Square Miles.  Inhabitants.

Great Britain and Ireland contain    120,000      27,400,000
United States                      3,500,000      23,192,000

This would bring the proportion of population to extent of territory, in rough numbers:—­

Great Britain and Ireland 228 inhabitants to the square mile. 
United States 7 " " "

In other words, Great Britain is 32 times as thickly populated as the Republic.  If these facts are borne in mind, I confess that the commission of crime in Great Britain appears to me proportionally far smaller than in the States, notwithstanding all the advantages of the free and liberal education which is within their reach.

I cannot but think that the general system of training youth in the Republic has a most prejudicial effect, in many instances, on their after-life.  In their noble zeal for the education of the brain, they appear to me to lose sight almost entirely of the necessity of disciplining the mind to that obedience to authority, which lays the foundation of self-control and respect for the laws of the land.  Nationally speaking, there is scarcely such a thing as a lad in the whole Union.  A boy in the States hardly gets over the novelty of that portion of his dress which marks the difference of sex, ere his motto is:  “I don’t care; I shall do what I best please:”  in short, he is made a man before he ceases to be a boy; he consequently becomes unable to exercise that restraint which better discipline might have taught him, and the acts of his after-life are thus more likely to be influenced by passion and self-will than by reason or reflection.  I find in the lecture from which I have already quoted, the following paragraph, which, as I consider it illustrative of my last observation, I insert at length.

“But the most alarming feature in the condition of things, not only in the city, but elsewhere throughout the country, is the lawlessness of the youth.  The most striking illustration of this which I have seen is taken from a Cincinnati paper of last January.  It seems that in the course of a few days one hundred applications had been made by parents in that city to have their own children sent to the House of Refuge.  The particulars of one case, which happened a short time before, are given:—­a boy, twelve years of age, was brought before the Mayor’s Court by his father, who stated that the family were absolutely afraid the youth would take their lives, and that he had purchased a pistol for the purpose of shooting the housekeeper.  A double-barrelled pistol was produced in court, which the police-officer had taken from the boy, who avowed that he had bought it for the purpose stated.  The mayor sent the boy to the House of Refuge.”

I now pass on to the question of Liberty in the United States.  If by liberty be understood the will of the greater number ruling the State or regulating