The southern press., 1850-09-06
crims-North and South.

,.". Crime North and South. .. B
POLICE STATIsTIcs.-A message Just sent to
the New York Common Council by the Mayor
of that city, states the total number of arrests
there during the quarter ending June 3Oth, at
S,2l4, of which, 3003 were for intoxication /;
1887 for disorderly conduct; 1896 for assaults,
and 1877 for fighting. There are 5O27 places of
sale for spirituous liquors, of which l54l are
unlicensed, and 4l74 licensed. During the
quarter, 1859 persons We're lodged in the sta
tion house; l747 lost children restored; l5l
sick and injured persons aided; AZ rescued from
drowning; 40 fires extinguished; 500 stores
and dwellings found open, and closed; and
$l2,3l3 43 taken from drunken persons and
dodgers, and restored. -
If the total number of arrests in the city of
New York in one quarter amounts to S,2l4, it
would be 32,S56 in one ycar--or about one to
each fifteen inhabitants, But If we leave out of
the to- al population, which is about 500, ,0O0 the
women and children, who constitute nearly three
fourths of IL, the number Of arrests in one year
is more than one out Of erery fine Of The male
adult population. This is on the supposition
that the arrests in the course of year, are each
of different persons. No doubt many are ar
rested oftener than once year, but on the other
hand many more escape detection and arrest al
together.
We are not ignorant of the melancholy fact
that considerable number of the persons ar
rested are women-white women! Perhaps
one-fifth of the arrests are white women-and
there are some children.
1t results therefore, that of the adult white
male population of New York, about one out OF
five or six is guilty of criminal offence, annually
and of the adult white women, about one out
Of twenty-on an average!
The State of Virginia has nearly three times
as much population, black and white, as the city
of New York, yet, as we learn from a very in.
telligent gentleman from that State, no has re-
Gently made the investigation, the total number
ofarrests for last year, for all offences whatever
tants-so that in New York there are eighty times
us many criminal offences as in Virginia, for an
equal number of persons.
But then we shall be told that the slaves arc
not arraigned by the police, but are punished by
their masters. Well, there are about many
slaves in the State of Virginia as of people in
the city of New York Now, from what We
have seen and learned, we have no idea that o1
the two hundred thousand adult slaves Of that
State, there are anything like 1885, or one out
of six, punished in any way whatever, once Il
year.
The institution of slavery prevents drunken
ness, assaults, thefts, burglaries murders, among
the blacks-as well as starvation.
And if it be thus shown that there is less vice
and crime in slave population, than in an equal
number of free white people in great city, how
stands the comparison between the white people
of Virginia and New York! Why, the proper
ton of crime in Virginia, among the whites, is
less than one to hundred in New York.
In one Judicial district in Virginia, of hun.
dred thousand people, our native district by the
way, and where the Court sits twice year, there
was alta recent term not a solitary charge Of
felony. on the docket
Yet we hear men who pretend to be philan.
thropists and philosophers, and even statesmen
continually contending for reforming Vrginia
Institutions according to the models lin New
York-yes, there are even Virginians that dis
tress themselves daily, because Virginia is moi
like unto New York
And these men propose to exclude Vir-
ginia institutions from unsettled or Mexican
territory, because they are unfit to go there, and
inferior to those of New York And there are
even some Virginians so far gone as to be will
ling to submit to it We would like to know
who they are-and how many.