H^cman Physiology. 5J 



their cost at 125., or the same as their incarcerated fellows, 

 say ^"30 a-year. At this rate the 90,800 registered pilferers 

 and rascals at large cost us not less than ,2,724,000 per 

 annum. If we add this to the figures previously given, 

 we shall arrive at the startling but undeniable result that 

 our criminal classes cost us in guarding against them, in 

 detecting them, in punishing them, and in supporting them 

 in idleness in and out of prison not less than FIVE MILLIONS 

 a-year, and this without including either Scotland or Ireland 

 in the calculation." 



Such is the army of outlaws preying upon society, eating up 

 the products of industry, and necessitating another army of 

 policemen, magistrates, lawyers, &c., merely to hold them in 

 check, and in certain cases to capture, imprison, and hang 

 them. But what a stupid muddle it is! Of the 15,000 under 

 1 6 years of age, every one should be in a reformatory. For 

 the rest, they should be placed under such surveillance as to 

 make unpunished crime impossible. Every known burglar, 

 pickpocket, thief, should be watched, and caught, and caged. 

 Every beggar and tramp could surely be made to earn an honest 

 living. There is no economy in having 100,000 criminals at 

 large, living upon the public. 



But the suppression of crime the crime that employs 

 policemen and fills prisons is the smallest part of the work to 

 be done. Great masses of people are to be trained into the 

 love of truth, honesty, fair dealing into doing as they would 

 be done by, and loving their neighbour as themselves. Dis- 

 honesty, if I can credit the testimony of English writers, 

 pervades society. A writer in Frazer's Magazine says : " Our 

 daily lives are full of falsehood, from the time when our boys 

 .get their tasks done for them at school, till they represent their 

 country through the trickeries of a contested election." "Dis- 

 honesty is, we must all admit," says London Society, "the rule, 

 and not the exception, among our domestic servants. Chronic 



