ing to the adventures of their companions. | apiece in order to provide the sinews of It must be remembered, however, that war to carry on the plan in a business-like the professed thief, even if he drinks, is manner. If in the end the job succeeds, never drunk; he is employed in desper- the money advanced is carefully paid back ate undertakings, which require him to to the persons advancing it—several of have his wits about him quite as much, if whom have lived for years on plunder not more, than the honest man. When a thus obtained, without the police being pickpocket is flush of money he spends it able to detect them. Often the receivers in the most lavish manner-takes a tour make these adventures in crime, and plot with his female companion to the Isle of the robbery of a jeweller's shop with as Wight, or to any other place he has a much coolness and shrewdness as though wish to see, and puts up at the best ho- it were an ordinary mercantile speculatels. In some of these trips he thinks no- tion, and the produce is disposed of in the thing of spending 307. in a fortnight, and same business-like manner. Watches are when the money is gone he comes back what is termed "re-christened," that is, again "to work." Thieves are generally the makers' names and numbers are taken faithful to each other; indeed the com- out and fresh ones put in; they are then munity of danger in which they live de exported in large quantities to America. velopes this virtue to an unusual extent. All articles of plate are immediately If a "pal" is apprehended, they cheerful- thrown into the crucible and melted ly put down their guinea apiece to pro- down, so as to place them beyond the vide him with counsel for his trial, and if hope of identification. In many cases, he should be imprisoned they make a col- when the receiver cannot thoroughly delection for him when he comes out. A pend upon the thief, it is, we believe, cuscurious circumstance is the rapidity with tomary to employ intermediate receivers which the news of any of the body having so as to render it impossible to trace the been arrested travels among his compan- property to its ultimate destination. It ions. We are assured that no sooner is a must not be supposed that the passion for young thief captured and taken to the gain is always the sole incentive to robstation-house, although he may have been bery. "Oh, how I do love thieving! If plundering far away from his home, than I had thousands I'd still be a thief;" such some associate brings him his dinner or were the words uttered by a youth in tea as a matter of course. Coldbath-fields Prison, and overheard by the Governor.* The best class of swell-mobsmen sometimes act upon the joint-stock principle, "with limited liabilities." When a good thing is in prospect a gold-dust robbery or a bank robbery-it is not unusual for several of them to "post" as much as 50%. *We have extracted this anecdote from the very interesting work just published by Captain Chesterton, entitled "Revelations of Prison Life." DEFINITIONS.-Take that comical definition blurted out by Dr. Currie (hot both by name and by nature) when teased by a frivolous Blue to tell her the precise meaning of the word idea, (about which she said she had been reading in some metaphysical work, but could not understand it.) "Idea, madam," at last angrily exclaims The Dr. Currie, " Idea, madam, is the feminine From Tait's Magazine. WILLIAM WALLACE. The assemblage, on the last anniversary of the battle, were convened to discuss the erection of a monument. The man whose memory they proposed to perpetuate in stone was judicially murdered five centu THE most remarkable meeting held in | than its results were requisite for the liberScotland, for many years, occurred upon ties of England. the 24th June last, in a park near Stirling, the central borough of Scotland, and classic ground in our history. The Earl of Elgin was chairman of the meeting, by historical justice and right, as a leading statesman and the descendant of Robert Bruce-theries and a half ago. His body was cruelly most consummate politician and the most skilful warrior of his time; yet he would have died a subject of England, instead of King of Scotland, if the road to Bannockburn had not been levelled by his prede. cessor. The anniversary of Bannockburn, and the vicinity of that great battle-field, were selected by the promoters of the meeting for its day and place; and both are alike memorable. The little rivulet has a quiet course in its June days now, through fields of rich green grain, and the morass, that was so fatal to the brave knights of England, long ago, has disappeared in meadow land, still deep and soft. The busy looms of woolen weavers, in the village, are agreeable substitutes for the hammers of the armorers, and the merry laughter of little children in its streets, for the anxious shouts that rose from the hostile camps on that short night, that knew no darkness, before its famous twenty-fourth. Still, the scene has a saddening influence over those who remember that more blood was shed there, than in any great battle of modern times, with two or three probable exceptions in the career of the first Napoleon. Britain lost, in that single day, double the number of its sons sacrificed in battle or in sickness