1028.] General Increase of Crime. 349 



facility of which is considerably increased by the great exposure of 

 valuable property in shops and dwelling houses, which the modern style 

 of trade, and especially the great competition that exists in retail trade, 

 renders necessary. 



The last cause to which we have proposed to attribute the recent 

 increase of crime the stoppage of those vents by which that part of 

 our population most likely to become criminal was used to be carried 

 off we shall treat of in connexion with another branch of our subject. 

 It avails very little, as Sir J. Scarlett truly observed a few weeks back in a 

 discussion upon Mr. Brougham's motion on the state of the law, to 

 point out faults, if we have not some means of suggesting remedies : and 

 the first effort is, moreover, incomparably more easy to the very best 

 regulated mind, than the latter. Nevertheless, there is a certain quan- 

 tity of utility in merely marking out the existence of an evil. It is only 

 the first step towards improvement : but it is a step, nevertheless ; and 

 a step that is indispensable. And there is still more usefulness in the 

 removal of erroneous conceptions, or beliefs, upon any particular evil ; 

 such as are calculated either to misrepresent the causes of its presence, 

 or to misstate its extent. Thus far we have gone, therefore, for the 

 purpose of shewing, that the increase of crime, which is admitted on 

 all hands to have arisen of late years, is by no means to be attributed 

 solely to " general distress ;" and that there are various and weighty 

 other causes far more nearly concerned in the producing of it. In 

 attempting to suggest any thing like remedy, we premise, that to expect 

 to do more than get rid of a portion of the evil or prevent its further 

 advance would be entirely visionary ; and even towards that purpose, 

 we have no plan of much novelty to propose, nor any which we expect 

 will meet unequivocally with public approbation. 



There are two courses which may always be made operative, for the 

 purpose of effecting a decrease of crime in any country : the course 

 of prevention, by regulation and vigilance ; and the course of determent, 

 by penalty and example : we omit, for the present, the cultivation and 

 advancement of moral improvement in the community, as a measure 

 well worthy to be kept always in recollection, but not of sufficiently 

 immediate effect and operation for the purpose before us. 



We have said that any improvements to be looked for from the 

 discussion of this subject, can only be considered as improvements of 

 degree. The suggestions thrown out by the Home Secretary, in intro- 

 ducing his motion for a committee, go almost exclusively to the system 

 of prevention ; and, even upon that system, do not, we think, go a very 

 great way. There seems to be a feeling that it is necessary that some- 

 thing should be done, as there was probably on the part of the Marquis 

 of Lansdowne, when he proposed publishing a ' ' police report" at the 

 public expense and in a shape which nobody would read while the 

 same document already appeared most completely and abundantly in the 

 newspapers, at no expense to the public, and in a shape which every 

 body would read : but we decidedly object to changes especially to 

 costly ones introduced merely for the sake of seeming to be in action : 

 or to any changes cheap or costly (as tending, by their failure, to 

 throw a damp upon reform and exertion altogether) from which some 

 real benefit may not fairly be expected. 



In the first place, then, the honourable secretary suggests the pro- 

 priety of a change in the system of our London " nightly watch ;" and 



