Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine

Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine - Volume 56, No. 345,
July, 1844

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No. CCCXLV.
July, 1844. Vol. LVI., by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone
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Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844.
Vol. LVI.
Author: Various
Release Date: October 12, 2004 [EBook #13719]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BLACKWOOD'S
Edinburgh

MAGAZINE.

VOL. LVI.
JULY-DECEMBER, 1844.
[Illustration]
1844.
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BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
* * * * *
No. CCCXLV. JULY, 1844. VOL. LVI.
* * * * *

CONTENTS.
CAUSES OF THE INCREASE OF CRIME THE HEART OF THE
BRUCE MEMORANDUMS OF A MONTH'S TOUR IN SICILY THE
LAST OF THE KNIGHTS POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE.
NO. I. MY FIRST LOVE.--A SKETCH IN NEW YORK
HYDRO-BACCHUS MARTIN LUTHER.--AN ODE TRADITIONS
AND TALES OF UPPER LUSATIA. NO. II. THE FAIRY TUTOR
PORTUGAL MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
PART XII.
THE WEEK OF AN EMPEROR
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EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET;
AND 22, PALL-MALL, LONDON.
To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed.
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS THE UNITED KINGDOM.
* * * * *
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
* * * * *
No. CCCXLV. JULY, 1844. VOL. LVI.
* * * * *

CAUSES OF THE INCREASE OF CRIME.
If the past increase and present amount of crime in the British islands
be alone considered, it must afford grounds for the most melancholy
forebodings. When we recollect that since the year 1805, that is, during
a period of less than forty years, in the course of which population has
advanced about sixty-five per cent in Great Britain and Ireland, crime
in England has increased seven hundred per cent, in Ireland about eight
hundred per cent, and in Scotland above _three thousand six hundred
per cent_;[1] it is difficult to say what is destined to be the ultimate fate
of a country in which the progress of wickedness is so much more rapid
than the increase of the numbers of the people. Nor is the alarming
nature of the prospect diminished by the reflection, that this astonishing
increase in human depravity has taken place during a period of
unexampled prosperity and unprecedented progress, during which the
produce of the national industry had tripled, and the labours of the
husbandman kept pace with the vast increase in the population they
were to feed--in which the British empire carried its victorious arms
into every quarter of the globe, and colonies sprang up on all sides with
unheard-of rapidity--in which a hundred thousand emigrants came
ultimately to migrate every year from the parent state into the new
regions conquered by its arms, or discovered by its adventure. If this is
the progress of crime during the days of its prosperity, what is it likely
to become in those of its decline, when this prodigious vent for
superfluous numbers has come to be in a great measure closed, and this
unheard-of wealth and prosperity has ceased to gladden the land?
[Footnote 1: See No. 343, _Blackwood's Magazine_, p. 534, Vol. lv.]
To discover to what causes this extraordinary increase of crime is to be
ascribed, we must first examine the localities in which it has principally
arisen, and endeavour to ascertain whether it is to be found chiefly in
the agricultural, pastoral, or manufacturing districts. We must then
consider the condition of the labouring classes, and the means provided

to restrain them in the quarters where the progress of crime has been
most alarming; and inquire whether the existing evils are
insurmountable and unavoidable, or have arisen from the supineness,
the errors, and the selfishness of man. The inquiry is one of the most
interesting which can occupy the thoughts of the far-seeing and humane;
for it involves the temporal and eternal welfare of millions of their
fellow-creatures;--it may well arrest the attention of the selfish, and
divert for a few minutes the profligate from their pursuits; for on it
depends whether the darling wealth of the former is to be preserved or
destroyed, and the exciting enjoyments of the other arrested or suffered
to continue.
To elucidate the first of these questions, we subjoin a table, compiled
from the Parliamentary returns, exhibiting the progress of serious crime
in the