in the Crimean struggle. All traces of their existence seem to have passed from the earth. The flow of centuries has worn away their graves; and there now remains the historical fact alone, that multitudes fought and fell on that narrow field, to break the despotic power of the Norman kings-for the victory of Bannockburn was not less essential to the independence of Scotland, mangled, while he still lived. It was rudely dishonored and divided when he died. Parts of his remains are somewhere in England and parts in Scotland. He was denied even a grave. One fact stands out in this transaction, clear and vivid to all mankind. A memory that has survived nearly five hundred years must have had a monument. Edward of England made a monument for himself. The person who betrayed his victim to that prince secured a memorial. Their connection with one man is the salt that has preserved to infamy the memory of the traitor and the tyrant. The nation has been, as one generation came and passed after another, its leader's monument. He has never had a rival in the affection of the people. The good King Robert was deeply beloved by his subjects; and he consummated the struggle for independence in triumph. The Stuarts, at one period of their family history, were men of chivalrous bearing, of intellectual power, and, for their time, of liberal sentiments. The early Stuart kings must have won the love of their countrymen in a very remarkable manner for rulers in a dark age, before the attachment to their race could have survived the folly and the madness by which it was long tried. A numerically weak nation on a comparatively poor soil, must have many "heroes" ere it attain to distinction and power. The history of Scotland is rich in martyrs to its interests; and yet one name among them all has kept the "place of pride" in the popular heart, without cloud or rival, through centuries of change, and great deeds accomplished in much suffering. All districts of the land have local traditions | powers that he foresaw would be formed connected with this name. Our school- in Europe; but he recognized the imposboys associate with it the idea of great sibility of amalgamation by conquest, and daring, large generosity, and matchless negotiated for a union of the crowns by strength. Wallace, to them, is the type marriage, against the wishes of powerful of physical power. He becomes to youth counsellors. the example of fervent and pure patriotism. The same men, at more advanced stages of their life, if they carefully read the history of their nation, regard the stainless patriot as a sagacious politician and statesman. The majority of men cannot critically study history, but with them the sturdy leader of his country remains associated with all that is good and great connected with freedom struggling for life. His memory is our common centre in political history. He suppressed the parties of his own time; for that distant day had its factions, and parties, and politics, like our own. He fused them all into the nation for a time, and prepared the country for its final struggle under Bruce. The differences that have arisen since his day do not interfere with the affection evinced for his memory by all classes of his countrymen. He was neither Whig nor Tory. He had no connection with the wars of the Stuarts and the Hanoverians. Before the first Stuart he stands above all parties, and all party feeling-the representative of national freedom and independence. The memory of Wallace is peculiarly Scotch. We cannot say that he had any affection for England, although he was a just man, who would not have assailed the neighboring country if he had not been attacked; and amid the horrors of civil wars, and dismal provocations, we believe he was a humane opponent. But his memory is evidently British. He rendered the Britsh empire possible. His achievements are closer to its foundation than many persons suppose, and a Wallace in Ireland might have rendered this empire still more powerful, and our union stronger. He vindicated his country from the reproach of conquest, and infused a spirit into its people which rendered foreign domination impossible. Henry VII., an able and powerful English monarch, possessed of greater ability than any of his successors, except perhaps his grand-daughter Elizabeth, until the appearance of Macaulay's favorite, the third William, sought a union with Scotland as the only means of rendering his kingdom one of those great A thousand years ago Alfred was constructing the Saxon kingdom of England. He is the only English monarch who occupies a position parallel to that of Bruce in Scotland; but we have no grounds for believing that his career had its Wallace. Alfred appears alone and solitary in Saxon history-not that his reforms and wars could have been conducted successfully without able officers; but he moved the nation, and regulated the labors of all his friends and supporters. We are not acquainted in the history of any other country with a name that has so long maintained its hold upon the popular mind, under similar circumstances, as that of Wallace in Scotland. He was a younger son of a Scottish knight whose lands were not fenced round by dark forests or steep mountains, but occupied a part of the open vale of Clyde, accessible easily