Transportation under a modified Assign- forced ever since 1803 by the codes of Ausment System, ought surely to be reconsi- tria, Sardinia, and Baden; and, it seems, dered. There is copious evidence that it with excellent results. Let the English was too hastily abandoned. It is by far thief too be made to know that, besides the the least costly to the government, and punishment due to the moral offence as exmight be made highly beneficial to the cri- piatory, he must bear the burden of repaminal. In this last view Mr. Baker strong- ration also. In France the thief generally ly urges that the punishment of transpor- buries his stolen money, and, if convicted tation should be extended to a greater and sent to prison, returns after a few number of offences. The criminal popula- years to his treasure, increased by his earntion among us is well known; character, ings during detention. With us the receivtherefore, as some of the authorities in the er of stolen goods makes over his spoil to Report have suggested, as well as the na- relatives, who are often rich; and thus esture of the act, should determine the de-caping forfeiture, it is remitted to him gree of the punishment. It might be compe- after he has been transported-at once tent to the executive either to give a con- converting the convict into the Australian vict in the first instance all the chances be- capitalist. Civil restitution is perfectly longing to such an educational captivity as feasible in all this class of criminals. In that of Pentonville, or at once to transport others of less capital, either the guilty perhim to a colony: even in the latter case the son will disgorge, or, if he have spent the man is rescued from the associations and money, his friends will come forward to temptations of his old career. Mr. Baker his aid.* The seeming injustice of thus has no doubt that the cost both of the pri- mulcting innocent connexions is to be met son here and the voyage out would be glad- by its not being compulsory, and by the ly repaid by our colonists, on receiving an right it gives the reliever to control the assignment for two years, in two yearly in- man in future. The absolute insolvent, stalments after which period and pay- who cannot otherwise repair the loss occaments the convict would have acquired his pardon. sioned by his depredations, should do so by the sweat of his brow. Until he has done that, he can have no right to consider his labor as his own. As to means subsidiary to and complementary to the Separate System, there is among the works heading this article one Education has now most wisely been which deserves the most serious considera- viewed in connexion with its bearings on tion, that of M. Bonneville, not only from crime. We have seen what it does for the its display of great practical knowledge, convict of Pentonville. A wise system but from the curious similarity of views and would not only furnish principles of conplans with those elicited from our own duct, but hold out some assured prizes for judges by Lord Brougham's Committee. which all could contend (and all bettered We would particularly call attention to M. for the conflict), and which some would atBonneville's chapter on restitution. Lord tain. Our forefathers understood this: Denman had arrived at the same point :- their foundations and grammar-schools car"I would (he says), make restitution of ried the boy into manhood, and furnishthe thing stolen, or its money-value, a ed him with the prospect of a competence. part of the sentence. This principle These have, from the rise in the value of might be usefully adopted in all cases property, attracted the cupidity of the of loss by theft or fraud." It has been en- richer classes, who have in too many cases usurped the advantages meant for their vict are found very insufficient, especially since the humble brethren. Our parish schools, exinvention of railways. The residence of the libe- cellent though they be, give no such hope rated convicts is found to be a permanent danger to as lighted up the vista of a life from youth society. The system of imprisonment (reclusion), or of the Bagnes, or Travaux forcés, is of little to old age in our monastic institutions. effect in reforming or even in deterring from a re- The charity-boy must shift for himself-he petition of the offences punished, and the propor- may or may not succeed in the scramble of tion of those recommitted for new offences is not life-but there is no hand to help him on less than thirty per cent. Thus, of about 90,000 persons tried in the whole kingdom, above 15,000, but his own. A broader charity is wanted or one-sixth of the whole number, had already suf fered imprisonment, to say nothing of the corrupt- * A very large annual surplus is left, after paying effects produced on the community even by ing all the expenses of our recruiting department those who escaped a second punishment." -Second from moneys raised by the poor relations of soldiers Report on Criminal Law, p. 7. for the purchase of their relatives' discharge. -- -a charity founded not in the despairs but, the vicious? You have begun to provide in the hopes of our nature-which will for your soldiers in your colonies, and the cheer the heart in the heat and struggle of view of the few thus cared for animates and the battle, and will not wait to open for strengthens the whole class. Extend the disappointment and decrepitude the asylum principle to the poorer classes generally, and the almshouse. Among our liberties and a very few prizes thus offered to those give these the Liberty of Hoping. Can who will qualify for it may do more to pothere be no un-penal Parkhurst for the off-pularize education than any mechanism of spring of Honest