172 



REPORT 1861. 



qrs. 



United States 3,807,035 



Turkey (Moldavia, &c.) . 1,887,700 



Prussia 1,751,012 



Russia 1,737,388 



France 1,099,714 



Egypt 1,079,311 



7. 



8. 



9. 

 10. 

 11. 



qrs. 



Denmark 1,076,000 



British North America. . 920,000 



Sweden 886,723 



Hanse Towns 379,584 



Other parts of Germany 208,320 



Statistics of Crime and Criminals in E)igland. By T. W. Saunders, 



Hecorder of Bath. 

 The speaker called attention to the importance of the suhject and the very great 

 amount of popular error entertained with reference to it — so great, indeed, that the 

 belief was well established that, as regards crime and ciiminals, this countiy is in 

 a deplorable condition. He observed that to the abandonment of the practice of 

 transporting our worst offenders to the colonies, and the substitution of penal ser- 

 vitude at home, this supposed evil is universally attributed. He stated that the 

 facts he had to biing under consideration would, he believed, expose this en'or and 

 show that, with reference to crime and criminals, the country was never in a more 

 satisfactory condition than at the present time, lie then refen-ed to the state of 

 crime in the sixteenth, seventeeth, aud eighteenth centm-ies, as showing its gi-eat 

 prevalence, and contrasted the security of life and property in tlie present day 

 ■\%'ith the dangers which beset them in former times. He drew attention to the 

 establishment in 1856 of a imiform system of police throughout the whole country, 

 and to the fact that at the end of 1853 the first penal-servitude Act came into 

 operation, the effects, however, of which were not f^lt imtil the yeai- 1859; and he 

 dwelt upon the importance of the statistics as now furnished by the police authori- 

 ties to the government, and that these returns continually proved the general 

 decrease of crime and of the criminal classes. These returns, he said, showed that 

 the criminal classes at larr/e, comprising known fliieves and depredators, reccirers of 

 stolen goods, prostitutes, siiq)ected persons, and vagrants and tramjJS numbered as 

 follows in the years as under : — 



1858 134,922 



1859 135,766 



1860 131,024 



1861 123,049 



1862 127,051 



1863 126,139 



showing a decrease in five years of 8783 ; and that if vag?-ants and tramps were ex- 

 cluded, who were often honest people, and the number of whom is greatly affected 

 by merely temporary causes, such as the cotton famine, the numbers would be as 

 follows : — 



1858 112,363 



1859 112,413 



1860 108,760 



1861 99,048 



1862 102,635 



1863 92,957 



sho-vraig a decrease in five years of 19,406, and this, too, whilst in the same time 

 no less than 12,281 persons "had been released in this countiy from penal servitvide. 

 He proceeded to show that baud in hand with this diminution there had been a 

 decrease in the number of houses of had character —those the resorts of thieves and 

 prostitutes, the decrease since 1859 being no less than 3566, or nearly 14 per cent. ! 

 The actual diminution of crime, he remarked, had kept pace with the diminution 

 of the criminal classes ; and after calling attention to the fact that the police kept 

 a register of all crimes committed, whether or not any persons were apprehended for 

 them, he stated that the numbers of indictable ofiences committed in each year 

 since and inclusive of 1858 are as follows : — 



I 



