"No, they are taking these things in lieu of the money due to them from this unfortunate, and which he is unable pay. But look again, a more distressing scene is going on in that cornersee, those are the officers of justice who come to arrest the eldest son of this man, not more than 16 years of age, on a charge of robbery and murder! now see the agony and distress of his father, the woe of his mother. Why do they grieve so bitterly, but that they have by folly brought this boy into the world, where nothing but suffering and want in all their most horrid shapes have been his portion, and where an early and shameful death, the consequences of his vices awaits him."

"But it appears to me," said Sadi, "in common justice, if the parents have caused the crime by their neglect, that they should be the parties punished, not the son, who knows no better."

"The punishing these poor wretched people would be of little avail in stopping the career of vice and crime in their son," said the Hermit; but although the arm of the law takes no notice of them, do not think that they are unpunished, far from this is the case. Torn by remorse, that they should have been the means of introducing a human being into the world merely to run a short career of misery in all its shapes! and that they should themselves by their neglect have conducted him to the gallows. The feeling that his death is on their heads, has made existence a burthen to themselves, and their agony is unpitied by their neighbours."

Nay, your judgment is too severe; surely you cannot say his death is upon their heads: true, they are the cause of his birth, but that provided it takes place legally, is no immorality, and,

66

Stop, stop, before you proceed, re-consider your last opinion. You say it is no immorality if you were to take any one of your neighbours and place him, (knowingly on your part but without his concurrence,) in a situation of extreme want and misery: and having removed every thing from him that shall assist in satisfying his various desires and wants, you show him how much you possess yourself; and when by the force of pure anguish you lead him to attempt your enjoyments and then punish him for so doing, do not you rather merit the punishment inflicted upon him? But I will consider only the case of the child, provided he has the seal of legitimacy, you say, upon him, there is no immorality attending his birth. Beyond the custom of society, this one moral point has little or nothing to do with the real morality of the act. Is it no immorality to bring into the world beings whom you are aware before hand you cannot feed and nourish in such a manner as will be necessary to their existence? Is it no immorality to encumber your more prudent and industrious fellow-creatures with these helples s beings, and expect that they wil give you of their earnings, enough to enable you to support your own offspring?

Is it no immorality in fact to introduce these living creatures, even if you can manage to feed and clothe them, if you cannot also yourself give them that instruction which is necessary for their happiness and welfare? or not having time for it yourself, have a fund sufficient to pay another for performing that duty? Oh no! believe me, so great is the immorality of this act, that were it not for the deplorable ignorance you, as parents are in, about what is right and what is wrong, you would consider every one, who so introduced a living creature into the world,as deserving of the severest reproach, and the heaviest punishments."

"Do you rank education as high as food and clothing? This appears to me to be in a poor man quite a superfluity, a luxury, as a thing, which, if he happens to have the means, he should give; but which, if he has not, he need not consider himself as not having done his duty to his children, by the omission of it."

Now

"Most certainly I do rank education as equally important with the bread necessary for the sustenance of life; and wherefore? For this reason. From the moment of our birth to our death we are affected by pleasurable and painful sensations; and such is the fact which daily experience proves, that the painful sensations more constantly assail us than the pleasurable. The more we are ignorant of the sources of pleasure and pain, the less are we fitted for acquiring the one, and avoiding the other. pleasure and pain are nothing else than good and evil; in these simple forms you can understand them, and as an example of what I mean, I refer back to your two cottages. Good presides in one--evil in the other: both are the results that might have been predicted. The father in one educates his offspring; takes care to have no more children than he can well provide for, and bring up creditably; and by the force of instruction raises himself and them. He has fitted them to lead useful and virtuous, and consequently happy lives. Can any comparison more striking be brought forward than the other cottage, in which all instruction has been despised and neglected. Of the ignorance of consequences you see the fruits."

As the hermit said this, he removed the mirror, and, Sadi, musing deeply upon what he had heard and seen, returned to his family. The drought that had so long prevailed, was succeeded by a very rainy season; and owing to his poverty, Sadi was unable to secure his little dwelling from its bad effects. A low pestilent fever broke out in his family, which proved exceedingly fatal to his children, because he could not provide for them the proper remedies, or give them a sufficiency of nourishing food to stop its course. He lost three of his children, and in addition to this misery, he had to endure the greatest affliction of the death of his unfortunate wife. This good woman loved her children tenderly; and, in the hopes of saving them from the grave, had deprived herself of the greatest part of the little sustenance that

fell to her lot, to give it to them. Her health already undermined by the privations she had so long endured, and weakened by the bearing so numerous a family, was not capable of sustaining this exertion, and unable to cope with the violence of the disorder, she expired in Sadi's arms. The lesson of his responsibility as a father, which the hermit had imparted, aroused him from the grief with which these calamities would else have overwhelmed him. He exerted himself for his remaining children, and endeavoured to atone in some measure for his former neglect and imprudence, by the care he bestowed upon, and the instruction he gave them.

Although the information which Sadi had received from the Hermit came too late, as far as his own immediate happiness was concerned, he nevertheless had the gratification of seeing its beneficial effects upon his surviving children. They grew up; married early; exerted their own reasoning faculties in providing what was essential to their happiness, instead of offering up useless petitions to Mahomet, or paying for the intercession of the Imauns. The consequences of which was that the cottages of Sadi's children resembled the happy cottage which had been shewn Sadi in the mirror; and he had the pleasure of seeing his grand-children well fed, well clothed, and well instructed. It was ever afrer the custom of Sadi's children to assemble at his cottage on the anniversary of the day that he had visited the hermit, to rejoice with him upon that happy event.

