| Police Returns | |
| Wilful murder | 135 |
| Manslaughter | 279 |
| Concealment of birth | 232 |
| Total | 646 |
| Criminal Tables | |
| Wilful murder cases tried | 60 |
| Manslaughter, cases tried | 316 |
| Concealment of birth, cases tried | 143 |
| Total | 519 |
If 519 were tried, we may judge of the number imprisoned. The author of the article in the Journal says: "The police returns do not correspond with the coroners', and the discrepancy is so great that I can only account for it on the supposition that, according to the police view of it, infanticide is not murder." The number of coroners' inquests held in 1865, in England and Wales, was
| Total | 25,011 |
| Verdict of accidental deaths | 11,397 |
He continues, "Open verdicts, as they are termed, such as, 'found dead,' or 'found drowned,' are rendered in many cases when a more accurate knowledge would have led to the verdict of 'wilful murder.'"
It is just as easy to compare the total of first-class criminals of all sorts, as to select homicide.
Alison [Footnote 19] says, "The proportion of crime to the inhabitants was twelve times greater in Prussia (Protestant) than in France, (Catholic,) and in Austria, (Catholic,) the proportion of convicted crime is not one fourth of what is found in Prussia." The Statistical Journals for 1864-65 show that France is better than England.
[Footnote 19: History of Europe, vol. iii. chap, xxvii. 10, 11.]
There were no less than 846 deaths of children under one year old, in 1857, in England and Wales from violent causes, [Footnote 20] from which we may form some little idea of the extent of only one sort of homicide.