The Press. — London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 11,1858. S. G. 0.," we must say without offence that Mr. Osborne is more of a rhetorician than a phi losopher. On subjects where close and calm thought is required, we distrust his testimony, and his complimentary remarks on ignorance we pass by. Mr. Day has done good service by collecting front various sources the proofs that there is a strong connection between ignorance and crime : The following table presents the degrees of instruction A mong the criminal offenders committed for trial in Eng land and Wales, from 18:18 to 1847, both inclusive, ac cording to the returns in the " Tables of Criminal Offenders," published by the Home-office : ---------- ;Bali' — o&-- , ..., Degrees of Instruction. a 1 ; 0 ; 51 Dffroce. :A t a., „t, :: per cent. 2 ,1- ' it. 2 ^' 7:1 ----------------- -- -- —. Unable to read or write 33.36 30.68 2.64 Able to read or write imperfectly Able to read or write well Superior to reading and writing well 0.13 0 03 Could not be ascertained But the proportion per cent. of those classes who are described as being either " unable to read or write," or who " read and write imperfectly," is by no means so low as the above and similar tables indicate, " because," to quote the words of the Rev. Henry Worsley, with reference to valuable statistics collected by him on this subject, " those whose attainments could not be ascertained are excluded from them, though in all probability belonging to . them, and thrown in among those who could read and write well, or possess superior knowledge. It is, however, even thus sufficiently proved, that in almost all cases (at least in more than nine cases out of ten) crime and ignorance are in close alliance and go hand in hand together." If we examine the police returns of various cities and towns, similar results will be obtained. For example, of the 111,745 persons taken into custody by the metropolitan Police during the years 1855-6 (of which number 36,893 Were juveniles of various ages under twenty), 30,622 could neither read nor write ; 102,334 could read only, or read and write imperfectly ; 7,984 could read and write well ; and but 805 possessed superior instruction. Of the 63,247 cases summarily disposed of, or held to bail, duting the same period (including 17,341 juveniles), there were 11,613 who could neither read nor write ; 48,282 who could read only, or read and write imperfectly ; 2,936 who could read and write well ; and but 366 of superior instruction ; whilst of the 5,756 criminals tried and convicted (including 1,00 juveniles), there were 1,362 who could neither read nor write; 1,944 who could read only, or read and write imperfectly; 1,224 who could read and write well; and only 26 possessing superior instruction. With reference to Liverpool, we find that during the year 15.54 (when for the first time statistics were collected as to the degrees of instruction possessed by the criminals), of the 25,111 persons taken into custody, the total number 570, or 2 per cent. of the whole, could only read and write well; 11,031, or about 43 per cent., could read and write imperfectly, 1,800, or about 7 per cent., could ' , cad only; whilst the number who could neither read nor write num bered 11,650. or about 48 per ;tent.; thus showing, as Major Greig remarks, " the connection between ignorance and crime." During the year 1835, of the 23,689 persons ap prehended in the same town (9,645 being juveniles under ten and not ,exceeding twenty lea's), 11,322, or 44 . 0 per cent., could neither read nor write; 1,688, or 6 . 6 per cent., could read only ; 12,(r20, or 46 . 8 per cent., could read and wnte imperfectly ; and but 639, or 2 . 6 per cent., could read and write well. Further, the chief-constable observes respecting education in connection with particular classes of crime, that " in offences by violence, education is almost entirely wanting, there not being one person charged with shooting, violent assaults, eke., who can read or write well ; while of 1,131, the number charged with common assaults, only one out of every 250 can read and write well. In the commission of certain offences, each as embezzlement, obtaining money by false pretences, and larcenies from offices, the percentage of good education stands high ; of the disorderlies only one in 1,000 can lead and write well ; of the drunk and disorderlies one in 200, and of the drunk and tempable 21 per cent. can read and write well." The Liverpool police report for the first nine months of 1%56 (the latest return published) exhibits no improve ment whatever with respect to the degree of instruction possessed by the persons taken into custody, although the number of juvenile offenders has considerably decreased, consequent, it is alleged, upon the recent law with respect to reformatory institutions, which requires the payment of a weekly sum not exceeding five shillings from those parents whose children are sent thither during the time of their detention; the same weekly amount being recover able before any magistrate by distress, or ten days' im prisonment, for each occasion on which it shall appear that suflicirnt goods cannot be found. This legislative measure has, it is said, acted in a most salutary and marked manner during the short period of its operation. A powerful check, it would seem, has hereby been placed on vicious or negli gent parents, who have subsequently either urged their children to the commission of crime, or not pat a sufficient !elitism upon such of them as are criminally disposed. In