and in every climate, been accompanied by poverty and wretchedness-that the palmy days of Egypt, Palestine, Greece, and Rome, were when those states overflowed with unfeathered bipeds-and that the proportion of inhabitants may be trebled in these happy realms, with advantage to society. But our paper is of a different tenor, and we shall merely add to the express command of St. Paul, the words of another writer who was almost inspired

"Our Maker bids increase: who bids abstain,

But our destroyer, foe to God and man ?"

penalties; and the criminals who offend against the social order suffer by the original contract under which they engage in society. Montesquieu asserts, what any body else might have asserted, that every punishment which does not arise from necessity is tyrannical. But the misapplication of this position must not be permitted to dispossess our judges, magistrates, and officers, of the spirit necessary for executing the duties committed to their charge; for, as hath been said by Beccaria,— "Crimes are more effectually prevented by the CERTAINTY than the severity of punishment." Retribution must be prompt, for the prospective benefit of rendering strong and lasting the two ideas of crime and punishment; its use is not vindictively to torment an individual, but to deter those who are analogously inclined, from a repetition of the same offence. Not retribution, but prevention, is the object of every penal statute, as well as of every public conviction; and though people of more mildness than reason may lament their necessity, none but dangerous men, or sheer idiots, can possibly doubt their efficacy.* A respectable party has interfered in prison discipline, under the mistake of its being intended to reform the criminal;-but laws are established on a better knowledge of mankind, and a culprit is punished to show others that his offence cannot be committed with impunity. "He who spares the rod, spoils the child"-is an acknowledged adage of wisdom, and yet, in the year of our Lord 1833, we are called upon to fling away the instruments of correction, while the child is becoming more and more froward:

Of all the plagues with which our land's accursed,
The yell of demagogues may prove the worst.

It is allowed on all sides, that there has latterly been an alarming increase of crime; and whether it be owing to the spread of newspaper knowledge, to the comfort of the prisons, to puling humanity, to irresolute magistrates, to the impunity with which authorities are insulted, or what not, this is a point on which there is a general agreement. At the meeting of the Philosophical Association at Cambridge, last May, this subject was alluded to, as a paramount problem for investigation; and Professor Babbage was desirous of having a number of particular cases of crime collected, in order to form constants for further application. In the mean time, one of our correspondents, M. Quetelet, the director of the Observatory at Brussels, has favoured us with the copy of a letter which he addressed, last year, to his friend M. Villermé, of the French Institute, on the possibility of measuring the influence of those causes which modify the elements of social life. This letter has excited very lively sensations on the continent, as well from the boldness of its deductions, as the confidence of its predictions. On reading it, we were struck with there being but one leading cause for the generation of crime, and the blame which is imputed to governments for neglecting it; but though we are not convinced on this point, the complexity involved in the inquiry has been so scrupulously submitted to severe analysis, that the conclusions are entitled to serious consideration.

We shall therefore proceed to give as full and literal translation of

The "gentle reader" must not here think that we mean to defend the practices of lawyers. We have barely more regard for them than had Plato, or Hawser Trunnion of immortal memory."

M. Quetelet's theory, as the transfusion of tongues—or at least our ability-will admit of; and in order that no error may arise from misconception of the height of militiamen, or other singular constants, the tables will be inserted in their original form, and, as far as technicality allows, ipsissimis verbis.

M. QUETELET'S LETTER.

"I have been led by my numerous researches on the developement of the physical and moral qualities of man, and by the attentive study of the results with which they have furnished me, to perceive in mankind, whether considered individually or as a social body, some laws which appear to me important; I have endeavoured to point out some of these, and propose to show the others in a special work, for which I am collecting materials.

"Among the results relative to man, one of the most curious seems to me that of the regularity with which similar incidents periodically recur, so as to oblige us not only to admit, as with regard to physical facts which are entirely independent of man, an intimate correspondence of cause and effect, but even to perceive that causes act almost invariably from one year to another. Man, as an individual, seems to act with the utmost freedom; his will seems to know no limits, and yet, as I have already shown several times, the greater the number of individuals whom we observe, the more is individual will effaced by the series of general facts, which arise from the very causes that produce and preserve society. It is granted but to few men, endowed with superior genius, to impress a sensible action on the social system; and a length of time is often required before the effect of this action is fully revealed.

"If the modifying effect of individuals was directly transmitted to the social system, all precautions would be useless, the past would no longer teach the future. But it is not so; for when active causes are once established, they exert a durable influencé, even long after we have endeavoured to destroy them: we cannot then take too much pains to discover them, and to show the most efficacious means of modifying them in a useful manner. This reaction of man on himself is one of his most noble attributes: it is the finest field on which his activity can be displayed. As a member of the social body, he continually experiences the irresistible influence of causes, and pays them a regular tribute: but as an individual exercising all the energy of his intellectual faculties, he in some measure masters these causes, modifies their effects, and may endeavour to rise to a better state.

"In my preceding researches, I have particularly endeavoured to show this constant correspondence between cause and effect, above all with regard to crime. I have not omitted annually to repeat, there is a budget paid with frightful regularity,-that of prisons and the gallows, and the reduction of this is what we ought most to strive at,*—and each year the numbers have so exactly verified my predictions that I might have more precisely said,-man pays to crime a more punctual tribute than he does either to nature or to the public treasury! I will endeavour to give a scale by which to measure the importance of the causes which affect society.

"We must first admit as a principle, that where there are no variable causes, the effects will be constant; and that the more variable the causes are, the more will the effects differ within certain limits. Thus supposing man to act widely and independent of all law, the effects will show the greatest anomalies and variations. Now it is the variations which should be examined and measured.

*This remark, which is unfortunately too well grounded in experience, seems to have made an impression on some legislators who study the social body in a philosophic manner. It has been reproduced at the French tribunals, and among ourselves.' M. Henry de Brouckère thinks that he perceives in it a powerful argument for modifying punishments.

"In order to fix our ideas, let us inquire whether there generally exist causes which modify the repression of crime, or the severity with which it is punished. For this purpose we require observations carefully collected; and if the annual results are not constantly the same, it is evident, that the irregularity proceeds either from error of observation-the influence of local causes-or that of moral causes inherent in man. In such researches it will be seen that the elements vary according to time and place. And as the number of influential causes may be very great, they must be studied individually; it is by making all our observations in the same country, that we may discard local influence, and by continuing them through the year that we shall perceive the influence of season, leaving the appreciation of all the respective causes as a subsequent task. By the statistical documents of the Courts of Assize in France, for the six years preceding 1831, we find:

66

"This table shows that the repression of general crime has diminished annually, the diminution indeed has been very slight, but yet evident. Of the influential causes of repression, some are constant, and others are variable. The effect of the first sort may be expressed by 614 annually, but that of the second sort is of course variable. I will endeavour to measure the influence of the constant causes.

"The better to express my ideas, we will suppose an individual accused, and the probability of condemnation will, as we have shown, be 614 to 1000, that is, in a general sense, if we know no particulars respecting the crime or the criminal, as to sex, age, degree of education, or any of the constant causes which modify repression. But if it be a crime against persons, the probability, according to experience, is less, and will be only 477 to 1000, and if against property, it increases to 655 to 1000. This difference arises from the unwillingness to inflict severe punishments, or such as appear too severe in proportion to the fault; a feeling which is most influential in crimes against persons. The sex of the accused has a marked influence on repression. Less severity is exercised against females, and all these variations will be made evident by the following table, which indicates the various degrees of probability of the accused being condemned, according to the causes which are favourable or unfavourable to him::