THOMAS PAINE'S BIRTH DAY.

A PUBLIC dinner to celebrate the return of this day will take place at the City of London Tavern, Bishopsgate-street, on Monday, the 30th instant, in consequence of the 29th, the birthday, happening on the Sunday. The price of the tickets will be half-a-guinea each, which is considered to pay for dinner, desert, and a pint of wine, port, sherry, or bucellas. The tickets will

be immediately on sale at the bar of the tavern, and at 135, Fleet-street.

Various suggestions have been made to me about the necessity of inviting me to a public dinner as a congratulation on my liberation. At this dinner, on the 30th, I shall be happy to see as many of my friends of town or country as can make it convenient to attend.

In getting up this dinner, a few friends have studiously sought to unite respectability of place with a moderate priced ticket of admission, and a large company is expected. Our ambition will be to shew that the admirers of the principles of Thomas Paine rank among the most intelligent, if they are not the richest people in the country.

The hour of diuner is fixed at five o'clock, which will be precise, and tickets will be kept on sale until three hundred are sold, as the room engaged will not hold more, or until the 28th instant. It is expected that every ticket will be sold; therefore an early application is recommended to those who may particularly wish to be present. RICHARD CARLILE.

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE "SOCIETY FOR SUPPRESSION OF VICE AND MR. CARLILE.

SIR,

SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE.

61, Lincoln's Inn Fields, Jan. 4, 1826. HAVING been applied to by a gentleman of respectability, who states, that he has had an interview with you on the exposure in your window of a caricature of the Deity, in which you expressed your willingness to withdraw the same, and to discontinue its sale, if there was no intention on the part of the Society to institute any prosecution against you on the subject. I have to state, that in the event of your performance of this engagement, I have no hesitation in assuring you, that no proceedings shall be taken against you by the Society, for any sale or exposure of the print in question, prior to the date of this letter; and I beg further to assure you, on the part of the Society, that it would at all times be much more willing to induce you to discontinue your present measures by friendly admonition, than by any resort to compulsory measures. I am, Sir, your very obedient Servant, GEO. PRICHARD, Secretary.

MR. R. CARLILE, FLEET STREET.

TO GEORGE PRICHARD, ESQ., SOLICITOR AND SECRETARY TO THE SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE.

SIR,

Fleet-street, Jan. 4, 1826.

I ACKNOWLEDGE the receipt of your letter, wherein certain terms are proscribed to me, as a means of avoiding a prosecution in the Courts of Law, for the exhibition of a print, which, in your letter is called a caricature of the Deity; but, which, I consider, so miscalled. I perceive it to be a fair sketch of certain descriptions found in a book which we call the Bible, and by no means a caricature, nor exhibited by me as a likeness, of any thing in existence.

The gentleman who has brought me your letter came to me this morning to remonstrate on the exhibition of such a print. I told him, that which is the fact, that a menaced prosecution by the "Society for the Suppression of Vice" has been the cause of its continued exhihition in the shop window, since my return to

London, and that, on taking a better shop, I should not exhibit such a print. I could refer to two gentleman, to whom I made the same observation on Saturday last. But nothing has been said by me about discontinuing the sale, and nothing will ever be said, until I can be persuaded that it is improper, or unlawful, which is not at present the case. The print is an exhibition of the ignorance of mankind about the qualities of those powers, or that power which they concentrate under the name of god or deity. By me it is meant to instruct, and not to offend.

Upon the question of the propriety or impropriety of any thing that I have done, or may be doing, I shall be open to communicate with any person, in any manner, even with those managing members of the " Society for the Suppression of Vice," who have been my most bitter enemies; but I wish it to be understood, that no compulsory means will have the power to enforce the discontinuation of my present measures, that so long as I am convinced of their rectitude, they will be with me a matter of maintenance or death; but that I will freely acknowledge error and desist from it, wherever it can be shewn to me by mild and fair argument.

As a better explanation of the proposition which the gentleman undertook to make from me, at his own request, to the Society, I will repeat its precise terms:-That I will moderate the tone of my publications, when free discussion is acknowledged to be proper in all cases, and when we are no longer menaced with prosecutions for such works as I have published; hinting at the same time, that respectability of appearance in business as a bookseller would be my aim, and that such a print as that of the "God" would not be thought worthy of exposition.

To remove all idea of retreat on my part, I hereby state, that I hold the present shop, 135, Fleet-street, until the 25th of March next, and no longer, and that the exhibition of the print will be continued until that time, and no longer, if no prosecution be instituted against it. But, that, if a prosecution be instituted against it, that, and a hundred of the kind will continue to be exhibited there, or elsewhere.

Respectfully,

RICHARD CARLILE.

JAMES HALL NOT MR. COBBETT.

THE readers of" The Republican" will recollect, that I held forth a suspicion, that my correspondent, James Hall, was Mr. Cobbett in disguise. There was no foundation for that suspicion, but in the style of the matter, and in the similarity of the handwriting. I have-shewn some of the papers to a friend, who was