plain it. The pious Christian bows with the same reverence and Faith before all that has been made known to him by the Divine Founder of his religion; who, by miracles the most stupendous, first established his title to be received as a messenger sent from heaven. But let the Hindu be taught, not less carefully, to discern wherein his own, and the creed of the Christian differs, than wherein they agree. Christianity, while it soars above the region of human reason, so far respects its power and province, in guiding the belief of mankind, that what is contrary to its deductions, the faith of the Gospel repudiates. Hinduism does not admit-or it has forgotton to keep in view-this essential limitation of the great and fundamental principle; and the votary of Brahma is called upon, to believe as implicitly what is opposed, as what is above the reach of reason.

We have a chapter upon the early state of Christianity in India, considered as an encouragement to present exertions, bringing it down to the time when the Jesuits planted the cross upon some of the coasts, and thence to its present condition; as also of the Native Reformations, -the Buddha and Jain-sects, &c. Next the Policy of the British Government, as regards the Christian and Hindu religions, is considered, -the tone being moderate as respects the oft-alleged wickedness of countenancing and drawing a revenue from the idolatrous practices of the people. Our last extract will relate to some of these points, as well as to the disastrous events that would accompany and follow our expulsion from India :

"Whatever may be the defects of our Indian government, and many unquestionably are the hardships under which, benign and fatherly as it has become, it still permits the great mass of the population to labour, not a doubt can be entertained, that the subversion of our rule would, of all events, be the most calamitous, that has yet overtaken India. It is impossible to contemplate, without horror, the frightful state into which its population would be thrown, from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, were British power and influence driven, by the success of internal revolt, out of the country. The scenes, with which India has unhappily been but too familiar, in every period of her past history, would be renewed with tenfold misery, as the restraints, that formerly mitigated their fury, have been overturned by the march of British superiority; and nothing, as yet, save our own governance, substituted in their room, between the ruthless and ravaging freebooter, and the harmless and peaceable ryot.

"But it may be said, that the result of a successful revolt in India, aided, as it might be, by assistance from without, would be only to substitute one Christian power for another; and the march of that improvement which is now being carried on under us, might still be proceeded in. The aspect of the great political world of the West presents no power but one, that can possibly supersede the British in India. And who can doubt, that the consignment of her population to the tender mercies of Russia, and her savage soldiery, could only terminate in its utter extirpation, and in planting the Cossacks of the Don and the Wolga on the banks of the Indus and the Ganges? The path, by which the English stole into India, and insinuated themselves into the power which they now possess, required of them to make them stepping-stones of much, which an irrupting army of Scythians would at once rudely demolish. How far the Russians might prove the mighty besom, in the hand of Providence, to sweep away the 'idolatrous practices' of India, with the race of idolators themselves, it is not given unto us to say. But judging from what we know of the Hindu character and habits, and of Russian barbarity and despotism, we are warranted in drawing the conclusion, that the transfer of the Indian sceptre to her hands, would seal the misery of millions of the human race, now rising under a milder sway and happier circumstances, to a height of social and political, moral and religious prosperity, for many centuries unknown to them.

"But the Christian philanthropist will not contemplate this catastrophe. His heart is cheered, at this moment, by the belief, every day obtaining stronger and stronger confirmation, that the natives behold with indifference the fabric of the vulgar superstition tottering to its fall, under the EDUCATION which he is bestowing on the rising generation, if they do not even hail the event with satisfaction, as the bloodless triumph of a better faith and a better philosophy. If the statesman will wisely abstain from applying the rude hand of force to the unseemly structure, which now outrages the reason and humanities of the heart, and strongly indeed tempts, even to its forcible overthrow, the CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY will be the more secure in the triumph that awaits his labours, and is even already beginning to requite them; and the victory will be the more full and final, that beneath his meek and persuasive efforts, superstition and idolatry, with all their hideous train of evils and abominations, were put to flight."

