The court then adjourned. See Note 4.

But all these are nothing compared with the following, which at first I did not credit. I made the strictest inquiry, and was informed by a legal gentleman present that it was correct. I give the extract as it stood in the newspapers.

Influence of a Pretty Girl.—“Catherine Manly,” said the Recorder yesterday, in the sessions, “you have been convicted of a very bad crime. This stealing is a very serious offence; but, as you are a pretty girl! we’ll suspend judgment, in hopes you will do better for the future.” We have often heard that justice was blind. What a fib to say so!

Mr Carey, in his publication on Wealth, asserts, that security of property and or person are greater in the United States than in England. How far he is correct I shall now proceed to examine. Mr Carey says, in his observations on security of person:—“Comparing Massachusetts with England and Wales, we find in the former 1 in 86,871 sentenced to one year’s imprisonment or more; whereas, in the latter 1 in 70,000 is sentenced to more than one year. The number sentenced to one year or more in England is greater than in Pennsylvania. It is obvious, therefore, that security is much greater in Massachusetts than in England, and consequently greater than in any other part of the world.”

Relative to crimes against security of property, he asserts:—

Of crimes against property, involving punishments of one year’s imprisonment, or more, we find:—

In Pennsylvania1 in 4,400
In New York1 in 5,900
In Massachusetts1 in 5,932

While in England, in the year 1834, their convictions for offences against property, involving punishments exceeding one year’s imprisonment, was 1 in 3,120.

Now, that these numbers are fairly given, as far as they go, I have no doubt; but the comparison is not just, because, first, in America crime is not so easily detected; and, secondly, when detected, conviction does not always follow.

Mr Carey must be well aware that, in the American newspapers, you continually meet with a paragraph like this:—“A body of a white man, or of a negro, was found floating near such and such a wharf, on Saturday last, with evident marks of violence upon it, etcetera. etcetera, and the coroner’s inquest is returned either found drowned, or violence by person or persons unknown.” Now, let Mr Carey take a list from the coroner’s books of the number of bodies found in this manner at New York, and the number of instances in which the perpetrators have been discovered; let him compare this list with a similar one made for England and Wales, and he will then ascertain the difference between the crimes committed in proportion to the convictions which take place through the activity of the police in our country, and, it may be said, the total want of police in the United States.