If it is fancied that the opportunities of mutual corruption are less eagerly seized now, than they were in former years, or that association may be allowed with less hazard, we can give the most unqualified assurance that such fancies are vain. The evidence of the certainty of contamination from contact, was never more conclusive than now. We have this moment before us an official report of the thievish adventures of a couple of boys, who were confined together in Cold-bath-Fields prison, which serves not only to show the folly of giving such facilities for planning mischief, but an extraordinary boldness and success in its perpetration. Having settled during the leisure moments of their imprisonment, the scheme of a professional trip to Kidderminster, “as soon as they were released they built a dog-cart, stole two dogs, and bought some hardware to vend. Whilst they were buying it in the shop, their comrades stole a dozen and a-half of brooms from the door, for which the boys paid them half-a-crown. They took with them also twenty sixpences and ten shillings in bad money, which they carried under the false floor of the cart. They first stopped at Wimbledon, where they paid a bad sixpence for some beer, and stole four silver salt-spoons from a shelf, which they disposed of to the landlord of the house in which they slept, at Kingston, for their lodging and five shillings. On the next day a coach passed them, from which one of the boys cut down a portmanteau, which turned out to be filled with papers. One of them manufactured cloth caps, and stole a great coat from a customer to supply him with materials. When they arrived at Kidderminster, they visited a carpet factory in which one of them formerly had employment, from which they stole at various times large quantities of twine and string. They were always punctual at church, where they regularly took occasion to commit thefts. In one town they succeeded in stealing three watches. At a neighboring fair one of them obtained eight purses from as many farmers, but having fallen under suspicion received a handsome ducking in a pond. On their return to London they entered a vacant house and took away a pair of decanters, a hearth-rug, and a great coat, which realised 25_s._; and, after picking the pockets of some soldiers of 2_l._, and stealing a watch and some silver salt-cellars, they reached London _without detection_, where the silver fetched 3_s._ 6_d._ an ounce, and the watches no less than 15_l._” A narrower policy can scarcely be conceived, than that which withholds the means of preventing crime, or counteracting the influences that provoke or promote it. We can make a very close estimate of the expense of keeping two practised rogues in separate places for a couple of years, but what it will cost to allow them to associate, is more than human wit can divine! ART. IV.--PRISON MATTERS AT THE WEST, AND POLITICAL MANAGEMENT IN GENERAL, AFFECTING PRISONS AND PRISONERS.