We now close Dr. Bryce's Sketch, satisfied whatever may be the partiality he entertains regarding the efforts of the Church of which he is an ornament, and regarding his own services when in India, or however over-sanguine his hopes may be of the speedy and extended amelioration of large numbers of the Hindus, -that he has laid before us such a body of facts and suggested such motives as will materially tend to keep alive in Scotland an earnestness in behalf of millions of benighted heathens, and in support of the Assembly's Mission, and also to stir up throughout the British dominions greater anxiety than ever concerning the natives and the government of our Eastern empire.

ART. III.-First Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire as to the best means of establishing an efficient Constabulary Force in the Counties of England and Wales.

THERE are many points of deep and pressing interest brought forward in this Report, some will amuse, some will astonish and appal, others will suggest grave discussion as to the expediency of the remedial measures proposed, and what might be proposed more advantageously in their stead. But whatever may be thought of the conclusions to which the commissioners have already come, there can be only one opinion about the call for the inquiry that has in this instance been set on foot, -the diligence, zeal, ability, and searching nature of its conducts. Alas! that its discoveries should be so clearly and decidedly forbidding as to put to flight much of our national fondly-cherished self-complacency about moral England,-about every man's house being his castle,-about our superior civilization, about the admirable administration of our laws, about the security of property, and such like themes of boast.

The first thing we shall do, will be to lay before our readers some portions of the Report, and of the testimonies from which its conclusions are drawn. We begin with a classification of the vagrants and vagabonds who prey upon the public, as taken from the confession of an experienced hand; and there is more than a sufficiency of similar and collateral proof to corroborate all that he says:

"1st. Men who go about the country almost naked, begging clothes or food. They get about 3s.a-day. They have good clothes at their lodginghouse, (the character of these lodging, or travellers' houses will afterwards appear) and travel in them from town to town, if there are not many houses in the way. Before they enter the town, they take them off, as well as their shoes and stockings, put on their Guernsey jackets, send the bundle and the woman forward to the lodging-house, and commence begging at the first house they come to. Knows a man who was recently clad from head to foot in new clothes at a shop at Billericay, by the son of the rector in a neighbouring village, all of which clothes, including hat, shoes and stockings, he sold about half an hour afterwards, by auction, in the tap-room of a low public-house, to his companions, and they all got drunk together with the proceeds. These fellows always sell a gift of clothes.

"2nd. Men who are ring-droppers. Travelling tinkers make sham gold rings out of old brass buttons. H-D- is a noted fellow at this work; his wife and mother go with him and drop the rings. They live in St. Giles's, and travel for a month or two. They sometimes make 20s. or 25s. a-day.

"3rd. Fellows who go round to different houses, stating their master's stock of rags has been burnt, or that a sudden supply is wanted, and that they are sent forward to collect them. The rags are called for, and one fellow marches off with the bundle, leaving one or more talking with the housewife, who is gravely cavilling about the price, and as gravely informed that the master is coming round, and they leave some mark on the door-post, which they say is the sign to indicate to him the quantity and the quality taken, and the amount to pay; so they walk off, and VOL. II. (1839). NO. III.

A

• never tip her anything." The rags are carried to the keeper of a ragshop, who gives quires of paper in exchange, which they carry round to small villages, and sell to small shopkeepers, or at farm-houses. All rag-shops stand fence for anything,' and buy any stolen property, or metal, from iron-hoops to gold rings.

"4th. A set of fellows who go about in decent apparel, leaving small printed hand-hills at cottages and farm-houses, wherein are set forth the wonderful cures of all sorts of ailments effected by medicine which they sell. The following day these bills are called for, and the credulous people buy small phials of this nostrum at various prices, from ten shillings to sixpence, according to the tact of the beggar and the folly of the party. The mixture is only a decoction of any herb or rubbish that may be at hand. He (B-) was told by one of this class that he had just sold a bottle of stuff to a poor woman who lived in a cottage at Warley Common, Essex, and who had been long ailing. She gave ten shillings for it, and it was only salt and water, some tea, and coloured green with nettle tops. These fellows obtain more money than any other class of impostors, sometimes as much as 21. a-week, and they seldom go to London.

