How are these opposite statements and appearances to be reconciled?
Both are true--the reconciliation is easy. The misery, recklessness,
and vice exist chiefly in one class--the industry, sobriety, and
comfort in another. Each observer tells truly what he sees in his own
circle of attention; he does not tell what, nevertheless, exists, and
exercises a powerful influence on society, of the good which exists
in the other classes. If the evils detailed in Lord Ashley's
speeches, and painted with so much force in the _Perils of the
Nation_, were universal, or even general, society could not hold
together for a week. But though these evils are great, sometimes
overwhelming in particular districts, they are far from being
general. Nothing effectual has yet been done to arrest them in the
localities or communities where they arise; but they do not spread
much beyond them. The person engaged in the factories are stated by
Lord Ashley to be between four and five hundred thousand: the
population of the British islands is above 27,000,000. It is in the
steadiness, industry, and good conduct of a large proportion of this
immense majority that the security is to be found. Observe that
industrious and well-doing majority; you would suppose there is no
danger:--observe the profligate and squalid minority; you would
suppose there is no hope.

At present about 60,000 persons are annually committed, in the
British islands, for serious offences[14] worthy of deliberate trial,
and above double that number for summary or police offences. A
hundred and eighty thousand persons annually fall under the lash of
the criminal law, and are committed for longer or shorter periods to
places of confinement for punishment. The number is prodigious--it is
frightful. Yet it is in all only about 1 in 120 of the population;
and from the great number who are repeatedly committed during the