insuring. This then would bring the annual produce to two millions five hundred thousand pounds. But the stamp duties on policies would also increase in precisely the same ratio, and consequently, produce an augmentation to the public revenue of three millions one hundred and four thousand pounds, which, added to the before calculated amount of premiums, would give a general total of £5,604,000

Deducting from this sum, as a reserve

for losses,

And for the charges of the police

£2,000,000

604,000

2,604,000

£3,000,000

There would remain a surplus of to be applied in reduction of the poor rates. The latter being estimated at £7,612,739, from the returns made to Parliament in 1830, the application of three millions in their aid would afford a relief of considerably more than a third part of the present burthens.

It is presumed there is no exaggeration in these calculations, but even supposing the increased revenue should not even produce more than sufficient to cover the expenses of the new General Police Establishment, yet still the system proposed would be highly desirable and expedient, since, independent of its more obvious and immediate advantages in the security and protection it would ensure, it would also have the effect of lowering the rate, when it came into full operation, in several ways, more particularly that portion of it which figures in the county rate, under the head of costs and charges of public prosecutions, as the measures now suggested, would diminish these expenses more than one half.

The officers of the new police would, in addition to their other functions, be charged with the inspection, and special surveillance of the property insured. They should also act as firemen, and perform all the duties of the "Sapeurs Pompiers" in France.

In a sanatory point of view it is evident that this continual supervision of all the houses and edifices in the narrow lanes and confined alleys of our close-built and crowded towns, must tend very beneficially to promote the general salubrity, and to prevent contagion, by enforcing cleanliness.

It is proposed that two stipendiary magistrates should be appointed to each of the new Police offices, with two clerks, and a competent number of officers, in proportion to the population or extent of the district. As the journies to be performed in the exercise of their duty in the country, would necessarily be occasionally longer than in the town service, a portion of these should be mounted on horseback, and placed as nearly on the

same footing as the "Gendarmerie," or "Garde Municipale" of France, as the free institutions of our country will permit.

It is above all things desirable that the punishment of crime should follow its detection as promptly as possible, not only as being more efficacious for its repression, but also as avoiding the expense and the contagion of bad company resulting from any long confinement of prisoners huddled together in a common jail whilst awaiting their trial. It is proposed, therefore, to give the two police justices of each district office, associating to themselves some one or more of the unpaid magistracy of the town or country, a power to hold every week, or at certain short intervals, a petty sessions for the trial of larcenies and small offences, either with or without the intervention of a jury, as may be deemed most advisable.

In France, an institution of this kind exists, and is found to work well under the designation of the "Tribunal de la Police Correctionelle," or a court of correctional police, which sits once or twice a week in every town, for the trial of minor offences without a jury; whilst prisoners charged with the commission of those more serious crimes, which would subject them, on conviction, to a heavier sentence than five years' imprisonment, (transportation not being known in France,) are sent to take their trials before the court of assizes and a jury. And this is the place in which I would beg leave to suggest the propriety of creating a new officer of judicial police, whose functions and rank should be superior to the ordinary police officers, but subordinate to the magistrates. Its duties should be partly executive, and partly judicial. In a word, he should be invested with. precisely the same authority and attributions as the French "Commissaire de Police," the most inferior grade in the magistracy of France. It would be his business to direct, to marshal, and to superintend the police officers, in the execution of their duty in the prevention and detection of crime. He should have authority to apprehend himself, and to command his subordinate officers to apprehend and commit to prison, in all cases of fresh pursuit, and hue and cry, and all persons taken flagranti delicto, and generally to preserve the peace. And so far he would be invested with no further power and authority than our ancient conservators of the peace were intrusted with, by the common law before the institution of the office of justice of the peace. If the appellation of commissary of the police should sound too French in our English ears, he might be styled the conservator of the peace, and this would only be the revival of an old title.

But it is further submitted that it would be expedient to invest this officer with the discharge of a still more important part of the duties of the French commissary of police, that of public prosecutor, in the preparation, arrangement, and development.

of proofs before the police justices, both in their primary and preparatory examinations of prisoners, and at their petty sessions, as in France; and this part of his functions might perhaps also be extended with great advantage to the conduct of crown cases before the quarter sessions, at least so far as the locatio et conductio of the prosecution. He should also have it in charge to exhibit informations for the infringement of penal statutes, either ex officio, or at the instance of any private complainant.

The creation of a public officer charged to conduct all prosecutions for an annual salary, would economise a great portion of that heavy item in most county rates, the article for law charges in the prosecution of felons. At present, in most instances, the juctices' clerks act as solicitors to the prosecutors in managing these prosecutions, and make out their bills of costs in each case, which are paid in part out of the county rate, and in part by their private clients. But there are obvious objections against such a practice, and the policy of the French penal code most wisely precludes the greffier, or clerk, who has drawn the depositions taken before the primary judges or justices, from afterwards taking any part in the conduct of the prosecution, in the trial of the prisoner.