to all invaders. The family of Elderslie had long been established on the fertile lands between the Cart and the Clyde; and although they had not sufficient interest to assume a leading part in the troubled history of the times, yet the mother of Wallace was a daughter of Sir Richard Crawfurd, the Sheriff of Ayr; while his father had his own retainers, at the head of whom he was slain in a conflict with an English officer and party. Fenwick is said by some authorities to have been the name of this English officer; but the Fenwicks were an Ayrshire family, of some note even in these early times; and this individual, like a great majority of the Scottish nobles, and many landowners of the middle class, may have joined Edward of England; and that circumstance might explain the quarrel with Wallace of Elderslie, who contributed evidently to form the principles of his gallant son. The mothers of great men are generally supposed to influence their minds in early youth more than their fathers; and the opinion, if correct at any period, must have been peculiarly true in the family of a Scottish Knight, in times when traditional learning was the intellectual food of the young, conveyed in ballad, song, and story. We have no reason to suppose that the library of Elderslie in those days was very ample; or, although its illustrious chief obtained a | gularly. Its burghers and yeomen mainliberal education in youth, that his boy-tained their rights as the Commons of the hood was spent among books. From his land. The equestrian order and the noearliest youth his race were comparatively bility formed the Peerage. Then, as now, proscribed, and they were oppressed. The the laboring population had no political troubles of his country were those also of existence; but upon many estates the lahis home. All home influences would be borer might have become free without thus directed, from his infancy, to elicit much more difficulty than he can now beand strengthen the feelings that distin- come a ten-pounder, and thus possess guished him as a patriot; than whom those rights that belong to all free citinone brighter or purer can be found in the zens. The principles of a constitutional annals of any land. The family of Elder- government existed along with a feudal slie were united in detestation of foreign and patriarchal system upon large estates. rule, and their love of independence. Although serfs had rights, yet in times The death of the father had only nerved when communication was difficult, and the strong arm of the son. The relatives of reporters were unknown, they could not the future hero valued learning; for the be enforced. The ecclesiastical, in these years immediately subsequent to his boy- circumstances, served the people as a bahood were passed with his uncle, an eccle- lance to the feudal power. The estates of siastic of great attainments and wealth in the Church were managed with great proStirlingshire. Dundee at that period had priety. Their vassals enjoyed more secua cathedral and a college, and Wallace rity than those of the great peers, and their was sent by his uncle to finish his educa- laboring population lived in comparative tional course in that place. It is difficult comfort and contentment. We infer that to trace his history for some time after he the population was numerous, from the left Dundee, but he probably was obliged magnitude of the armies who contended to retire from that town, after slaying for freedom, even while dearth and disease young Selby, of Northumberland, the covered the land with graves. The resistgovernor's son, in a brawl, originating, ance of the Caledonians to the Roman doubtless, in the politics of these unhappy armies, a greater number of centuries betimes. fore Bannockburn than have elapsed since its occurrence, infer the existence of a considerable population. During the long period that intervened to the battle of Hastings and the destruction of the Saxon dynasties in England, we have no reason to suppose that the progress of population was checked frequently by calamities of a vast magnitude, except in the Danish wars, which in some measure supplied colonists. The eastern counties of Scotland, and even of England, north of the Trent, were colonized by Danes in many places; and the close resemblance of the Danish language to the vernacular in the north eastern counties of Scotland supplies evidence of the consanguinity between the races, if no other existed. After the expulsion of the Romans from the northern part of Britain, and their withdrawal from England, the insular wars chiefly occurred between families of the same great race. The Celt and Saxon feuds were border forays; except in a few instances like that of Harlaw in Scotland. Saxons, Dancs, and Normans, were families of the same great tribe. They all belonged to the Scandinavian race, and their common origin is interesting now, when we may The position of Scotland before the wars of the Baliols and independence is not generally understood. The abominab'e destruction of documents by Edward has deprived us of the historical material. The traditionary ballads of the period have been discounted by historians at a small value; and yet all the evidence successively dragged out of musty corners of the world confirms them. They deserve