168 REPORT—1858. 
or improvidence of the working population, he said that in 1857 there were relieved 
out of the rates 2238 men, 4862 women, 5653 children, and 4864 vagrants; in all 
17,437 persons supported out of the savings of the industrious, notwithstanding all 
that was done by charity, by secret orders, and benefit societies. To his mind this 
pauperism was the result of sheer improvidence, and it would have to be dealt with 
by social science. He trusted that the day was dawning when morality would be a 
lesson taught with labour, and when as a people we might be wiser and better for our 
abundant benefits, 
On the Degree of Education of Persons tried at the Middlesex Sessions. 
By Joseru Bateman, LL.D., F.R.A.S. 
During the year 1856 there were 1717 persons charged with offences at these Ses- 
sions. Of these, 880 (or more than one half) could not write; viz. 379 could not 
read, and 50! could read but not write. Of these 880 persons who could not write, 
579 (out of 1262 committed or bailed, being almost one-half) were males, and 301 (out 
of 455, being two-thirds) were females. Besides these, 401 were returned as able to 
read and write imperfectly ; viz. 74 males and 27 females. On the other hand, there 
were 677 out of the 1717 charged (being more than one-third) who were stated to be 
able to read and write well; viz. 561 males out of 1262 charged, and 116 females 
out of 455 charged, and 18 (all males) reported to possess a superior education, 
This amount was so considerable as to give a colour to the opinion which still prevails 
to some extent, that the imparting of the mere elements of education does not neces- 
sarily improve the morals of the people. But there is one circumstance connected 
with these statistics which is usually overlooked, and which it is the chief object 
of the present paper to point out:—it is this. Middlesex, to which these returns 
relate, is a county in which elementary education is more generally diffused than it is 
throughout the country at large. It appears by the Registrar-General’s Report that 
in 1854 the proportion of men who, in the metropolis, wrote their names in the Marriage 
Register was 88 out of every 100, and the like proportion of women was 79 out of - 
every 100. It may be inferred therefore that there are in the metropolis only about 
12 men in 100, and 21 women in 100 who cannot write; and consequently that the 
criminals in that part of the country are not taken from the entire community indis- 
criminately, but that full one-half of them are taken from the class of extremely igno- 
rant, consisting of one-sixth of the population, thus reducing the criminals among the 
educated classes to a very small proportion indeed : and, if we confine our observa- 
tions to the case of women alone, we shall find that the extremely ignorant class, 
consisting of one-fifth only of the whole female population of the county, furnishes 
two-thirds of its female criminals.—See Report of Mr. Pashley, Q.C., to the Middle- 
sex Magistrates, 
On the Investments of the Industrial Classes. 
By Josrru BateMAN, LL.D., F.R.AS. 
The investments of the industrial classes are chiefly made in Friendly Societies and 
Savings Banks. The number of friendly societies enrolled and certified, and now in 
existence in England and Wales, is about 20,000, and the number of members belong- 
ing to them exceeds 2,000,000, with funds exceeding £9,000,000, of which the sum 
of £1,431,543 is in English and Welsh savings banks, and the sum of £1,944,991 in- 
vested with the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, making a total 
of £3,376,534 so invested. The number of individual depositors in savings banks on 
the 29th November, 1857, was 1,241,752, and the sum due to them was £32,984,923. 
It thus appears that the members of these societies and depositors in savings banks 
possess funds amounting to nearly £42,000,000, and that the average investment of 
each member of the friendly societies is £4 10s., and of each depositor in the savings 
bank about £26 lls. 3d. It appears that the number of depositors in savings banks 
is five times more than the number of persons entitled to dividends on the public 
funded debt; and that of those so entitled to dividends, by far the greater number are 
for very small amounts, such as may be supposed to belong to the humbler classes ; 
whilst the total number of persons receiving dividends exceeding £4000 per annum 
amounted only in the year 1856 to 227 in the United Kingdom, Another class of 
