364 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xx. 



Here we have an increase in the average of the first 

 and last ten-year periods amounting to 46 per cent., 

 while the increase of population in the twenty years from 

 1865 to 1885 is a little less than 30 per cent. 1 



The writer imputes this result to the continued growth 

 of our great cities, which bring together both criminals 

 and those who are preyed upon, and by association and 

 opportunity foster the growth of a criminal population. 

 To this cause, however, must be added the increasing 

 severity of the struggle for existence and our cruel and 

 degrading prison system, which together render it almost- 

 impossible for first offenders to gain a livelihood by hon- 

 est labor. 



In concluding this brief sketch of the inevitable re- 

 sults of the struggle for existence and for wealth under 

 present social conditions, I call special attention to the 

 fact that so many converging lines of evidence point in 

 the same direction. The evidence for the enormous in- 

 crease of the total mass of misery and want is over- 

 whelming, while, that it has increased even faster than 

 the increase of population is, to my own mind, almost 

 equally clear. But when we see that insanity and sui- 

 cide, deaths from drink, premature births, congenital 

 defects, and the numbers of criminals have all increased 



1 The Rev. W. D. Morrison, late H. M. Chaplain at Wandsworth 



Prison, in the Nineteenth Century for June, 1892. 



