CEY1 > BRANCH — ROYAX ASIATIC SOCIETY, 



SI 



froin the ministers of the law there as they did in olden 

 times, of an escape from the pursuing sleuth bratch, siker 

 of scent, to follow them that fled." 



The average proportion of persons committed in England 

 and TTaies to the total population, is commonly reckoned«as 

 about 1 in 630. and convictions as about 1 in 1.000 inhabitants. 

 The proportion of both is perhaps favourable here in this 

 Colony, but to determine them with accuracy we should have 

 returns from the local Courts and population lists on which 

 we could rely. 



TTe are here indeed, as in almost every branch of statistical 

 enquiry, forcibly reminded that much remains to be done to 

 ascertain the condition, physical and moral, of the various 

 people of this interesting country — to impress upon them 

 some unity of sentiment and some community of feeling — 

 and to elevate the character, national and individual, of all. 



But in the meantime, if crime is increasing in violence and 

 effrontery, and there be that love of money which is the root 

 of all the evil. — if the old be old in guilt, and one-half or 

 two-thirds wholly unable either to read or write, — if nine- 

 tenths of the offenders are Bndhists and Gentoos, and 4-oths 

 :: the remaining tenth Mahometans and Soman Catholics, — - 

 do we not hear in these things a loud cry to renewed exer- 

 tions in the cause of education, on the one hand, and for in- 

 creased means of protection to person and property on the 

 other: — and are not the castes and outcasts, in language not 

 to be misunderstood nor disregarded, calling for the abolition 

 of distinctions, which being at variance with the progressive 

 civilization of the TV est em nations, acton the system now 

 being established here like dead flies in the apothecary's oint- 

 ment ; and for opening up to all the way to honest wealth, 

 in the various stations and occupations of social life, that 

 instead of ignorance, indolence and crime, each may take his 

 place as living and intelligent materials in the edifice of 

 society, to his own happiness and to the common print of all. 



