STATISTICS OF CRIME IN ENGLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 150, 17 March 1876, Page 8

STATISTICS OF CRIME IN ENGLAND.

[From the Dublin ' Nation.'] Statistics of crime are nover a pleasant subject, unless they point to a steady diminution. It docs not appear that English statesmen have much reason to be happy, when they read the stxtistics which have just been made public in regard to the year 1871. If it he true that education has achieved giant strides, it is evident that the strides in the national virtue have not been consistently parallel. It was observed by a gre it authority, when writing to the ' Times,' so far back as thu year Is 10, that mere secular knowledge is in itself no guarantee of moral or of social improvement ; and? if the blue-books of IH7I be consulted, along with the reports on education, there is not much ground to conclude that the fruits of education have comprehended diminution in crime. In such a huge population as that of England, it would be affectation to expect that the masses in the great towns could be brought undor complete supervision ; all that could be looked for would be a general permeation of better principles and less vitiated taste/, and if this could be realised there would be no real discouragement in a certain proportion of offence. But it does not appear that there is any satisfactory improvement in the habits of the masses of the people : that there is more honesty, or less of lax morality, or even a disposition to rise. Take the habit of drunkenness which ought by this time to havj been repressed, considering how much has been proposed an 1 attempted by stiU-smen, and philanthropists, and clergymen. The special bane of this vice is that it leads to other vices; that it is the pxrait of more than half of these misfortunes which conduct to the dock and to the prison. In 1873, the number of persons who wore registered as having been drunk and incapable was 182,9 II ; but in 1874 the number was increased to 185,730. The number of men who were proceeded against suniniari'y, or who were apprehended foi indictable offences— that is in the year 187 A — and of whom it was satisfactorily demonstrated that they were of the class ' habitual drunkards," was 32,83(J ; while of women who were similarly dealt with, there wore 11,744. Moreover, 315 men, and 151 women, died in the same year from intoxication. More than fifteen hundred suicides were also recorded ; and of these it is certain that a very large proportion were superinduced by the same evil habit. We have to remember that in England but few persons are apprehended by the police for a vice which is nationally prevalent, and that, consequently, the number of drunkards must be almost too large for computation. It is impossible for the police to do more than to take into charge such persons as come under their observation; nor are they at all predisposed to be severe, but, on the contray, to be lenieiit and kind. If it is apparently even possible for a person who is found inebriated to get home without oflicial assistance, the police are always willing to permit the attempt, and not to make a charge without necessity. Every one who has walked much in the poorer districts of London must have observed the predisposition of the police to form an amiable estimate of excess. They will even lift \\\i a person from the pavement, and urge him to a strenuous endeavor, so that he may reach his home without legal impeachment, though with "a sinuous nnd divergent ambulation." Now, this being the case, it follows that the statistics which are given in the blue book for last year may suggest, but do not strictly define, the real extent of the national vice. We are iiformed that throughout the whole of the country there are only 25,870 constables ; so that the proportion of custodians to the populition is but one in every eight hundred. In 1873, the force numbered about 28,000 ; bxit in 1874-5 there was a slight increase of about 300 men. The population being over twenty-two millions, fie number of the constabulary is not large; and it would be ungenerous not to allow that they are an able body of men, who discharge painful duties very charitably.

England has a host of " professional thieves," who adopt their profession not always from necessity, but quite as often from tradition or choice. What is called a known thief, is generally a person whose relations "and friends have sympathetic ideas, if not quite identical habits, and who live in haunts which are familiar to the police, but who manage to run their course freely. It is computed that the number of known thieves and burglars, receivers of stolon good?, and " accessories," is from |forty-three to forty-four thousand; and, though the number is slightly decreasing, it is found impossible to obliterate the class, "in the metropolis — that is, within a radius of fifteen miles round Charing Cross — there are more than three thousand of those persons, or one to twelve hundred of the population. Courtesy forbids us to add to this number the hosts of persons who are engaged in queer business, and who pursue the trade of what has been happily designated as " strictly legitimate felony." Waiving this invidious reflection, we must content ourselves with the statement that thieves are diminishing, from the pi'ofessional if not the moral point of view. The whole number of the criminal population, including all those who were in durance, in the year 1874, was 76,219 ; which was less by thirteen hundred than the same item of the population the pre\kius year, 1873. "