I have now but to add a comparative statement of the criminality of the
London coach and cabmen in relation to that of other callings.
The metropolitan criminal returns show us that crime among this class
has been on the decline since 1840. In that year the number taken into
custody by the London police was 1319; from which time until 1843 there
was a gradual decrease, when the number of coach and cabmen taken into
custody was 820. After this the numbers fluctuated slightly; till, in
1848, there were 972 individuals arrested for various infractions of
the law.
For the chief offences given in the police returns, I find, upon
taking the average for the last ten years, that the criminality of the
London coach and cabmen stands as follows: For murder there has been
annually 1 individual in every 29,710 of this body taken into custody;
for manslaughter, 1 in every 2829; for rape, 1 in 8488; for common
assaults, 1 in 40; for simple larceny, 1 in 92; for wilful damage, 1
in 285; for uttering counterfeit coin, 1 in 612; for drunkenness, 1 in
46; for vagrancy, 1 in 278; for the whole of the offences mentioned in
the returns, 1 in every 5 of their number. On comparing these results
with the criminality of other classes, we arrive at the following
conclusions:--The tendency of the metropolitan coach and cabmen for
murder is less than that of the weavers (who appear to have the
greatest propensity of all classes to commit this crime), as well as
sailors (who are the next criminal in this respect), and labourers,
sawyers, and carpenters. On the other hand, however, the coach and
cabmen would seem to be more inclined to this species of atrocity
than the turners, coachmakers, shoemakers, and tailors; the latter,
according to the metropolitan police returns for the last ten years,
being the least murderous of all classes. For manslaughter, the coach
and cabmen have a stronger predisposition than any other class that I
have yet estimated. The average crime in this respect for ten years is
1 in 20,000 individuals of the entire population of London; whereas
the average for the same period among the London coach and cabmen has
been as high as 1 in every 2800 of their trade. In rape they rank less
criminal than the labourers, carpenters, and weavers, but still much
higher than the general average, and considerably above the tailors,
sawyers, turners, shoemakers, or coachmakers. In the matter of common
assaults they stand the highest of all; even the labourers being less
pugnacious than they. Their honesty seems, nevertheless, to be greater
than common report gives them credit for; they being, according to
the same returns, less disposed to commit simple larceny than either
labourers, sailors, or weavers, though far more dishonest than the
generality of the London population. Nor are they so intemperate as,
from the nature of their calling, we should be led to imagine. The
sailors (who seem to form the most drunken of all trades, there being 1
in every 13 of that body arrested for this offence), and the labourers
(who come next), are both much more addicted to intoxication than the
coach and cabmen; although the latter class appear to be nearly twice
as intemperate as the rest of the people, the general average being 1
drunkard in every 81 of the entire residents of the metropolis, and
1 in every 46 of the London coach and cabmen. Hence it may be said,
that the great vices of the class at present under consideration are a
tendency to manslaughter and assault.
The cause of this predisposition to violence against the person on the
part of the London coach and cabmen I leave others to explain.