y warn us of the
danger of such an outbreak, especially when combined, as the next will
almost certainly be, with a general rebellion of the Irish Repealers.
Infinite local mischief, incredible destruction of life and property,
would inevitably follow any serious and general insurrection among them;
even though crushed, as in the end it certainly would be, by an united
effort of the other classes in the state. But is the shock to credit,
the destruction of capital, the breaking of the bread of hundreds of
thousands, nothing in a national point of view? And what can augment the
dangers of such local insurrections so much as the acknowledged fact,
that crime is making unprecedented progress amongst them; that so
general have the causes of dissoluteness become, that whole masses are
brought up in depraved and reckless habits, on the verge of, if not
actually committing crime; and that "_les classes dangereuses_" are
daily receiving additional accessions on the depraved, the dissolute,
and abandoned from all the other ranks in the state.

Let us therefore no longer deceive ourselves, or attempt to deceive
others. Crime is making extraordinary and unprecedented progress amongst
us; it is advancing with a rapidity unparalleled in any other European
state: if not arrested, it will come to render the country unbearable;
and will terminate in multiplying to such an extent "_les classes
dangereuses_," as they have been well denominated by the French, as, on
the first serious political convulsion, may come to endanger the state.
It has advanced with undeviating and fearful rapidity through all the
successive delusions which have been trusted to in the country to check
its progress. With equal ease it has cast aside the visions of Sir
Samuel Romilly and the advocates of lenient punishment--the dreams of
Lord Brougham and the supporters of general education--the theories of
the Archbishop of Dublin and the enemies of transportation--the hopes of
Lord John Russell and the partizans of improved prison discipline at
home. Even the blessed arm of the gospel has hitherto failed in checking
its advance amongst us; and it nowhere appears in more appalling colours
than in the districts where the greatest and most strenuous efforts have
been made for the moral and religious instruction of the people. "Nous
avons donnes a penser," as the French say. Ample subject for serious
reflection has been furnished to our readers till a future occasion,