364 Police of the Metropolis. [[APRIL, 



failed to carry him out of the country) might not with great pro- 

 priety be made subject to search, at all times, both in his person and in 

 his premises, by the police (without any specific warrant for the purpose 

 granted by a magistrate, for a term of say ten years to be fixed by 

 the court which tried and sentenced him. 



It will be obvious that, in a discussion of so much general interest, 

 and so extended in detail as the present, only a very brief outline of any 

 change or changes which might be desirable, can be given within the 

 limits of a magazine. We are aware, too, that, in the hints we have 

 thrown out, we shall have exposed ourselves to the hazard of being 

 charged with mere vulgar error with a recurrence to the antiquated 

 policy of severe enactments, to prevent the increase, or the commission 

 of crime. If every course that has been used and departed from and 

 the utility of which would seem to be obvious is, of necessity, error, 

 we must be content to lie under the charge. The whole question, as it 

 seems to us, is one of degree. To be criminal is a condition undoubtedly 

 pitiable and unhappy : but injustice is done to honesty a consumma- 

 tion we are anxious to avoid if we fail to treat criminality at the same 

 time as a condition fit to be steadily visited with punishment. In admit- 

 ting the circumstances connected with crime to be fairly entitled to some 

 commiseration, we by no means recognize the principle, that the mass 

 of crime committed in this country proceeds from either public or indi- 

 vidual distress. Distress is a convenient plea for those persons in society 

 who will not endure privations, or undergo the labour of making exer- 

 tions to avoid them : but it is not distress that makes one-fifth of the 

 domestic servants of England dishonest, and half the rest male and 

 female the better paid, notoriously the more impracticable the most 

 unmanageable class of people in existence. 



The crime which fills the country against property is not the kind of crime 

 against property which distress would produce ; nor are those individuals 

 who are distressed the characters that we find concerned in the com- 

 mission of it. Drunkenness brings more people to the gallows than the 

 wants of a wife and four children. Wherever any approach to the fair 

 excuse of distress exists,, with all the selfishness that the world is accused 

 of, sufficient, and more than sufficient, disposition exists to shew lenity 

 and allowance : the disposition to severity is seldom if ever found 

 never but as an exception to the common rule except where that plea 

 is distinctly negatived by circumstances. The shopkeepers of London, 

 whose passions against larceny are always kept excited by the constant 

 depredations to which they are exposed, and the vital interest they 

 feel in getting rid of offenders these people never spare a " person in 

 a respectable station of life," who is caught lifting, or otherwise pur- 

 loining their goods : but whenever a case of real and pressing want is 

 made out even without inquiring into the causes which may have pro- 

 duced that want we almost invariably find them disposed to relieve 

 the offender, and to forego prosecution. 



Then against the system of extending too much charity to the thief, 

 painful as the task is, it is our duty to hold up our hands. If we could 

 reward all the virtuous, we should be very glad to see such a practice 

 introduced : but as that scheme is incapable of being acted upon, we 

 must punish the vicious there must exist the distinction. We sin- 

 cerely believe that that distinction is not sufficiently marked at present : 

 and with all the odium which may attach to such a declaration we 

 add our belief, that a great portion of the indifference as to character 



