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Poems, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with a Steel Portrait of the Author.

The History of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, from the Earliest Times to their Final Expulsion from those Kingdoms, and their subsequent Dispersion. With complete Translations of all the Laws made respecting them, during their long establishment in the Iberian Peninsula. By E. H. Lindo. The Church and the Education Question: a Letter to the Lord Bishop of Ripon. By Henry Parr Hamilton, M.A.

A Bishop's Charge to the Laity, in Answer to a Bishop's Charge to the Clergy; being Two Discourses on Church Authority and Sacramental Efficacy. By Rev. Brewin Grant, B.A.

Beauchamp; or, the Error. By G. P. R. James, Esq. 3 vols.

The Bible of every Land; or, a History Critical and Philological of all the Versions of the Sacred Scriptures, in every Language and Dialect into which Translations have been made, with Specimen Portions in their own Characters, and Ethnographical Maps.

Descriptive Atlas of Astronomy. Part VI.

The Pulpit Orators of France and Switzerland, Sketches of their Character, and Specimens of their Eloquence. By Rev. Robert Turnbull.

The Church of Christ, Her Duty and Auxiliaries, with a triple Dedication to the Bishops and the Members of the Church on Earth. By a Plain Man.

Ruins of Many Lands. With Illustrations. Part I.

The People's Dictionary of the Bible. Part XXXVIII.

The Journal of Sacred Literature. No. IV. Edited by John Kitto,

D.D. F.S.A.

The National Cyclopædia of Useful Knowledge. Part XXI.
The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy. No. I.

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Edited by Wm. Smith, L.L.D.

History of the French Revolutions, from 1789 to the Present Time. Part III.

A Voice from the Dumb. A Memoir of Jno. Wm. Lashford. By Wm. Sleight.

Commentary on the Psalms. By E. W. Hengstenberg. Vol. 3.

A Tour in the United States. By Archibald Prentice.

Fifty Days on Board a Slave Vessel in the Mozambique Channel, in April and May, 1843. By Rev. Pascoe Grenfell Hill, Chaplain of H.M.S. Cleopatra.

Composition and Punctuation Familiarly Explained. By Justin Brenan. Co-operation with the Committee of Council on Education, Vindicated and Recommended. By Francis Close, A.M.

The Wesleyan Almanack for 1849.

On the Antidotal Treatment of the Epidemic Cholera. By John Parkin, M.D.

The Pearl of Days; or, the Advantages of the Sabbath to the Working Classes. By a Labourer's Daughter.

The Fairy Knoll. By Mrs. Sherwood.

The Harmony of History with Prophecy. An Exposition of the Apocalypse. By Josiah Conder.

Narrative of a Campaign against the Kabailes of Algeria; with the Mission of M. Suchet to the Emir Abd-El-Kader. By Dawson Borrer, F.R.G.S. Letters of William III. and Louis XIV., and of their Ministers; illustrative of the Domestic and Foreign Politics of England, from the Peace of Ryswick to the Accession of Philip v. of Spain. Edited by Paul Grimblot. 2 vols.

Proofs of the Authenticity of the Portrait of Prince Charles, painted at Madrid in 1623, by Velasquez.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW

FOR DECEMBER, 1848.

ART. I.-1. Criminal Tables, for England and Wales. 1805-1847.

London: Hansard.

2. Statistics of Crime. By R. W. Rawson, Esq., Hon. Secretary, Statistical Society of London. Statistical Journal, Vol. II. pp. -344. 1839.

. 317

3. Statistics of Crime in England and Wales, for the Years 1842— 1844. By F. G. P. Neison, Esq., F.L.S., F.S.S. Statistical Journal, Vol. IX. pp. 223–275. 1846.

4. Thirteenth Report on Prisons. London: Hansard. 1848.

5. Ninth Annual Report of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. London: Hansard. 1848.

THE extent, progress, and causes of crime in this country, have occupied, as they well deserve, a large share of public attention, and have been laboriously investigated by many able men. The criminal records of the nation have also been improved in their arrangement, and made to embrace information, other than the bare enumeration of offences, in classes and in counties, so as to throw light upon those social and educational conditions, which respectively conduce to, or repress, crime. For the last few years, two principal objects have been aimed at by those who have subjected the records of crime to searching analysis: First,-To ascertain the influence of education in counteracting crime; and Second,-To determine the influence of relaxed severity of punishment, on the ratio of the more serious offences against the laws. It is not our intention to allude further to the latter subject; but in the course of our

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remarks, we shall have occasion, again and again, to refer to the conclusions which have been aimed at by several investigators, as to the former. The leading object of this class of inquirers, has been to determine what influence education has in the repression of crime. As a body, they have, for many years, advocated a national system of education, and laboriously sought to establish the proof of its necessity, by a demonstration of the co-extensiveness of crime and ignorance, in the several counties of England. The ratios of crime in particular districts are, of course, determinate and palpable things; but not so the ratios of ignorance. Various tests have been used to determine the latter. The signing of the marriage register, by marks, has been taken as a criterion of the degree of education, and although allowance has been made for disturbing elements, in cases where the marriage-mark test was at par, and the ratio of crime greatly discrepant, on the whole, considerable reliance has been placed on it; and, as we shall endeavour to show, far more reliance than can justly be so placed. Again, the degree of instruction amongst the criminals themselves, has been investigated for a similar purpose; and the conclusion drawn, that ignorance and crime are, -mathematically considered-equal quantities; -morally considered-cause and effect.

