4 oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the abolition in recent years of several old penal laws, as well as 

 by the greater reluctance of the police to set the law in motion 

 against trivial offenders. . . . Offenses may be growing, but the 

 population may be increasing still faster ; the question, therefore, 

 requires to be considered, to what extent the total number of 

 cases tried is keeping pace with the general growth of the com- 

 munity. Basing our calculations upon the estimated population 

 at each decade, it comes out that in 1860-'69 one case was tried 

 annually for every forty-four of the inhabitants of England and 

 Wales ; in 1870-'79, one for every thirty-seven inhabitants ; and 

 in 1880-'89, one for every thirty-eight. According to these statis- 

 tics, the proportion of crime to the population has remained al- 

 most the same for the last two decades ; but, if the last two decades 

 are compared with the first, the growth of crime has outstripped 

 the growth of population." 



The question whether crime is increasing in seriousness along 

 with its expansion in volume maybe answered best by an analysis 

 of the number and nature of the indictable offenses brought up 

 for trial during the three decades. The figures disclose a continu- 

 ous decrease; but opposed to this is the fact that the cases of 

 offenses against property without violence, constituting two thirds 

 of the whole number tried in the first decade, were more usually 

 dealt with summarily during the two subsequent decades. For 

 arriving at a more accurate estimate of the serious crimes com- 

 mitted in the first decade, Mr. Morrison selects as a type murder, 

 concerning which no material change in public feeling or judicial 

 procedure has taken place within the last thirty years. The fig- 

 ures — 126 in the first decade to 153 in the third — show that this, 

 the most serious of all crimes, has steadily increased within the 

 last three decades, and that in proportion to the growth of popu- 

 lation it was nearly as common in the last decade as in the first. 

 The author believes, therefore, that the apparent decrease in in- 

 dictable offenses is attributable to a change of criminal procedure 

 rather than to an actual decrease of serious crime. Even after the 

 Summary Jurisdiction Act was passed, by which a large number 

 of cases were taken out of the indictable list, every form of serious 

 crime appears to have relatively increased. Large increases in the 

 average of commitments to prison, the extension of juvenile and 

 reformatory schools, and the rapid and uninterrupted augmenta- 

 tion of the police force, are further adduced as pointing to the con- 

 clusion that " crime during the last thirty years, for which we 

 possess official returns, has not decreased in gravity, and has been 

 steadily developing in magnitude." 



The explanation of this supposed increase is sought in the con- 

 centration of men in large cities and industrial centers. 



Sir Edmund Du Cane criticises Mr. Morrison's methods, fig- 



