By a reference to the Old Bailey session calendar, it will be seen that about 3,000 prisoners are annually committed to Newgate, making little short of 400 each session, of which there are eight in a year. Out of the gross number, about 350 are discharged by proclamation. Of these nothing can be said, as they must be considered innocent of the crimes with which they were charged, there not being _primâ facie_ evidence to send them on their trials. There remain 2,550 who are tried, with the progressive increase of 4-7ths annually. Some persons have supposed this accumulation of offenders bears a regular proportion to the progress of population. As well may they assert that the demand for thieves in society regulates the supply, as in other markets of merchandise. The cause is in the maladministration of the laws--the sending out so many old offenders every session to teach and draw in the more juvenile and less experienced hands--with the uncertainty of punishment, by the inequality of sentences for crimes of a like nature--to which may be added the many instances of mistaken, or rather _mis-directed_ leniency, compared with others of enormous severity for trifling offences; all which tend to induce the London thieves to entertain a contempt for that tribunal. An opinion prevails throughout the whole body, that justice is not done there. I do not mean to say they complain of the sentences being too severe generally; that would be natural enough on their parts, and not worth notice. They believe everything done at that court a matter of chance; that _in the same day, and for a like crime_, one man will be sentenced to _transportation for life_, while another may be let off for a _month's imprisonment_, and yet both equally bad characters.