consider the punishment, if it exceeded seven years, equal to death.  May, the accomplice of Bishop and Williams, told me, the day after his respite, if they meant to transport him, he did not thank them for his life.  The following is another striking instance of the view they have of this punishment.  A man named Shaw, who suffered for housebreaking about two years since, awoke during the night previous to his execution, and said, “Lee!” (speaking to the man in the cell with him) “I have often said I would be rather hanged than transported; but now it comes so close as this, I begin to think otherwise.”  Shortly afterwards he turned round to the same man and said, “I was wrong in what I said just now; I am still of my former opinion:  hanging is the best of the two;” and he remained in the same mind all the night.  The first question an untried prisoner asks of those to whom he is about to entrust his defence is, “Do you think I shall be transported?  Save me from that, and I don’t mind any thing else.”  One thing, however, is clear:  no punishment hitherto has lessened the number of offenders; nor will any ever be efficient, until the penalties awarded by the law unerringly follow conviction, especially with the common robbers.

Turn over the pages of the Old Bailey session papers for years past, and you cannot but be struck with the anomalies which are there apparent, with respect to crimes and the sentences which have followed.  The impression a perusal of these papers made on my mind, was as if all the business had been done by lottery; and my observation during twenty-two sessions on the occurring cases has tended to convince me, that a distribution of justice from that wheel of chance could not present a more incongruous and confused record of convictions and punishments.  In no case (always excepting the capitals) can any person, however acute and experienced, form the slightest opinion of what the judgment of the court will be.  Of this the London thieves are fully aware.  I never could succeed in persuading one before his trial, that he was deprived of all chance of escape.  They will answer, “Look what a court it is! how many worse than me do scramble through; and who knows but I may be lucky.”  What men know they must endure, they fear; what they think they can escape, they despise:  their calculation of three-fourths escaping is very near the truth.  Hope, the spring of action, induces each to say to himself, “Why may I not be the lucky one?” THE CHANCE THUS GIVEN OF ACQUITTAL IS THE MAIN CAUSE OF CRIME.  I do not mean to say three-fourths come off free; they are subjected to some kind of punishment (excepting a few cases of judgment respited); the others feel, no doubt, what they undergo, but it is only as a soldier in the fight considers a scratch—­otherwise coming off with a whole skin, being ready for action again.  Another evil arises out of this irregularity of judgments.  All punishments are rendered severe