poverty? Is that splen- Bell or Lancaster. did institution to be the appanage only of From the North British Review. SIR JOHN HERSCHEL'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope, being the completion of a Telescopic Survey of the whole surface of the visible Heavens, commenced in 1825, By Sir JOHN HERSCHEL, Bart., K.H., D.C.L., F.R.S. London and Edinburgh. N the history of Astronomical Discovery does appear we watch its phases and its there shine no brighter names than those of mutations with a corresponding interest. Sir William and Sir John Herschel-the fa- The case of the two Herschels is a remarkther and the son. It is rare that the intel-able one, and may appear an exception to lectual mantle of the parent lights upon the our general law. The father, however, was child. By no culture, however skilful, and not called to the survey of the heavens, till no anxieties, however earnest, can we trans- he had passed the middle period of life, and mit to our successors the qualities or the it was but a just arrangement, that the son in capacities of the mind. The eagle eye, the his youth and manhood, should continue and active limb, the giant frame, and the "form complete the labors of his sire. The records divine," the gifts of our mortal being, are of Astronomy do not emblazon a more glofrequently conveyed by natural descent, and rious day than that, in which the semidiurnal may be numbered even among the rights of arc of the father was succeeded by the primogeniture; but the higher developments semidiurnal arc of the son. No sooner had of reason and fancy, the bright coruscations the evening luminary disappeared amid the of the soul, have never been ranked among gorgeous magnificence of the west, than the the claims or the accidents of birth. The morning star arose, bright and cloudless in gifts of fortune which we inherit or acquire, its appointed course. have been placed more immediately at our It has long been a subject of regret to disposal, and in many cases have been the astronomical world, that in our language handed down unimpaired to distant genera- no extended account has yet been published tions; but Providence has reserved for its of the life and discoveries of Sir William own distribution, those transcendental Herschel. With the exception of a short powers which give omnipotence to genius, Biographical Memoir, and a popular aband constitute its possessor the high priest of stract of his astronomical observations on nature, or the vicegerent of Heaven. In a the nebula and double stars, and on the bodestiny so lofty, the father and the son have dies of our own system,† no suitable account been rarely associated; and in the very few of his labors has appeared even in our larger cases in which a joint commission has been treatises on astronomy, and general readers issued to them, it has generally been to have, therefore, no adequate idea of the work in different spheres, or at different levels. In the universe of mind, the phenomenon of a double star is more rare than its prototype in the firmament, and when it * Vol. VIII., pp. 209, 226. + Edinburgh Encyclopædia, Art. Astronomy. value and extent of his discoveries.* Though Sir William Herschel was born in the city his scientific studies did not, as we have al- of Hanover on the 15tl. November 1738. ready stated, commence till he had reached His father, who was a professor of music, the middle period of life, yet he pursued educated his five sons in the same art; but them, under difficulties of no ordinary kind, William, who was the second, after exerciswith all the ardor of youthful devotion, and ing his profession for about five years in with that dauntless and indefatigable perse- Hanover, resolved to push his fortune in verance, which never fails of success. England, where he arrived about the end of Every step, indeed, of his astronomical career the year 1759. Although he was enthusiwas marked with discoveries equally inte- astically devoted to his profession, and purresting and unexpected. New planets and sued it with such success, as to draw from it new sa ellites, were successively added to an income considerably above his wants, his our own solar system. Thousands of nebula ardent mind was occasionally devoted to and double stars were discovered in the side- still higher objects. When he was resident real firmament, and in those remote regions at Halifax he acquired, by his own applicaof space where the imagination had hitherto tion, a considerable knowledge of mathemascarcely dared to wander, and where the tics, and having studied astronomy and stars in countless multitudes seemed to be optics, in the popular writings of Ferguson, fixed in absolute immobility, the physical he was anxious to witness with his own astronomer was directed to new systems of eyes the wonders of the planetary system. worlds,-binary, ternary, and multiple,- Having received from a friend the loan of a exhibiting the general phenomena of annual telescope, two feet in focal length, he directand diurnal rotation, and rendering it pro- ed it to the heavens, and was so delighted bable that the law of gravitation extended to with the actual sight of phenomena, which the remotest corners of space. His inven- he had previously known only from books, tion of instruments, and of new methods of that he commissioned a friend to purchase observation, was no less surprising than the for him in London a telescope with a high wonders which they disclosed. Obstacles magnifying power. Fortunately for science, that other men had found insuperable he the price of such an instrument greatly ex. speedily surmounted. The telescope which ceeded his means, and he immediately reGalileo held in his hand as a toy, became