I 



126 REPORT— 1866. 



LIVERPOOL IN RESPECT TO PAUPERISM. 



By a Parliamentary jjaper Just issued, it appears there were indoor and outdoor 

 paupers relieved 1st June 1866. 



Cost of Lunatics for 

 Population Paupers relieved, 12 months, 1865. 



in 1861. in and outdoor. £ s. 



Manchester parish . . 18-5,410 8,394 4312 7 



Liverpool parish .... 269,742 18,435 9940 8 



The crime of Liverpool appears to be increasing every year at a rate out of all 

 roportion with the rate of increase of the population. A few da3's ago, Baron 

 Martin, in charging the grand jury at Liverpool, said, that "never since he had been 

 on the bench had he seen a more deplorable calendar than thatofthe present assizes, 

 particularly with reference to the serious nature of the crimes. Sixteen of the 

 cases were of homicide, and in his opinion several of the cases put down as man- 

 slaughter ought really to have been styled murder They were the worst 



list of cases of homicide that he had ever seen — he did not think he had ever seen 

 anything so bad during the course of a long experience on the bench." On the 

 same day, before sentencing a person charged with manslaughter, his lordship 

 stated that "this case arose out of drunkenness, which seemed to be the cause of 

 nine-tenths of all the crime that was committed." 



At the Salford Hundred Quarter Session, held a few weeks since, Mr. Edmimd 

 Ashworth, one of the visiling justices, made a remark which ought not to be omitted 

 in this paper. He said, " In the borough of Liverpool they had nearly 10,000 

 prisoners a year, and the recommitals were .58 per cent., while the number of pri- 

 soners to the population of the borough of Liverpool was 1 to 45| — the extreme 

 of criminality of any population in the north of England, but the sentences there 

 only average 35^ daj's. Some of the Liverpool magistrates had an opinion in 

 fa^•our of giving a license to sell liquor to almost every house for which an appli- 

 cation was made ; and looking at that state of things, and the figures already given, 

 it appeared that Liverpool was the most drunken, and had the highest range of 

 criminality of any town, perhaps, in England. Hence it became the duty of the 

 authorities to consider a little the position they occupied." At this time, when 

 cholera has invaded our shores, I cannot conclude without some reference to the 

 alarming mortality in Liver|)ool — so alarming that the medical papers speak of 

 Livei-pool as "a national danger." A Livei'pool paper, of the 9th instant, thus 

 speaks of the mortality there : " Thousands of pounds have been expended in 

 attempting to remove the causes of disease and death, and to introduce better sani- 

 tary regulations ; yet fever and other contagious diseases not only exist but prevail 

 to an alarming extent, increasing the bills of mortality so fearfully above the 

 average of the United Kingdom that six thousand lives were sacrificed during the 

 past 3'ear, which, in the opinion of Dr. Trench, would have been saved if Liver- 

 pool iiad been as healthy as other towns." 



This statement is so appalling that it may well occasion apprehension, and 

 attract the attention of comparative strangers to this town as a " national danger." 



The subjoined Table shows the number of inquests held in Liverpool and Man- 

 chester respectively, from 1856 till 1865 : — 



THE OLD LICENSING SYSTEM. 



1856. 

 Liverpool .... 656 

 Manchester . . 496 



THE SO-CALLED FREE-TRADE SYSTEM. 



1862. 1863. 1864. 1865. 



Liverpool .... 70 870 960 2938 



Manchester .. 535 603 610 — 



The population of the districts included in 1861 was — Livei-pool, 443,938; Man- 

 chester, 357,979. 



