The Scotch have shown themselves not a whit behind their southern compatriots in repugnance to a police assessment. In Lanarkshire, as it is well known, the iron and coal trades have made unexampled progress during the last ten years. Its population, in consequence, has enormously increased; having risen from 316,000 to 434,000 in ten years, from 1831 to 1841—an increase of thirty-six per cent in that short time—the next to Monmouthshire of the whole empire. Crime had, of course, enormously increased. In 1835, the committals for serious offences were 401: in 1842, they had risen to 696—being an increase of seventy-five per cent in seven years.[4] Serious crime, therefore, so far as detected, was doubling in ten years, while population was doubling in thirty—in other words, detected crime was increasing three times as fast as the numbers of the people. Disturbances, as a matter of course, of a very serious nature had arisen. In 1837, the great cotton-spinners' conspiracy, which led to the memorable trial, had kept above twenty thousand persons in Lanarkshire, for four months, in a state of compulsory destitution. In 1842, the colliers' strike threw a still greater number into a state of idleness for five months, which led to a general system of plunder, and forcible seizure of the farmers' produce in the fields; only repressed, with infinite difficulty, by the introduction of a large military force, aided by the yeomanry of the county, who were on permanent duty for six weeks, and the establishment for a few months, by subscription, of a powerful police. In October 1842, twenty policemen, who had some prisoners in charge for combination offences, were assaulted by a furious mob of two thousand persons on the streets of Airdrie, in the centre of the mining district of the county, the house in which they had taken refuge set on fire, and the prisoners by main force rescued from the hands of the law.[5] These facts were known to the whole county, and the terror which, in consequence, pervaded the agricultural inhabitants of the mining districts was so great, that in a petition to government praying for protection, they stated—that they would be better if law were altogether abolished, and every man were allowed to defend himself by fire-arms, than they were now; for that, if they used lethal weapons in defence of their property, they ran the risk of being transported for culpable homicide—if they did not, they were certain of being plundered by the combined workmen. And what did the county do to arrest this disgraceful and perilous system of outrage and plunder? Why, in the full knowledge of all these facts, they passed a solemn resolution at Lanark, on 30th April 1843, that they never would again, on any occasion, or under any circumstances of necessity whatever, sanction the employment of any police or defensive force raised at their expense.
We do not suppose that the inhabitants of South Wales or the banks of the Clyde are particularly short-sighted or selfish, or more inclined to resist assessment for objects of public utility or necessity than those of other parts of the empire. On the contrary, we know that they are in a remarkable degree the reverse; and that in no part of the world are undertakings in public improvement or charity entered into with more alacrity, and supported with more liberality. We suppose the Scotch and Welsh are what other men are—neither better nor worse. We adduce these facts, not as tending to fasten any peculiar charge on them, but as indicating the general character of human nature, and the universal repugnance to taxation, which, when men are really and practically, and not in form only, invested with the power of self-government, appears the moment that any proposition of subjecting them to assessment for the purpose of local defence and protection, even under the most aggravating circumstances, is brought forward. How great, then, must have been the mass of experienced, but undetected and unpunished, crime which pervades the state, when this all but invincible repugnance has been generally overcome, and men in so many cities and counties have been induced to submit to the certainty of the visit of the tax-gatherer, rather than the chance of a visit from the thief or the burglar!
And for decisive evidence that the new establishment of a police force is not, by the crimes which it is the means of binging to light, the cause of the prodigious increase of crime of late years in the British empire, we refer to the contemporary examples of two other countries, in which a police force on a far more extensive scale has been established, and has been found the means of effecting a signal diminution of crime and commitment. In Hindostan, as is well known, a most extensive and admirably organized system of police has been found absolutely indispensable to repress the endless robberies of which its fertile plains had long been the theatre; and the force employed, permanently or occasionally, in this way amounts to a hundred and sixty thousand! The consequence has been a diminution of crime and commitments, during the last forty years, fully as remarkable as this simultaneous increase in the British islands. The official reports which have been compiled in India by the British authorities, exhibit of late years the pleasing prospect of a decrease of serious crime to a third or fourth part of its former amount.[6]
Look at France during the same period. That there is in that great country a numerous and well-organized police force, will not probably be denied by those who know any thing, either of its present circumstances by observation, or its past from history. Unlike Great Britain, it is universally established and raised, not by separate acts of Parliament, local effort, and contribution, but by a general assessment, under the name of "Centimes Additionels," yet varying in particular districts, according to the necessity and amount of the defensive force, but, in all, imposed by the authority and levied by the officers of government. And what has been the result? Is it that crime, from being generally brought to light, evinces the same steady and alarming increase which is conspicuous in all parts of the British islands? Quite the reverse: criminal law and a powerful system of police appear there in their true light, as checking and deterring from crime. Population is advancing steadily though slowly in that country, crime is stationary or declining;[7] and while the most powerful and efficient police in Europe only bring to light about 7000 serious criminals annually out of 34,000,000 souls—that is, 1 in 6700—in Great Britain, out of a population, including England and Scotland, of 18,000,000 in round numbers, there were in 1842 no less than 34,800 persons charged with serious crimes before the criminal tribunals, or 1 in 514—in other words, serious crime is fourteen times as prevalent in Great Britain as it is in France. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate the deplorable fallacy of those who ascribe the present extraordinary frequency and uninterrupted growth of crime in this country, as attested by the criminal returns, to the vigilance of the police in bringing it to light.
