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D E R of scent but ¦ Bte.iAB, S^ mbeB 18...
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THE SOCIAL EVIL. We were induced to plac...
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We are unavoidaably obliged to postpone ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Statistics Qe Crime.—England. The Statis...
that sailors and soldiers are punished by tribunals of their own , and only a Few deserters are included in these returns—that , in short , only one class ot the community , rule , the poor class , in reality fall into the hands of criminal justice , the proportion of 1 in 45 , which possibly should be reduced to 1 in 30 , or 1 in 25 of the really responsible members of the community , is frightfully large . No wonder that there is such an outlay and so much alarm at the increase of crime . The number of offenders and the amount of evil involved in these figures of 401 , 264 persons subjected to criminal proceedings , are , for those who believe that his creatures
the Creator wills the happiness of , and who perceive that society as it grows in power grows in knowledge , quite appalling . Only our familiarity with . such descriptions could blunt our sensibility . If we could imagine to ourselves , after the manner of Sterne , each one of these persons undergoing his incarceration , storming with anger if hcbelieve himself innocent , framing , if guilty , pretexts for self-deceit , ornew devices of mischief , but whether innocent or guilty p ining in solitary confinement , or mixing with criminals , to which solitude is bliss , and if we could imagine all the misery their incarceration brings on their families and connexions , the mind would break down under the magnitude
of the evil . There is no official means of comparing the number of 401 , 264 persons , with the number of persons who fell under the control of the police many years prior to 1857 , and Mr ; Redgrave does not pretend to say whether it be more or less than in previous years . But the number of persons proceeded against by indictment , or the number of commitments , has been known since 1805 . Even as to them comparisons are much disturbed , and are indeed unreliable . In 1855 , for example , the Criminal
Justice Act transferred a large class of offences from the old course of law to summary jurisdiction . The consequence was that the commitments in 1856 sank to 19 , 437 from 25 , 972 in 1 S 55 , and from 29 , 359 in 1854 , or to three-fourths only of the former number and two-thirds of the latter . Probably a much greater number of lesser offenders were punished in those years , when there appeared a "Teat diminution of offences . In 1857 the ' number of commitments rose to 20 , 269 , 832 above
those of the former year , an increase of 43 pei cent . The increase was most conspicuous in Lancashire , 215 per cent . ; in Yorkshire 53 per cent . ; and generally in the scats of manufacture and trade . In Middlesex there was an increase . The returns of pauperism inform us that precisely in those districts where the increase of crime was greatest the increase of pauperism was greatest . In Middlesex there was a decrease both of pauperism and crime . As in 1856 there was a diminution of offences , notwithstanding the number of-men discharged from the fleet and army , because the people were then very prosperous , the increase of crime in" IS 57 was
mainly the consequence of the want of employment and poverty brought ou by the interruption to trade . Imperfect as these returns are , they establish , in conjunction with the monthly returns of pauperism now issued , an inseparable connexion between the well-being of the multitude "nd the diminution of offences . Crimes increase with poverty and distress ; in fact , nine-tenths of all the crimes punished by the law are violations of property , aud the temptation to commit such crimes is small in proportion as all the people arc rich . This makes it the duty of the State not to lessen by restrictions and taxation the sum of .. wealth in the . community , and not by any kind of regulations to increase tho natural inequalities in the fortunes of individuals .
Amongst the causes of the increase of crimes in the youthful population—strangely called "juvenile crime "— -pauperism is properly placed first and forojnost by Mr . Day . iu his elaborate aud exhausting work on this subject . * As incommodious dwellings , low lodging- housos , ignorance , intern pornncc , tho example of tho despised , tho want of education , are all , in the main , duo to poverty or pauperism , we hardly think , it logical to refor t ho increase of crimes , whether amongst tho juvoui'lo or the „ ft <; UUli . lJW »&^ Mh 0 rP P" ^^ causoa . Perhaps Mr . Day will think this point worth reconsideration before his book roaches a socond edition . It is a very comploto work , lias a oapital index , is well divided into olmptors , with appropriate mottoes , is full of apt quotations and illustrations , and will , wo have no doubt , bo well ro-* Juvenile Crime . ita Causa , Character , and Cure . By Sutnuol Phillips Day , J . F . Ilcfpo .
ceived by the public . The very ^ latest our statistical publications confirm his conclusions , and teach us that the mass of crimes which now plague the community are preventible .