solved to construct a telescope with his own under Sir William Herschel's direction a stu- hands. After encountering the difficulties pendous machine, which supported the astro- which every amateur at first experiences in nomer himself, and even his friends, and the casting, grinding, and polishing of metallic which mechanical power was requisite even specula for reflecting telescopes, he completThere was in short no continuity ed in 1776 a reflecting instrument five feet between his inventions and discoveries, and in focal length, with which he was able to those of preceding astronomers. He ad- observe the ring of Saturn and the satellites ventured upon a flight which left them at and belts of Jupiter. This telescope was an immeasurable distance, and he penetrat- completed when he resided at Bath, where he ed into regions where the ablest of his suc- acquired by degrees, and at his leisure hours, cessors have had some difficulty in following that practical knowledge of optics and mechahim. nics which was necessary for such a task. As "the telescopic survey of the whole His experience in this scientific art was of the surface of the sidereal heavens," contained most remarkable kind. He had constructed in the great work of Sir John Herschel, for himself several two-feet, five feet, sevenwhich is now before us, is a continuation feet, ten-feet, and twenty-feet Newtonian and completion of the labors of his father, telescopes, besides others of the Gregorian we shall endeavor to give our readers a form of eight-inches, twelve-inches, two-feet, brief and general account of the disco- three-feet, five-feet, and ten-feet focal length. veries of Sir William, interspersed with His way of executing these instruments, at a few notices of the principal events of his this time, when the direct method, of giving life. the figure of any one of the conic sections to move. A very interesting and valuable account of the to specula, was yet unknown to him, was to Life and Works of Sir W. Herschel, by M. Arago, cast many mirrors of each sort, to grind and was published in the Annuaire for 1842. It contains polish them as accurately as he could, and a full and critical analysis of his discoveries, and then, after selecting and preserving the best is distinguished by the eloquence and learning of them for use, he put the rest aside to be which characterize the writings of that illustrious philosopher. re-polished. In this way he executed no Vol. XIII. No. IV. 30 -a charity founded not in the despairs but, the vicious? You have begun to provide in the hopes of our nature-which will for your soldiers in your colonies, and the cheer the heart in the heat and struggle of view of the few thus cared for animates and the battle, and will not wait to open for strengthens the whole class. Extend the disappointment and decrepitude the asylum principle to the poorer classes generally, and the almshouse. Among our liberties and a very few prizes thus offered to those give these the Liberty of Hoping. Can who will qualify for it may do more to pothere be no un-penal Parkhurst for the off-pularize education than any mechanism of spring of Honest poverty? Is that splen- Bell or Lancaster. did institution to be the appanage only of From the North British Review. SIR JOHN HERSCHEL'S ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. Results of Astronomical Observations made during the years 1834, 5, 6, 7, 8, at the Cape of Good Hope, being the completion of a Telescopic Survey of the whole surface of the visible Heavens, commenced in 1825, By Sir JOHN HERSCHEL, Bart., K.H., D.C.L., F.R.S. London and Edinburgh. N the history of Astronomical Discovery does appear we watch its phases and its there shine no brighter names than those of mutations with a corresponding interest. Sir William and Sir John Herschel-the fa- The case of the two Herschels is a remarkther and the son. It is rare that the intel-able one, and may appear an exception to lectual mantle of the parent lights upon the our general law. The father, however, was child. By no culture, however skilful, and not called to the survey of the heavens, till no anxieties, however earnest, can we trans- he had passed the middle period of life, and mit to our successors the qualities or the it was but a just arrangement, that the son in capacities of the mind. The eagle eye, the his youth and manhood, should continue and active limb, the giant frame, and the "form complete the labors of his sire. The records divine," the gifts of our mortal being, are of Astronomy do not emblazon a more glofrequently conveyed by natural descent, and rious day than that, in which the semidiurnal may be numbered even among the rights of arc of the father was succeeded by the primogeniture; but the higher developments semidiurnal arc of the son. No sooner had of reason and fancy, the bright coruscations the evening luminary disappeared amid the of the soul, have never been ranked among gorgeous magnificence of the west, than the the claims or the accidents of birth. The morning star arose, bright and cloudless in gifts of fortune which we inherit or acquire, its appointed course. have been placed more immediately at our It has long been a subject of regret to disposal, and in many cases have been the astronomical world, that in our language handed down unimpaired to distant genera- no extended account has yet been published tions; but Providence has reserved for its of the life and discoveries of Sir William own distribution, those transcendental Herschel. With the exception of a short powers which give omnipotence to genius, Biographical Memoir, and a popular aband constitute its possessor the high priest of stract of his astronomical observations on nature, or the vicegerent of Heaven. In a the nebulæ and double stars, and on the bodestiny so lofty, the father and the son have dies of our own system,† no suitable account been rarely associated; and in the very few of his labors has appeared even in our larger cases in which a joint commission has been treatises on astronomy, and general readers issued to them, it has generally been to have, therefore, no adequate idea of the work in different spheres, or at different levels. In the universe of mind, the phenomenon of a double star is more rare than its prototype in the firmament, and when it Vol. VIII., pp. 209, 226. + Edinburgh Encyclopædia, Art. Astronomy. Sir William Herschel was born in the city value and extent of his discoveries.