of the community at large. Where any public con-
cern in the minor regulations of the state is going on
well, changes constantly produce evil; and although
men of equal talents and integrity supplant those
that have been heretofore in the management of
gratuitous undertakings, the deficiency of knowledge
and experience never fail to generate evils, and to
check the progress of improvement.

It is a pleasing circumstance to hear, that peni-
tentiary houses have been established in Virginia

and in Boston. Various circumstances lead me to
expect that the latter will be well managed. When-
ever political influence is interposed in the appoint-
ment of officers or managers, it rarely happens that
the best selection is made.

It is certainly true, that many actual criminals
escape punishment in Great Britain, and many reign
for a number of years, and continue in the pursuit
of crimes by which they support themselves, before
the public justice of the country can be made to
attach to them; and it is also true, that in America,
from the peculiar state of society, crimes by being
easier detected and proved, allow very few culprits
to escape. But this apparent difficulty of conviction
is chiefly confined to this metropolis, and to the popu-
lous towns in different parts of the kingdom. In
Scotland

, however, which does not contain one third
of the population of America, it is somewhat similar
to your country, and I am inclined to believe, except-
ing in its capital, and two or three large towns, that
very few who are guilty escape detection and pun-
ishment. The limited number of crimes in that
country, is to be attributed chiefly to the attention
heretofore paid to the religious and moral education
of 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 productive
industry, and the extension of manufactures, has
produced changes not favourable to the morals of the