Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine

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

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV.
July, 1844. Vol. LVI., by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
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.
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No. CCCXLV. JULY, 1844. VOL. LVI.
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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.
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PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.
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BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
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No. CCCXLV. JULY, 1844. VOL. LVI.
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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 principal counties, agricultural pastoral, and manufacturing, of the empire, during the last fifteen years. We are unwilling to load our pages with figures, and are well aware how distasteful they are to a large class of readers; and if those results were as familiar to others as they