In truth, so far from its being the case that crime is now better looked after, and therefore more frequently brought to light than formerly, and that it is that which swells our criminal returns, the fact is directly the reverse. So weak, feeble, and disjointed, are the efforts of our various multiform and unconnected police establishments over the country generally,[8] that we assert, without the fear of contradiction by any person practically acquainted with the subject, that the amount of undetected and unpunished crime is rapidly on the increase, and is now greater than it was in any former period. We would recommend any person who doubts this statement, to go to any of the criminal establishments in the country, and compare the list of informations of serious crimes lodged with those of offenders committed; he will find the latter are scarcely ever so much as a third of the former. These facts do not appear in the criminal returns, because they are not called for; and the police-officers are in no hurry to publish facts which proclaim the insufficiency of the means of repressing crime at their disposal. But occasionally, and under the pressure of immediate danger, or a strong sense of duty on the part of the public functionaries, they do come out. For example, it was stated by Mr Millar, the head of the Glasgow police, (a most able and active officer,) in a letter read at the county meeting of Lanarkshire on 21st January 1843, on the subject of a police for the rural district of that and the adjoining counties, that in the three months immediately preceding that date, ninety-one cases of theft, chiefly by housebreaking, had been reported at the Glasgow police-office, committed in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, but beyond the police bounds; and that from his own information, and that of the other officers of his establishment, this number, great as it was, was not a third of the crimes of that description which had actually been committed during that period. On the other hand, it was stated by the sheriff of the county at the same meeting, that in only fourteen of these ninety-one cases had any trace whatever been got of the delinquents. In other words, the number of instances in which any clue was obtained to the criminals was only fourteen out of 273, or one in twenty nearly. And yet this miserable driblet of one in twenty, exhibits in the criminal returns for Lanarkshire an increase of 75 per cent in seven years, or a duplication in ten. This instance, to which hundreds of others might be added from all parts of the country, shows how extreme is the illusion of those who lay the flattering unction to their souls, that serious crime is not now more prevalent than it was formerly, but only better brought to light.
In truth, it has long been known, that in consequence of the relaxation of the severity of our criminal code, and the astonishing increase of serious crimes which cannot be passed over, a vast number of criminals are now disposed of in the police courts, and never appear in the criminal returns at all, who, twenty years ago, were deemed felons of the very highest class, and visited often with death, always with transportation. It was stated in parliament as a subject of complaint against the Lancashire magistrates, that during the insurrection of 1842 in that county, nearly ten thousand persons were imprisoned, and let go after a short confinement, without ever being brought to trial. During the disturbances in the same year, in Lanarkshire and many other counties of Scotland, (especially Ayrshire, Fife, and Mid-Lothian,) the accumulation of prisoners was so great, that not only were none detained for trial but those against whom the evidence was altogether conclusive; but that great numbers were remitted for trial before the summary tribunals, and escaped with a month or two of imprisonment, who had committed capital crimes, and a few years before would infallibly have been transported for fourteen years. We are getting on so fast, that nothing is more common now than to see hardened criminals, both in England and Scotland, disposed of by the police magistrates, and for capital crimes receive a few months imprisonment. Their names and crimes never appear in the returns at all. There is no fault attached to any one for this seeming laxity. The thing is unavoidable. If the class of cases were all sent to the higher tribunals which formerly were considered privative to them, the judges, were they twice as numerous as they are, would sit in the criminal courts from one year's end to another, and the jails would still be choked up with untried criminals, numbers of whom would linger for years in confinement.
The Liberal party, in the beginning of the present century, were unanimous in imputing the vast increase of crime to the defects of our criminal law. The nominal severity of that system, it was said, and said justly, with its uncertain punishments and frequent opportunities of escape, afforded in fact a bounty on the commission of crime. Injured parties declined to give information for fear of being bound over to prosecute; witnesses were reluctant to give evidence, judges caught at legal quibbles, juries violated their oaths, in order to save the accused from a punishment which all felt was disproportioned to the offence; and thus the great object of criminal jurisprudence, certainty of punishment, was entirely defeated. There was much truth in these observations, but much fallacy in the hope that their removal would effect any reduction in the number of offences. The object sought for was carried. Humane principles were triumphant. The labours of Sir Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh, aided by the cautious wisdom and experienced ability of Sir R. Peel, produced a total revolution in our criminal jurisprudence. The old stain has been removed: we need no longer fear a comparison With the laws of Draco. For the last fifteen years so many offences, formerly capital, have had that dreadful penalty removed, that the law in Great Britain, as now practically administered, is probably the mildest in Europe. Death is scarce ever inflicted except for murder; in cases of housebreaking, even when attended with personal violence, it is never thought of. The executions in Great Britain now range from twenty-five to thirty-five only a-year, instead of a hundred and fifty or two hundred, which they formerly were. And what has been the result? Has the promised and expected diminution of crime taken place, in consequence of the increased certainty of punishment, and the almost total removal of all reasonable or conscientious scruples at being concerned in a prosecution? Quite the reverse. The whole prophecies and anticipations of the Liberal school have been falsified by the result. Crime, so far from declining, has signally increased; and its progress has never been so rapid as during the last fifteen years, when the lenity of its administration has been at its maximum. An inspection of the returns of serious crimes already given, will completely demonstrate this.
