“Parallel with the ascending figure for pauperism, rises the growing figure for criminality. The number of persons arraigned at the assizes of England and Wales has increased as follows:

Years. Totals. Annual Average.
1814 to 1820 78,762 11,252
1821 to 1827 99,842 14,263
1828 to 1834 134,062 19,152
1834 to 1840 162,502 23,214
1841 to 1847 193,445 27,760

[[38]]

“Thus in a space of thirty-four years the number of crimes has more than doubled in England, while, in the same interval, the increase of the population has hardly passed 40%.

“The parallelism between the growing pauperism and growing criminality is even more striking when the comparison is applied to the delinquents under the summary jurisdiction of the justices of the peace. Up to the time of the establishment of the workhouses in 1834 the number of poor persons assisted increased progressively from year to year. Well, the number of persons arrested by the metropolitan police followed the same progression. This number was 72,824 in 1831, and 77,543 in 1832. In 1833 the new poor law with its terrible workhouses was approaching; consequently the number of arrests was no more than 69,959. In 1834 the law was promulgated, and up to 1838 was executed with great rigor; as a result the number of arrests fell to 64,269 in 1834, to 63,674 in 1835, and to 63,584 in 1836. In 1837 the severity began to relax; consequently the number of arrests increased to 64,416. In 1839 the laxity continued, and the number of arrests increased to 70,717. Laxity reached its height in 1842, and the number of arrests rose to 76,545; this was an arrest to each 25 of the population.

“In Newcastle in 1837 the magistrates sentenced 1 person to 24 of the whole population. In Leeds during a period of six years, from 1833 to 1838, there was one person arrested to 32 of the population. In Manchester in 1841 … the ratio of persons arrested, to the population, was as 1 to 21.… In 1831, ten years earlier, the proportion was still only 1 to 78. It almost quadrupled, then, in the interval. In Liverpool in 1840 there was one arrest to 12 inhabitants.”[9]

[[Contents]]

V.

G. Mayr.

The statistical data that form the basis of Dr. Mayr’s “Statistik der gerichtlichen Polizei im Königreiche Bayern und in einigen anderen Ländern” are different from those used in similar works. For, while generally only the number of crimes whose authors have been convicted, or that of delinquents punished, are considered, Dr. Mayr is of the opinion that to obtain a true picture of the morality of a people, it is necessary to take into account the number of crimes known to the police. “If we wish really to form an exact picture of [[39]]the moral condition of a people, we must first of all ask ourselves the question, how great is the number of the cases of crimes of different kinds that are of common notoriety, before we ask how great is the number of the individuals who are convicted of these crimes. The immorality of a people is determined not by the number of individuals convicted, but by the number of crimes committed; else that people would be most moral in which no offender ever let himself be caught, even if more crimes were committed there than elsewhere.”[10]