The City Guard, of which so much mention is made in the Tale before us, was originally instituted in 1648. Previous to that period, the City had been watched during the night by the personal duty of the inhabitants, a certain number of whom were obliged to undertake the office by rotation. In order to relieve the inconveniency of this service, a body of sixty men was first appointed, with a captain, two lieutenants, two sergeants, and three corporals; but no regular funds being provided for the support of the establishment, it was speedily dissolved. However, about thirty years thereafter, the necessity of a regular police was again felt; and forty men were raised. These, in the year 1682, were augmented, at the instigation of the Duke of York, to 108 men; and, to defray the expense of the company, a tax was imposed upon the citizens. At the Revolution, the Town Council represented to the Estates of Parliament, that the burden was a grievance to the City; and their request to have it removed was granted. So speedily, however, did they repent this second dismissal of their police, that the very next year they applied to Parliament for authority to raise a body of no fewer than 126 men, and to assess the inhabitants for the expense. Since that period the number of the Town Guard had been very fluctuating, and, before its late final dissolution, amounted only to about 75 men. For many years previous to this event, they had been found quite inadequate to the protection of the City. Riots seemed to be in some measure encouraged by the ridicule in which the venerable corps was held; and from their infirmities and other circumstances, as well as from their scantiness, the more distant parts of the rapidly increasing capital were left defenceless and open to the attacks of nightly depredators. Their language, their manners, and their tempers, so uncongenial with those of the citizens whom they protected, were also found to be almost inapplicable to the purposes for which they served, and, of course, operated as causes of their being disbanded. Besides, a few years before their dismissal, a regular police, similar to that of London, had been established in Edinburgh; which soon completely set aside all necessity of their services. The Town Guard were therefore convoked for the last time, we believe, in February, 1817; and, after receiving some small gratuity from the magistrates, and having a pension settled upon them still more trifling than their trifling pay, proportioned to the rank they held in the corps, were finally disbanded. The police of Edinburgh is now almost unrivalled in Britain for vigilance and activity—how different from the unruly and intemperate times when magisterial authority could be successfully set at defiance, when mobs could unite into such a system of co-operation as even to beard royalty itself, when (in 1812) a scene of violence could be exhibited that would not have disgraced the middle ages, and