To The Editor Of The Time...
bir.The remarks of " Erasmus" on the charita.le exertions of the rfligious and benevolent towards criminals under uentence of death, &c., require some tlight notice; and I hre yoI will permit your impurtialand exe ellentpaper to bc the chiW'rmel through which it is conveyed to the public. "Erasmus" is evidently not well-infarmed on the subject upoa lvwhich he has written, though in some of his views I coincile. 'l'he fact is, that the case of every poor crirstinal comnimited to Newgate, or doomed to stiffer, excites as much interest, and receives as muc't attention ftom the " religious and benerolent." as the case of the deeply..uilty Faunticroy; and there is an excellent maan, of the name of Baker, who passes most of his time with everv prisoner be- fore and after his trial, and whose cndeavours are unremittine to do good within the dreary wards of Nevgate. His attentionshae been continued for years; and thoasands of itc former inmates, here and abroad,could bear te.timony tothe utility of hislabours.He is cotader- gyinan, and hence no jealousy is excited in the breast of the " mnere frigid official formalist," as your torrespondeRt has, perhaps with trutlh, characterizedl the chaplains of gaols in general. The reason why one who has occupied a superior rank in the world has been attended bv other spiritual assastants, may easily be explained. From the sphere in which a criminal of this description has moved, it is not improbable that he has some connexions in the church, or that there is some prticular clergyman with whom he ar iis friends.areacquainted. Hence the crimina himself, orhisfriends, as was the case with AIr. Fauntlerov, would apply to that particular clergyman for his humane attenda!nce, and *'ghostly counsel antd advice ;" and to sucs applications the proper authorities, l believe, never send a refusal. From what I learn, little of that false and mnorbid feeling to whicl "Erasanus" adveTts,wna excited in the case of thc late culprii* nor does it appear that the rays o f an inten-er interest and syrnpathy were, in point of fact, converged to a tocus, and shed upon his bead, mnore than on the heads of the ninety and nine other condemned criminals. No person of any weighlt, either fron his intellect or station in the country, w;as concerned at alt about tbis grear critninal- none, in whose mindl any other conclusion was formzed, than that he richly l merited-more than the ninety and nine even of persons in the xanie contlemnltion-t,e ignominious f:ate to wvhich lie was doomed, of cndring on thc gallovs a lhfe of such dec moral stain and i CHASCOSO0R TO THfrE f5Df TORC OF THg TrMFS.