Next, it was said, that education would lay the axe to the root of crime; that ignorance was the parent of vice; and, by diffusing the school-master, you would extinguish the greater part of the wickedness which afflicted society; that the providing of cheap, innocent, and elevating amusements for the leisure hours of the working-classes, would prove the best antidote to their degrading propensities; and that then, and then only, would crime really be arrested, when the lamp of knowledge burned in every mechanic's workshop, in every peasant's cottage. The idea was plausible, it was seducing, it was amiable; and held forth the prospect of general improvement of morals from the enlarged culture of mind. The present generation is generally, it may almost be said universally, imbued with these opinions; and the efforts accordingly made for the instruction of the working-classes during the last twenty-five years, have been unprecedented in any former period of our history. What have been the results? Has crime declined in proportion to the spread of education? Are the best instructed classes the least vicious? Has eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge diminished the power of the Tempter? So far from it, the consequences, hitherto at least, have been melancholy and foreboding in the extreme.
The criminal returns of Great Britain and Ireland for the last twenty years, demonstrate that the uneducated criminals are about a third of the whole: in other words, the educated criminals are to the uneducated as two to one.[9] In Scotland, the educated criminals, are about four times the uneducated; in England, just double; in Ireland, they are nearly equal. Nay, what is still more remarkable, while the number of uneducated criminals, especially in Scotland, is yearly diminishing, that of educated ones is yearly increasing.[10] In France, the criminal returns have for long demonstrated that the amount of crime, in all the eighty-four departments of the monarchy, is just in proportion to the number of educated persons which each contains; a fact the more remarkable, as three-fifths of the whole inhabitants of the country have received no education whatever.[11] Of the criminals actually brought before the Courts of Assize, which correspond to our Old Bailey and Circuit Courts, it appears that about four-sevenths are educated, and three-sevenths destitute of any instruction; which gives a greater proportion of criminals to the educated than the uneducated class, as three-fifths of the people are wholly uninstructed.[12] But what is most marvellous of all, the criminal returns of Prussia, the most universally educated country in Europe, where the duty of teaching the young is enforced by law upon parents of every description, and entire ignorance is wholly unknown, the proportion of criminals to the entire population is TWELVE TIMES greater than in France, where education of any sort has only been imparted to two-fifths of the community.[13] These facts are startling—they run adverse to many preconceived ideas—they overturn many favourite theories; but they are not the less facts, and it is by facts alone that correct conclusions are to be drawn in regard to human affairs. In America too, it appears from the criminal returns, many of which, in particular towns and states, are quoted in Buckingham's Travels, that the educated criminals are to the uneducated often as three, generally as two, to one. These facts completely settle the question; although, probably, the whole present generation must descend to their graves before the truth on the subject is generally acknowledged.
But to any one who reflects on the principles of human nature, and the moving powers by which it is impelled, whether towards virtue or vice, such a result must appear not only intelligible but unavoidable. It is our desires which are our tempters. All the statistical returns prove that the great majority of educated persons, generally at least three-fourths of the whole, have received an imperfect education. They have just got knowledge enough to incur its dangers; they have not got enough either to experience its utility or share in its elevation. Their desires are inflamed, their imaginations excited, their cravings multiplied by what they read; but neither their understandings strengthened, their habits improved, nor their hearts purified. The great bulk of mankind at all times, and especially in all manufacturing communities, can only receive an imperfect education. It is not in the age of twelve hours' labour at factories, and of the employment of children without restraint in coal and iron mines, that any thing approaching to a thorough education can be imparted to the working classes, at least in the manufacturing districts. The conclusion to be drawn from this is, not that education is hopeless and should be abandoned, in relation to the great bulk of men—for we every day, in detached instances, have proof of its immense and blessed influence; the conclusion is, that it is by the active, not the intellectual powers, the desires, not the understanding, that the great majority of men are governed; that it is the vast addition civilisation and commerce make to the wants and passions of men, which constitutes the real cause of its demoralizing influence; and that these dangers never will be obviated till means are discovered of combating sin with its own weapons, and by desires as extensively felt as its passions. We must fight it, not only with the armour of reason, but the fire of imagination. It is by enlisting the desires on the side of virtue and order, that we can alone generally influence mankind.