STATISTICS OF CRIME AND MORALITY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 12, 11 July 1884, Page 31

STATISTICS OF CRIME AND MORALITY.

Mrs. MARGARET F. Sullivan collects some remarkable statistics in an article in the Buffalo Catholic Union. We extract and condense the following : — " The total drink consumption, — wine, beer and spirits, of the world is equivalent to nearly six hundred millions of gallons of alcohol a year. In the order of consumption Russia is the most temperate, Ireland is second, Austria third, Spain fourth, Portugal fifth, Germany sixth. The average for the Russia is 1.31 gallons per inhabitant ; for Ireland, 1.32 ; for England, 2.05, and for Denmark 2.60. Turning from intemperance to crime we find much less in Ireland than in England or Scotland or the United States, in all grades of offences ; and, taking capital crime, we find an annual average of 2,400 homicides in Russia, 2,060 in the United States, 377 in England, and 905 in Germany. The population of Ireland is 5,000,000, or one-eleventh of that of the United States. She ought therefore, to be as peaceful and law-abiding as the United States, have an annual average of 187 murders. But her figure is only ninetyone, and includes those committed by the Government agents among an unarmed people. ... In crime against the fundamental moral law, Austria is the most culpable : then come Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Norway, Germany, and other countries. Greece is the least culpable and' Ireland is second. Ireland is quite alone under one head. Only in that virtuous land is the grim horror of eviction lecorded. The figures are appalling. From 1849 to 1882, 70,000 persons have been annually expelled from their rude homes to perish on the highways, to decay in poor houses, or to seek shelter in foreign countries. It was Mr. Gladstone who said, "An eviction is nearly equivalent to a sentence of death." In no other country on the globe is this social fact existent. Ireland is also at the head of another column. It is that of school enrollment. In proportion to population, there are more children, enrolled in school in that island than in any other country ; the United States is second. In 1851 the population of Ireland to the square mile was 205. That of England was 310, and of Scotland, 94. In 1881 that of Ireland had fallen to 116, while that of England had risen to 443, and of Scotland, to 122. Yet it is only from Ireland that emigration is forced 1 " —Pilot.