Now we are not about to enter into the question—of the connexion betwixt ignorance and crime, nor into the still more important question,-what is that education which will really counteract crime? It must suffice to say, that our judgment is clear and decided against the sufficiency of mere scholastic knowledge, as distinct from education, or to speak more definitely, moral training, to counteract the natural tendency of man's nature to certain indulgencies of the baser passions, and to furnish a defence against the thousand temptations to crime, which, more especially in great cities, assail the great mass, and most vehemently, the young. And apart from this conviction, we cannot but perceive, that gravely to take the very low qualifications of reading and writing, no matter in what ratios, as tests of the moral condition of particular sections of the population, is, apparently at least, to favour the idea that mere reading and writing have a moralizing influence. The ratios of crime and of ignorance, as to reading and writing, might be shown to be coincident; but that would still leave the problem unsolved,— what are the causes of crime?-because the ratios of reading and writing might only be, as we believe them to be, the accompaniment, or indication, of a certain moral condition of the people, and not the cause of that condition. Nor are we insensible that a conclusion may be established from a comparison

of the ratios of crime and of ignorance, (the ignorance of reading and writing,) most fatal to the conclusions of those who adopt the test.

In 1805, 1811, 1821, and 1847, the ratios of crime to the population were, respectively, 1 in 1843, 1779, 877, and 610. But no sane man disputes that far fewer persons are ignorant of reading and writing now, than at any one of the other periods named. It is palpable that some other solution of the increased ratio of crime must be found, unless we are to adopt the prima facie conclusion which the facts warrant,-that knowledge and crime progress in equal ratios. In short, we cannot but think that far too much attention has been paid to this branch of the inquiry, to the neglect of others, from which more important results are attainable; and though we willingly admit the great talent and patience with which the inquiry has been conducted, we must still express our dissatisfaction with its results, as explanations, either in whole, or in any principal degree, of the phenomena presented in the criminal tables of England. It will be our object in this article, to indicate, with somewhat more exactness than has already been done, the facts of the case, and to point out, not the causes so much, as the conditions or circumstances, under which crime is more or less developed in England. Before, however, we do this, we must correct some gross mistakes as to the progress of crime, which have long been current in the public mind, and have been sanctioned by men, from whom more accuracy of information might fairly have been expected. Thus, we have not unfrequently seen the statement, in print, that crime has increased six hundred per cent. since 1805; and nothing is so common, in the mouths of public men, when any question of public morals is the theme, as the lamentation over the alarming and frightful increase of crime. We will endeavour to give the true ratio of increase. For this purpose, we have thrown the English counties into six groups, as follows:-five manufacturing, viz.— Chester, Lancaster, Stafford, Warwick, and York; three mining, viz.-Cornwall, Durham, and Monmouth; three metropolitan, viz.-Middlesex, Hertford, and Surrey; sixteen agricultural, viz.-Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Cumberland, Dorset, Essex, Hereford, Hunts, Kent, Lincoln, Northampton, Rutland, Suffolk, Sussex, Westmoreland, and Wilts; two collegiate, viz.-Cambridge and Oxford; and eleven mixed agricultural and manufacturing, viz.-Derby, Devon, Gloucester, Norfolk, Northumberland, Leicester, Notts, Salop, Somerset, Hants, and Worcester. We consider this grouping to be, on the whole, as fair as any other we have seen, but we shall have occasion to show, in the sequel, that it presents great anomalies; and that, in

fact, any grouping of counties, merely as manufacturing, or agricultural, or as both combined, with a view to arrive at any definite results, as to the mere influence of manufacturing or agricultural employments on the prevalence of crime, will only lead to false conclusions, unless other elements be largely allowed for. The following table shows the amount of crime in each of the groups mentioned, and in all England, and the ratio to population, at nine distinct periods. The actual population is taken for the years 1821, 1831, and 1841; the population for the other periods, is calculated according to the ratio of increase, for each group, in the preceding ten years, as shown by the census returns. Our object in dividing the six years, since 1841, into four distinct periods, will be explained afterwards.

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11 Mixed

All England

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1297 780 1115 902
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28.751 536 23.608 671 24.630 644 28.055 574

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