Let us therefore no longer deceive ourselves, or attempt to deceive others. Crime is making extraordinary and unprecedented progress amongst us; it is advancing with a rapidity unparalleled in any other European state: if not arrested, it will come to render the country unbearable; and will terminate in multiplying to such an extent "_les classes dangereuses_," as they have been well denominated by the French, as, on the first serious political convulsion, may come to endanger the state. It has advanced with undeviating and fearful rapidity through all the successive delusions which have been trusted to in the country to check its progress. With equal ease it has cast aside the visions of Sir Samuel Romilly and the advocates of lenient punishment--the dreams of Lord Brougham and the supporters of general education--the theories of the Archbishop of Dublin and the enemies of transportation--the hopes of Lord John Russell and the partizans of improved prison discipline at home. Even the blessed arm of the gospel has hitherto failed in checking its advance amongst us; and it nowhere appears in more appalling colours than in the districts where the greatest and most strenuous efforts have been made for the moral and religious instruction of the people. "Nous avons donnes a penser," as the French say. Ample subject for serious reflection has been furnished to our readers till a future occasion, when the cause of this general failure, and the means requisite for the diminution of crime, will be considered. FOOTNOTES: [1] Table showing the progress of crime in the British islands since 1805, in so far as can be ascertained.