which are calculated to harden the public feeling, as to the nature of the punishments so happily substituted.

Amongst the various objections to the nature of sanguinary laws which might be advanced, your Committee are forcibly struck with one which they believe must render a change highly expedient. The public sentiment has now become so adverse to the punishment of death, that when our citizens are required to sit in judgement on the life of a fellow-mortal, the tender sympathies of our nature are so awakened, that it is difficult to effect the conviction of those charged with the horrid crime of murder. From the same cause arises great difficulty in procuring witnesses; many being disposed to withhold information, rather than become instrumental in destroying a human being, in obedience to a law which they cannot approve. Thus the intention of the law is defeated; and those who would cheerfully concur in convicting offenders, if the penalty was less than death, are now the means of their escape.

Believing, therefore, that sound policy would be consulted, and a serious obstacle to the administration of justice be removed, by substituting imprisonment for life in every case where death is now the punishment of murder; that juries and witnesses would be unembarrassed in the prosecution of their duties; the culprit would receive merited punishment; society would be secure from his future misconduct; and, what is of infinite importance, the hardened offender have an opportunity of, and inducement to, repentance,

Your Committee submit the following Resolution, viz.

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to bring in a bill, abolishing the punishment by death within this commonwealth, and substituting, in lieu thereof, hard labour for life.

Civilization of the Indians of North America.

On the interesting subject of the civilization of the Indians of

North America, the preceding numbers of The Philanthropist have furnished as much information as we have been enabled to procure. The interruptions to its progress, inevitably consequent on the late war on the British and American frontier, are greatly to be lamented, not only as involving the sacrifice of much labour and expense, but as reviving among the Indian tribes that jealousy of the views of their benefactors which the latter had nearly succeeded in removing. The settlements near the western ex

tremity of Lake Erie were entirely broken up; and several hundred acres of land, well inclosed and brought into regular cultivation by the improved skill and industry of the natives, entirely laid waste by the ravages of the contending parties; and their habitations, in which the comforts and arts of civilized life were cultivated with the most encouraging success, were no longer to be found. Of these establishments however, which at one period exhibited to the surrounding nations the most encouraging example, we have the satisfaction of announcing the resumption of the benevolent labours in which they originated, and in which the happy restoration of peace, it is presumed, will enable them to proceed.

The similar settlements attempted near the eastern end of Lake Erie, although in the near neighbourhood of contending armies, have been much less interrupted. Some of the tribes in their vicinity were prevailed on to attach themselves to the army of the United States; while those on the other side of the neighbouring boundary were induced to join the British forces; on both sides being threatened with the loss of the reservations and other rights, their title to which they were respectively told would depend on the loyalty manifested by either in the late war.

Many of those, however, who occupied the Cataragus and Allegany reservations, and had been most civilized, continued quietly to pursue their agricultural labours, and in the autumn of 1814 to merit the description then given of them, by a visitor enabled to form a comparison of their present with their former condition. With respect to their chief enemy, the love of intoxicating liquors, while many had suffered from an increased intercourse with the White people, occasioned by the war, many others were persevering in temperate habits, and the hope was revived of its again becoming more general. At the Cataragus settlement, the progress of civilization was evident: a large quantity of land, well inclosed by fences, appeared generally under good culture; the houses were numerous and comfortable, and the simple mechanic arts as progressive in improvement as could be expected; a considerable number of the women had acquired the art of spinning, and an increased attention to cleanliness in their persons and houses was very obvious. A young Indian man, unassisted by the proper tools, had constructed a spinning-wheel, which performed well. He had cut the screw with his knife.

On the Allegany reservation, the advancement of civilization, although not equally evident, was also very conspicuous in some, whose farms and other improvements exhibited an encouraging appearance: but being also near the seat of war, and

in the high-road to the western settlements of the White people, the disadvantages of much intercourse with those who pretended to superior refinement were too obvious. One of those Indians was a manufacturer of spinning-wheels: many of the women could spin, and some of them were employed in weaving the yarn. Here, too, the soberer part of them lamented the yet too prevalent use of ardent spirits, and also professed the hope of further reformation in this respect.

On the whole, considering the difficulties which both of those settlements had experienced, appearances were far more encouraging than had been expected; and from the continued exertions of the benevolent promoters of these and similar establishments, we trust we may hope the gratification of reporting their success in our future pages; and in that success, the emulation of the late combatants for imaginary benefits, to excel each other in proofs of their title to the Christian character.

SIR,

On Naval Punishments.

To the EDITOR of THE PHILANTHROPIST.

