The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-16 00:00:00

three, times the cost of the 8 miles speed with the ship B,
and 12 miles speed with the ship B is about four times as
expensive as the 8 miles speed with the ship A. Also, the
extra cost to the public at which freight charges aro en'
hancecl by the inferior type or inferior working condition
of ship 13, as compared with the ship A, if continuously
employed on the liassage of 3,250 nautical miles, and under
the data referred to, assuming the consumption of coal to
bo at the rate of 4lbs per ind. h. p. per hour, and according
as the steaming speed of both ships may be 8, 10, or 12
knots per hour, is no less than 32 per cent. at 8 knots, 5.3
per cent, at 10 knots, and 111 per cent. at 12 knots. Un-
doubtedly, the details of the data on which the foregoing
calculations have been based are open to correction, and
will greatly depend on their application to special services
on considerations immediately connected with such special
service, and cannot be generalised; but, whatever altera-
tion of these data may be applied to the ship A must like-
wise be applied to B, so that, although the foregoing esti-
mate of the actual cost expenses of freight may be consi-
derably modified by our altering the data of the calcula-
tions, still, the percentages of difference above set forth
showing the degree of percentage in which freight charges
for the passage of 3,250 miles are enhanced in consequence
of the inferiority in locomotive properties of the ship B, as
compared with the ship A, will not be much altered from
the percentages above set forth, showing an enhanced cost
of freight to be paid by the public on bringing cargo, grain,
for instance, from the States, or from the Black Sea, to
England, amounting to 32 per cent. at the 8 knots speed,
56 per cent, at the 10 knots speed, and 111 per cent. at the
12 knots speed, extra charges incurred on freight per ton
of goods conveyed, and to be paid by the public, in
consequence ,of the dynamic inferiority of the ship B as
compared abith ship A. It is surely in consequence of the
public not being generally aware of the high scale of prime
cost charges necessarily involved in a 12 miles speed (steam-
ing speed at sea) as compared with an eight. miles speed,
that such high speed is so universally deruaeded by the
public, and it must surely be in consequence of an almost
similar want of insight into the real cost of high speed ou
the part of directors that obligations as to speed are so fre-
quently incurred at a price inadequate to such service. if
the public will have a progressively increasinghigh rate of
speed, they must pay for it about in the ratio at which
they purchase iron, copper, silver, gold, and diamonds,
either of which may be bought too dear for common use.
The foregoing results have been based on the supposition
that the consumption of fuel in both ships is at the rate of
41b. par hour per ind. h. p. My own experience, however,
induces me to be of opinion that this rate of consumption
is but very seldom realised, and that 51b. of coal per ind.
h. p. per hour is much nearer in accordance with our pre-
sent actual steaming practice. It is therefore important
that we show to what extent the rate of transport freight
expenses will be enhanced if the service above referred to,
namely, 3,250 nautical miles direct, be performed with an
inferior construction of boiler, causing to consumption of
51b. of coal per indicated horse-power per hour, instead of
41b., as above calculated on. In this case, according as
the speed for which the vessel may be powered, is 8, 10,
o: 12 knots an hour (see " Steam-ship Capability," p. 78),
the cost expenses incurred by vessel A, instead of being
1./. 15s. 7d., 21. 4s. 6d., and 3/. 4s. 61. per ton weight of
cargo, will now amount to 11. 19s. 5d., 21. lls. 4d., and
31. lis. ld. per ton weight of cargo-this increase of prime
cost freight expenses per ton of goods being 11 per cent.,
15 per cent., and 22 per cent., according as the service
speed may be 8, 10, or 12 knots per hour, solely in con-
sequence of the inferiority of the boiler or inferiority of
fuel; and, further, if this greater consumption of coal
be combined with the inferior typo of vessel B, the
prime cost expenses of freight per ton of goods, instead
of being 1/. 15s. 7d., 21. 4s. 6d., and 31. 4s. 6d., will now
be 21.135. 7d., 4/. ss. 5d., and 91. 15s. 21.-this increase
of freight cost being 18s. per ton, 21, Os. 11,1. per ton, and
6/. 10s. Bd. per ton weight of cargo conveyed or 50 per
cent., 130 per cent., and 202 per cent. extra charge incur-
red according as the service speed may be 8, 10, or 12 knots
per hour. These results show the monstrous extent, in a
pecuniary point of view, to which the public are inte-
rested in the general quality of the type of ships and ma-
chinery adaptation thereto, and working condition of ships
by which the mercantile transport service of the country
