CRIME IN IRELAND AND ENGLAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 452, 9 December 1881, Page 13

CRIME IN IRELAND AND ENGLAND.

These was a tacit understanding that the Coercion Act was merely designed for the temporary maintenance of order pending the fundamental settlement of the Irish land question. But it seems that Mr. Forster still insists on applying this harsh measure, and on keeping persons arrested on suspicion in jail. The pretext for a course which is Dot calculated to fortify the confidence of the Irish people in the good intentions of the Gladstone Government is the alleged prevalence of social disorder and agrarian violence. It is curions, in view of Mr. Forster's assertion, to compare the statistics of crime in Ireland and England which have been lately collected for tbe Catholic Werld. There is an absurd impression current among English people that the Irish, as a Celtic race, aTe irresistibly impelled to violence and disorder. It was the existence of this deeprooted, but wholly indefensible prejudice, which 'enabled Mr. Forster to carry through his Coercion bill. Yet Mr. Gladstone himself in 1870 asked the House of Commons to investigate and determine in which province of Ireland The ratio of agrarian crime, to the number of ejectments was highest. They would find, he said, that in Connaught, where the Celtic race, largely predominated, the ratio of agrarian outrages to evictions was far lower than in Ulster, wh'ch has the largest infusion of non-Celtic blood. Equally preposterous is the notion that the influence of the Catholic Church fails to sensibly arrest the criminal impulses of the Irish people. With a view of testing the effect of confession upon morals, an extensive inquiry was instituted some years ago by Dr. Forbes, one of the Queen's physicians, in regard to the number of illegitimate children, in each of the tour provinceaof Ireland. It turned out that the proportion of children not born in wedlock coincided almost exactly with the relative prevalence of the Catholic and Protestant religions in each province, being large were the Protestant element was large, and small where it was small. A well-known Presbyterian organ, the Scotsman, has admitted that in respect of offences against purity, England was nearly twice, and Scotland almost three times, as bad as Ireland and that in Ireland itself the ratio of illegitimacy was largest in the north-eastern district, which comprised the semi-English and Scotch plantations of Ulster. But, it may be said, admitting that Ireland is relatively free from tranpgressions of sexual morality, is not the case widely differ ent with such crimes against tbe person as homicide and attempts to kill ? We can answer this question by contrasting the criminal statistics of England and Ireland in regard to all those serious offences against the person which are punishable after trial by jury only. For this purpose the population of the last-named country should, of course, be compared with a proportionate fraction of the much denser population of England. We find, then, that of the crimes specified there were committed in 1878 in Ireland 2,886, and in England, for the same population, 4,189. This exhibit is bad enough for the latter nation, but (Scotland is in a still less creditable condition, for here the judicial return, if we keep in view proportionate numbers would foot up 5,925. As for murders, there were but five in Ireland during 1880, whereas in England four were reported in a single day of that year. It is astonishing, indeed, to note how great a decrease has taken place in the crime of manslaughter in Ireland within the last half century. In 1833 there were recorded no less than 172 homicides. There were 176 in 1846, the year before tbe great famine. But by 1852 tbe number had declined to 69. and by 1858 to 36. In 1878 only five persons were found guilty of murder, and in 1879 but four. That so few murders were committed in 1880, when a third bad harvest had brought a large part of the country to the verge of famine, is a striking comment on the long-suffering spirit of the Irish. The mere the evidence supplied by criminal statistics is sifted, tbe more questionable appear tbe motives which prompted the Coercion act. It appears from a return presented to the House of Commons that in tbe thirteen months preceding January 31, 1881, tbe whole number of agrarian offences, including threatening notices, was but 987, whereas in the year 1870, when no Coercion act was demanded, the number of such outrages reached 1,359. It is known, moreover that at tbe very time Mr. Forster was proclaiming the inadequacy of the ordinary tribunals and urging the necessity of stringent coercion the repoitsof the Irish courts were remarkably satisfactory. At tbe snncmer assizes in 1880 the Judges in all parts of the country bore testimony to the comparative absence of crime. In Wexford there were only three cases to go before the Grand Jury :in Galway , the poorest and most disturbed county in the island, only four ; in Wicklow, one ;in Loutb, two ; in Donegal five ;in the city of Cork, none. In North Tipperary, a district noted for the excitable temper of the people, Judge O'Brien vouchsafed for the fact that there were no agrarian outrages at all, and at Droheda, Judge Fitzgibbon declared that the complete absence of crime was not in auy way owing to the inability of the police authorities to detect offences. So much for the alleged frequency of crimes against human beings. As to the charge of cruelty to animals, which is one of the accusations most frequently brought against Ireland since the beginning of the land agitation, this can be easily disposed of. Sir Charles Dilke assigned as one reason for coercion that during the ten months preceding November 1880, forty-seven cattle had been killed or maimed in Ireland. Now in England during the year 1879 no less tban, 3,725 convictions for cruelty to animals were bad, including such atrocities as pulling the tongues out of horses, burning cats alive, and pouring turpentine down dogs' throats. The last argument to which those who defend coercion have recourse is the pretended impossibility of convicting criminals. It is true that Mr. Fort ter failed to get the verdict of a jury against Mr. Parnel) and his coadjutors when they were tried for an alleged brtach of the peace. Yet almost at the very time when that event occurred three charges of mur<!er were beiug tried in English courts, and in each case the trial resulted in an acquittal. Why might not the Irish press with show of justice, have proclaimed on such evidence the miscarriage of English justice andthe inefficincy of the ordinary tribunals

In view of facts like these, we cnn marvel at the bitter resentment provoked in Ireland by a coercion act, passed by a Legislature in which Irish members do not constitute one-fifth of the whole number — an act, too, which empowers an alien Governor to imprison men on suspicion, and deprives the Irish people of the writ of habeas corpus, the precious privilege which Englishmen would defend with their life's blood.— N. Y. Sun.