344 Police of the Metropolis. ApniL, 



one guinea to three guineas seldom less than thirty shillings per 

 week. They are the scum and offal of a community, which is always 

 dissipated always highly paid ; which maintains a gin-shop at almost 

 every fifth door a pawnbroker (who aids extravagance three times, for 

 necessity once) in every street; which fills the galleries of a dozen 

 theatres the benches of ten thousand " coffee-shops/' and " reading- 

 rooms," and such institutions of minor entertainment ; which is syste- 

 matically idle one day every week, and drunk at least two nights ; and 

 may be put down, without compliment and as we take the liberty to con- 

 sider it, also without offence as incomparably the most riotous, licentious, 

 drunken, insolent, bold, intelligent, and unmanageable in the world. It 

 seems a little hardy to speak of low wages and distress, as almost the 

 sole cause for thus it is spoken of of the existence of crime, with the 

 fact before us, that the great mass of crime is found in London where 

 even the shadow of poverty or low wages never shews its face. The 

 leading thieves, in most cases, are persons of considerable property 

 the " receivers," invariably wealthy men. The mere street thieves 

 the men without capital are always persons with good shirts on, and 

 watches in their pockets ; and the lowest class of all to whom dirt and 

 sluttishness is no matter of distaste though ragged and desperate, spend 

 more each in gin and tobacco than would fall to the lot of six indus- 

 trious men in their own class of society. We by no means assert or 

 infer, that these people do not suffer much misery and occasional priva- 

 tion. The mass of mankind must look to endure this. We cannot 

 for fear a plasterer should pick a pocket give him the estate of the 

 Duke of Devonshire. But the mistake is in supposing that it is a life 

 while it lasts of hardship, or a life to which those who adopt it are 

 driven. In point of fact, it is a life which five in six deliberately adopt, 

 in preference to labour ; and it yields them more profit, in idleness, than 

 a life of labour would do if they were disposed to submit to, or under- 

 take it. 



And we go far beyond this. It seems a waste of time almost to expose 

 so obvious a fallacy, as that " distress" is necessary to or in any respect 

 necessarily coeval with the production of crime: but the folly has 

 become so fashionable, that we may be allowed the utterance even of a 

 few truisms to rebuke it. We talk of " distress" among the lower classes 

 as the cause of theft : some of the poorest countries, as regards the con- 

 dition of the lower orders, are those in which the least disposition to 

 theft prevails ! What extent of wealth in any place take the condition 

 of the metropolis has ever been found able to extinguish it ? A book 

 lies open before us at this moment Washington Irving's Life of Colum- 

 bus which affords a singular illustration of this truth. What was it 

 that, instantly after the discoveries of Columbus, carried robbery, mas- 

 sacre, and ruin through the New World ? This was not " poverty." 

 What was it that blasted the fertility of the new country first depraved 

 and then annihilated its peaceful population made it at last a howling 

 wilderness, the resort of only thieves and murderers and at last spread 

 discord and bloodshed among the ravagers, and made them prey upon each 

 other, when all other prey was gone ? This was not " poverty." It 

 was the lust of riches, of enjoyment beyond that wealth and enjoyment 

 which the lawful means of the plunderers could command : and it 

 ended as such passions indulged must necessarily end in the waste 

 and desolation of property and enjoyment altogether. We must not be 



