TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF DEPREDATORS, OFFENDERS, AND SUSPECTED PERSONS BROUGHT WITHIN THE COGNIZANCE OF THE POLICE OF THE UNDERMENTIONED DISTRICTS, IN THE YEAR 1837.

District or Place.Number of Depredators, Offenders, and Suspected Persons.Average Length of Career.Proportion of known bad Characters to the Population.
1st Class.2nd Class.3rd Class.Total.
Metropolitan Police District10,4444353210416,9014 yrs.1 in 89
Borough of Liverpool3,5809162154,711......1 in 45
City and County of Bristol1,93511903563,481......1 in 31
City of Bath2844708471,601......1 in 37
Town and County of Newcastle-on-Tyne1,730222622,0142¼ yrs.1 in 27
Total17,9737151358428,708

By the above table it will be seen that, in 1837, there were 28,708 persons of known bad character, infesting five of the principal towns in England: nearly 18,000 of the entire number had no visible means of subsistence, and were believed to live wholly by depredation; 7000 were believed to augment their gains by habitual or occasional violation of the law; and 3500 were known to be associates of the others, and otherwise deemed suspicious characters. According to the average proportion of these persons to the population, there would have been in the other large towns nearly 32,000 persons of a similar class, and upwards of 69,000 of such persons dispersed throughout the rest of the country. Adding these together, we have as many as 130,000 individuals of known bad character in England and Wales, without the walls of the prisons.

To form an accurate notion of the total number of the criminal population at the above period, we must add to the preceding amount the number of persons resident within the walls of the prisons. These, at the time of taking the last census, amounted to 19,888, which, added to the 130,000 above enumerated, gives within a fraction of 150,000 individuals for the entire criminal population of the country, as known to the police in 1837.

Let us now, for a moment, turn our attention to the number and cost of the honest and dishonest poor throughout England and Wales. Mr. Porter, usually no mean authority upon all matters of a statistical nature, tells us, in his “Progress of the Nation,” p. 530, that “the proportion of persons in the United Kingdom who pass their time without applying to any gainful occupation is quite inconsiderable! Of 5,800,000 males of 20 years and upwards living at the time of the census of 1831, there were said to be engaged in some calling or profession 5,450,000, thus leaving unemployed only 350,000, or rather less than six per cent.” “The number of unemployed adult males in Great Britain in 1841,” he afterwards informs us, “was only 274,000 and odd.”

But this statement gives us no accurate idea of the number of persons subsisting by charity or crime, for the author of the “Progress of the Nation,” strange to say, wholly excludes from his calculation the mass of individuals maintained by the several parishes, as well as the criminals, almspeople, and lunatics throughout the country! Now, according to the Report of the Poor-law Commissioners, the number of paupers receiving in and out-door relief, in 1848, was no less than 1,870,000 and odd. The number of criminals and suspicious characters throughout the country, in 1837, we have seen, was 150,000. In 1844 the number of lunatics in county asylums was 4000 and odd; while, according to the occupation abstract of the population returns there were in 1841 upwards of 5000 almspeople, 1000 beggars, and 21,000 pensioners. These, formed into one sum, give us no less than 2,000,000 of individuals living upon the income of the remainder of the population. By the above computation, therefore, we see that, out of a total of 16,000,000 souls, in England and Wales, one-eighth, or twelve per cent. of the whole, continue their existence either by pauperism, mendicancy, or crime.

Now, the cost of this immense mass of vice and want is even more appalling than the number of individuals subsisting in such utter degradation. The total amount of money levied in 1848 for the relief of the poor throughout England and Wales, was 7,400,000l. But, exclusive of this amount, the magnitude of the sum that we give voluntarily towards the support and education of the poorer classes, is unparalleled in the history of any other nation, or of any other time. According to the summary of the returns annexed to the voluminous reports of the Charity Commissioners, the rent of the land and other fixed property, together with the interest of the money left for charitable purposes in England and Wales, amounts to 1,200,000l. a year; and it is believed that, by proper management, this return might be increased to an annual income of at least two millions of money. “And yet,” says Mr. MʻCulloch, “there can be no doubt that even this large sum falls far below the amount expended every year in voluntary donations to charitable establishments. Nor can any estimate be formed,” he adds, “of the money given in charity to individuals, but in the aggregate it cannot fail to amount to an immense sum.” All things considered, therefore, we cannot be very far from the truth, if we assume the sums voluntarily subscribed towards the relief of the poor to equal, in the aggregate, the total amount raised by assessment for the same purpose (the income from voluntary subscriptions to the metropolitan charities alone equals 1,000,000l. and odd); so that it would appear that the well-to-do amongst us expend the vast sum of 15,000,000l. per annum in mitigating the miseries of their less fortunate brethren.

But though it may be said that we give altogether 15,000,000l. a year to alleviate the distress of those who want or suffer, we must remember that this vast sum expresses not only the liberal extent of our sympathy, but likewise the fearful amount of want and suffering, on the one hand, and of excess and luxury on the other, that there must be in the land. If the poorer classes require fifteen millions to be added in charity every year to their aggregate income in order to relieve their pains and privations, and the richer can afford to have the same immense sum taken from theirs, and yet scarcely feel the loss, it shows at once how much the one class must have in excess and the other in deficiency. Whether such a state of things is a necessary evil connected with the distribution of wealth, this is not the place for me to argue. All I have to do here is to draw attention to the fact. It is for others to lay bare the cause, and, if possible, discover the remedy.

There still remains, however, to be added to the sum expended in voluntary or compulsory relief of the poor, the cost of our criminal and convict establishments at home and abroad. This, according to the Government estimates, amounts to very nearly 1,000,000l.; then there is the value of the property appropriated by the 150,000 habitual criminals, and this, at 10s. a week per head, amounts to very nearly 4,000,000l.; so that, adding these items to the sum before-mentioned, we have, in round numbers, the enormous amount of 20,000,000l. per annum as the cost of the paupers and criminals of this country; and, reckoning the national income, with Mr. MʻCulloch and others, at 350,000,000l., it follows that the country has to give upwards of five per cent. out of its gross earnings every year to support those who are either incapable or unwilling to obtain a living for themselves.