deterring others by the fear of punishment from the commission of offences (ut pana ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniat.—Cicero pro Cluentio), may be supposed to be involved in this question, we incline to think that transportation is of all punishments the least effectual. This is a case in which the maxim de non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio is strictly applicable. A punishment that is to be carried into effect at the Antipodes is too remote, and its infliction depends, in the belief of every one, on too many contingent circumstances, to have any sensible influence. Were offenders, who are to be transported, subjected to some degrading penalty, such as public whipping, before leaving England, the case might be different; but as it is, banishment has little or no effect in deterring from crime. Returns of Crimes.-We have subjoined the official returns of the various offences committed for some years past, which will give some idea of the state of crime in the country. In many respects, however, these returns are not what could be wished for. Their arrangement, considered in a scientific point of view, has been much, and, we think, justly objected to. The object in making a table of offences should, as much as possible, be directed to the grouping or bringing together under the same head, of those that spring from the same motives, or from the indulgence of the same passion; inasmuch as the hopes of repressing crime must depend principally on the means of obviating or counteracting the causes in which it originates: but, in the tables below, this distinction is very imperfectly attended to. The most discordant crimes, to give only one example, are classed together under the first head, or that of "offences against the person." Premeditated murder, to gratify a malignant disposition, or to acquire property, murder committed in a sudden fit of anger, occasioned by some gross provocation, rapes with or without murder, assaults on peace-officers employed to quell a riotous assembly, or to detect or prevent some smuggling transactions, attempts to procure abortion, bigamy, childstealing, and so forth, are all huddled together under this head, though the character of the crimes, and the motives which led to them, be as different as it is possible to imagine. The same is the case with the other divisions. The classification has been made to depend, in every instance, too much on the crime abstractly considered, or on the mode in which the vicious propensity was indulged, and too little on the circumstances in which it arose, or on the nature of the propensity that led to it. No doubt it is easier to point out a defect than to suggest a remedy; but the importance of the subject, and the countenance which the present classification gives to erroneous reasoning and to bad or defective systems of criminal legislation, require that no means should be left untried to have offences classified on some more correct principle. A most important return in the statistics of crime would be one showing the number of each class of offences committed, with the number of instances in which detection and punishment followed. In the country it might be difficult to procure a return of this sort; but in London, and other great towns, where the police have notice of almost all offences, one should think it might be procured sufficiently exact for most practical purposes. We may further observe, that many false inferences have been drawn from comparing together returns as to the state of crime in different countries, and in the same country at different periods. Such returns are obviously good for nothing, except to deceive and mislead, unless the classification of offences in the countries and periods compared together were the same, and unless the police and the laws were similar, the former possessing nearly the same vigilance, and the latter being enforced with about the same precision. But it is needless to say that the greatest discrepancy obtains in all these particulars. The classification of offences is not the same in any two countries, and it is perpetually varying even in the same country. The greatest differences are, however, to be found in the state of the police, and the administration of criminal justice in different countries and periods. Were one to compare the returns of committals in a place without a police, with the returns from the same place after a police had been established, or the returns under an inefficient with those under an efficient police, there would, we doubt not, appear to be an extraordinary increase of crime; whereas the fair presumption is, that, instead of being increased, it is not a little diminished. The cause of the excess is obvious. It results entirely from the circumstance that many offences that formerly escaped all public notice have latterly been brought under the cognizance of the tribunals; though it is, at the same time, abundantly certain that this greater vigilance must have materially diminished the real number of offences. Unless, therefore, we are well assured that the classification of crimes, the activity of the police, and the spirit of the tribunals are nearly the same in the countries and æras for which we have returns, little or nothing that is to be depended on can be learned from comparing them together. Much of that extraordinary increase of crime that is said to have taken place in Great Britain within the last twenty years is, there is good reason to think, apparent only, and is mainly occasioned by the bringing of more crimes to light through the superior organisation of the police, and the more rigid enforcement of the law. During the war, and for some years after, the police was comparatively inefficient; and many offences that would now be visited by a pretty severe punishment, were passed over without any public notice, on the offender consenting to enter the army or navy. We do not, however, inean by this to say that there has been no increase of crime since 1815; offences against property have, no doubt, increased during that interval; but we doubt whether their real increase has materially exceeded that of the population; and whether all the excess be not ascribable to the circumstances now alluded to, that is, to the extension and greater vigilance of the police, and the stricter enforcement of the law. The frequency of crime is, also, materially dependent on the state of the country at the time with respect to employment and subsistence. In years when there is a brisk demand for labour, or when wages are good and provisions low priced and abundant, there is always a considerable decrease of crime; and, conversely, when employment is scarce, wages low, and provisions deficient and dear. It is in the circumstances now specified that we are to seek for an explanation of the very considerable diminution in the number of commitments in 1844 and 1845, compared with those in 1841 and 1842. VOL. II. 21 |