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of the community at large. Where any public con-cern in the minor regulations of the state is going onwell, changes constantly produce evil; and althoughmen of equal talents and integrity supplant thosethat have been heretofore in the management ofgratuitous undertakings, the deficiency of knowledgeand experience never fail to generate evils, and tocheck the progress of improvement. It is a pleasing circumstance to hear, that peni-tentiary houses have been established in Virginiaand in Boston. Various circumstances lead me toexpect that the latter will be well managed. When-ever political influence is interposed in the appoint-ment of officers or managers, it rarely happens thatthe best selection is made. It is certainly true, that many actual criminalsescape punishment in Great Britain, and many reignfor a number of years, and continue in the pursuitof crimes by which they support themselves, beforethe public justice of the country can be made toattach to them; and it is also true, that in America,from the peculiar state of society, crimes by beingeasier detected and proved, allow very few culpritsto escape. But this apparent difficulty of convictionis chiefly confined to this metropolis, and to the popu-lous towns in different parts of the kingdom. InScotland, however, which does not contain one thirdof the population of America, it is somewhat similarto your country, and I am inclined to believe, except-ing in its capital, and two or three large towns, thatvery few who are guilty escape detection and pun-ishment. The limited number of crimes in that country, is to be attributed chiefly to the attentionheretofore paid to the religious and moral educationof the inferior orders of society. I am sorry, however,to learn from persons of intelligence in that country,that the progress of wealth, arising from productiveindustry, and the extension of manufactures, hasproduced changes not favourable to the morals of the