more confidence than the State-papers of the time, among which most important forgeries have been detected. Some general facts relieve the inquirer in these circumstances, and slightly break through the clouds in which history is involved. The Church possessed great wealth, but it could not have attained valuable property unless that had existed previously. Many buildings exhibited magnificence of design and execution. The Abbey of Dumfermlire, chiefly destroyed by the English, displayed in its ruins the vastness of the original edifice. The government of the country was constitutional-as much so as that of the slave States of the American union. It consisted of its three estates. Its Parliaments were convened re have to choose between the alliance of the three small Scandinavian nationsDenmark, Norway, and Sweden and that of Russia. The battle of Hastings compelled many English families to seek refuge in Scotland. The emigrants belonged principally to the higher classes. They brought all their portable wealth with them. They also brought their bitter enmity to the Normans. The Scottish royal family became in reality the representatives of the old Saxon kings of England. William I. was occupied with the dangers of his English and his French possessions. The same cares descended with his dominions to his successors. They therefore did not seek war with Scotland, but they even allowed, if they did not encourage, the Saxon nobles who had fled to the north gradually to resume their possessions in south; while the kings of Scotland were proprietors of extensive estates in the northern counties of England. These arrangements assisted to maintain peace, not continuously, but more permanently, than, without them, could have been anticipated. At a subsequent period the homage done by the kings of Scotland for their English estates formed the colorable pretext for the policy of the English monarchs; while the interest of nearly all the leading families in both countries promoted their designs. burn. His father had brought a larger army to Falkirk, after a greater force than Lord Raglan or Sir W. Codrington commanded were lost at Stirling. Nealy one half of Edward II.'s army were cavalry. Their baggage was conveyed in wagons, which it is said would have extended over sixty miles in an unbroken line. They were opposed by full thirty thousand efficient men, and half that number of illarmed followers, who joined in the pursuit. These numbers were collected after an entire generation had passed their lives in bitter and continuous warfare; while famine and plague had repeatedly wasted the land; and still a considerable portion of the country belonged to nobles who fought for and with England. The traveller who passes over many counties in Scotland, will observe in them evidence of the retrogression of cultivation. Hills that have not been ploughed for many generations are laid out in rigs and ridges. They carried at one period crops of corn, although the homes of those who tilled and reaped are entirely obliterated, and even tradition has forgotten that once they were productive. The towns of any celebrity now, existed then; and although their population were compressed into a small space, and much fewer than their present numbers, yet they retained power and privileges, now against unruly barons, and next against ambitious princes; and they must therefore have been more influential than their successors often suppose. The rural counties probably contained as many inhabitants as in our day, for if our rich agricultural districts were more densely covered with forests, it is not doubtful that our heath and muirlands were more commonly A century and a half elapsed between the battle of Hastings and that of Bannockburn. Twenty-five years of that interval, immediately preceding the latter occurrence, passed in famine frequently, in hostilities uniformly; but during the previous years Scotland evidently shared in all the civilization of England at the time. It is equally apparent that the north co-cultivated. pied the ecclesiastical system of the south with less advantage. The Culdees were absorbed or suppressed before the imposing priesthood and rites of the Roman Church; and the ecclesiastics of that body absorbed a large proportion of the land of this kingdom, with obvious advantage to cultivators. A transition has occurred in the state of the land, and in that of the people. The country that Wallace determined to restore was not unimportant. It once possessed privileges then to be regained, and it undoubtedly suffered from the feudal curse of Europe, serfdom to be reformed. Like Ireland, it had long enjoy. We have no reason to doubt the mag-ed the influence of an intellectual and pure nitude of the battles in that war, or the form of Christianity; and the faith had numbers who are said, by those who give been corrupted by wealth, while the the smallest figures, to have engaged in clergy strove for temporal dignity, and them; but they greatly exceed the mili- the richest families of the land sought the tary forces that we have raised in recent priest's office to their sons, not for a bit times. Edward II. brought more than of bread, but for political power and great one hundred thousand men to Bannock-possessions. The lessons of Renfrew and |