Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 2

are to ourselves, we should be too happy to take them for granted, as they do first principles in the House of Commons, and proceed at once to the means of remedy. But the facts on this subject have been so often misrepresented by party or prejudice, and are in themselves so generally unknown, that it is indispensable to lay a foundation in authentic information before proceeding further in the inquiry. The greatest difficulty which those practically acquainted with the subject experience in such an investigation, is to make people believe their statements, even when founded on the most extensive practical knowledge, or the more accurate statistical inquiry. There is such a prodigious difference between the condition of mankind and the progress of corruption in the agricultural or pastoral, and manufacturing or densely peopled districts, that those accustomed to the former will not believe any statements made regarding the latter. They say they are incredible or exaggerated; that the persons who make them are _t��tes mont��es_; that their ideas are very vague, and their suggestions utterly unworthy the consideration either of men of sense or of government. With such deplorable illusions does ignorance repel the suggestions of knowledge; theory, of experience; selfishness, of philanthropy; cowardice, of resolution. Thus nothing whatever is done to remedy or avert the existing evils: the districts not endangered unite as one man to resist any attempt to form a general system for the alleviation of misery or diminution of crime in those that are, and the preponderance of the unendangered districts in the legislature gives them the means of effectually doing so. The evils in the endangered districts are such, that it is universally felt they are beyond the reach of local remedy or alleviation. Thus, between the two, nothing whatever is done to arrest, or guard against, the existing or impending evils. Meanwhile, destitution, profligacy, sensuality, and crime, advance with unheard-of rapidity in the manufacturing districts, and the dangerous classes there massed together combine every three or four years in some general strike or alarming insurrection, which, while it lasts, excites universal terror, and is succeeded, when suppressed, by the same deplorable system of supineness, selfishness, and infatuation.
[Footnote 2: Table showing the number of committments for serious crimes, and population, in the year 1841, in the under-mentioned counties of Great Britain;--
I.--PASTORAL.
Names of Counties. Population Commitments Proportion of in 1841. for serious crime committments in 1841. to population.
Cumberland, 178,038 151 1 in 1,194 Derby, 272,217 277 1 in 964 Anglesey, 50,891 13 1 in 3,900 Carnarvon, 81,093 33 1 in 2,452 Inverness-shire, 97,799 106 1 in 915 Selkirkshire, 7,990 4 1 in 1,990 Argyleshire, 97,371 96 1 in 1,010
Total, 785,399 680 1 in 1,155
II.-AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING.
Commitments Proportion of Population for serious crime commitments Names of Counties. in 1841. in 1841. to population.
Shropshire, 239,048 416 1 in 574 Kent, 548,337 962 1 in 569 Norfolk, 412,664 666 1 in 518 Essex, 344,979 647 1 in 533 Northumberland, 250,278 226 1 in 1,106 East Lothian, 35,886 38 1 in 994 Perthshire, 137,390 116 1 in 1,181 Aberdeenshire, 192,387 92 1 in 2,086
Total, 2,160,969 3,163 1 in 682
III.-MANUFACTURING AND MINING.
Commitments Proportion of Population for serious crime commitments Names of Counties. in 1841. in 1841. to population.
Middlesex, 1,576,636 3,586 1 in 439 Lancashire, 1,667,054 3,987 1 in 418 Staffordshire, 510,504 1,059 1 in 482 Yorkshire, 1,591,480 1,895 1 in 839 Glamorganshire, 171,188 189 1 in 909 Lanarkshire, 426,972 513 1 in 832 Renfrewshire 155,072 505 1 in 306 Forfarshire, 170,520 333 1 in 512
Total, 6,269,426 12,067 1 in 476
--PORTER'S _Parl. Tables_, 1841, 163; and Census 1841.]
The table in the note exhibits the number of commitments for serious offences, with the population of each, of eight counties--pastoral, agricultural, and manufacturing--in Great Britain during the year 1841[2]. We take the returns for that year, both because it was the year in which the census was taken, and because the succeeding year, 1842, being the year of the great outbreak in England, and violent strike in Scotland, the figures, both in that and the succeeding year, may be supposed to exhibit a more unfavourable result for the manufacturing districts than a fair average of years. From this table, it appears that the vast preponderance of crime is to be found in the manufacturing or densely-peopled districts, and that the proportion per cent of commitments which they exhibit, as compared with the population, is generally three, often five times, what appears in 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