To those naval officers who have studied the best means of imposing a correct sense of duty without having recourse to the utmost extent of the law, it has been by no means a difficult task to devise modes of punishment, which, in appealing to the selflove and conscience of the culprit, have almost invariably produced a change which the severest corporal infliction would not effect. The great evil of the latter alternative is, that it degrades a man in his own esteem, and, by preying on his feelings, deprives him of that innate dignity and pride which are known to be the greatest and most necessary stimulants to good conduct.

I would be willing to stake my existence, that by a careful examination of the quarterly returns and weekly accounts of the Navy, (if ever that takes place,) the Admiralty has found, without one single exception, that those ships in which the fewest punishments and desertions have taken place, are unexceptionably the best disciplined, most expert in all the evolutions of the service, and, above all, those whose officers and crews experience the fewest changes.

It is perfectly well known to all those who know the two professions, that "five dozen lashes" in the navy are equal in point of severity, to the unhappy sufferer, to three or four hundred at the halberts of a regiment. The above inquiry, if proved

as I have asserted it would be, must instantly serve as a reply to those who maintain that naval discipline can alone be supported by excessive corporal inflictions.

I am, Sir, your most humble servant,

11th September 1815.

NAVALIS.

Report from the Committee on the State of Mendicity in the Metropolis. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 11th July 1815.

may be simply necessary to state, that Mr. Rose, who has at various times called the attention of parliament to the state of pauperism in the kingdom, moved, during last session of parliament, for a committee to inquire into the state of the mendicity in the metropolis and its immediate neighbourhood, and to report the same, together with their observations thereupon, to the House. The Committee was formed, and proceeded in its inquiries, and the present Report is the fruit of their labours. They have not proceeded so far in their inquiries as to have drawn up their observations on the matter exhibited before them. What they have now presented to us is only the minutes of part of the evidence which they have taken. And our business shall be to impart to our readers the new information, if any, which they have educed, and the reflections which that information may suggest.

We feel great delight in the formation of this Committee, on one account, that it is a beginning at least, on the part of the legislature, to attend to the condition of what they have been accustomed to call the lower orders of the people; that is, the most numerous, and almost the only productive part of the population. We can with the utmost confidence assure the legislature, that if all the other objects to which they have ever yet attended, were combined in one, it would not amount in point of importance to one small portion of that which is pointed out to their attention in one short expression-the welfare of the people.

We would also entreat the legislature to remember, that hitherto the welfare of the great body of the people has been so little regarded or thought of by legislators, that it cannot, with any propriety, be considered as having been as yet an object of legislation at all. The time is now come when a better order of things may begin to be introduced; and Mr. Rose has started a subject, which, if he pursues it, will carry him far; a subject which, whether he pursues it or not, will not much longer escape that attention which the age is ripe for bestowing upon it.

What the condition of the great body of the people is what the condition of the great body of the people might be-are questions which, when the minds of men are sufficiently enlightened to go forward to the sources of events, are suggested by almost every evil of society, to which the legislature can seek to apply a remedy; and the subject cannot by any expedients be kept out of sight. Let them turn their attention to mendicity; let them turn it to delinquency; let them turn it to any thing in which the conduct of the people is concerned; still the condition of the people; the circumstances in which they are placed; in other words, the mode in which the legislation of the country acts upon them, are pressed upon the view ;-still this presents itself as the source to which every thing is to be traced : in the search for causes, it is here the mind uniformly rests; nor can it find any satisfactory answers to its inquiries, till, exploring the subordinate links in the chain of consequences, it arrives at this cardinal point, from which the great series of events which deform or adorn society appear to take their commencement.

We give our thanks to those members of parliament who have stirred the subject of mendicity; because we think the public eye is now too broadly awake upon it, and too much attracted: by it, and a sense of its importance is too strongly diffused, for oblivion to be any more its portion; and because, if it is attended to, if it does but excite inquiry, the scrutiny will lead to conclusions of the utmost importance; to disclosures respecting the causes of human misery, and the means of increasing the amount of human happiness, from which important changes in the condition of our fellow-creatures cannot fail to ensue.

We do not think it will do for the legislature now to let the subject drop. They have denounced the existence of a great evil. They have proceeded so far in the inquiry as to what is its cause, and what are the means for effecting its destruction. Why should they stop short in this admirable endeavour?

What the Committee as yet have done, has only been to call before them certain individuals, from whom they expected that knowledge of the facts could be obtained, and to question them. It is first necessary to see what is the amount of the information which they have gained. The first person whom they examined was Matthew Martin, esq. At the instigation of this gentleman, a society was formed some years ago for inquiring into the state of mendicity in the metropolis. The mode in which the inquiry was carried on, was by the distribution of tickets entitling the beggar to relief. The gentlemen by whom the tickets were distributed gave them instead of money to the parties by whom their charity was solicited; and when they repaired to the office

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