The Sun.
London, England, 1828-09-16 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY REPORT.

The Select Committee appointed to inquire into the Causes
of the Increase in the Nmuher of Commitinents and
Convictions in England and Wales; and who ware cm-
poweted to—report their Observations and Opinion
thereupon, together with the Minutes of Evidence taken
before them, to the House ; and to whom the several
Returns of the Number of Persons Committed, Tried,
and Convicted for Criminal Offences and Misde-
meanours, made by the Clerks of the Peace fur the
several Counties in England and Wales, for the year
1817, so far as the same hare been received by the Se-
cretary of State for the Home Department ; Returns of
the Number of Persons Committed, Tried, and Con-
victed, for Criminal Offences and Misdemeanours, made
by the Clerks of the Peace and Town Cierks of the
several Cities, Towns, and Places, in England road Wales,
for the year 1827, so far as the same have been received
by the Secretary of State for the Home Department;
Returns of the Number of Persons Committed, Tried,
and Convicted, for Criminal Offences and Misdemea-
nours, made by the Clerks of the Assize, Clerks of the
Crown, and Clerks of the Sessions of Oyer and Terminer
and Gaol Delivery, for the year 1827, in England and
Wales, so far as the same have been received by the
Secretary of State for the Horne Department ; and also,
the Petition of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace assem
bled at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for
the County of Stafford, of his Majesty's Justices of the
Peace for the County of Warwick, and of several occu-
piers of Laud, and other Inhabitants of the Parishes in
the vicinity of Chatham, were referred ;—Have inquired
into the matters to them referred, and agreed upon the
following Report :
It was with great concern that your Committee,
upon resuming their labours, found that a large in-
crease had taken place, during the past year, in the
number of persons committed for trial. The net in-
crease in the year 1827 over the year 1826, was
1,774 ; the numbers being, in 1826, 16,147; anti
in 1827, 17,921. The largest numbers, in particu-
lar counties, on the side of increase are, Lincoln,
where the commitments rose from 221 to 329, being
an increase of near 50 per cent. Somerset, from
490 to 646 ; Staffordshire, from 448 to 569 ; York-
shire, from 966 to 1,223. Some of the smaller
colludes, such as Westmoreland, and some of the
counties in Wales, have increased in a still greater
proportion. But where the numbers are small, they
are found to fluctuate very considerably, and no ge-
neral conclusion can be drawn from the fact.
Your Committee, at the commencement of their
labours, divided their Inquiry under three heads—
namely, first, the Agricultural Districts ; secondly,
the Manufacturing Districts and Large Towns ;
thirdly, the Metropolis. The Committee appointed
during the present Session to Inquire into the In-
s:Tease of Crime, and the State of the Police of the
Metropolis, has relieved them from one part of their
labours ; but that which remains is so extensive,
that, far from having exhausted it, they can only
flatter themselves with having pointed the way,
trusting to experience, and the labours of others, to
complete and conclude the subject.
Your Committee are desirous to keep in view the
distinction between purely agricultural districts and
the manufacturhT parts of the country or populous
towns. Some of the causes of the increase of.crime
appear to be common to both, but there are many
which are totally distinct. Nor is it any reason
against a particular cause operating over one part of
the population that it does not operate over another.
For instance, the habits of a certain class of ma-
nufacturers, of spending only four days in a week at
work., arid the other two in drinking, may tend to
crime ; while, in another district, the insufficiency
of wages to maintain a man who works hard for :ix
days in the week, may contribute in the same degree,
though in a different manner, to swell the number
of commitments to prison.
If, in the general increase of the number of com-
mitments, the Committee see much cause for con-
cern and apprehension, there are circumstances on
the other hand which are matter of rational consola-
tion. If any one will turn to the evidence given
before the Committee of Emigration last year by
Mr. Hutton, and read the account of the dreadful
state of the population of Lancashire during the
year 1826 and part of 1827, he will surely expect,
that every moral restraint must have been dissolved
among men of whom so great a portion were actually
on the point of being starved to death. The returns
for the years 182.5, 1526, arch 1827, exhibit the
numbers of criminel commitments for trial for Lan-
cashire as 2,132, 2,374-, 2,459; an increase certainly
less than might have been expected. Nor can too
much praise be given to those who bore, without
committing any breach of the law, sufferings which,
for intensity, could not easily have been surpassed.
Your Committee have much satisfaction in stating
their confirmed opinion that great part of the in-
crease in the number of criminal commitments
arises from other causes than the increase of crime.
Offences which were formerly either passed over en-
tirely, or were visited with a summary eLsti-,anent
on the spot, are now made occasions of commitment
to gaol arid regular trial. Mr. Deahry, a Magistrate
for the West Riding of the County of York, says,
" I think one reason we may give for tile increase of
crime, or the greater exhibition of it to public view,
is the seizure and delivery to the Police of all those
who commit offences, that are styled offences at all.
I remember, in former days, persons were taken and
pumped upon, or something of that sort ; but now
they are handed over to the Police, and tried on it."
Sir Thomas Baring and other witnesses gave a simi-
lar testimony. The Malicious Trespass Act, the
Act for paying prosecutors their expellees in eases of
misdemeanour, and other Acts not necessary to men-
tion, have tended to fill the prisons without any
positive increase of crime. The Magistrates like-
wise are more ready to commit than they used to
be; and the fees paid to their clerics are a tempta-
tion to bring before them every ease of petty offence
arising out of village squabbles or trifling disorders.
There appears no good reason why a regular
schedule should not be made of the fees to be paid
to the clerks of Magistrates. Uniformity on this
subject is most desirable even were there no exist-
ing abuses, which the Committee have reason to
fear is much to be apprehended.
Another conclusion to which the Committee have
come is likewise consolatory. It appears evident
that the number of atrocious ofl'eeces has not in-
creased in proportion to the increase of population,
and that with the advancement of civilization the
darker ctimes become less frequent. The number of
persons convicted of murder from the years 1821 to
1827 inclusive, adding thereto those convicted of
;hooting at, stabbing, and administering poison with
intent to murder, were respectively, 35, 57, 26, 3S,
e 9, 27, 47. The number charged with murder,