"5th. Men who travel about the country in shabby-genteel attire, stating that they had been well off formerly, but are reduced by recent misfortune. Some are burnt-out farmers, or shop-keepers; some firstclass workmen out of work, owing to the bankruptcy of their employers; some captains, who have just lost their ships upon the coast. This story is always used after a heavy gale of wind. Some carry begging letters, which are written for them, price 1s. This is very profitable, if wellmanaged. The Lady Bountifuls' are great supporters of these fellows.

"6th. Fortune-tellers. Many women, when tramping with the men, dress themselves like gypsies, and contrive to get a tolerable daily booty, at least 3s. or 4s. a-day.

"7th. Trampers who have nothing to sell, but manage to live merely by begging.

"8th. Thieves, 'prigs'-generally go in couples; walk into a country shop, where there is an old woman and a candle; levy something, drop a sixpence; get the old lady to bring the candle round to look for it, while the other fellow is filling his pockets with whatever he can lay his hands upon.

"9th. Match-sellers. 10th. Ballad-singers.

"11th. Fellows who boil fat and a little soap over night, run it out in a cloth, and next morning cut it up like cakes of Windsor soap. Its all bad, but they drive a good trade.

"12th. Fellows who go from house to house, stating that they live in some neighbouring town, and ask for 'umbrellas to mend.' An active fellow in this line will make a clear sweep of all the umbrellas in a village before dinner. These umbrellas are produced in the London market on wet days and dusky evenings.

"13th. A Jew seldom thieves, but is worse than a thief; he encourages others to thieve. In every town there is a Jew, either resident or tramping; sure to be a Jew within forty-eight hours in the town, some how or other. If a robbery is effected, the property is hid till a Jew is found, and a bargain is then made."

The curious account and proofs given of still higher illustrations of professional system, such as, of migration, among the thieves and foot-pads, some of them halting on the Sabbath, others having their understood observances, are features that strike us as especially remarkable; such as, indeed to astound the mind, and to force us to exclaim,-How gullible are the English people! What a centre and sink is London!-And to ask, in what other country but this, do the frame of society, the localities of the inhabitants, the nature of their modes of business, extending traffic, peculiarities of habits, find such scope for the impostors and plunderers of whom we have been hearing? But we have more to read, and other varieties of villany and crime, with their cunning arts, to be told of.

House-breakers, horse-stealers, and the more aristocratic classes of depredators as they may be called, considering their manner of proceeding to work, the value of their booty, the large objects of their outrages, and the style of living of many of the practitioners, shall not detain us. The Newgate Calendar, and abundance of newspaper reports, have made the public well acquainted with these more exalted characters. We abide, in the next extract, by a smaller, yet most vicious and injurious specimen of miscreants. Take some notes taken from the confessions of a young thief, confined in Cold Bath Fields' Prison:

"A twelvemonth ago he and P- were together in Cold Bath Fields, where they planned a thieving journey to Kidderminster.

They built a dog-cart, stole two dogs from Smithfield, bought hardware, brooms, &c., at a shop near Farringdon-street, to the amount of 17s. While they were purchasing the articles, two companions stole for them a dozen and a half of hand-brooms from the door; they valued them at 5s.; making, as four were concerned, 1s. 3d. each;-P- and Hpaid them 2s. 6d. They also took with them twenty sixpences, and ten shillings bad money, which they concealed in a large false bottom of the cart. Thus equipped, H- with 56., P- with 15s. 6d., they started off about twelve at noon, in the winter or end of autumn. At Wandsworth they sold a mat for 1s. 4d., and a broom for 11d. They went on to Wimbledon and called at a public-house, where they had a pint of beer, for which they gave a bad sixpence. The landlady served them, and then went into the inner-bar, and continued serving. The boy Hreached round and took four silver salt-spoons, which were on a shelf; he would have taken the salt-cellars, but was afraid they might soon be missed. They decamped, bought some bread and cheese, and hastened out of the town in about ten minutes after the robbery. At Kingston they went to a travellers' house and sold the spoons to the landlord, who gave them board and lodging for the night and next day, with 5s. for the bargain.

"They proceeded on their journey, and at about half-past ten a coach passed them on the road; a small trunk was fastened on behind the seat. P-ran after the coach, climbed up, and cut it down. It contained a