be ascribed, we must first examine the localities in which it has
principally arisen, and endeavour to ascertain whether it is to be
found chiefly in the agricultural, pastoral, or manufacturing
districts. We must then consider the condition of the labouring
classes, and the means provided to restrain them in the quarters
where the progress of crime has been most alarming; and inquire
whether the existing evils are insurmountable and unavoidable, or
have arisen from the supineness, the errors, and the selfishness of
man. The inquiry is one of the most interesting which can occupy the
thoughts of the far-seeing and humane; for it involves the temporal
and eternal welfare of millions of their fellow-creatures;--it may
well arrest the attention of the selfish, and divert for a few
minutes the profligate from their pursuits; for on it depends whether
the darling wealth of the former is to be preserved or destroyed, and
the exciting enjoyments of the other arrested or suffered to
continue.

To elucidate the first of these questions, we subjoin a table,
compiled from the Parliamentary returns, exhibiting the progress of
serious crime in the principal counties, agricultural pastoral, and
manufacturing, of the empire, during the last fifteen years. We are
unwilling to load our pages with figures, and are well aware how
distasteful they are to a large class of readers; and if those
results were as familiar to others as they are to ourselves, we
should be too happy to take them for granted, as they do first
principles in the House of Commons, and proceed at once to the means
of remedy. But the facts on this subject have been so often
misrepresented by party or prejudice, and are in themselves so
generally unknown, that it is indispensable to lay a foundation in
authentic information before proceeding further in the inquiry. The