One feature of its system we should be disposed to introduce into our English schools of correction, viz. that of a specially correctional ward, in which the boy may pass any term of preliminary separation which his case or character may make advisable. In this respect, Rhusyllede appears to have taken a hint from Parkhurst, whose probationary ward has always seemed to us one of its most useful portions. We should desire to see this feature introduced into our juvenile schools of correction in England. A strictly correctional ward or division, into which each new inmate should be received, and in which the more confirmed and ill-disposed should be retained for a sufficient period, to allow of reformatory influence being fully brought to bear on them, would be very advantageous. It should be attached to each school, under the same general superintendence, but with special regulations as to the diet, labour, silence, and separation of its inmates.

The agricultural colonies in Switzerland were in 1849 thirtytwo in number, chiefly founded by Wehrli. In these, however, as in many of the similar institutions, now opened in France, orphans and enfans trouvés are mingled with the vagrant and the beggar. None of them contain more than forty, and most only thirty children.†

It is strong evidence in favour of the reformatory system for young offenders, that our transatlantic brethren have taken it up. The Report of the Prison Discipline Society for 1850 shows that schools of reform, such as our remarks have contemplated, are now being generally founded, at the charge of the different local governments, for the proper training and correction of the juvenile offenders of the United States, and these too, generally on the principle of agricultural occupation as the main source of employment. Thus Maine, Massachusets, Connecticut, New York, have each of them farm schools; while houses of refuge, affording more sedentary employments

* We cannot think that Miss Carpenter has done full justice to Parkhurst prison as now constituted. The last two years have seen very important improvements in its system. There is more industry and labour, less of the pedantry of discipline, and a more practical style of school instruction.

+ It should be added, that an institution with similar objects is being formed at Rysselt, near Zutphen, in Holland, where, mainly by the contributions of some benevolent individuals, 130 acres of land have been purchased, and the requisite buildings put in course of erection. It is to be called 'The Dutch Mettray.' The children will be divided into families of twelve only, in imitation of M. Wichern's admirable Rauhe Haus at Hamburg.

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Reformatory Institutions in the United States.

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to their young inmates, are found in Rhode Island, at Cincinnati, Baltimore, Philadelphia, &c. The juvenile delinquent, we should remark, is usually committed for detention in these schools, till the expiration of his minority; the trustees of the school having discretion to apprentice the boy out at such times as they shall think fit, and having, both before and after the apprenticeship, the legal powers of parents and guardians. At Westborough, Massachusets; out of 334 admitted, 247 were sentenced till of age; 5 till 20; 1 for 10 years; 2 for 8; 5 for 6 years, &c. The offences for which these boys are thus placed under reformatory discipline in America are worthy of remark. At Westborough there were committed for larceny, 119; stubbornness, 110; idle and disorderly conduct, 20; vagrancy, 23; shop breaking and stealing, 17; house breaking, 4; pilfering, 5; having obscene books for circulation, 2; common drunkards, 2, &c. It is added that of the whole number, 66 were foreigners and 268 born in the United States, but of the last, 96 were of Irish, 3 of English, and 1 of German parents. It will be admitted that the American public know the value of the dollar, and are not likely to throw away their resources on visionary and unproductive schemes of mere vague benevolence. The circumstance, therefore, that they are thus adopting the detentional and corrective method of treating juvenile offenders must be allowed to be a strong recommendation in its favour to the practical economist.

We cannot but hope that the day is not far distant when the same principle will be brought into practical operation in our own country, and the School of Correction be looked upon as a necessary provision for the lighter and more numerous classes of juvenile delinquencies, as Parkhurst is in cases of a heavier and rarer description. To these, gradually and quietly introduced, simply organised, and strictly regulated, we principally look for the mitigation of the serious mischiefs which youthful crime is entailing upon society; and to the establishment of these we would invite the co-operation equally of the philanthropist and the statesman, (if we must still distinguish between the two,) -believing that, aided by such checks upon the parents and the parish as we have spoken of, a general and consistent system of corrective and reformatory discipline would rescue thousands of children from destruction, would relieve the community from a heavy and wasteful expense, and would make the due execution of our penal laws more effective and more just.

ART. V.-Correspondance entre Le Comte de Mirabeau et Le Comte De La Marck, pendant les années 1789, 1790 et 1791. Recueillie, mise en ordre, et publiée, par M. AD. De BACOURT, Ancien Ambassadeur de France près la Cour de Sardaigne.

TH

HE Revolution in France of 1848 has revived our interest in the causes and consequences of the greater Revolution of 1789, and in the conduct and character of the persons who took prominent parts in the transactions of that most eventful period of modern history.

There are undoubtedly great differences in the Revolutions of 1789 and 1848, but they are by no means destitute of resemblance. The chief point of similitude is, that at both periods the political and social organisation of France was broken up into its component elements; in the Revolution of 1789, perhaps with inevitable precipitancy, in that of 1848, in a spirit of unnecessary change, and with reckless conceit. On both occasions the Monarchical form of government was overthrown, after a desperate struggle in 1789, and without resistance in 1848. In truth the old and corrupt monarchy which fell with Louis XVI. had more blood in its veins, and died harder than the recently embodied royalty of Louis Philippe. The foundations of the former had been deeply laid in the traditions and habits, if not in the affections, of the people; while the latter had but a slight hold on the surface, and yielded to the first puff of the revolutionary tempest.