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D E R scent but ¦ Bte . iAB , S ^ mbeB 18 . 1858 . T THE EEA . 96 g
The Social Evil. We Were Induced To Plac...
THE SOCIAL EVIL . We were induced to place a few facts before our readers some weeks ago in relation specially to the foreign element in what is delicately called the " Great Social Evil , " because we saw clearly that , in this direction at least , those benevolent yet mistaken individuals who were-attempting-to deal with this large subject were groping in the dark , or , at all events , endeavouring to put into action means perfectly inadequate to attain the desired , or indeed any , practical end . We showed that the root of this branch of the " Great Social Evil" was to be
association was on the wrong , or was imperfectly acquainted with some of the facts of the question with which they profess to deal . The report has this paragraph— f If English debauchees crave and love the stimulant of French harlotry , au contrair ? , French profligates seem to covet the persons of English strumpet *—with a comment in relation to what appears to be its strangeness . We will throw a little light on the subject . The reason why English prostitutes are coveted by foreign debauchees is , because in the " worst" there is something to teach . The foreign prostitutes have nothing to learn ; even the " best " come here as teachers . We refrain from going further into this dark chapter of human turpitude .
looked for among those very classes who were appealed to for help to eradicate this canker , and for acts of Parliament of a more stringent character than at present existed . We pointed to the indisputable fact that foreign prostitutes were , in the nature of an article of luxury , imported not for the use of the million , but for the special service of the " upper ten thousand "—the wealthy , the noble , and the foul-passioned debauchees . We find that the Associate Institution for Improving and Enforcing the Laws for the Protection of Women have , in their twelfth report just issued , alluded to the article that appeared in the Leader on the 14 th ¦
of July last . . . ¦ ¦; . . . '¦ . ¦ , First , let us say a word m reference to the report , which ' seems to be the work of some clerical Boanerges . We should have been better pleased had the report been drawn up in more temperate language . We do not admire strong writing , especially writing that abounds with such flowers ^ rhetoric as " Society have exposed the hellish system of prostitution " - — " unhappy women rendered ten times more the children of hell . - : — " female monsters of these dens of hell "—" Madame Mesmeurice , this devil in the abused shape of a woman . " The Social Evil is bad enough , but it
is not to be cured by hard words . The association appear to have met some amount of success in their labours , and they specially point to the interest now taken by the press generally in this grave question . The association further assert that by their operations and labours the public at lar « -e now concede that prostitution is not " anecessary vice in a Christian commumty . " We do not quite understand what is meant by this . It may not be a " necessary vice , " but certainly it is a common and an invariable vice , differing only in decree in all free Christian communities . We never knew that at any time any portion of the
public asserted that it was a " necessary" vice . The association refers to their exertions to protect children under thirteen years of age from 'pollution , and point to the fact of their bill having bees thrown out mainly by Mr . Craufurd , who raised the objection that by tho Common Law of England a " irl was marriageable at twelve years of age . The sooner a law 30 stupid and disgusting is swept from the statute-book the better , and here the association havo our full sympathy with their labours . But . we do not propose to deal with the large question of . prostitution , we only desire to make a few
additional remarks in reference to our article on the subject of " the foreign element , " which has been referred to in a complimentary manner by the association in their report - that article , we repeat , was founded on facts—easily acccssiblo facts . We named the localities whore those foreign roccption housos abound , we indicated tho class from which their chief supporters were drawn ; nay , wo pointed at two well-known patrons in particular , one an ornament of tho patrician branch of tho Legislature , tho other an equal embellishment to the more p lebeian assembly of law-iimkors . The committee in their report say : —
ing and degrading commerco in foreign strumpetsescapes thq lash of public censure and execration . Well , lot the association make a beginning . Thoro is not tho slightost difficulty in procuring tho name of I ho commoner who familiarly figures as " Papa" in Crock-street , and tho poor whoso white * kid-glovo Uborality is so notorious in an adjacent foreign reception house . On looking over tho report , it struck us that tho
It shall not bo tho fault of tho Committee of the Associate Institution , if nny man—however dignified in etatlon , or poweful from wealth or oflleo- —whether merchant or member of l ^ rliftmont-T-wheth or peer or co m " mondr— fTnei bodetoctou as an abettor of this disguat-
We Are Unavoidaably Obliged To Postpone ...
