an English court of justice. I was told by a by-stander, with whom I
entered into conversation, that if found guilty, the prisoner would be
conducted to an underground apartment used for the purpose, and
privately executed, the law of the State of New York, from motives that
ought to be appreciated in England, prohibiting public executions. It is
also customary there to allow criminals more time than in England, to
prepare for the awful change they are doomed to undergo.

I was informed by a friend that there are some very astute lawyers in
America, and I subsequently had opportunities to test the accuracy of
the remark. Their code, however, differs materially from the English,
although professing to be based upon its principles; and has the
preeminent advantage of being pretty free from the intricacies and
incongruities that so often tend to defeat justice in the
mother-country, and render proceedings at law so expensive and
perplexing. The slave laws (called the "_codenoir_"), adapted for the
Southern States, must, however, be excepted, for it is notorious, that
to subserve the ends of interested parties, they have been framed so as
to present what may with propriety be termed a concatenation of
entanglement and injustice to the slave subjects; the very wording of
many of these enactments, carrying unmistakable evidence of their being
concocted for the almost sole protection of the slave-owners.

Adjoining the Town-hall, or separated only by an avenue, is a heavy,
monastic-looking building, used as a bridewell, and called the City
Penitentiary. Having remained a considerable time in the hall where the
trial was going on, the agonized state of the prisoner and sickening
details of the murder caused a disinclination for the present to
continue my perambulations, so I stepped into the Café de
l'Independence, in Broadway, and called for a port-wine sangaree,