to ask himself whether the habitual contemplation
of such representations is a good and
wholesome thing for any human being under
the sun. Before those who stand thus and absorb
with their eyes, are displayed a succession of
transactions, in which the desire of vengeance,
the lust of plunder, the gratification of ferocity
or cruelty, appears as the instigating motive
of all sorts of enormities. Blows, stabbings,
shootings, violent acts of every kind, are made
familiar to all who choose to look, by these
prints. Is it good for men— still more is it
good for boys— to be familiarised with these
things? We do not say that a man or boy will,
after scrutinising one of these representations
of active crime simply go and do likewise,
because of what he has seen; but we do say
that when the time of temptation comes his
nature will be all the less ready to resist,
because of the habitual familiarity with violence.
The members of that particular section of
society in which the admirers of the illustrations
are chiefly to be found, see quite enough
of the administration of blows and kicks, and of
all varieties of cruel acts in their own domestic
circles. If father is drunk or angry and mother
comes in his way, what does he have recourse
to?—- Blows. If mother is in wrath or in liquor
and the children come in her way, what does
she have recourse to?—- Blows. A lad brought
up in this school gets imbued with its principles
quite soon enough under the best circumstances.
He becomes quite disposed enough
to take it for granted that the infliction of
violence by the strong on the weak is the first
law of nature. And now he goes to the news
shop round the corner, and finds that the same
rule obtains elsewhere and that blows and
violence are the order of the day, in other
places besides his own home, and the homes
—to call them so— of nearly all his neighbours.
Everywhere blows, everywhere violence.
Everywhere tyranny of strong over weak. Why not
on his imitative part, as on the part of so many
others?

These grim representations of cruel and
savage deeds spread out before his eyes, and
appealing thus, by the strongest appeal of all,
to his understanding— such as it is— tend,
plainly, to the utter, utter debasing and
degrading of his nature, and tend likewise to a
horrible imitation of a long series of horrible
examples.

We have confined ourselves hitherto to the
illustrations by which the first page of this
most objectionable sheet, which is larger than
the Times, is entirely filled up. We have dealt
with these first, because they appear—speaking
a language which all can understand, and which,
with the class especially addressed, is more
powerful than any collection of words that
could be put together— to be more dangerous,
and calculated to do more harm, than the
literary portion of the work. Still the last must
not be lost sight of. The illustrations may be
enjoyed free of expense, by those who choose to
study them in the shop windows; not so the
letter-press. This the public must pay for, and,
as it does pay for it, it is logical to conclude
that the public likes it. Let us examine for
a moment what the public does like.

It likes —- else why should it pay money
get them?—- detailed accounts of all sorts of
ugly and terrible transactions. It likes graphic
descriptions, with particulars, of human remains
discovered under mysterious circumstances and
in an advanced state of decomposition. It likes
—judging by the titles of the different articles—
to read of Brutal Assaults, of Fearful Murder and
Suicide by a Father, of Attempted Wife Murder
at Bury, of a Frightful Case of Suicide at the
Bristol Union, of a Charge of Murder against
the Servant of a Duke, of a Dreadful Assault
with a Bar of Red-hot Iron.

It likes the stimulating headings— the
composition of which is an art studied very
carefully by the compilers of this journal—
prefixed to every article. There is a good
store of them: Struggle upon a Housetop;
Desertion and Theft; Threatening the
Life of a Tradesman; Stabbing a Witness;
Cruelty to a Horse; Cruelty to Fowls; Charge
of Maliciously Scalding a Child; Recognition
of a Photograph by a Dog; How Illegitimate
Children are disposed of; Suicide through
Profligacy and Remorse; Five Colliers Buried
Alive; Mutilation Extraordinary— Two Men
Robbed of their Noses! These are but a few
of such titles, and a great number might
easily be quoted, suggestive of the same kind of
cheerful and profitable reading. It is a curious
circumstance, by the way, that when any of the
accidents and offences concern any person
connected with the public-house trade, this fact
is always specially indicated in the title. Thus
we read of the Shocking Suicide of a Barmaid,
of A Dishonest Potman, of An Assault on a
Licensed Victualler, or of some one Annoying
the Wife of a Licensed Victualler, as of special
and unheard-of wonders.

The audience addressed, in addition to its
predilection for horrors, has also a taste— less
powerfully developed, but still a taste—for
matter of a lighter nature, as a sort of seasoning:
just as the public at our transpontine theatres
appreciate a farce or a burlesque after a
rawhead and bloody-bones melodrama. This
audience likes a police case headed, Helping
Himself to a Slice of Beef, or A Woman Charged
with Attacking the Military. Something of
satire, too, is not unpalateable —-Parochial
Humanity, or The Law of Moving-on; nor
is an occasional Joe Miller regarded as
objectionable, or even a sentiment, if couched in
such flowery language as the following: " A
smile is ever the most bright and beautiful with
a tear upon (!) it. What is the dawn without
its dew?"

But what this particular public seems to like
best of all, is a detailed history of the last
hours of some well-known malefactor—a kind
of murderers' Court Circular. Such a history
is furnished of the final scenes in the life of
Miles Wetherill.