The Sun.
London, England, 1812-01-18 00:00:00

ithis was 'by-no means certain. tt might 'be- true .
tthat the strength of the stimulus which high re-
waads offered on the detectionaar. veal offendeis,
:occasioned -operating inversely on the detection:
tof petty offenders. 'lt might, however, be true, that
;instead of abolishing rewards altogethereit would he'
wise to extend them •to the deteetion •of petty Of-
fences, in order that petty offendets might be stop.-
ped'in their career, and not allowed to proceed to
commission of 'enormous crimeS. On all these
,subjects a variety of opinions must naturally exist ;
•but he could Tay ,no means allow that the Coni-
mittee proposed by his Honourable Friend could
be so well calculated to discuss those opinions as .
one expressly constituted -for that purpose. With
respect to what the Honourable Gentleman had
said of the familiarity that existed between the
Police Officers and the culprits, there could
ibe no doubt that stories of that description had
been constantly written and told from Jona- •
:than Wild's rime-down to the. present Moment. No
otie, however, could say that-that familiarity, which
-was evidently net novel in its kind, had been the im-
mediate cause of the late unprecedented ouiragesa—
'He certainly did not mean to contend that becauSe
'an-evil had long existed, it ought not to be cor-
recttd, but it was impossible to ascribe the recent e
increase of offences either to the -rewards granted
:far lite detection •of great offenders, or to the
familiarity which existed. between the offenders
pod the Police officers ; 'because both those cir-
cumstances, so far from being new, were of
very ancient date indeed. But when the Ho-
nourable Gentleman proceeded to say that the
officers were reprehensible in not apprehend-
ing those individuals of a suspicious clierater, with
-whose persons they were acquainted, it behoved the
House to consider how far any extension of the 01)e-
--ration of the Police would be expedient, and how
.far it would be advisable that they should taste up ,
:persons not for the crimes which they had commit-
ted, bot on suspicion of the crimes which they
might possibly.commit. The itnprisonincnt of sudh
persons could be but short, and was little calculated
to be beneficial to themselves; or to the eamtnunity.
Ththe villain who had lately disappointed the just
vengeance of the nation; by violently withdrawing
himaelf from tbe punishment which, awaited him,
had, previouslyto commission of his crime, been ap-
irehended on suspicion, the period of his imprison-
menecould have been'but short, and the place of it
calculated, according to the Hon. Gentletnan's
own statement, to nurture every deacription•of cri-
minal feeheg. The particular outrage which had
.excited such feelings of horror and detestation in
The metropolis, and the perpetrators of which, ,the
Hots. Gentleman said, had escaped de!ectien,
.was
still wrapped up in mystery.. It undoubtedly seemed
strange, that a single individual could commit such
accumulated violence. The probability was, :that
he w rs incapable of doing so ; but op' this. subject
no certain opinion cauld• yea be formed. It this
outrage was actually committed •by tee. individual
to whom he had before alluded, it was untrue to
say that the. culprit hid not been found ; but cer-
tainly he most 'repeat,' that It seemed strange to.
him, that such' devastation could be occasioned
by a dingle individual. At the " same time, as
far as he had been able to trace the circumstances
of thethew case, it appeared to be yet uncertain
whether-.not others were conce.ned in this,
horrible atrocity. But, as the Honourable, Gent le-
man had himself said, no state of nightly watch,
however excellent, could have presented such a
crime. Indeed he hardly knew in what system of
police a prevention could have been found. If such
enormous guilt lurked in a human breat, no system
of Government could hinder it from endeavouring
to effect its object. It might be &lose to us; it
might be in our houses. The only security against
such crimes was the mariner in which the general
sentiment of mankind hunted down the individuals
by whom they were perpetrated. In his opinion,
tae general increase of trials at the Old Bailey was
a much greater ground for the motion of his Right
Hon. Friend, than the two horrid murders which
had -been committed for such events as the last
were not the more likely to occur again because,
they had occurred wi hie the last three months. 'lt
appeared to him, that what had been said by his
Hon. and Learned' Friend, and by the Hon. Gentle-
man, was'not id opposition to the motion of his
'Right Han. Friend. As far as that motion went, he
apprehended it was agreed to by every one. It was
required by the present s ate of thenietropolis, and
be trusted that those who thought that the inquiries
of the Committee would be beneficial, u ould be
cautious how they clogged those inquiries with sub-
jects not immediately connected with-them. When
the Committee were sitting, if it were thought desir-
able that they should take into consideration any
oilier subject, instructions to that effect might be
given them ; but he deprecatea any proceeding in
the first instance which would impede them` in
their present endeavours to provide a nractical re-
medy for the existipai evil. -
Mr. ABERCROMBIE Said, it war evident from the
growth of crimes that the Police was inadequate to
its objet. It was moat desirable, theref4e, that
the Committee should be enapOweredao inquire of
the Police the nature of their inadeqUacy, and to
learn the causes to which they imputed theincrease
of of-let-ices. For his part he believed that thecauses
stated by his Hon. and" Learned Friend near him,
, had tended materially to increase.the number of re-
cent offences. One faea lie knew, dot in conse-
quence of a visit to the. house,, a number of repre-
sentations had been made to him by persons con-
fined there, which went to shew that Other prisoners
who had been confined for crimes of a much more
aggravated nature, than thoie of which the indivi-
duals from whom the representations proceeded, had
been guilty, had been liberated in great nUmbers.—
He certainly did not state this as a fad in which he
entirely believed, but the matter had been commu-
nicated to him in such various shapes, that', he
confessed himself curious to kmoW, from the
Right Honourable Secretaty of State how it ac-
tually stood. It certainty was most extraordi-
nary to hear the Right Honourable Gentleman
term the consideiation of the causes which
,pre-
vented people from sleeping_ quietly in their beds
" theoretic." The Right Honourable Gentleman
must certaiuly have meant this observation jocularly,
Indeed he had treated in the saine manner a very
solid and judicious remark made by an Honourable
Friend near him. His Hon. Friend had swirl, that
if by a vigorous exertion of the Police, all abandoned
characters shouuld be excluded from the metropolis,