shooting at, stabbing, and administering poison with
intent to murder, were from 1821 to 1827, 232,
241, 239, 253, 27:3, 24.5, 288. The whole number
of persons tried for offences acainst the person, In
1827, including robbery of the person, which ought
not properly to be included, were under 1,000.
Thus it appears, that although the number of
offences in the mass of our dense population is very
considerable, yet, when the subject comes to be
examined, security of life and limb was never greater.
Property, it is true, is not equally safe ; but even
here there are not any large proportion of offences
which reach to the ruin of the person against whom
the offence is committed, or to subject property in
general to any very serious risks.
The most usual,nurnerous, and troublesome crimes
consist of stealing from the house or the person,
goods which are easily transported, and may be
quickly converted into money.
This view of the subject is important for two
ieasons —the one, as it tends to show that, with
some remarkable exceptions, the state of society is
not one of great depravity; the other, that it gives
to the operations of Government a body which may
be acted upon by law. Gangs of pickpockets, pil-
ferers, and even house-breakers, may be, to a great
degree, controlled and restrained by means of pre-
ventive police and exemplary punishment; their
crimes are not the impulse of blind passion, which
is satisfied to satiate itself and to suffer for the enjoy-
ment, but the result of a calculation of unprincipled
men, on a cool view of their interests. If you can
[sake the hazard greater than the probable gain, you
may rest sure you will diminish the crime.

On the other hand, it must be confessed, that of
late years the art of crime, if it may be so called, has
increased faster than the art of detection. The im-
provement of communication, the employment of
young thieves by the elder and more practised, the
crowded state of our gaols, and other causes, have
tended in many parts of thtt country to make the
plunderers of property a species of organized society,
having their division of labour, their regular leaders,
and premeditated means of escape. At the same
time, in the agricultural counties, the business of de-
tection is often left to a village constable, who is
perfectly unfit to deal with any but village crimes.
In many of our large towns, likewise, police has not
been improved in most instances with the increase of
population, and in some instances this defect appears
to arise from worse than negligence.
Your Committee, with a view to the improve-
ment of the police generally throughout England,
wish to remind the House of the existence of the
High Constable in each hundred or division; an of-
ficer paid for his bills out of the county rate, whose
real duty is to superintend the conduct of the police
constables within his district, but whose practice, it
is to be feared, will often be found to convert the
appointment almost into a sinecure. Your Com-
mittee strongly recommend that the office of high
Constable of the hundred should be made efficient,
and immediately available to a general system of
better organised police.
It has been likewise suggested that a Chief Con-
stable for each populous county, to be appointed at
the direction of the Justices in Quarter Sessions,
might be of great use, both in detecting crime within
the county, and in corresponding with other coun-
ties, when the offender may be supposed to have es-
caped to a distance.
The Committee now pass to the division of crime
which they formerly made. In the agricultural dis-
tricts they have stated, among the most powerful
causes, the want of employment. This, it has be-
' fore been remarked, is often produced artificially by
the Poor Laws.