ation or imprisonment. He next, in the same manner as the last, but not with the same success, sought the repeal of 10—11 Will. III. 12 Ann, and 23 Geo. II, which make the crime of privately stealing in a shop to the amount of 5 shillings, and in a dwelling-house, or ship, or navigable river to the amount of 40 shillings, capital felonies. What could be the intention of the opposers of this motion? the same reasons as induced them to coincide in the first should have led them to join in the repeal of these; especially as it is a notorious fact, stated in the returns of the secretary of state, that during the space between 1802 and 9, 1872 persons were committed to Newgate on these statutes and that only one was executed. He was twice defeated, once by a majority, we think of 2, in the house of Commons, and in the next Session by the house of Lords. Not disheartened by this, Sir S. Romilly immediately after proposed, (upon petitions from many bleachers stating that from the enormity of the punishment of death against those who stole linen from a bleach-field, they could get none punished, as both jurors and judges dismissed the guilty with impunity,) the repeal of the act 18 Geo. II. c. 27, where this offence is made a felony: and since that, he has gained the abrogation of the law, 39 Eliz. c. 17. inflicting the punishment of death on soldiers and sailors who are found begging without testimonials of their discharge. This has been till now the career of this distinguished lawyer, which we hope he will pursue unmoved by the false cry of alarm for the constitution, raised by some. We hope indeed he will not stop here, but if he finds, of which we make no doubt, that vice diminishes, and does not, as these snarlers pretend, increase, that he will continue, and gradually reduce our criminal law to a form for which we may need no longer to blush in the presence of foreigners who inquire into the administration of our justice, and who till now have continually reproached us with its sanguinary nature.