So many political problems had been solved between 1789 and 1848, and so many results had been obtained favourable to the best interests of society, and to the rights of the people, that at the latter period, there was little more to do in the way of organic improvement, than to extend the electoral franchise, so as to make the elected body a real representation of the French people. A reform of Parliament was required, and not a change in the form of the government itself. Louis Philippe, by obstinately resisting the first, was the principal agent in bringing about the latter. It cannot be said that he was illadvised, for, though his Ministers agreed with him, he was his own counsellor; he had not, like Louis XVI., a family to influence him, or courtiers to mislead him; he himself was convinced that the French people possessed as much liberty and political power as could be safely entrusted to them, and he would not even entertain the question of further extension. In this respect Louis XVI. appears to comparative advantage:

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Louis XVI., 1789; and Louis Philippe, 1848. 431 he felt that great administrative changes were required, and he was ready, salvá regiâ dignitate, to make them. His task, even if he had been honestly and respectfully supported by the National Assembly, and well counselled by his Ministers, would have been most difficult; nor was that of the National Assembly itself less so. Master spirits were required at once on the throne and in the Assembly. The reigning Bourbon was altogether unfitted for the exigencies of the occasion. A master spirit did appear in the Assembly, but under such unfavourable circumstances, and for so short a time, that the benefits to have been derived from the commanding influence of a man, uniting in himself the opposite qualifications of a tribune of the people, and of a minister of the Sovereign, remain the object of mere speculation, and do not belong to the records of history. That man was Mirabeau.

Mirabeau's youthful immoralities had exceeded the license permitted to his age and station, so that, the first time he appeared in the hall of the States-General he was received with murmurs of disapprobation. Nor was this surprising; he stood there a convicted adulterer, and a betrayer of official confidence.* He is reported to have met this reception with a smile of disdain; feeling, as he must have done, an irresistible conviction, that his success in the career just opened to him would soon cause the vices of his private life to be overlooked. We We may also add a belief that the consciousness of the public good, which he felt himself capable of achieving, gave him an honourable confidence in his power of self-redemption.

The great question was immediately brought under discussion Were the Etats Généraux to deliberate in one body ' or separately?' The Tiers Etat contended for the first, while the orders of the Nobility and of the Clergy claimed the right of separate deliberation for each of the three Orders. Mirabeau, though a member of the Tiers Etat, was far from at once adopting their pretensions; and he applied, through Malonet, who was personally acquainted with some of the ministers, for an interview with Monsieur Necker. That interview took place, and we have the authority of Malonet, in his Memoirs, for the fact, that Mirabeau, after explaining his views regarding constitutional monarchy, pressed upon Necker the importance

We allude to his adulterous connexion with Madame Monnier (Sophia Ruffey), and to the sale by him to a bookseller of the manuscript of the Secret History of the Court of Berlin,' which was in fact a publication of his official despatches to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, during his secret mission at Berlin.

of the Government overcoming the resistance of the orders of Nobility and Clergy to a union with the Tiers Etat, in order to avoid the evils which would inevitably follow from its continuance. Necker was cold and disdainful, and made no reply to the suggestion. Mirabeau left the minister in great irritation, and is reported to have said, 'Je ne reviendrai plus, mais il aura de mes nouvelles.' Malonet admits that from the opening of the Etats Généraux Mirabeau evinced a fixed determination to support the Royal authority, provided it were founded on constitutional principles; but from the first, also, he had a double character to sustain-he endeavoured to be at the same time the supporter of order and kingly government, as well as the eloquent tribune of the people, whose force rested on his personal popularity, and on that only.

Mirabeau was a party with Sieyes and others in persuading the Tiers Etat to assume the title of the National Assembly, and to give to its members that of Representatives of the French People-titles which were resumed in the Constitution of 1848. The occurrences at the meeting of the National Assembly held in the Tennis Court, when the usual hall of their sittings had been shut up, under pretence of repairs, are well known to our readers; and it may be truly said that, with the language of Mirabeau to the Marquis de Brézé, Grand Master of the Ceremonies, who had called upon the Three Orders to separate, in conformity with the commands of the King, given at the Royal Seance of the 23d June, 1789, the Revolution began, and was at once completed. We believe the following to be the most correct record of what Mirabeau said on that ever memorable occasion: Oui, Monsieur, nous avons entendu les intentions 'qu'on a suggerées au Roi: et vous qui ne sauriez être son Organe auprès de l'Assemblée Nationale; vous, qui n'avez ici ni place, ni voix, ni droit de parler; allez dire à votre • Maître qui nous sommes ici par la volonté du peuple, et que nous n'en sortirons que par la force des bayonnettes.' No words can convey a more energetic and dignified assertion of the independence of the representative body, and they at once annihilated the pageants of absolute monarchy.

Here then begins that Constituent Assembly which in its origin and functions was in some measure the prototype to that of 1848. Although the Constitution framed by the Constituent Assembly in 1791 had little duration, the reputation of the Assembly itself, far from diminishing, has rather increased with the progress of time. Much of the framework of the present organisation of France was then prepared, and the principles of its internal administration were definitively laid down. We cannot but admire the great capacity and various talents dis