Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 3

the purely agricultural
and pastoral districts. The comparative criminality of the agricultural,
manufacturing, and pastoral districts is not to be considered as
accurately measured by these returns, because so many of the
agricultural counties, especially in England, are overspread with towns
and manufactories or collieries. Thus Kent and Shropshire are justly
classed with agricultural counties, though part of the former is in fact a
suburb of London, and of the latter overspread with demoralizing coal
mines. The entire want of any police force in some of the greatest
manufacturing counties, as Lanarkshire, by permitting
nineteen-twentieths of the crime to go unpunished, exhibits a far less
amount of criminality than would be brought to light under a more
vigilant system. But still there is enough in this table to attract serious
and instructive attention. It appears that the average of seven pastoral
counties exhibits an average of 1 commitment for serious offences out
of 1155 souls: of eight counties, partly agricultural and partly
manufacturing, of 1 in 682: and of eight manufacturing and mining, of
1 in 476! And the difference between individual counties is still more
remarkable, especially when counties purely agricultural or pastoral can

be compared with those for the most part manufacturing or mining.
Thus the proportion of commitment for serious crime in the pastoral
counties of
Anglesey, is 1 in 3900 Carnarvon, 1 in 2452 Selkirk, 1 in 1990
Cumberland, 1 in 1194
In the purely agricultural counties of
Aberdeenshire, is 1 in 2086 East-Lothian, 1 in 994 Northumberland, 1
in 1106 Perthshire, 1 in 1181
While in the great manufacturing or mining counties of
Lancashire, is 1 in 418 Staffordshire, 1 in 482 Middlesex, 1 in 439
Yorkshire, 1 in 839 Lanarkshire, 1 in 832[3] Renfrewshire, 1 in 306
[Footnote 3: Lanarkshire has no police except in Glasgow, or its serious
crime would be about 1 in 400, or 350.]
Further, the statistical returns of crime demonstrate, not only that such
is the present state of crime in the densely peopled and manufacturing
districts, compared to what obtains in the agricultural or pastoral, but
that the tendency of matters is still worse;[4] and that, great as has been
the increase of population during the last thirty years in the
manufacturing and densely peopled districts, the progress of crime has
been still greater and more alarming. From the instructive and curious
tables below, constructed from the criminal returns given in _Porter's
Parliamentary Tables_, and the returns of the census taken in 1821,
1831, and 1841, it appears, that while in some of the purely pastoral
counties, such as Selkirk and Anglesey, crime has remained during the
last twenty years nearly stationary, and in some of the purely
agricultural, such as Perth and Aberdeen, it has considerably
_diminished_, in the agricultural and mining or manufacturing, such as
Shropshire and Kent, it has doubled during the same period: and in the
manufacturing and mining districts, such as Lancashire, Staffordshire,
Yorkshire, and Renfrewshire, more than tripled in the same time. It
appears, from the same authentic sources of information, that the
progress of crime during the last twenty years has been much more
rapid in the manufacturing and densely peopled than in the simply
densely peopled districts; for in Middlesex, during the last twenty years,
population has advanced about fifty per cent, and serious crime has
increased in nearly the same proportion, having swelled from 2480 to
3514: whereas in Lancashire, during the same period, population has

advanced also fifty per cent, but serious crime has considerably _more
than doubled_, having risen from 1716 to 3987.
[Footnote 4: Table, showing the comparative population, and
committals for serious crime, in the under-mentioned counties, in the
years 1821, 1831, and 1841.
I.--PASTORAL
1821. 1831. 1841. Pop. Com. Pop. Com. Pop. Com.
Cumberland, 156,124 66 169,681 74 178,038 151 Derby, 213,333 105
237,070 202 272,217 277 Anglesey, 43,325 10 48,325 8 50,891 13
Carnarvon, 57,358 12 66,448 36 81,893 33 Inverness, 90,157 ... 94,797
35 97,799 106 Selkirk, 6,637 ... 6,833 2 7,990 4 Argyle, 97,316 ...
100,973 41 97,321 96
II.--AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING.
1821. 1831. 1841. Pop. Com. Pop. Com. Pop. Com.
Shropshire, 266,153 159 222,938 228 239,048 416 Kent, 426,916 492
479,155 640 548,337 962 Norfolk, 344,368 356 390,054 549 412,664
666 Essex, 289,424 303 317,507 607 344,979 647 Northumberland,
198,965 70 222,912 108 250,278 226 East Lothian, 35,127 ... 36,145
23 35,886 38 Perthshire, 139,050 ... 142,894 140 137,390 116
Aberdeenshire, 155,387 ... 177,657 161 192,387 92
III.--MANUFACTURING AND MINING.
1821. 1831. 1841. Pop. Com. Pop. Com. Pop. Com.
Middlesex, 1,144,531 2,480 1,358,330 3,514 1,576,636 3,586
Lancashire, 1,052,859 1,716 1,336,854 2,352 1,667,054 3,987
Staffordshire, 345,895 374 410,512 644 510,504 1,059 Yorkshire,
801,274 757 976,350 1,270 1,154,111 1,895 Glamorgan, 101,737 28
126,612 132 171,188 189 Lanark, 244,387 ... 316,849 470 426,972 513
Renfrew,