The Express.
London, England, 1851-03-14 00:00:00

THIEVES AND THIEF-TAKERS.

(Prom the Dees Nrprs )
The; county police of the present day appears to
be about as efficient as the London pollee in the days
of JONATHAN WILD. And there is moreover a
striking similarity between the extent and organisa-
tion of a dishonest portion of the tranesnum class in
the great city in the time of that worthy, and of tho
counties in ours.

Students of the Newtrate Calendar aid the State
Trials cannot fail to have been struck with the apparent
number of individuals, ostensibly engaged in an honest
trade, who were more or less mixed upwith plunder-
ing. fraternities in London about the beginning of
lust century. It was out of this state of society that
a class of amateur thief-takers grew up. In a trial
of some rascals who had instigated several foolish
fellows to engage in a robbery, and then, for
the reward, informed against and had them arrested,
one of the witnesses, when asked what his
business wad, coolly replied. " I am a shoemaker,
and sometimes catch a thief." The thief-catch-
ing was an agreeable variation of his ordinary
pursuits--like fishing or fowling it whined an
f4treeable excitement with the obtaining of an extra
dainty dish for his table. JONATHAN WILD and his
colleagues began in this way, but having an eye to
business they ended by becoming professional thief-
catchers—from being occasional sportsmen they be-
came gamekeepers.
The trial at Lewes for a burglary committed at
Uekfield, on the morning of New Year's Day, which
was reported in yesterday's paper. curries us back to
the days of JONATHAN WILD. The perpetrators of
the offence were shoemakers, 'casket -makers,
labourers. in the eye of the public they hod all
fixed dwellings and ostensible callings; Gut they
were members of is contedenicy of robbers whose
operations extended over the throe counties of Kent,
Surrey, and Sussex. They had their regular agents
for receiving and disposing of their plunder. They
assembled when the fiery cross was sent round
among them. And they appear to have had the pre-
caution to select for the scenes of their predatory
operations localities remote from their plates of
abode.

In the great towns which have a tolerably organ-
ised police a pretty effective separation hiss been
made between the crime class and the industrial
classes. Once a thief, a man must then be a thief
out and out. He can (except in rare and exmptional
cases) no more he a professtoted thief and a trades-
man and artisan at the sante time, than he can be at
once a barrister and a surgeon. The division of
labour has been introduced even here, and a man
must stick to his trade. For individual criminals
this result of a well-organised police has the dis-
advantage of rendering their almndonment of
their nefarious pursuits more difficult. Thu
1 police know every mender of rasculdom by
head mark, and policemen are no believers
in the information of thieves. But the public are gain-
ers. The army of dishonesty is numbered and cata-
logued. They are compelled to herd together ; their
power for evil is ascertained; they are watched and
thwarted. So long as the goats are not in this man-
ner set apart from the sheep, it 114 not easy to foresee
Irene what quarter attacks are to be made upon lieu-
ple'sjairses and pantries; and us there is no discredit
attached to personal intercourse with men who con-
ceal their predatory characters under the disguise of
being honest tradesmen, the industrial classes are
more liable to form acquaintance with those who
may seduce thent front the paths of integrity.
Our police organisation and penal laws are still
lamentably defective every where. But the separa-
tion of the professional crime class Irian the indus-
trial classes, the necessary result of an adequate
organised body of police, is an important step towards
their perfection. The honest portion of society is
thereby liberated to a great extent from the conta-
gious companionship of crime; and by ascertaining
the number and abilities of the dishonest it is 101-
tiered more easy to devise means of dealing with
them.

In respect of civilisation the counties, as is clearly
shown by the trial of the licktield burglars, are a
century and more behind the towns. To enable
them to make up their lee-way a county police is in-
dispensable. And the establishment of a county
pollee must he the work of the enmities themselves.
They have been pretty well frightened of late—they
have had ample motives afforded them to set about
supplying the deficiency. The central government
cannot do this for them; it wants the local know-
lege mid leisure to superintend and control.
And the old organisation of justices and con-
stables has proved inadequate: the organised plun-
derers of Woking have grown up under the noses of
justice and constables, and attained to a skill
in combination that enabled them to levy contribu-
tions on the country for twenty or thirty miles
round. Stipendiary magistrates, with an efficient
police force, paid by county rates, imposed, levied,
and expended under the control of elective county
boards, can alone ensure to the counties the compum-
tive security front criminals enjoyed by the large
towns.

The men who committed the Uckfield burglary
came from Woking and its neighbourhood. The
smile of the Frimley murder is in their district.
The fact is, that part of the country abounds
with a very equivocal class of characters. On
NVoking Common, and on other of the numerous com-
mons still to be met with in Surrey, there are
whole colonies of squatters. Aud on the borders of
these commons are numerous small proprietors,
whose tenements, whether legalised by preseription or
inclosure bills, were originally cribs from the com-
mons. 'lbis cluss form an intermediate link between
the tramps and the poorer settled residents of the
villages. They are many of them industriously and
honestly disposed, but they are destitute of educa-
tion ; they are eminently accessible to the corrupting
influence of the dishonest with whom they may be
brought into contact, and having apparently the
means of an honest livelihood, they are not obnoxious
to suspicion. Recent events have ow-skewd atten-
tion to the fearful amount of depravity that has been
diffused among them by " evi commu nications,"amd the
respectable inhabitants of the district feel themselves
in a precarious situation, surrounded by a crime
class the numbers and organisation of which defy
detection. We speak of this district, because the
trials at Lewes and elsewhere have thrown light
upon its social condition that is yet wanting for
other parts of England, but it is not an excep-
tional case.

A police system for counties as closely analogous
to that which has been established in towns as cir-

cumstancts admit of, is clearly the first thing
wanted. Scarcely less urgent is the general esta-
blishment of efficient schools. The teaching of the
clergy is comparatively inoperative in the rural dis-
tricts, because the intellects of the population have
not been sufficiently cultivated to receive the good
seed. Besides, intellectual culture brings prudential
considerations, and a sense of self-respect into play
to co-operate with and strengthen the higher notions
of morality and religion. For the civilisation of our
rural districts it is necessary that the policeman and
the schoolmaster should be set to work, not indeed
in concert, but at the same time.

LORD CAMPBELL'S BILL ON CRIMINAL JESTICIL—
Lord Campbell's hill to improve the administration of
criminal justice, now in the Rome of Lords, has been
printed. It contains 31 clauses. The object of this bill, as
expressed in the preamble, is to prevent offenders escaping
conviction by technical strictness in the proceedings. A
criminal court may amend any variance not material to the
merits of a case. In indictments fur murder and men-
slaughter, the manner and means in and b which the
crime was committed need not be specified. In trials for
felony, if the offence be not completed, the parties may he
found guilty of an attempt to commit the same, and in that
ease arc to be liable to the same consequences as if they had
been indicted and convicted of the attempt to commit the
felony only. Among various alterations contemplated, is
one of anovel character on the arraignment of a defendant
either for felony or misdemeanour. lie is not to be called
upon to plead " guilty " or " not guilty," but shall bo
asked " whether he wishes to plead guilty, or any other
plea, or to be tried ?" If he shall say he wishes to he tried,
then the officer shall enter a plea of " not guilty," and
guilty
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to be signed by the person selling the same. Any person
selling arsenic save as authorised by this bill, and every
person giving false information in order to obtain arsenic,
to be summarily convicted before magistrates, and liable to
a penalty not exceeding 20!. The act is not to present the
sale of arsenic in medicine under a medical prescription. A
recent case caused the introduction of this bill.