executions urged by Henry Fielding, in place of the brutal 'Tyburn holiday' enacted every six weeks for the benefit of the Georgian mob. Another matter demanding legislation was the great probability of escape afforded to thieves by the narrow streets and the common-lodging houses of the day. Of the latter, crowded with miserable beds from the cellar to the garret, let out, at twopence a night the single beds, and threepence the double ones, Fielding draws a picture as terrible as any of his friend Hogarth's plates. And he concludes "Nay I can add what I myself once saw in the Parish of Shoreditch where two little Houses were emptied of near seventy Men and Women," and where the money found on all the occupants (with the exception of a pretty girl who was a thief) "did not amount to one shilling." In all these houses gin, moreover, was sold at a penny the quartern. Housed thus, in conditions destructive of "all Morality, Decency and Modesty," with the street for bed if they fall sick ("and it is almost a Miracle that Stench, Vermin, and Want should ever suffer them to be well"), oppressed with poverty, and sunk in every species of debauchery, "the Wonder in Fact is," cries Fielding, "... that we have not a thousand more Robbers than we have; indeed that all these wretches are not thieves must give us either a very high Idea of their Honesty or a very mean one of their Capacity and Courage." And, leaving for a moment legislative reform, Fielding delivers a vigorous attack on the national sluggishness of public spirit which helped to render robbery a fairly safe profession. With such sluggishness his ardent nature had very little sympathy. "With regard to Private Persons," he protests, "there is no Country I believe in the World where that vulgar Maxim so generally prevails that what is the Business of every Man is the business of no Man; and for this plain Reason, that there is no Country in which less Honour is gained by serving the Public. He therefore who commits no crime against the Public, is very well satisfied with his own Virtue; far from thinking himself obliged to undergo any Labour, expend any Money, or encounter any Danger on such Account." And in no part of the _Enquiry_ does the writer more truly show his wisdom than in the pages on 'false Compassion' that plausible weakness which refuses to prosecute the oppressors of the helpless and innocent, and which at that time, in the person of his Majesty, King George II. was, it appears, very active in pardoning offenders when convicted. Fielding's arguments are incontestable; but his apologue may have found even more favour in the age of wit. He hopes such good nature may not carry those in power so far, "as it once did a Clergyman in _Scotland_ who in the fervour of his Benevolence prayed to God that He would be graciously pleased to pardon the poor Devil."