The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-10-06

| ll.lO
Philadelphia falls below Baltimore in TIE 1st class
Brooklyn in the Sd class the only other point that
| below Baltimore.
The Chief of Police in Boston, report, in the list Of
ceaneous work done by the police the number of disturb
ances queed without to 226 Tho watch nor 90
dodgers to be 10913 ~ ~
He also reports that Notwithstanding the stringent laws
OF massachusetts on the subject there are 9S5 public
SHOPS ana Saloons and 245 hous of reputation where
liquor is publicly sold in small quantities. in addition to
grocers and others who supply families and sell it pri
Vately to be drank on the premises
live combine the other cities and see how Baltimore
VIII compare general average we find that for every
hundred arrests here for crimes against there are
III in the Northern cities for crimes against nronertv
there are 36l for crimes against the peace 100 and for
lation." - p''p''''0" W p0P"'
Mr.. SWAMI has here presented both the charges
that nave been brought against his administra-
tlon and the facts by which he proposes to refute
Them The charge is that of having established
ana maintained an imperfect and inefficient sys-
tenn OF police, whereby great crimes are constantly
suffered to go UNPUBLISHED and their perpetrators to
escape without even the formaliy of an arrest The
injustice and falsity of this allegation, Mr. SWAMI
undertakes to show by means of the Statistics
we have quoted. And how does he accomplish
that result? Simply by proving that the number
of arrests by the police is smaller in Baltimore
than elsewhere, lin proportion to the population, !"
or that, to use his own words ''for every hundred
arrests here for crimes against the person. there
ARE LII In the Northern cities; for crimes against
property, there are 361; for crimes against the
! ''peace, there 100; and for crimes against
''moras, COL" These figures he assumes to be
demonstrative of the fact, that there is Gas much
security for person and property here in any
''other city of the same population" Had he
first established, by way of preparation for
his argument that whoever commits an
then, perhaps, we should be forced to ad-
NIT the justice of this conclusion and concede that
the number of arrests which are made is a sure
criterion of the number of crimes that are COM
mitted. This, however, he has utterly failed to
do. Upon this point, his comparative tables
shed not the smallest particle of light. He takes
for granted the very matter in dispute-the faith
fitness and efficiency of his polce-and thence
argues that a paucity of arrests is necessarily a
proof of the paucity of crimes. According to this
reasoning which establishes that Baltimore is the
most free from crime of any of the cities that are
named, Boston and Brooklyn, where the ratio of
arrests is proportionably greatest, must necessarily
be the worst-which everybody knows to be very
far from the fact. Further, by the same rule, an
entire absence of arrests would of course imply an
entire absence of crime Mr.. SWAMI has only
to direct his police to abstain from making
arrests altogether, in order to establish
conclusively that no crimes whatever are
committed in this city. A more pal
pable Illustration of the reductio ad alb
surd,tm can scarcely be imagined 1t recalls to
mind the familiar mot of VILLIERs, Duke of BUCK
1NGHAM, who, upon hearing disconsoate lover on
the stage wofully exclam,
"My wound is great because it is so small"
wittily added,
If in addition, ''the press of the city, could
only be induced to adopt the example and the morals
of The american, and refrain from publishing to
the world any of the outrages that are committed
in our midst-then, truly, Mr.. SWANS ''vndca-
''ton" would be complete Without single
arrest recorded upon the books at the Station
Houses, or upon the dockets of the Magistrates,
and without the mention of so much as a solitary
murder assault with intent to kill - in the
columns of the newspapers, our condition would
certainly as nearly approach that of an Elysium
earth, as it would be possible for Statistical
tables to make it.