may be prosecuted. But let us look a little further into
this matter, in the hope of obtaining a more definite ap-
preciation of the total extent in £. a. d. to which the Bri-
tish public are interested in having their mercantile tran-
sport service performed to the best advantage. Ithas been
publicly stated (Times, June 18, 1856), that at the 12 prin-
cipal ports of the United Kingdom during the year 1i55,
ship tonnage to the extent of 6,372,301 tons entered in-
wards, and 6,426,566 tons cleared outwards, making alto-
gether 12,798,867, say 12i millions of tons of tonnage per
annum, and since mercantile shipping will probably, on
the average, carry dead weight of cargo to the full extent
of their register tonnage, it is probable that the tons weight
of merchandise constituting the cargoes of ships arriving
at and sailing from the United Kingdom, amounts to no
less than 11 millions of tons per annum, of which, for the
purpose of illustration, we will suppose that one-sixth
part, or two millions of? tons, is conveyed by steam power
on a passage of 3,250 nautical miles, under the circum-
stances of the data that have boon assumed as the base of
the foregoing calculations, and since we have shown under
these circumstances that the prime cost expenses of
freight per ton of goods may be enhanced by an infe-
rior type of ship and machinery, or inferior management
thereof, to the extent of 18s., 2Z. Os. 11d., and 6/. 108. Bd.
per ton weight of goods conveyed, it follows that' the ex-
tra charges for freight on the assumed quantity of two
millions of tons weight per annum, will amount to the
extra annual cost or public loss of 1,800,0001. at 8 knots
speed, 4,916,6661. at 10 knots speed, and 13,666,6661. at L 2
knots speed, according as the type of ship and machinery
by which the work is performed may be of the inferior
type B, as compared with the superior type A ; seeing also
that it is the public interest which has to bear the brunt
of our national goods transport service, being either as re-
spects construction or working condition anything short of
that degree of perfection which the application of science
might achieve, is it not, therefore, of importance that our
public system of statistical shipping registration should be
complete, especially in those points which are essential for
scrutinising the dynamic properties of steam-ships, thus
leading to the recognition of good practice on the one hand,
or the exposition of bad practice, and consequent public loss,
on the other. Ships may be regarded as national implements
for doing the work of the natio°, and should, therefore, be
subjected, by the aid of statistical registration, to public
scrutiny, as senducive to their being upheld fit to do their
work in the best manner. A shipbuilder will not allow his
interests to be trifled with by the use of a blunt adze, so
the public interest requires that its national transport ser-
vice in the conveyance of goods should not be performed
by bad ships if the statistical grindstone will obviate the
evil. Nevertheless, the public statistics of British ship-
ping afford no data available to science for promoting or
even protecting from abuse the great public interests which
are involved in the proper execution of its transport service,
amounting probably to 12 millions of tons per annum. It
is pre-eminently for the British Association to suggest the
remedy for this humiliating fact. The subject herein treated
of admits of extended illustration beyond the limits of time
that I may presume to occupy at a meeting of the British
Association. I only profess to have broken up new ground
in showing that mercantile transport service by steam-
ships admits of being brought within the range of arith-
metical calculation, whereby the dynamic quality of ships,
the size of ships as measured by displaceineut, the working
quality of engines and engine- power as measured by the unit
ind. h. p., and the speed to be assigned as the condition
of any service, may each of them be treated as functions
of calculation involving definite pecuniary considerations,
constituting a system which may be denominated the
" arithmetic of steam-ship adaptation to the requirements
of mercantile service." By the application of these prin-
ciples of calculation, I submit that errors in steam-ship
construction, or neglect of its working condition, may be
exposed, correction will follow, the directorial manage-
ment of steam-shipping affairs, as respects steam-ship capa-
bility, will be based upon arithmetical calculation, thereby
prosecuting its assigned service with confidence, and reject-
itg all Utopian projects that will not pay. Thus, science
will produce its fruit in promoting public interests, with-
out detriment to the fair competitive pursuits of any class,
by prod uciug a sound, well-understood, and healthy condi-
tion of steam-ship management, and consequently of
" Me: cantile Steam-transport Economy."

