No wonder that the ignorant, sorely-tempted, out-o’-work labourer should take this view of the case, when men, who by station and education—men who profess to have gone out of their highly respectable paths in life to make such inquiries as should qualify them to discuss the matter in solemn Parliamentary conclave, declare that it is so. A curious exhibition of the lamentable credulity of our law makers occurred no longer ago than at the second reading of the Habitual Criminals Bill in the House of Lords. Naturally the subject was one concerning which their Lordships could know nothing, except by hearsay, and Earl Shaftesbury volunteered to put them in possession of such useful information as might guide them towards a decision as regarded the projected Bill. It is only fair to state, however, that his Lordship was not personally responsible for his startling statements. He had them from a “practitioner,” from a thief, that is to say. His Lordship did not reveal whether it was a thief at large who was his informant: but that is scarcely likely. Doubtless it was from some weeping villain, with an eye to a remission of his sentence, who so frankly confided to the soft-hearted Earl the various secrets of that terrible trade it was his intention never, _never_ to work at again! At any rate, whoever the “practitioner” was, he succeeded in his design completely, as the horror-stricken visage of his lordship, as he delivered himself of the astounding revelations, fully attested. They were to this effect, and the reader will please bear in mind that they were not tendered to be received at their worth, but as facts which might he relied on. Within the City of London, Lord Shaftesbury declared, “crucibles and melting-pots are kept going all day and all night. I believe that in a very large number of cases the whole of the plate is reduced within two or three hours of the robbery to ingots of silver. As for spoons, forks, and jewellery, they are not taken so readily to the melting-pot; but to well-known places where there is a pipe, similar to that which your lordships may have seen—I hope none may have seen it of necessity—in the shop of the pawnbroker. The thief taps, the pipe is lifted up, and in the course of a minute a hand comes out covered with a glove, takes up the jewellery, and gives out the money for it.”