* Though| his scientific studies did not, as we have al- of Hanover on the 15tl. November 1738. ready stated, commence till he had reached His father, who was a professor of music, the middle period of life, yet he pursued educated his five sons in the same art; but them, under difficulties of no ordinary kind, William, who was the second, after exerciswith all the ardor of youthful devotion, and ing his profession for about five years in with that dauntless and indefatigable perse- Hanover, resolved to push his fortune in verance, which never fails of success. England, where he arrived about the end of Every step, indeed, of his astronomical career the year 1759. Although he was enthusiwas marked with discoveries equally inte- astically devoted to his profession, and purresting and unexpected. New planets and sued it with such success, as to draw from it new sa ellites, were successively added to an income considerably above his wants, his our own solar system. Thousands of nebula ardent mind was occasionally devoted to and double stars were discovered in the side- still higher objects. When he was resident real firmament, and in those remote regions at Halifax he acquired, by his own applicaof space where the imagination had hitherto tion, a considerable knowledge of mathemascarcely dared to wander, and where the tics, and having studied astronomy and stars in countless multitudes seemed to be optics, in the popular writings of Ferguson, fixed in absolute immobility, the physical he was anxious to witness with his own astronomer was directed to new systems of eyes the wonders of the planetary system. worlds,-binary, ternary, and multiple,- Having received from a friend the loan of a exhibiting the general phenomena of annual telescope, two feet in focal length, he directand diurnal rotation, and rendering it pro- ed it to the heavens, and was so delighted bable that the law of gravitation extended to with the actual sight of phenomena, which the remotest corners of space. His inven- he had previously known only from books, tion of instruments, and of new methods of that he commissioned a friend to purchase observation, was no less surprising than the for him in London a telescope with a high wonders which they disclosed. Obstacles magnifying power. Fortunately for science, that other men had found insuperable he the price of such an instrument greatly ex. speedily surmounted. The telescope which ceeded his means, and he immediately reGalileo held in his hand as a toy, became solved to construct a telescope with his own under Sir William Herschel's direction a stu- hands. After encountering the difficulties pendous machine, which supported the astro- which every amateur at first experiences in nomer himself, and even his friends, and the casting, grinding, and polishing of metallic which mechanical power was requisite even specula for reflecting telescopes, he completto move. There was in short no continuity ed in 1776 a reflecting instrument five feet between his inventions and discoveries, and in focal length, with which he was able to those of preceding astronomers. He ad- observe the ring of Saturn and the satellites ventured upon a flight which left them at and belts of Jupiter. This telescope was an immeasurable distance, and he penetrated into regions where the ablest of his successors have had some difficulty in following him. completed when he resided at Bath, where he acquired by degrees, and at his leisure hours, that practical knowledge of optics and mechanics which was necessary for such a task. As "the telescopic survey of the whole His experience in this scientific art was of the surface of the sidereal heavens," contained most remarkable kind. He had constructed in the great work of Sir John Herschel, for himself several two-feet, five feet, sevenwhich is now before us, is a continuation feet, ten-feet, and twenty-feet Newtonian and completion of the labors of his father, telescopes, besides others of the Gregorian we shall endeavor to give our readers a form of eight-inches, twelve-inches, two-feet, brief and general account of the disco- three-feet, five-feet, and ten-feet focal length. veries of Sir William, interspersed with His way of executing these instruments, at a few notices of the principal events of his this time, when the direct method, of giving life. the figure of any one of the conic sections A very interesting and valuable account of the to specula, was yet unknown to him, was to Life and Works of Sir W. Herschel, by M. Arago, cast many mirrors of each sort, to grind and was published in the Annuaire for 1842. It contains polish them as accurately as he could, and a full and critical analysis of his discoveries, and then, after selecting and preserving the best is distinguished by the eloquence and learning of them for use, he put the rest aside to be which characterize the writings of that illustrious philosopher. re-polished. In this way he executed no Vol. XIII. No. IV. 30 |