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The increase of crime for all England, betwixt the first and last periods, is about fifty-three per cent. If the first period, and 1844—6, be compared, it is thirty-eight per cent. ; but if the first period and 1845, be compared, it is only thirty-one per cent.

The per-centage shows, in each case, an actual increase in the ratio of crime, distinct from, and above, the ratio of increase in the population. But if 1829-1833, and 1845, be compared, the increase is not more than six per cent. The cycle, 1829 -1833, comprehended a period, in which no disturbing element was at work, to increase, what we may be allowed to term, the natural tendency to crime; and the year 1845 was a similar period. But this comparison may be objected to, as too favourable. No objection, however, can lie against the average of 1844-6, the latter year being marked by considerable distress amongst the operative population. We exclude 1847, because it was, nearly throughout, a year of distress and privation.-For the same reason, we exclude 1840-2, a period of extraordinary suffering amongst the working classes; the closing year, in fact, being the last of a cycle of five years of almost uninterrupted bad harvests, and dear food; two circumstances, the influence of which on crime, we shall afterwards advert to. We shall not, however, confine the comparison to the periods betwixt 1821 and 1845. We shall carry it back to 1805. In that year, the ratio of crime to population for the several sections of counties, and for all England, was as follows

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The following table will exhibit the increase of the population, and of crime, respectively, betwixt 1805 and 1821, and betwixt 1821 and 1845, with the excess or deficiency of crime, in each period, as compared with the population.

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Here, then, we have the exact measure of the increase of

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It is foreign to our purpose to inquire into the cause or causes of this still enormous increase of crime, betwixt 1805 and 1821, and also betwixt 1821 and 1831. The more rapid increase of crime than population, by 147-8 per cent. in the one period, and of thirty-three per cent. in the other, suggests grave questions, if the increase be the consequence of a more depraved condition of the national morals. We are free to express our entire doubt that the phenomena are referable to that cause. We suspect the increase is more nominal than real, and is, in a great measure, attributable to an improved police, and the consequent more frequent detection of offences; conjoined with several other circumstances, which we may not stay to describe minutely. Of this we are quite certain, that the universal judg ment of men who have lived through the period, 1805 to 1845, is unmistakeably against the conclusion, which, taken by themselves, the criminal returns would establish; that is, a rapid and large deterioration of the national character. On the contrary, we never met with a man on whose judgment and observation we could rely, who did not testify to the striking improvement in the whole deportment and conduct of the mass of the population, betwixt the two periods. Be this, however, as it may, there is no gainsaying the fact, that the rate of progress in crime has undergone a wonderful retardation, since 1831. 84 per

cent. in fifteen years, contrasts marvellously with thirty-three per cent. in the ten years, 1821 to 1831; and 147.8 per cent., in the sixteen years from 1805 to 1821. At this rate, 1851 will show a positive decrease in the ratio, as compared with 1831, on all England; as 1845 already does, for the manufacturing and metropolitan districts.

We will now show the relative proportion of crime in the forty counties of England, and from this statement, shall endeavour to evolve the circumstances, or conditions of each, which determine those ratios.

For reasons already stated, we consider the year 1845, as offering the most accurate portraiture of the natural intensity of crime in each county. The following table exhibits the ratio of crime to population in each, and we append to it, for purposes to be explained, the per centage of population to one hundred statute acres in 1841, the proportion of the agricultural classes to the total population, and the proportion of males married, on the average of 1839 to 1845, who signed the marriage register with marks.—

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This table appears to us perfectly decisive, as respects the educational test of the marriage register mark, and the alleged superiority, as to moral condition, of the agricultural counties. Middlesex, with 12 marriage marks, presents a ratio of 1 criminal to 376 persons; whilst Durham, with 25 marks, has a ratio of only 1 in 1766! Derby, with 30 marks, has a ratio of 1 in 1563; and Cornwall, with 36 marks, has 1 in 1319! The ir. relevance of this test is indeed quite demonstrable, independent of the proofs now offered. It is undeniable, that it is the poorer classes who furnish the criminal calendar with its melancholy numbers. It is obvious, then, that the marriage test can only be of value, as it shows the relative amount of education in that particular section of the population of each county. But if a particular county has a larger number of the propertied and educated classes, in proportion to the poorer and uneducated classes, than another county, the former will show fewer marks; though it may be quite true, that, class for class, the education of the latter is equal to it. No one doubts that Middlesex has a far larger proportion of educated and wealthy persons in its population, than Durham, and yet Middlesex shows 1 criminal to 376 of its population, against 1 in 1766 in Durham. Take another instance. Gloucester has a more educated population than Lincoln; but Gloucester has 1 criminal for 482 of its population, and Lincoin only 1 for 990!

The supposed moral tendency of agricultural, over manufacturing employment, is equally disproved by the table. Worcester has a proportion of 10·1 agriculturalists, and Nottingham only 8.2; but the ratio of crime in the former is 431, and in the latter, 978. Nay, worse. Hereford, with 14-6 proportion of agriculture, has a criminal ratio of 509; whilst Kent, with 8.7, has only 1 in 702. The table furnishes many other proofs of our position in these two points. It will be asked, and we do not shrink from the question, 'how then do you account for the vast discrepancies in crime, betwixt counties agreeing in the ratio of marriage marks, and of agricultural population? or for the fact that counties, differing in these particulars, agree in the ratio of crime? We think the table suggests the explanation; not an exact one, we freely acknowledge, but harmonizing more anomalies than any we have yet seen.

We are inclined, then, to give the first place, in the order of circumstances or conditions of society, tending to crime, to the density of a town or city population. Let us see how this condition or circumstance is borne out by the table. Setting aside Yorkshire, which is a case per se, as we shall show in the sequel, the first county in the list, which has a large city population, is Surrey, and that stands No. 26, with a ratio of

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