RELATIONS BETWEEN POVERTY AND CRIME.
Iu section F (Economic Science ant Statistics) Mr. W.
M. TARTS read a paper "On some Statistics bowleg upon
the Relations existing between Poverty and Crime."
It was stated, a short time since, iu the Quarterly Re-
viev, that "guilt and poverty are closely connected:" A
few facts collected from pi icon reports may assist us in de-
termining to what extent this assertion is allowable. The
frauds which have done the greatest injury to our moral
character as a nation, and hays been productive of the most
extensive misery, have been committed by men not merely
in the enjoyment of competence, but of luxury, while
among the classes who might be considered as the most
open to temptation we are assured, upon the best authority,
"that want and distress, uncombined with dissolute habits,
are rarely operative in producing crime." It is now very
generally admitted by all who come in contact with the ad-
ministration of criminal law that the two great causes of
crime in the lower classes are drunkenness and ignorance.
Poverty may be a predisposing state, but it is not till it
becomes allied with the agencies I have mentioned that it
is an immediate cause of crime. Fortunately, the facts by
which this can be proved are more to be depended upon than
the generalityof criminal statistics. When it is remembered
how much such statistics are affected by local circumstances;
how differently the lawis necessarily administered in a rural
district, a populous town, or amongst the ever-moving in-
habitants of a seaport, we must besatisfied that, from data
thus collected, little dependence is to be placed upon any
general comparison of committals, summary convictions, or
the punishments or acquittals which are their result; but
as regards the effects of poverty upon crime, the manufac-
turing districts seems to furnish us with reliable evidence
connected with the great strike at Preston in 1851, as well
as with other periods of pressure; and we possess the addi-
tional advantage of having this infermation presented to us
upon the authority of the experienced and indefatigable
chaplain of the County House of Correction at Preston (the
Rev. J. Clay)—an authority frequently quoted in Parlia-
ment, and familiar to every statistician. It will be remem-
bered that the great strike of 1854, by which 18,000 men,
women, and children were thrown out of employment ; and
8,070 more injuriously affected for the greater part of six
cmoomalnthesin,cwe,aisdnuoring a period of universal prosperity. The
t caused, as such movements are generally
caused, by a reduction of wages at a time of pressure. It
operatives
esweoruegohft to shareopinion—a;dorneotth, perhaps,anthey had hitherto unreasonably
—that
done in the profits which their masters were realising. But ,1
they demanded an arbitrary sum; and they persevered in
.the same demand while circumstaneeswere gradually becom-
ing more unfavourable to cencession. They were plau-
sibly encouraged by bad advisers, and by contributions
towards their supportfrom their brother-operatives throueh•
out the kingdom. Even ft ern Cheltenham, though so little
a manufacturing town, they were said to have received as-
sistance. Still their sufferings were severe. And as the mas-
ters, on their part, resisted with obstinate firmness during
the whole of this protracted struggle, it seemed at one time
to threaten very serious consequences to the well-being of
the nation. Its effect upon the people was in every way
remarkable; and it showed especially how little they were
influenced by poverty in the commission of crime. In the
six months of the strike, as compared with the six months
which immediately preceded it, the committals were found
to have decreased from 316 to 215; and the diminution
was confine 1 to criminals above the age of 17. In the ju-
venile cases there was scarcely any difference. The sum-
mary convictions during the same period decreased from
232 to llq ; and as more than a third of such convictions
are immediately or incidentally connected with drunken.
pens, it is evident that the diminished means of the people
must have checked this habit to a much greater extent than
their poverty had induced to crime. The petty offences
always consequent upon idleness prevented any similar de-
crease in the committals of boys under 17. The want of em-
pleyment had also a very unfavourableeffect upon the moral
character of the young women who usually worked in the
factories; though, as regarded punishable offences, there
were among this class only four committals for trial during