lowest stations of life, in consequence of the numerous ills to which
all flesh--but especially all flesh in manufacturing communities--is
heir. Our limits preclude the possibility of entering into all the
branches of this immense subject; we shall content ourselves,
therefore, with referring to one, which seems of itself perfectly
sufficient to explain the increase of crime, which at first sight
appears so alarming. This is the immense proportion of _destitute
widows with families_, who in such circumstances find themselves
immovably fixed in places where they can neither bring up their
children decently, nor get away to other and less peopled localities.

From the admirable statistical returns of the condition of the
labouring poor in France, prepared for the _Bureau de l'Intérieure_,
it appears that the number of widows in that country amounts to the
enormous number of 1,738,000.[10] This, out of a population now of
about 34,000,000, is as nearly as possible _one in twenty_ of the
entire population! Population is advancing much more rapidly in Great
Britain than France; for in the former country it is doubling in
about 60 years, in the latter in 106. It is certain, therefore, that
the proportion of widows must be greater in this country than in
France, especially in the manufacturing districts, where early
marriages, from the ready employment for young children, are so
frequent; and early deaths, from the unhealthiness of employment or
contagious disorders, are so common. But call the proportion the
same: let it be taken at a twentieth part of the existing population.
At this rate, the two millions of strangers who, during the last
forty years, have been thrown into the four northern counties of
Lancaster, York, Stafford, and Warwick, must contain at this moment
_a hundred thousand widows_. The usual average of a family is two and
a half children--call it two only. There will thus be found to be