If it be allowed that the prevention of crimes is at least of as much importance to Society, as any consideration connected with partial revenue:—if experience has shewn that, after the skill and ingenuity of the ablest lawyers and the most profound thinkers have been exhausted in framing laws to meet offences, which are daily committed; these offences are progressively increasing:—Is it not clear to demonstration, that some active principle is wanting, which does not at present exist, for the purpose of rendering these laws effectual?
This principle of activity is, (it is humbly apprehended,) only to be established by the introduction of such a System of regulation, as shall attach to all classes of dealers, who, in their intercourse with Society, are in the train of encouraging either directly or collaterally, transactions of an immoral, a fraudulent, or a mischievous nature.
The idea is not new in the System of jurisprudence of the country;—Publicans have long been under regulations prescribed by Magistrates; Pawnbrokers also have been of late years regulated to a certain extent by Statute.—Let the same principle be extended to the other dealers alluded to; and let the Legislature, profiting by that experience which has manifested the cause of the inefficacy of a vast number of penal Statutes, establish such a system of regulation, inspection, and superintendance, as will insure to the Public the full benefits arising from good laws, administered with activity, purity, and discretion.
Nothing can evince in a greater degree the necessity of inspecting the execution of all laws of regulation where the well-being of Society is concerned, than the abuses which occur with regard to the two classes just mentioned, namely, Public-houses and Pawnbrokers.—Many excellent rules are established by the Legislature, and the Magistrates; but while it is seldom the interest of the depraved or dishonest part of these two classes to adhere to such rules, by what means is the execution to be insured, so as to operate as a complete protection to the Public?—surely not by the operation of the law through the medium of common informers; since independent of the invidious nature of the office, experience has shewn that the public good rarely enters into the consideration of persons of this description; who look merely to their own emolument, frequently holding up the penalties as a rod by which money is privately extorted, and the parties laid under contribution, for the purpose of allowing them to continue in the practice of those abuses, which the engine used for this nefarious purpose was meant to prevent.
The System of Inspection, thus strongly and repeatedly recommended, while it remedied these corrupt practices, by preventing the existence of the evil, could only be disagreeable to Fraudulent Dealers.
The honest and fair Tradesmen, as things are at present circumstanced, are by no means on an equal footing with men who carry on business by fraudulent devices.—Such fair traders who have nothing to dread, would therefore rejoice at the System of inspection which is proposed, and would submit to it cheerfully; as having an immediate tendency to shield them from fraudulent competition, and to protect the Public against knavery and dishonesty.
CHAP. XI.
The prominent Causes of the increase of Crimes reviewed and considered:—Imputable in the first instance to deficient Laws and an ill-regulated Police:—To the unfortunate habits of the lower orders of the People in feeding their families in Ale-houses.—To the bad and immoral Education of Apprentices.—To the number of individuals broke down by misfortunes arising from want of Industry.—To idle and profligate Menial Servants out of place.—To the deplorable state of the lower orders of the Jews of the Dutch and German Synagogue.—To the depraved morals of Aquatic Labourers.—To the Dealers in old Metals—Second-hand Ships' Stores—Rags—Old Furniture—Old Building Materials—Old Apparel: and Cart-keepers for removing these articles.—To disreputable Pawnbrokers.—And finally to ill-regulated Public-houses, and to the Superabundance of these receptacles of idleness and vice.—Concluding Reflections on the evils to the State and the Individual, which arise from the excesses of the Labouring People.