342 Police of the Metropolis. [APRIL, 



the daily experience of all men the mere habit of daily opening their 

 eyes shews them facts which demonstrate any such position to be a 

 total fallacy. Mr. Wilmot Horton, we observe, in his late speech upon 

 Emigration, quotes the dictum of a learned judge, as to his having con- 

 stantly found the facts of low wages, and increasing crime, running side 

 by side with each other. Now we confess that we do not exactly see 

 the proof of this fact, in any thing that has been stated, either by that 

 learned judge, or by those who rely upon him. In the first place, this 

 term of " low wages" must always be taken subject to something more 

 than a judicial exposition. " Low wages" depend upon a great variety 

 of circumstances. Low money wages may be very high wages ; and 

 high money wages may be very low wages. We know nothing until we 

 look to the quantity of work exacted for the given money ; or the prices 

 of the necessaries of life, at the time and at the place where it is paid. 

 Still farther it occurs to us to ask, where is it that this account has been 

 taken of the different amount of crime subject to low and high wages ? 

 Because we ourselves should find some difficulty in selecting a proper 

 situation for calculating the variance : for as far as we can recollect for 

 the last twelve years at least we have heard of little but " low wages !" 

 The learned judge's statement is quoted, as though he had noticed the 

 rise or fall of the moral thermometer, as governed by the rise or fall in 

 " the prosperity" of the lower orders, from session to session. Now we 

 confess that we ourselves have found the complaint all one way we cer- 

 tainly, for the period we speak of, have not heard the presence of " high 

 wages" any where admitted. All that we can find, in support of the 

 position that the amount of crime varies with the scale of wages, are a 

 few cases of slight increase or decrease the tallying of which with the 

 rise or fall of the price of labour, as to time, &c., is very imperfectly 

 made out ; and we hesitate very much, therefore, upon such slight proof, 

 to take the fact for granted, especially as we have a few instances as 

 well as a good many arguments and probabilities which go to establish 

 something very like the converse of it.* 



To begin then. If the statement were true, that the cause of the 



* Many statistical returns of great value might be annually published by government 

 (which has all the information ready), at a very small expense : and, among others, an 

 annual account of the amount, and disposal, of crime in the country the commitments, 

 convictions, and punishments would be highly useful and interesting. As far as data, 

 however, can be readily collected, we find very little evidence of that alternation, of 

 " more or less crime," with " high or low wages," to which the learned lord in ques- 

 tion alludes. It fact, it would be difficult, we suspect, for any man living to recollect any 

 period, at which the complaint of " distress" was not heard from some quarter : and, 

 even where years of comparative " prosperity" can be pointed out, we find little abate- 

 ment in the amount of crime. The year 1826 was the period of the great distress in the 

 manufacturing counties, when hundreds of thousands of persons were out of employ 

 maintained by public subscription through the country. The Bishop of Chester, in his 

 evidence before the Emigration Committee, says, that " in Bolton alone there are 8,000 

 weavers out of employ, whom he thinks will never get work again." At Carlisle, Mr. 

 Hunter says, " best weavers can only earn 5s. 6d. a week." Major Moody speaks to his 

 knowledge of 7,900 men out of employ in Manchester only. In this year (1826) the 

 number of commitments in the country was 16,147 : and in the last year which was one 

 of comparative improvement, as far as employment was concerned they rose to 17,921. 

 Again, in Lord Goderich's " prosperity year" (1824), the amount of commitments was 

 13,693 : which was an increase of near 1,500 over the number of the preceding year 

 (12,260). And in that " prosperity year," the actual amount of commitments, which 

 AVC have quoted 13,693 was rather greater than that of the years 1817, 1818, and 

 1819, which were years of extraordinary distress. 



