the uncertainty of punishment, by the inequality of sentences for crimes of a like nature—­to which may be added the many instances of mistaken, or rather mis-directed leniency, compared with others of enormous severity for trifling offences; all which tend to induce the London thieves to entertain a contempt for that tribunal.  An opinion prevails throughout the whole body, that justice is not done there.  I do not mean to say they complain of the sentences being too severe generally; that would be natural enough on their parts, and not worth notice.  They believe everything done at that court a matter of chance; that in the same day, and for a like crime, one man will be sentenced to transportation for life, while another may be let off for a month’s imprisonment, and yet both equally bad characters.

It only needs that punishment should be sure to follow the conviction for crime, and that the judgments should be uniform and settled, to strike terror into the whole body of London criminals.  Out of the 2,550 annually tried, nearly one-fourth are acquitted, leaving little short of 2,000 for sentence in each year.  Of these the average transported are 800; deduct 200 for cases of an incidental nature, i.e. crimes not committed by regular offenders, and there remain 1,000 professed thieves who are again turned loose in a short period on the town, all of whom appear in due course again at the court of the Old Bailey, or at some other, many times in the revolution of one year.  Here lies the mischief.  An old thief will be sure to enlist others to perpetuate the race.  There is no disguising the fact:  the whole blame is with the court whose duty it is to take cognizance of these characters.  Whilst the present system is pursued, of allowing so many old offenders to escape with trifling punishments, the evils will be increased, and the business of the court go on augmenting, by its own errors.  The thief is now encouraged to speculate on his chances—­in his own phraseology, “his good luck.”  Every escape makes him more reckless.  I knew one man who was allowed a course of seventeen imprisonments and other punishments before his career was stopped by transportation; a sentence which does, however, sooner or later overtake them, and which would be better both for themselves and the country were it passed the first time they were in the hands of the court as known thieves.  Observing only a certain, and nearly an equal, number transported each session, they have imbibed a notion, that the recorder cannot exceed it, and that he selects those to whom he takes a dislike at the bar, not for the magnitude of their offence, but from caprice or chance.  It is under this impression they are afraid of speaking when in court, lest they should give offence, and excite petulance in the judge, which would, in their opinion, inevitably include them in the devoted batch of transports, of which their horror is inconceivable; 1st, because