tures and Christianity are not supported by either science or history; that the doctrines they teach are often erroneous, obscene, and immoral. Mr. French's mode is very good for one who believes, or professes to believe, in Christianity. He clearly points out the inconsistency and injustice of prosecuting one set of men for selling auti-Christian publications, while another set (the Unitarians) are permitted openly to preach against the divinity of Christ. But such a mode may more properly be considered as an accusation of the prosecutors, rather than a defence of the prosecuted. Indeed, all the gentlemen of the gown are looking up for promotion of some kind or other under government, and they will not take up the defence of your principles on their true grounds. For these reasons, I recommend, that should any more prosecutions take place, the persons prosecuted do defend themselves; believing, that they will always do it better than counsel will do it for them. It is, however, my opinion, that no more prosecutions of this sort will take place, at least in London. It was said from the Beuch, in the case of Trust, that that was probably the last prosecution of the kind that would take place on the part of the crown; and, I am of opinion, that the last nine prosecutions have not been carried on at the expence of Government, or at their instigation, but by a set of enthusiastic and interested individuals, who, seing that Government bad ceased to prosecute, and being desirous to put you down, took the affair up on their own account; but not caring to be seen in so dirty a job, they got some of the crown lawyers to attend, and take the odium off their own shoulders. As you have foiled these worthies also, I am inclined to think we shall hear no more of these prosecutions, unless it be by some bigoted country clergyman, who have not as yet gained experience enough to convince them how ineffectual their labours will be.

The keeping open of your shop in Fleet Street, and the keeping up a correspondence and communication among your friends, by means of the Republican, are things so obviously necessary to the success of your cause, that they need not be commented upon.

May you long continue to enjoy the health and firmness of mind you have hitherto done, and that a total triumph over your persecutors will shortly be accomplished, is the wish, and full expectation of

Donations received by the Honourable Company of Blasphemers, residing for a short period at Newgate.

East Cowes, Isle of Wight, July 28, 1824. A MARRIED Woman, an abhorrer of persecuting Christians, hereby encloses the sum of Two Pounds, to be equally divided between the noble men now in prison for selling the immortal works of Paine and Palmer. A double portion for such of them as are married. God save Carlile! aud confound all bypocrites!

JANE

William Campion sends his sincere thanks to Mr. Thomas Turton, of Sheffield, for the handsome Pair of Razors he has received through the hands of Mr. W. V. Holmes.

R. Carlile acknowledges with thanks, a present of a handsomely framed portrait of Thomas Paine, as published by Mr. Wheeler of Manchester. The Frame understood to be the present of a Friend in that line.

Mrs. Carlile returns thanks to Mrs. Nobbs, of Norwich, for three beautiful Reticules.

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 84, Fleet Street.-All Correspondences for "The Republican" to be left at the place of publication.

The Republican.

No. 7, VOL. 10.] LONDON, Friday, Aug. 19, 1824. [PRICE 6d.

TO HENRY CHARLES STURT, OF CRITCHILL, LATE HIGH SHERIFF FOR THE COUNTY OF DORSET.

MEAN FELLOW,

Dorchester Gaol, August 8, 1824. My rod for your back is now well pickled; if I keep it longer, I fear it or you will rot; so now stand fair and fast while I lay it on. You told me at the last Lammas Assize, that your conscience would not allow you to make any change in my treatment; so we will now try of what that conscience is made, and what it will bear in the way of flogging. I feel that I grow warm before I begin, so to work the lash better, I will throw off my coat.-Now for it. You are the son of a man of the name of Sturt. I beg pardon for being so positive: the lash will stick closer, if I am more careful, and say, that a man by the name of Sturt was your nominal or putative father; for every one who has read the crim. con. case of STURT versus THE MARQUIS OF BLANFORD must doubt, for conscience sake, as to who was your real father. It was given in evidence, that your mother, though married to a man by the name of Sturt, bore children from the embraces of different men. I dare say, that your very scrupulous conscience will not allow you to decide as to your real father. At any rate, you inherit the estates of this nominal or putative father, and his debts, if report be true, are yet unpaid: for the law of this country compels the cuckold to father all children. that his wife may bear, whether he has any share in getting them or not; and the first of them inherits his freehold estates, whatever debts may have been contracted upon them, without inheriting the debts!

