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 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 _têtes montées_; 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 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 crime of the manufacturing counties were in no respect greater
than those of the pastoral or agricultural districts. The common
sense of mankind has uniformly revolted against this absurdity, so
completely contrary to what experience every where tells in a
language not to be misunderstood; but it has now been completely
disproved by the Parliamentary returns. The criminal statistics have
exposed this fallacy as completely, in reference to the different
degrees of depravity in different parts of the empire, as the
registrar-general's returns have, in regard to the different degrees
of salubrity in employments, and mortality in rural districts and
manufacturing places. It now distinctly appears that crime is greatly
more prevalent in proportion to the numbers of the people in densely
peopled than thinly inhabited localities, and that it is making far
more rapid progress in the former situation than the latter.
Statistics are not to be despised when they thus, at once and
decisively, disprove errors so assiduously spread, maintained by
writers of such respectability, and supported by such large and
powerful bodies in the state.

Nor can it be urged with the slightest degree of foundation, that
this superior criminality of the manufacturing and densely peopled
districts is owing to a police force being more generally established
than in the agricultural or pastoral, and thus crime being more
thoroughly detected in the former situation than the latter. For, in
the first place, in several of the greatest manufacturing counties,
particularly Lanarkshire in Scotland, there is no police at all; and
the criminal establishment is just what it was forty years ago. In
the next place, a police force is the _consequence_ of a previous
vast accumulation or crime, and is never established till the risk to
life and insecurity to property had rendered it unbearable. Being
always established by the voluntary assessment of the inhabitants,
nothing can be more certain than that it never can be called into
existence but by such an increase of crime as has rendered it a
matter of necessity.

We are far, however, from having approached the whole truth, if we
have merely ascertained, upon authentic evidence, that crime is
greatly more prevalent in the manufacturing than the rural districts.
That will probably be generally conceded; and the preceding details
have been given merely to show the extent of the difference, and the
rapid steps which it is taking. It is more material to inquire what
are the causes of this superior profligacy of manufacturing to rural
districts; and whether it arises unavoidably from the nature of their
respective employments, or is in some degree within the reach of
human amendment or prevention.

It is usual for persons who are not practically acquainted with the
subject, to represent manufacturing occupations as necessarily and
inevitably hurtful to the human mind. The crowding together, it is
said, young persons, of different sexes and in great numbers, in the
hot atmosphere and damp occupations of factories or mines, is
necessarily destructive to morality, and ruinous to regularity of
habit. The passions are excited by proximity of situation or indecent
exposure; infant labour early emancipates the young from parental
control; domestic subordination, the true foundation for social
virtue, is destroyed; the young exposed to temptation before they
have acquired strength to resist it; and vice spreads the more
extensively from the very magnitude of the establishments on which
the manufacturing greatness of the country depends. Such views are
generally entertained by writers on the social state of the country;
and being implicitly adopted by the bulk of the community, the nation
has abandoned itself to a sort of despair on the subject, and
regarding manufacturing districts as the necessary and unavoidable
hotbed of crimes, strives only to prevent the spreading of the
contagion into the rural parts of the country.

There is certain degree of truth in these observations; but they are
much exaggerated, and it is not in these causes that the principal
sources of the profligacy of the manufacturing districts is to be
found.

The real cause of the demoralization of manufacturing towns is to be
found, not in the nature of the employment which the people there
receive, so much as in the manner in which they are brought together,
the unhappy prevalence of general strikes, and the prodigious
multitudes who are cast down by the ordinary vicissitudes of life, or
the profligacy of their parents, into a situation of want,
wretchedness, and despair.

Consider how, during the last half century, the people have been
brought together in the great manufacturing districts of England and
Scotland. So rapid has been the progress of manufacturing industry
during that period, that it has altogether out-stripped the powers of
population in the districts where it was going forward, and
occasioned a prodigious influx of persons from different and distant
quarters, who have migrated from their paternal homes, and settled in
the manufacturing districts, never to return.[5] Authentic evidence
proves, that not less than _two millions_ of persons have, in this
way, been transferred to the manufacturing counties of the north of
England within the last forty years, chiefly from the agricultural
counties of the south of that kingdom, or from Ireland. Not less than
three hundred and fifty thousand persons have, during the same
period, migrated into the two manufacturing counties of Lanark and
Renfrew alone, in Scotland, chiefly from the Scotch Highlands, or
north of Ireland. No such astonishing migration of the human species
in so short a time, and to settle on so small a space, is on record
in the whole annals of the world. It is unnecessary to say that the
increase is to be ascribed chiefly, if not entirely, to immigration;
for it is well known that such is the unhealthiness of manufacturing
towns, especially to young children, that, so far from being able to
add to their numbers, they are hardly ever able, without extraneous
addition, to maintain them.

[Footnote 5: Table showing the Population in 1801, 1891, and 1841, in
the under-mentioned counties of Great Britain.

Increase in
1801 1821 1841 forty years.

Lancashire, 672,731 1,052,859 1,667,054 994,323
Yorkshire, W.R., 565,282 801,274 1,154,101 588,819
Staffordshire, 233,153 343,895 510,504 277,351
Nottingham, 140,350 186,873 249,910 109,560
Warwick, 208,190 274,322 401,715 193,155
Gloucester, 250,809 335,843 431,383 180,574

2,070,515 2,995,066 4,412,667 2,343,782


Lanark, 146,699 244,387 434,972 288,273
Renfrew, 78,056 112,175 155,072 77,016

224,755 356,562 590,044 365,289

- _Census of_ 1841. Preface, p. 8 and 9.]