Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844 by Various
page 34 of 314 (10%)
page 34 of 314 (10%)
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same year, the individuals punished are not 1 in 200. Such as they
are, it may safely be affirmed that four-fifths of this 180,000 comes out of two or three millions of the community. We are quite sure that 150,000 come from 3,000,000 of the lowest and most squalid of the empire, and not 30,000 from the remaining 24,000,000 who live in comparative comfort. This consideration is fitted both to encourage hope and awaken shame--hope, as showing from how small a class in society the greater part of the crime comes, and to how limited a sphere the remedies require to be applied; shame, as demonstrating how disgraceful has been the apathy, selfishness, and supineness in the other more numerous and better classes, around whom the evil has arisen, but who seldom interfere, except to RESIST all measures calculated for its removal. It is to this subject--the ease with which the extraordinary and unprecedented increase of crime in the empire might be arrested by proper means and the total inefficiency of all the remedies hitherto attempted, from the want of practical knowledge on the part of those at the head of affairs, and an entirely false view of human nature in society generally, that we shall direct the attention of our readers in a future Number. [Footnote 14: Viz., in round numbers-- England, 30,000 Ireland, 26,000 Scotland, 4,000 60,000] |
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