TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 155 
forces brought to bear against it,—the residences of these enemies of society being, 
for the most ey well known to the police, whole districts in London being notori- 
ously peopled by them. In illustration of the magnitude of this evil, the following 
particulars were given (in round numbers) from the ‘Judicial Statistics ’ for 1858 
and 1861, for England and Wales. 
The known thieves and receivers of stolen goods are stated to be 44,000; the 
prostitutes, 29,000; suspected persons, 39,000; vagrants and tramps, 23,000 ; 
making a total of 135,000 individuals believed to be living wholly, or for the 
most part, by criminal practices. The houses of bad character inhabited or fre- 
quented by criminals, 24,000. The cost of repressive measures paid by the rates 
and taxes, for the year 1861, £2,548,000, in addition to the heavy expenses falling 
upon individuals, and the loss of time incurred by witnesses, jurors, and others. 
e loss of property from depredation was estimated by Mr. Redgrave, for the year 
1858, at seven millions and three-quarters, making a total loss of upwards of ten 
millions per annum, attributable mainly to the class of habitual criminals. 
To give some idea of the number of crimes due to this class, it was stated that 
London is believed to harbour some 5000 habitual depredators, who, if taken upon 
the average to commit but one crime per day each, would commit upwards of a 
million and a half of crimes in the year. 
The moral evils were also noticed; the dread and anxiety suffered by thousands, 
especially the aged, the feeble, and the timid, the crimes of a few desperate men 
sometimes spreading panic through the whole country*; the contamination of 
the young, especially of the children of the honest working man, who often has no 
means of escaping the localities infected by crime; and lastly, the pitiable fate of 
the children born amidst crime, who, if they have not the good fortune to die 
early, have no possible escape from the contamination that surrounds them—many 
being even eaten into crime, and destined to fall ultimately into the grasp of the 
law to have these criminal teachings then scowrged out of them, if it be not too 
late to be possible. Probably not fewer than five or six infants per day are born (in 
this Christian country) so surrounded by a network of crime as to make escape 
from this fearful destiny all but impossible. 
The writer then observed as follows :—The obstinate vitality of this crying evil 
i us to undertake a thorough reconsideration of the conditions of that vitality, 
with a view to the discovery of some more vulnerable part than has hitherto been 
assailed, or, better still, of some one vital condition that it may be possible to 
withdraw altogether. 
The command of premises for dwelling, for places of congregation, and for the 
warehouses, workshops, &c., used by the receivers of stolen goods, the coiners, the 
illicit distillers, and the thieyes’ instrument-makers, and, lastly, for the training of 
young thieves, would undoubtedly appear to be one of the essential conditions of 
the existence of the predatory class. For had such shelter and harbourage been 
heretofore wholly unattainable, it is not too much to say that the class could never 
have come into existence. Assuming, then, that the command of adequate pre- 
mises is a vital condition, it remains only to consider whether, practically, the’ 
community has power to withdraw such condition, and (having regard to our 
Anglo-Saxon dislike to meddlesome or intrusive Governmental interference) 
whether the object of depriving the predatory class of the command of the pre- 
mises indispensable to their plundering-operations can be accomplished without 
having recourse to enactments of an arbitrary and inquisitorial character. 
The use of premises is of course obtained by the payment of rent; and as no 
%* “ Thieving, with all its terrors, costliness, and enormity, is a dark streak in the other- 
wise brightening horizon of modern civilization. It flits in the portentous shadows of 
prison walls ; and there is a voice from the echoes of every policeman’s footfall, telling of 
something bad under the surface of society, and cautioning us to beware of the danger. 
We never retire to rest without feeling that we may be maimed and terror-stricken in our 
beds, or, waking, may find the hard earnings of honest toil purloined beyond possibility 
of recovery, by a set of worthless vagabonds who are too lazy to earn their own living, 
and who, with the cowardly rascality that belongs to them, subsist on the stolen property 
of others. Will there ever be an end to thieves and robbers? Is there no means of getting 
rid of this interminable expense, damage, and terror ?’’—Cornhéll Magazine, Sept. 1860. 
