--PORTER'S _Parl. Tables_, 1841, 163; and _Census_ 1841.]
The table in the note exhibits the number of commitments for serious
offences, with the population of each, of eight counties--pastoral,
agricultural, and manufacturing--in Great Britain during the year
1841[2]. We take the returns for that year, both because it was the
year in which the census was taken, and because the succeeding year,
1842, being the year of the great outbreak in England, and violent
strike in Scotland, the figures, both in that and the succeeding
year, may be supposed to exhibit a more unfavourable result for the
manufacturing districts than a fair average of years. From this
table, it appears that the vast preponderance of crime is to be found
in the manufacturing or densely-peopled districts, and that the
proportion per cent of commitments which they exhibit, as compared
with the population, is generally three, often five times, what
appears in the purely agricultural and pastoral districts. The
comparative criminality of the agricultural, manufacturing, and
pastoral districts is not to be considered as accurately measured by
these returns, because so many of the agricultural counties,
especially in England, are overspread with towns and manufactories or
collieries. Thus Kent and Shropshire are justly classed with
agricultural counties, though part of the former is in fact a suburb
of London, and of the latter overspread with demoralizing coal mines.
The entire want of any police force in some of the greatest
manufacturing counties, as Lanarkshire, by permitting
nineteen-twentieths of the crime to go unpunished, exhibits a far
less amount of criminality than would be brought to light under a
more vigilant system. But still there is enough in this table to
attract serious and instructive attention. It appears that the
average of seven pastoral counties exhibits an average of 1
commitment for serious offences out of 1155 souls: of eight counties,
partly agricultural and partly manufacturing, of 1 in 682: and of
eight manufacturing and mining, of 1 in 476! And the difference
between individual counties is still more remarkable, especially when
counties purely agricultural or pastoral can be compared with those
for the most part manufacturing or mining. Thus the proportion of
commitment for serious crime in the pastoral counties of
Anglesey, is 1 in 3900
Carnarvon, 1 in 2452
Selkirk, 1 in 1990
Cumberland, 1 in 1194