Produced by Brendan OConnor, Patricia Bennett, Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.) BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CCCXLIII. MAY, 1844. VOL. LV. Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of each article. CONTENTS. IMPRISONMENT AND TRANSPORTATION, NO. 1. THE INCREASE OF CRIME 533 RHINE AND RHINELANDERS 546 THE MONSTER-MISERY OF LITERATURE. BY A MOUSE BORN OF THE MOUNTAIN 556 MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART XI. 561 INDIAN AFFAIRS--GWALIOR 579 THE FREETHINKER 593 THE SNOW. BY DELTA 617 LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS 620 IRELAND--THE LANDLORD AND TENANT QUESTION 638 * * * * * IMPRISONMENT AND TRANSPORTATION. NO. 1. THE INCREASE OF CRIME. Among the many causes of anxiety which the present state of society in the British empire must occasion to every thoughtful or reflecting mind--one of the most extraordinary and alarming is, the _constant and uninterrupted increase of crime_. The Liberals shut their eyes to this, because it affords a sad illustration of the effect of their favourite theories, which for a quarter of a century have been, under the direction of his Majesty's Ministry or his Majesty's Opposition, in almost ceaseless operation. The selfish and inconsiderate (and they form the vast majority of men) give themselves no sort of trouble about the matter: they care not though their neighbours are murdered or robbed, plundered or swindled, so as they escape unscathed themselves; and without either thinking on the subject, or suggesting one remedy for its evils, interfere only, with stentorian lungs, to resist any project to arrest them having the remotest tendency to terminate in an assessment. Their principle is to take of civilisation only its fruits, and steadily to withstand the concomitant evils; and the simple way by which they think this is to be effected--is quietly, and without saying a word, to reap the benefit of manufacturing industry in the doubling or tripling of their incomes; but to roar out like madmen if the smallest per centage is proposed to be laid on them, to arrest or mitigate the evils which that industry brings in its train. Government meanwhile, albeit fully aware of the danger, is not sufficiently strong to do any thing to avert it; its own majority is paralysed by the inherent selfishness of mankind; and nothing but some great and stunning public calamity can, it is universally felt, awaken the country to a sense of the evils growing