Pverpool, then, during the first nine months of 1836, of the 19 ! a36 persons apprehended, 9,386. or 48'6 per cent., could neither read nor write; 1,360, or DO per cent., could read only; 8.009, or 41'4 per cent., could read and write im penectly ; while but 381, or 3 - 0 per cent., could read and wnte well. These are very strong facts. Let us see what the Rev. John Clay, a shrewd and experienced observer, says:— Let me present a short summary of three years' obser vations—hard, naked statistics, which I will clothe in but little commentary. During the period I name, the per formance of my duty has brought me into contact with 1,733 men and boys, and 387 women and girls, altogether unable to read ; with 1,301 men and boys, and 287 women and girls, who knew not the name of the reigning sove reign ; with 1,290 men and boys, and 293 women and girls, so incapable of receiving moral and religions instruction that to speak to them of virtue, vier, iniquity, or holi ness, was to speak to them in an unknown tongue ; and with 1,120 men and boys, and 257 women and girls, so destitute of the merest rudiments of Christian knowledge —so untaught in religions forms and practices—that they knew not the name of Him who died for their sins, nor could they utter a prayer to their Father in Heaven. And thus Mr. Day continues his illustrations : Farther, from Mr. Clay's report for 1850, it appears that of the 1,636 male prisoners under sessions' and summary committals, 671 were unable to read at all, 646 were igno. rant of the Saviour's mime, 917 could not tell who was the reigning sovereign, 1,111 were unable to repeat the months of the year in proper order, and 479 were so uninstructed as not to be able to count a hundred. Again, of the 661 prisoners admitted into the Female Convict Prison at Brixton, from November 24, 1853, to December 31 of the following year, 104 could not read at all, 53 could read only a few syllables, 192 could read but imperfectly, 849 were imperfectly educated, 315 could read tolerably, moat of whom had learned in prison; while not one was what is termed moderately educated. An examination of the various police and prison re• turns for every town and gaol in England and Wales would, I feel persuaded, yield similar results; thereby proving, as logically as facts and figures can be made to prove, that ignorance produces crime as surely as the seething scum rises to the surface in boiling water. By referring to the reports of the Inspectors-General of Prisons for Ireland and Scotland, the same unvarying fact is elicited, that the great mrjority of our criminals are derived from the uneducated masses of the people. Thus, from the Inspector-General's report of I"iah prisons, lately issued, although it appears that education is progressing to some extent among the criminal portion of the population, nevertheless of the 48,446 culprits confined during the year in the various gaols (14,236 of whom were juven►les under ten and not exceeding twenty years old), the large proportion of 22,115 were wholly illiterate, 2,347 merely knew the alphabet, 3,173 only knew spelling, 9,530 could read imperfectly, and but 11,156 could read and write. In Scotland, likewise, where education! is said to be more generally diffused tban in this country, not more than 2 per cent. of the criminal class are well educated, 20 per cent. cannot read at all, 50 per cent. can read imperfectly, and but 28 per cent. can read well. As re• Bards writing, full 51 per cent. cannot even form a letter, 11 per cent. can merely write their names, 29 per cent. can write indiffirently and with difficulty, while only 7 per cent. can write well. This statement is confirmed by Mr. Fred. Hill, late Inspector of Prisons, who observes :—" Of more than 16,000 persons in Scotland received into the prisons in one year, while I was inspector there, only 4,700, or less than one in three, could read well; and less than 1,200, or one in thirteen, could write well ; and of the whole number, only 312, or one in fifty, had learnt more than mere reading and writing ; 3,400 of these prisoners could not read at all, and 8,500 could not write at all." It is certainly, in presence of such facts, not mere speculation to connect ignorance with crime; and we need hardly say it is to the juve nile classes of the community that education should be applied. There are other portions of Mr. Day's work upon which we may comment on another day ; but there are some considerations in this little volume which could not be canvassed in this department of our journal, and which necessarily assume a semi-political aspect. As reviewers we abstain from noticing those portions of the volume. China. Being the Times Special Correspondence from China in the Years 1857-8. By George Wingrove Cooke. London : Routledge. NOTWMISTANDING the proverb on the subject of comparisons, it is not easy to avoid one in a re view of the volume before us. The appearance of Mr. Russell's letters from the Crimea constituted an epoch in literature, and it was their success of course that led to the analogous mission of Mr. Cooke. While the system, therefore, is still young, it will be necessary to scrutinize rival performances with considerable vigilance — noticing what objectionable features are omitted by one writer—what new points of attraction are introduced by another—and generally endeavour ing to find out who approximates nearest to the maximum of interest with the minimum of injury to the public service. That injury may be in flicted on the public st rvice by these revelations from the seat of war we