Lancashire, is 1 in 418
Staffordshire, 1 in 482
Middlesex, 1 in 439
Yorkshire, 1 in 839
Lanarkshire, 1 in 832[3]
Renfrewshire, 1 in 306
[Footnote 3: Lanarkshire has no police except in Glasgow, or its
serious crime would be about 1 in 400, or 350.]
Further, the statistical returns of crime demonstrate, not only that
such is the present state of crime in the densely peopled and
manufacturing districts, compared to what obtains in the agricultural
or pastoral, but that the tendency of matters is still worse;[4] and
that, great as has been the increase of population during the last
thirty years in the manufacturing and densely peopled districts, the
progress of crime has been still greater and more alarming. From the
instructive and curious tables below, constructed from the criminal
returns given in _Porter's Parliamentary Tables_, and the returns of
the census taken in 1821, 1831, and 1841, it appears, that while in
some of the purely pastoral counties, such as Selkirk and Anglesey,
crime has remained during the last twenty years nearly stationary,
and in some of the purely agricultural, such as Perth and Aberdeen,
it has considerably _diminished_, in the agricultural and mining or
manufacturing, such as Shropshire and Kent, it has _doubled_ during
the same period: and in the manufacturing and mining districts, such
as Lancashire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, and Renfrewshire, more than
_tripled_ in the same time. It appears, from the same authentic
sources of information, that the progress of crime during the last
twenty years has been much more rapid in the manufacturing and
densely peopled than in the simply densely peopled districts; for in
Middlesex, during the last twenty years, population has advanced
about fifty per cent, and serious crime has increased in nearly the
same proportion, having swelled from 2480 to 3514: whereas in
Lancashire, during the same period, population has advanced also
fifty per cent, but serious crime has considerably _more than
doubled_, having risen from 1716 to 3987.
[Footnote 4: Table, showing the comparative population, and
committals for serious crime, in the under-mentioned counties, in the
years 1821, 1831, and 1841.