The Press. — 1856-05-17 (London, England)

UNDETECTED CRIME. IT is a curious and startling speculation what the proportion of undetected and unsuspected crime may be to the crime which is known and published, and what the number of criminals moving freely in society may be compared to the number brought to justice. This is a subject which has never yet engaged statistical inquiry, though very worthy of consideration.  Undetected criminals are of two classes--the perpetrators of crimes which have never been suspected or discovered, and the perpetrators of crimes which have come to light, while the perpetrators themselves have remained hidden. It is from the first of these classes that society has most to dread. How many persons may at this moment be occupying a respectable position, and perhaps wearing a sanctified appearance, who bear about with them a brain capable of plotting intricate crime, and a heart capable of the most fiendish cruelty. How many John Dean Pauls may there be in the mercantile world, some at this moment struggling with embarrassment, some just emerging from difficulty, but ready for desperate expedients should temptation present itself. The murder by Tawell was discovered by accident. How sleekly would he have walked the earth in drab and broadbrim had it been decided that his victim died in a fit ! Was that murder his first ? Who can tell ? The probabilities, perhaps, are, on the whole, against a first case of poisoning ever being suspected. Taking that dark and deliberate species of murder which compels into its service the secret agencies of nature and the latest discoveries of science, what a painful train of thought is roused by the occurrences of the last few months 1 Deaths have occurred inAde  inimmompmeoppinme 459 ive been oiily to insist on one of .mate objects of the war. that the Russian possession of es has never been reenonised  pendent of those connected with the name of Palmer, leaving no substantial doubt on the mind that poison and not disease was the primary agent of destruction, without detection of the poisoner. It is a shocking reflection that in all societies—at dinners and balls, at concerts and theatres, at church or at ohaoel, in town or in the country, wherever and in whatever society we may be—it is possible a murderer may be present. Not only does not one half the world know how the other half lives, it knows not how the other half dies.  If from murders we pass to fires, we arrive at a species of offence, perhaps, the most difficult of all to bring home to a man. Arson is a crime by which money may so readily be made, and which so few persons are usually interested in investigating, that it is probably the one which, of all others, is most frequently committed without detection. Insurance companies are loth to prosecute, for it gets them a bad name ; and private individuals are afraid to utter suspicion so difficult to verify, and so likely to entail heavy penalties. It is probable that a much larger proportion of fires are intentional than we are in the habit of supposing. how seldom do we hear of a fire being satisfactorily accounted for? " The " origin of the fire still remains a mys" tery," are words with which all readers of newspaper paragraphs must be familiar. The two passions of revenge and covetousness might very frequently be called in to fill up the hiatus in question. With commercial climes we have lately been surfeited. How flourishing was the Tipperary Bank, with its profits and dividends, till the suicide SADLEIR was found on Hampsteadheath ! The readiness with which forged bills have been discounted is an appalling fact. It is even asserted that forged bills, if presented by men of any station, find readier acceptance with a certain class of bill discounters than genuine ones, for the simple reason that they arc more certain to be met. If this practice is proved to prevail to even a limited extent, what a vista of crime it opens to us ! Who knows how many forged warrants may at this moment be passing between Bankside and Lombard-a treet—how many bankers may at this moment be negotiating securities which do not belong to them—how many adventurers may be raising large sums of money on the counterfeited names of friends and patrons ! The amount of undetected crime which goes on festering and generating by its own cop• ruption we cannot pretend to estimate, nor hope to guard against. As good and evil in this world go hand in hand, as the wheat and the tares spring up together, so we feel we must attribute this canker of crime in great measure to the increase of education and the spread of science, enabling the arts of the criminal to keep pace with increased facilities of detection, and supplying at the same time additional motives for the perpetration of offences. Increased vigilance in the officers of the law from the highest to the lowest—increased vigilance iu all publie men and public bodies, insurance companies, and trading firms—above all, we should add, in all members of the medical profession, is all that we can at present point to as likely to impose restraints on that wide range of moral lawlessness which must be classed under the head of Undetected Crime.