Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 3

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, 112,175 ... 133,443 205 155,072 505 Forfar, 113,430 ... 139,666 124 l70,520 333
--PORTER'S _Parl. Tables, and Census_ 1841.]
Here, then, we are at length on firm ground in point of fact. Several writers of the liberal school who had a partiality for manufactures, because their chief political supporters were to be found among that class of society, have laboured hard to show that manufactures are noways detrimental either to health or morals; and that the mortality and