Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1863-12-20
Crime i'm London.

-IJuhSC wiz otnlCllCtN lllli, VI Dill Oy htS
the brutal woman-beater; of poor heather
Joe, continually knowing on" till at last ht
moved out of the world, and found rest in
| his grave; of Magwitch and the skeleton
who sang the Song of the Shirt" Of Count
Fosco and of hundreds of other wretehes
or villains, are not imaginations of the great
| English novelists, but realities of London
life. Strange as many of these stories seem,
\ they are not stranger than the truth. The
glimpses we have of the dark alleys of St.
Giles, and of the deeds done in ruinous
Tom-all-Alones, reveal q pandemonium of
degradation and crime at which fiction only
hints, which no pen is bold enough to faith
fully describe. London, the metropolis of
the world, the centre of its glory and civili-
cation, is also the metropolis of vice and
misery. All the wickedness of which hu-
man nature is capable, all the suffering II
can endure, burrows and crawls in the black
| shadow of the modern Babylon. No Ameri-
can city furnishes parallel to the low life
in London.
The police reports of the London Times
are singularly interesting to those who
would study in the daily record of crime
the character of a large and increasing
class. Prominence is wisely given to this
department of news, for in plain, homely
facts it. reveals that which society would
foolishly strive to conceal-the cancerous
evil which poisons the whole body. 1t is
only by knowing the extent of an evil that
it can be intelligently lessened. Reading
the political editorials and essays of q great
newspaper, we know what the people of q
great city believe; the law reports, the po-
lice reports, inform us what they do.
1t is not that this well-filled department
Of the Times recently contained any start
ling case of atrocious and unusual wicked
ness that we have given it our attention.
On the contrary, it is the commonplace,
everyday character of the crimes tried be-
fore the police magistrates of London that
interests us chiefly. The purest and happi-
est village of this country may be suddenly
shocked by some monstrous revelation of
wickedness; but from that we cannot infer
the character of its inhabitants. But when
the daily police report of city contains, as
matter of course accounts of assaults on
women, on little children, of rapes, at
tempts at assassination, thetts innumerable
and miseries immeasurable, then it possess
es q profound interest, for then we have q
right to measure by the story of q day the
secret of the life of city. ...
Street robberies by women seem very
common in London. Two or three women
of the town, about dusk, sometimes in broad
day, approach gentleman-one throws her
arms around his neck, the others snatch his
watch. Scarcely day passes without Il
case of this kind. We find boy of four
teen arrested for entering church, robbing
and destroying property, and writing BIAS
phemous words in the Bible. Many cases
are reported of men who knocked down wo-
men in the street and robbed them of their
clothes. The crimes common in all great
cities-larceny, assault, robbery-are multi
ltudinous in London, and impossible to
chronicle. But one of the most singular
illustrations of the degradation of the lower
CLASSES is the case of woman who kept a
sweetmeat shop, wherein little children gam
bled for sugar-plums. In the Times of No
vember II, we find the following testimony
of police constable:
-"He saw forty-tour children, between the
ages of five and twelve years, enter the pris-
oner's shop in the course of two hours on
Sunday evening to play game with the
dolly on the prisoners counter. He then
looked through the window and saw chill
dren gambling and the prisoners dealing
out nuts and and sweet-meats. lie went in
and seized the gambling implements. The
witness then produced what is popularity
known as "a dolly 1t consisted OF block
of wood the interior Of which was cut out
in the form of a spiral staircase, and board
on which about forty numbers were paint-
ed. a marble being dropped in the inside
Of the dolly rolled down to the board
The player was entitled to as many nuts,
drops, or sugar plums as were represented
by the number on which it fell. The value
of these never exceeded half penny, al
though sometimes there were six players at
d half, penny. each. Another instrument
was like a roulette board on small scale,
a pea being substituted for a BALI The cir
Gle was divided into red and black spaces,
with numbers on each, excepting two
blanks. If the pea alighted on blank the
PLAYER was declared entitled to nothing.
"Mr. IWoolrych observed therewere six
teen numbers against two blanks. The odds
were not in favor Of the proprietor of the
board.
"Smith explained that the prisoner could
call out blank or any1number she liked, for
the board was above the children's heads.
Sometimes six children would stake half
penny eachsand the one whosepea fell on
the'highest number would be declared the
winner of threepennyworth of sweetmeats,
but not more than one pennyworth was Civ
en-. The same thing happened when the
marble rolled down the dolly. G He saw a
great many children come out of the pris-
0her's shop crying because they had lost
their halfpence and pence" -.
It,may be remembered that such lotteries
were actually openly conducted in the
streets of New York, recently, and became
such nuisance. that they were suppressed
by the police. sr,,f
Many of the crimes of London-perhaps
most of them-are caused by poverty. With
many of these miserable outcasts it is beg,
steal zora starve. Two dissipated women
were lately brought before a, magistrate
charged with having broken plate glass
window with piece of granite. The pro-
prietor of the store testified that they then
came voluntarily forward and stoldhim they
had broken the window "because they were
starving and had no home" The magis-
trate reproved them severely, saying it was
outrageous for them to deliberately subject
o respectable citizen to serious loss simply
because they wanted to get into the work
house. A few days before, two other young
women wilfully broke a street lamp; to the
magistrateon one of them said she was Gin the
greatest distress; had been all, day without
food had no home, and had been refused
admission to the workhonse. She was de-
termined TO do something to get nights
lodging; 1t was O frosty night, and she was
cold and miserabfe.p The other prisoner
had been turned out of her fathers house
| for living with girls of loose character and
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