112 REPORT— 1853. 



On a proposed Plan for Decimal Coinage. By Theodore Wm. R athbome. 



On the Causes, Extent, and Preventives of Crime ; with especial reference to 

 Hull. By the Rev. James Selkirk, 3I.A., Chaplai7i of the Hull Gaol. 



The subject of crime in the country in general is in these days attracting the 

 attention of all classes of society. The causes of crime are almost the same every- 

 where, and may be reduced to a very few. 



I. (1) The most prolific source of crime is beyond all doubt drunkenness. Testi- 

 monies to the truth of this are borne by judges, magistrates and gaol chaplains, and 

 others who have had opportunities of investigating it. In 1851, 10,000 persons who 

 were tried at assizes and sessions in England were brought into that deplorable 

 condition by drunkenness, and upwards of 50,000 were summarily convicted in the 

 same year by the magistrates from the same cause. 



In the last three years in Hull 1325 cases of drunkenness have been taken before 

 the magistrates, and more than 1000 other cases of crimes chiefly occasioned by the 

 same vice. 



(2) Another source of crime is the neglect of children by their parents. This will 

 be obvious to all who are in the habit of visiting the streets inhabited by the more 

 degraded part of the population, whose children, in ignorance, dirt and rags are beg- 

 ging about the streets. Besides this, the filthy and confined and ill-ventilated state 

 of the abodes of this class has a tendency to promote crime, from the absence of all 

 possibility of decency and self-respect. 



(3) A third source of crime is the numerous low and ill-regulated places of amuse- 

 ment, which are particularh' attractive to, and frequented by, the lower orders. As 

 one proof of this it may be mentioned that the chaplain of the Preston House of 

 Correction sent officers to visit one of these places, and their report describes 700 

 boys and girls collected together to have their bodies poisoned with smoke and drink, 

 and their minds poisoned with ribaldry and obscenity. Unhappily these places are 

 numerous in Hull, and attended by youth of both sexes. 



(4) The associations formed at low lodging-houses is another source of much crime. 

 It is here that destitute and profligate persons are brought together in dense masses, 

 and spend their time chiefly in corrupting each other. 



II. The Extent of Crime. — The average number of committals every year in 

 England is about 115,000, and in Scotland about 24,000. The average number of 

 murders in the last ten years does not seem to have increased. It is about 67. 

 Compared with the increase of the population, very grave offences are rather dimi- 

 nished than otherwise. The greatest number of crimes are committed by persons 

 between eighteen and forty years of age, and many of these are by persons who have 

 not been brought up to any regular occupation. The education of a large proportion 

 of criminals is very meagre and limited, and particularly among the females. More 

 than 20 per cent, of the persons taken into custody in Hull in the last three years 

 are of this class. 



The number of persons that pass through the Hull gaol in a year is between 700 

 and 800. 



III. llie Preventives of Crime. — (1) This very important part of the subject has 

 of late years much engaged the attention both of the legislature and of philanthropic 

 individuals. Ragged and Industrial Schools, which have been established in the 

 metropolis and in the destitute and depraved districts of other large towns, have 

 proved a seasonable check to crime among the juvenile portion of the community. 

 Those which were established by Mr. Sheriff Watson in Aberdeen twelve years ago 

 have proved eminently successful. There has been a great decrease in the number 

 of juvenile ofl'enders, and a mendicant child is almost unknown. 



The one established in Hull contains ninety boys and fortj'-four girls, and such of 

 them as have been placed out in situations are doing well and giving satisfaction to 

 their employers. 



Great success has also attended the establishment of Reformatory Schools for 

 young criminals at Mettray in France, at Hamburg, and the one lately founded at 

 Red Hill, near Reigate, in Surrey. 



(2) Another means of preventing crime is the extensive circulation of religious and 

 moral publications, in a cheap form and in easy language. 