We are unavoidaably obliged to postpone the report of the trial at Liverpool , Scott v . Dixon , but hope to have it in our power to lay a full report be * fore our readers in our next publication . The Treaty of Tien-Sien , Death of Kevisks . — The following is from the Times : — "If our information be correct , the two most important articles of this treaty _ the Resident Minister at Pekin , and the right of Englishmen to go to any part of the empire for curiosity or trade—were in peril at the very last moment , and were obtained by England single-handed , and only by a stroke of happy audacity . Whenever these stories of baffled . intrigues become lawful history they will add another illustration to all we
already know of Russian diplomacy , and tend to show the bad results of keeping doubtful company . "When the Russian and American eagles take a companion flight , the younger bird does the work and the elder eats the prey . There is , however , one fact connected with these strangely involved intrigues which is not without its interest . We mentioned some time since that Keying , the negotiator of the Nankin Treaty in 1842 , had acted a sort of independent guerilla part in these negotiations , and having been countermined and exposed , had gone back to Pekin . We now hear that the life of this poor old man has been
sacrificed . On his way back to the capital , the General commanding at Tung-chow arrested him as a deserter from his post . Two princes of the blood royal immediately memorialised that he might . be executed . The Emperor ordered him to be tried , and the court sentenced him ; to public disgrace and decapitation . Just , as the advices left the decree had come down . The Emperor says that in . his mercy he took Keying out of disgrace and sent him to try to soothe the foreigner , believing he knew how to do so . Lo ! the next he hears of him is that he has abandoned his post nnder a plea of having something important to communicate . When arrested and ordered to write a defence and
state his secret , it turns out to be merely a piece of advice to iesort to a policy which , after trial , had been decided against , —probably the rousing of the population against as . For all this , and much more which is minutely detailed , the Emperor agrees to the sentence of death passed upon Keying ; but , inasmuch , as it would give pain to him to see one who had once held such an honourable , position left in the marketplace a headless corpse , Hienfung , in his boundless-WSTcyy - * Anxious to reconcile justice and clemency , " desires two high officers to visit Keying , and requeat him to put himself to death . This strange mercy raa its course . Keying is dead .
The ! Quebw and thk Canadians . —Mr . J . G . Norris , who arrived recently in this country from Toronto , with a petition to her Majesty from a considerable number of the principal inhabitants of the two provinces , has received the answer of her Majesty through Sir E . B . Lytton . The petition stated that a Crystal Palace , for an exhibition of the products of Canadian industry and skill , is in course of erection in Toronto , and will be completed about the 1 st of October ; and that , as her Majesty had been graciously pleased' to honour with her presence tho inauguration of similar undertakings ire England , the memorialists prayed that she would confer a mark of favour on her subjects in Canada by giving authority to some member of the Royal Family to proceed to Toronto to represent her on the opening of tho Crystal Palace . The reply Bays , that , though under the necessity of declining the request of the petitioners , the
Queen appreciates tho loyalty to the Crown and the attachment to her person and family which prompted the wishes of the petitioners ; and ; concludes with an expression of hope on the part of hear Majesty that thd forthcoming exhibition at Toront will produce important and useful results to Canada . ___^_____ * - ^ I ' nB ^ oinw BnEiNT = sl 2 yr ^ 14 According to what has transpired of the discussions of the Zollvoroin at Hanover , it i » probable that the proposition of Prussia to make a , general reduction in tho transit duties will be adopted . That measure will not bo applied to Austria alontf ; , but will be extended to I ho other Gorman states , namely , Mecklenburg , Lubook . Hamburg , and Bromon , which do not holong to tho Zollverein , aa well as to foreign ¦ at . ttfls . * J ^ f' £ **«* - bourg , and I 3 runawlck voted In favour of the total aballtion of tho transit duties . "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 18, 1858, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18091858/page/17/
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