Notwithstanding the grudge I avowedly owe toyou, I would not deal with you in this explicit manner, were it not, that a chief purpose of this letter is, to expose the wickedness of the

Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 84, Fleet Street.

law of primogeniture. I have been long intending to write expressly upon this subject; but your outrage on me in November last brought to my mind, that I could not have found a better name and case than yours, to illustrate and expose this abominable law. This is the pickle in which I have been pickling a rod for you. I shall first comment upon your conduct, as High Sheriff, towards me in this Gaol, and then upon your character as a primogenitarian.

The Phrenologists, with all their cunning, have not among their other discoveries, discovered the organ of meanness. That there is such an organ in some human organizations, as prominent and as powerful as any other organ, I am certain, from my own observations. No other organ acts more powerfully in forming the lineaments of the face. It is physically visible; and I will appeal for the proof of the thing to the faces of those men who have used me ill in this Gaol; and for the proof of the contrary to the faces of those who have used me well. The only men from whom I have received any thing like a show of high and honourable feeling are the present High Sheriff, and and Mr. Wood the Chaplain; though the latter, from his servile situation and profession of a priest, has been often compelled to wound his own feelings, and to belie the otherwise generous sentiments of his mind. But I excuse this, and attribute it to his office, and to the meanness of the characters under whom he officiates.

I know not who was Sheriff when I first came to the Gaol, but the first appointment was that of a farmer of the name of Thomas Billett, I believe, in whose face any one might have read written:-" I AM A MEAN FELLOW." I might have begun with Lord Sidmouth who was then Gaoler General, a man, or a lord rather, who exhibited in his contour, as well as in his actions, every characteristic of depraved meanness, adding to moral meanness the climacteric of religious meanness, that basest of all base things. Next came a man by the name of John White as Sheriff, of whom I could never learn what he was, where he lived, or who his father. This fellow was one lump of meanness. It was visible in his face, and felt in his actions, by all who had any connection with him. After him came Sir Evan Nepean. This was a stupid insensible old brute. I talked to him; but could not move either nerve or muscle. He is dead; died in the midst of his Shrievalty. I was sorry for it at the time; but he is no loss to mankind, other than that of deserving a punishment for the example of others. He was succeeded for the

short part of that year by a Dr. Bain, whom I never saw, and of whom, consequently, I can say nothing. Then came your mean self, with a figure and a visage fair in complexion and as an outline; but the indication of meanness is deeply seated there.

Taking the Visiting Magistrates, we find three of them with strikingly mean contours-Old Pitt, the member for the county-Jemmy Frampton, and his half brother, Charles Byam Wollaston. Dr. England has a good face; but then, his whole frame is saturated with the despotic bigotry of his religion; and his combined power as a priest and a clerical justice makes him stand towards me in the light and character of a savage. I am in honesty compelled to leave out the very fine face of Mr. Bower; but I suppose him to run in the line pointed out by the others, as he has not been seen as a Visiting Magistrate above half the time I have been here. I have seen nothing mean about him, beyond that of acting with a set of mean men; and, I believe, the same may be said of Parson Colson, who is a mere child in manners, and has not not the resolution to oppose the dictates of the other mean fellows. Men of little minds, not decisively mean or base.

er.

But the Gaoler! What shall I find new to say of the Gaoler? I summed up all that I could say of him when I said, that if I wanted to caricature a Gaoler, I would get his likeness taken; for he is certainly the very caricature of a GaolCrickshanks ought to see him as a means of improvement in his art. He is a prime piece for study to the physiognomist, phrenologist, the poet, the painter, and the novelist. He is mean in lock, mean in speech, mean in action, and mean in gait. By your God, (for I have none), Sturt, if Sturt be your right name, he is a meaner looking fellow than you are. There, that is serious, and a proof that I do not write from prejudice. I cannot match any body that I know in the county with the Gaoler, unless it be Jemmy Frampton. Colonel James Frampton of the Dorset Yeomanry Cavalry-a Justice, who seldom ever commits a poacher or stick-picker to Gaol, without lamenting that the law will not allow him to inflict a greater punishment-a man, if he may be so called, detested by all the poor people who know him.

I may class our present Gaoler General, Peel, with Dr. England: a man who has a good contour, but a little mind, and that little so saturated with bigotry, as to blind him to