and useful in proportion as the offender feels he deserves it, and is conscious of having only his quantum meritus..  This the convict can now never feel, seeing his companion in crime let off for a few months’ imprisonment, he (his companion) having been guilty of an offence equal to his own, and for which he (the convict) is transported for life.  Those connected with the court, in the conversations I have had with them, say, “circumstances of character occasion the apparent anomalies;” being unable, or perhaps unwilling, to give a better.  That a good character does not avail the prisoner, or direct the court in its judgments, may be seen by a mere inspection of the printed trials, and is better known to all who have watched the proceedings of this court for any time.  Hundreds of cases might be cited to illustrate this fact.  I remember the case of two butchers, whose briefs I wrote, which occurred last year.  One was an old, the other a young man, both having been in the employ of the prosecutor.  They were charged with stealing a breast of mutton from their master:  both were found guilty.  The old man had persons to speak as to his character for honesty for forty years last past (his former masters); the young one had not a solitary witness to say a word for him.  The former was sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation; the latter to six months in the house of correction.  When the prosecutor heard of the circumstance, he got up a petition to the secretary of state for a remission of the sentence, in which he stated that on the trial he himself had given the old man a good character, and not the other.  Instances of this kind occur out of number to confirm the rogues in their preconceived notions of the uncertainty of punishment, and that “the greatest crimes come off the best.”  This is an aphorism among the thieves.  I have seen some of them, after being sentenced by the court, dance for hours, calling out continuously, “Did I not tell you all, the biggest rogues get off the best?” The scene in the several yards of Newgate on the sentence-days, after the judgments have been passed, defies any description on paper.  Some will be seen jumping and skipping about for hours, frenzied with joy at the very unexpectedly mild sentence passed on them; others are cursing and swearing, calling down imprecations on the head of the recorder, for having, as they say, so unfairly measured out justice; all agreeing there is no proportion in the punishments to the crimes.  It may be said, it is of little import what these men think, so they are punished.  But is it of no importance under what impression the others are discharged?  If the discharged feel (as assuredly they do) that punishment is a matter of chance, they return to their habits as the hazard-player goes again to the dice, in hopes of coming off a winner, and reimbursing himself for former losses.  There is another evil comes out of these unequal sentences.  The discontent it produces on the minds of those who fall under the