rvation and brutality ought not to be possible; but
I am afraid there is more vice, more misery and penury in this
country than in any other, and at the same time greater wealth.
The contrasts are too striking, and such an unnatural, artificial,
and unjust state of things neither can nor ought to be permanent.
I am convinced that before many years elapse these things will
produce some great convulsion.

[15] [Two wretched women named Hibner were tried, and one of
them convicted for the murder of a parish apprentice
named Francis Colepitts by savage ill-treatment. The
elder prisoner was found guilty and executed on the
13th of April. No such concourse of people had
assembled to witness an execution since that of
Fauntleroy. The details of the crime were horrible, and
had excited great sympathy for the victim amongst all
classes.--_Ann. Regist. for 1829, Chronicle_, p. 71.]

[Page Head: THEATRICAL FUND DINNER.]

After the Old Bailey I went and dined at the Covent Garden
Theatrical Fund dinner. The Duke of Clarence could not come, so
they put Lord Blessington in the chair, who made an ass of
himself. Among other toasts he was to give 'The memory of the
Duke of York,' who was the founder of the institution. He
prefaced this with a speech, but gave 'The health,' &c., on which
Fawcett, who sat opposite, called out in an agony, 'The memory,
my Lord!' He corrected himself, but in a minute after said again
'The health.' 'The memory, my Lord!' again roared Fawcett. It was
supremely ridiculous. Francis Leveson sat on his right,
Codrington on his left, and Lawless the agitator just opposite;
he is a pale, thin, common-looking little man, and has not at all
the air of a patriot orator and agitator.

May 14th, 1829 {p.205}

I have been at Newmarket for three weeks, and have had no time to
write, nor has anything particular occurred. The King came to
town, and had a levee and drawing-room, the former of which was
very numerously, the other shabbily attended. At the levee he was
remarkably civil to all the Peers, particularly the Duke of
Richmond, who had distinguished themselves in opposition to
Government in the late debates, and he turned his back on the
bishops who had voted for the Bill. O'Connell and Shiel were both
at the levee; the former had been presented in Ireland, so had
not to be presented again, but the King took no notice of h