If it should be objected that it would not be right to give the committing magistrates the power of ultimate trial, as they may be supposed to be in some degree prejudiced against the prisoner in favor of their own previous committal, this inconvenience might easily be obviated, by arranging that the prisoners should be brought to trial before the justices of the next adjoining Police office, who should attend in regular and reciprocal rotation, for that purpose, in the respective towns where the prisoners are confined.

There are other parts of the French police which might, with great public advantage, be introduced into our system. Such, for instance, as the appointment of a "garde champetre," or a "rural guard," in every country parish. Indeed, without the institution of some such parochial officer, it is clear no efficient rural police can ever be established. The duty of this guard is to perambulate his parish every day, to keep a sharp look-out over property exposed in the fields, to question suspicious persons, and to apprehend delinquents. The utility of such an officer in preventing and detecting incendiarism may be easily conceived.

How far it may be prudent or practicable to require passports in certain cases is another important question to be considered. The number of vagrants who now traverse the country in all directions, begging from door to door, is almost inconceivable. Such vagrancy is, no doubt, cognizable by the existing law, and

punishable as a crime. But as it is impossible to prevent it, and this law sleeps almost a dead letter on the statute book, it should seem that the more prudent policy would be to subject these hordes of itinerant strollers to such regulations that should render vagrancy as little prejudicial as possible to the community.

It might not be amiss, therefore, to require all persons discharged from prison after conviction, all persons travelling without the means of defraying their expenses, all itinerant mendicants, in a word, all vagrants, to provide themselves with regular passes, containing a description of their persons, their names, callings, and places of birth, together with the declared end and object of their journey. Such passports to be granted by the proper authorities of the places from whence these itinerants first set out on their journey, and to be regularly inspected and countersigned by the police at each town through which they pass on their route.

In this there would be nothing that would in the least intrench on the locomotive liberty of an Englishman, since all those persons who would come within the purview of this restriction, are already by the existing law amenable to be arrested as vagabonds.

The restraints which would thus be imposed upon vagrancy, and the operation of an efficient rural police, would enable the magistrates with the greater facility to enforce the due observance of that more important part of the duty of the parish officers under the statute of Elizabeth,—the setting to work of the able-bodied poor; and for this purpose, employment might be found in the making and repair of roads, canals, and other public works, and, as a never-failing resource, in the partial adoption of spade husbandry. Neither can there be any good reason assigned why the waste lands of the kingdom, that agricultural reproach of Great Britain, should not, in some way or other, be made subservient to the relief and employment of the poor.

To obviate any jealousy of intrusting the extensive patronage of so considerable an armed establishment to government, the same precaution might be adopted as in the Mutiny Act with regard to the standing army, and the Bill might be made annual.

Radnorshire; February 1 1832.

E. W.

GENTLEMEN,

To the Editors.

ALWAYS having esteemed the late Rev. E. Davies as one of the greatest scholars and antiquaries Wales ever produced, one of the most close reasoners and the most devoid of prejudice of any of his countrymen, I read with the greatest pleasure the testimony you bear to his excellence in the interesting life of him you have given. Fully acquiescing in his luminous explanation of Celtic mythology, I was induced, above twenty years ago, to apply his master-key to the development of that of Ireland, and I send the result for your Cambrian Quarterly, should it not appear inconsistent with your plan.

The British tribes that first colonized Ireland, carried with them what Mr. Davies calls the simple Arkite worship, the first grand corruption of Druidism, which united to the adoration previously given to the Almighty, that of the patriarch Noah, his family, and all the circumstances connected with the deluge. This fact will satisfactorily account for the memorials of primitive tradition, which, obscured by the cloak of heathenism, the inhabitants of that island have, like most other nations, applied to their own progenitors and their own country. Thus we are told that Ireland was peopled by Partholan,* his three sons and their wives, evidently alluding to the diluvian personages. Tradition not only relates this occurrence, but assigns the particular day of the month when they landed, attended by their servants and the favorite greyhound. Some of the old chroniclers mention that Ireland was colonised by Noah's niece; others say by three fishermen, who perished afterwards in the universal deluge, and such like stories, all pointing to the Arkite worship. The works of Keating and Geoffry of Monmouth are composed of a mass of Druidical mythology, interwoven with historical documents. This has given an air of fable to them, which has caused their condemnation; but if they be carefully sifted, and the tales separated from the truth, there would be found in the former, curious mythological notices, and in the latter, valuable information. As the Britons had originally applied the name of Hu to the true God, and afterwards conferred it on the diluvian patriarch, so the Irish used the word Crom, both for the Almighty and the deified Noah. Thus Crom Cruathoir, "the Supreme Creator," was afterwards a title of the heathen deity, also called Crom Chruach. The latter was likewise styled Declan, the same as Deucalion, and Ceann-ob, chief of the waters, synonymous with the Egyptian Canopus; and Naob-tonn, or lord of the waves, the same as Neptune. The Manx, or people * From Bar, learned, and Talan, a prophet.-Vallancey in Collect. de Reb. Hib. vol. iii.

The 14th of May.