The Sun.
London, England, 1830-07-21 00:00:00

THE MARCH OF CRIME.

Whatever may be thought of " the march of
intellect," concerning which we hear so much at
the present day in the shape either of cant or
burlesque, there can be no doubt, unhappily,
' that " the march of crime" has of late been fear-
fully accelerated amongst us. Wickedness has
assumed new and unheard-of forms; guilt has
put on a darker and more hideous aspect ; while
enormities unparalleled in the past history of
human depravity, and which even beggar all that
the genius of fiction ever imagined in its wildest
mood, have been perpetrated either in this " in-
tellectual" city or its immediate vicinity, and in
the midst of a population previously supposed to
be remarkable for its high state of moral and
religious cultivation. It is little more than
eighteen months since it was discovered that a
couple of monsters had established a den of
murder in one of the most crowded and popu-
lous districts of the Northern Athena, and were
carrying on a regular traffic in the produce of
their human shambles, It is not eight months
since the cold-blooded, fiend-like butcheries of
Emond, perpetrated under circumstsnces of pe-
culiar and unprecedented atrocity, froze the very
blood in our veins, and made every man tremble
for the safety of his own home. It was only on
Monday last that two incarnate demons were
convicted, at the bar of the Justiciary Court, of
a crime still more unnatural and inhuman than
any of those to which we have just alluded—a
crime, the very thought of which must sicken the
heart of every man who has one particle of
human feeling in his, nature, and which, in all
its circumstances, is universally admitted to be
without example or parallel in the criminal re-
cords of this or of any other country. To what
cause or condition in society, then, are we to
ascribe such appalling manifestations of human
depravity ? And how are we to account for the
commission of such inconceivable atrocities in
the bosom or immediate vicinity of a metropolis
which plumes itself on account of its fancied
superiority to the capitals of other nations, and
considers itself, not unjustly perhaps, as the most
civilised portion of this civilised country ? Po-
verty and misery are usually regarded as the main
causes and chief stimulants of crime ; and, in
point of fact, offences are found to multiply in
proportion as the inhabitants of a country are
reduced below that point in the scale at which
they are enabled to earn a comfortable livelihood,
and as they gradually sink down to the condi-
tion of those who are content if they can procure
the means of prolonging life and sustaining a
mere physical existence. But the offences which
arise out of such a state of things are, for the
most part, offences against property merely; and
as the causes which produce them are often but
temporary in their operation, their deteriorating
and demoralizing effects are checked and coun-
teracted before the mind of the lower classes be-
comes thoroughly corrupted by familiarity with
guilt, and prepared for the 'commission of great
enormities. None of the diabolical atrocities to
which we have alluded, however, appear to
have been the progeny of poverty and misery.
Burke and Hare organised a system of murder
that they might sell the bodies of their victims ;
not to supply their physical wants, but that they
might procure ample means for indulging their
depraved appetites, and rioting in the most brutal
debauchery. Emond beat out the brains of his
sister-in-law and his niece, that he might satiate
a deep, desperate, and determined revenge.
Thomson and Dobie, in the mere diabolical
wantonness of wickedness and with circum-
stances of brutality unequalled on earth, and al-
together worthy of Pandcemoniuin itself, de-
stroyed the poor unhappy creature who had con-
fided in them, and put herself under their pro-
tection, in a manner and with a brutal barbarity
which astounded and appalled even those whose
profession necessarily renders them familiar with
examples of almost every form of iniquity. All
these crimes, therefore, have clearly been the im-
mediate offspring of sheer wickedness and de-
pravity alone ; and they are consequently to be
regarded as manifestations and evidences of the
depth of that moral degradation into which a
certain class of our people have fallen, and of the
facility with which many of them may be induced
to commit any wickedness however great, to
perpetrate any crime however horrible. In fact
some malignant principle appears to have been
generated and become endemic among the class
to which we have referred ; and to have banished
from their minds all fear of God and all regard_
for the laws and institutions of society. They
have grown reckless, abandoned, and desperate ;
devoid of all self-respect or regard to character
or opinion ; shamelessly and outrageously profli-
gate ; utter strangers to all religion ; and ready to
obey the impulse of every corrupt and disorderly
passion. This is a fearful state of things ; but
andptfou eh
multi-
plied wisely truth compels us to paint the picture in its true
l
colours. Matters have gone too far to admit
of palliation or extenuation. A dreadful evil
has suddenly displayed itself, and the only con-
sideration that ought to actuate every ingenuous
and, upright mind, is how to devise a suitable
atennd d unlesse i)tendency
y societyt adequate
usesne,
mite awn
isll It
ouis
ldt
msclear,tartoeyi
ultimately
e ns indeed,da abr
ymt
dihneag.t
l
stroying society. The law has
ebpideol
:eusnswvadiirlgliesocmirilopi
uusly
yd Ea
pxr Examples
alone remains to be employed tl
u us power-
ietinsrtlel
end the
work out a cure. Let us then abandon all
our present quixotism about the conversion of
the heathen, and begin
ovlinysa tei
iltdiithin:iiii‘rnf‘iiolot)rertayriepdre.a)rni but its terrors appear
our religious and moral
charity at home. There is an ample field for
our enterprise at our very doors. We h
heathens greater than any in India, Ai.' rica,ave or
America, around us, near us, in the bosom
of very
of the community of which, we are members.
Let us then commence our labours by trying first
of all to convert the barbarians who call them-
selves civilised.— Caledonian M •
emu) y.

A remarkable coincidence occurred at the
Sessions for this city in the present week. Three jurymen
who were successively called into the box, had each loaf
his left eye. A young punster to whom the circumstance
was pointed out, observed that they could not fail to pee
the case in a right light!—Bristol Mirror.
The following curious notice recently appeared
on Ludford church-door, liens, and previously read in
church This is to give notice, that no person is to be
buried in this church-yard but those living in the parish ;
those who wish to be buried are deeired to apply to toe,
!".....CoentyChronicle.
ErlinAlbl Oliva, parish clerk