But where is the £300,000 to come from? The Chancellor of the Exchequer has no money; taxation has reached its limits; and loans are out of the question. What! have free trade and a restricted currency, then, so quickly prostrated the resources of the country, that the nation which, in 1813, with eighteen millions of inhabitants, at the close of a twenty years' costly war, raised £72,000,000 by taxation, and £80,000,000 by loan, cannot now, with thirty millions, for so very important an object, after thirty-three years of unbroken peace, muster up £300,000 a-year? A shilling a gallon on the 6,259,000 gallons of whisky annually consumed in _Scotland alone_, in demoralising the community, would provide the requisite sum, and tend to equalise the ruinous exemption which Scotland now enjoys in the manufacture of that attractive and pernicious liquor. A similar duty on the 12,000,000 gallons annually consumed in England, would raise double the sum. But if government, despite the £100,000,000 we were promised by free trade, cannot afford £300,000 a-year for this vital object, let it be laid on the counties as part of the prison or county rates. A little reflection would soon show every person of sense in the country, that its amount could speedily be saved in prison and poor rates. Simultaneously with this change, an alteration, equally loudly called for, should take place in the administration of our criminal law at home. The present system of inflicting short imprisonments at first, and reserving long imprisonments and transportation for criminals who have plied their trade of pillage for two or three years, should be abolished. Imprisonment should consist of three kinds:--1. A very short imprisonment, perhaps of a week or ten days, for the youngest criminals and a first trifling offence, intended to terrify merely. 2. For a second offence, however trivial--or a first, if considerable, and indicating an association with professional thieves--a long imprisonment of _nine months or a year_, sufficient _to teach every one a trade_, should invariably be inflicted. 3. The criminal who has been thus imprisoned, and taught a trade, should, when next convicted, be _instantly transported_. In this way a triple advantage would be gained. 1. The immense number of prisoners now constantly in confinement in the British islands would be materially lessened, and the prison-rates proportionally relieved. 2. The cost of now maintaining a convict in one of the public penitentiaries, to prepare him for transportation, not less than £17 or £18, would be almost entirely saved; he would be prepared for it, in the great majority of cases, by his previous imprisonment. 3. The character and habits of the convicts sent out would be materially improved, by getting comparatively young and untainted men for penal labour, instead of old offenders, who have learned no other trade than that of thieving. To the country it would undoubtedly save £60 or £80 on each criminal