hold to be beyond a doubt. As long as tl:e correspondent is content to transcribe only what he sees himself, or such criticisms only as he is himself fully competent to appreciate, no great harm can be done. The moment he steps beyond these limits his pen becomes a public nuisance. His letters become the regular channel through which all the private jealousies of the camp or the fleet are venti- PB3 lated. Long-tried reputations are destroyed at a stroke, and hardworking meritorious officers gibbetted ibr impossible delinquencies. For, like the Church of Rome, the press must never be mistaken—every error must be stoutly main tained to the last, or its prestige would crumble to the dust. No doubt the system is the right one. In spite of the Staff Officer's letters and Sir Richard Airey's addresses, the Times correspon dent is still omniscient, as the Pope is still in fallible, though he has more than once pro nounced against the laws of nature. It is, then, we repeat, necessary to exercise a jealous super vision over all publications of this nature, and if any one such writer seems more sensible of the delicacy of his position than another to give him our emphatic approbation upon that score. Mr. Cooke, we are happy to say, seems to have adopted throughout a more becoming estimate of his duties than his celebrated predecessor. He was sent out as an artist, and not like one of the Spartan magistrates, to watch and report upon the strategy and tactics of the expedition. As lite rary workmen the two gentlemen, thoLgh un like, are not unequal. Mr. Cooke is the more simple, the more humorous, and the more en gaging of the two—perhaps the more gentleman like; Mr. Russell is decidedly more graphic, more rich, and more striking. The letters of the latter are the more attractive in the shape in which they originally appeared ; the former are more agreeable in a collected volume than in periodical instalments. The one were more effective at the moment ; the other, if we mis take not, will be received as a more trustworthy authority hereafter. These letters may be roughly divided into those which treat of warlike operations, those which describe manners, and those which relate to commerce. It is difficult to say under which head Mr. Cooke deserves the most commenda tion. his account of the affair at Fatshan Creek is brilliant and sparkling. his exposition of the commercial wants and capabilities of the Celes tial empire is clear and sensible ; and his pictures of the inhabitants and their customs quietly and unaffectedly piquant. It may be worth while to recall to our readers minds the following re markable account of the interior of China, even though they may have previously perused it in the Times: — But the chief and ell-sufficient reason why we are not doing what we ought to do in China is, that China is nut open to our mercliandize. Of course, there is a Spitalfields.ball sort of feeling in China, as elsewhere ' • and official persons, being all in China of the good old Tory school, set their faces against foreign goods. 1 have been told of Chinamen stating they were ready to take shiploads of Manchester goods if they could only be protected from the interference of their own mandarins. - But this is a very minor consideration. The authorities in China are strong against an individual, but utterly powerless against a popular feeling. China in this respect is the most democratic country in the world ; witness the growth of the poppy, the difficulty of raising new taxes, the immediate downfall of an unpopular officer, and the utter failure of the Emperor and all his power at Pekin to force into circulation his debased 10-cash piece. The evil is that British goods are not brought ander the eyes of the Chinamen of the interior cities. A Chinamen is the in• carnation of what some people in England would call common sense. He has no prejudices of any kind, patriotic, religious, or sentimental. He has a strong clan nish family selfishness, and that is all. You have nothing, therefore, to do but to convince him that you have that to sell which it would suit him to have, sod that you can sell it at a lower price than he can get it at elsewhere. Convince the people of this, and all the mandarins in China will not stop your sales. At present, however, you are only upon the outer fringe of the great Chinese empire. Yon might have made more of your sphere of action than you have made, but you are not trading with China. All our ports, except Shanghai, are separated from the inland waters of China by a chain of mountains. A con tinuation of the Himalayas, at a much lower altitude, tracks the whole coastline of China at some distance from the sea, and passes out at toe archipelago of Chusan. Inside those mountains lies the bulk of the empire of China--outside lie our trading-porta. • • •• •• • There is a way of getting behind these bills and into the central districts of the empire—a way wherein the mer chant may travel without toil or danger; where no robbers can assail him at a vantage ; where secret imposts cannot spoil his markets—a way which extends up to the furthest limits of the empire, and whence convenient and innu merable ways branch forth, reaching to every hamlet of this great central region. The gate at which we must enter China is the mouth of the Yang-tse•Kiang. Give us entrance there, in our own ships, in our own steamers, and we can deposit our goods in every great city of the interior of China. Let us start from Shanghai, and make an imaginary voyage up this river. With the exception of DI. Hue, no Ar