Ignorance and Crime.

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poverty, arising from various causes, a certain peculiar tendency to steal, and excessive ignorance. Hence, as there have been recently stated to be as many as four million children in England, who ought by their age to be at school, but who are not in attendance at any, the remedy proposed by some for this ignorance, is a compulsory rating for school purposes of the whole country, so that no child need be debarred by poverty from attending school. The remedies proposed for the poverty which is assigned as the cause of the wretchedness of the children vary with the political or philanthropic views of each individual: some suggest a better form of government, the removal of certain abuses, laws to restrain vicious indulgences which are the proximate causes of all the wretchedness; some, improved dwellings and various sanitary regulations. For the young thieves nothing can be done, now imprisoning them has been found to be expensive and useless, but to send them to a Reformatory, which possesses some nostrum for curing them of this very inconvenient moral disorder.

These remedies may or may not be good in themselves; but supposing them all to be excellent, they will not alone effect a cure of the evil, simply because they do not touch it, and are founded on a want of knowledge of the real nature of it.

It is perfectly true that gross ignorance and crime are usually found associated together. A striking illustration of this may be derived from a recent Liverpool police report, which contains educational statistics of 19,336 persons, who had been apprehended during the nine months ending Sept. 30, 1856.

Per-centage of those who can read and write well.

Ditto

ditto

3.00

This per-centage is appallingly low, but it must by no means be regarded as a true indication of the state of education in the country, for we learn from the same table that nearly one-half of these apprehended persons were Irish, 826, orth, were foreigners, not one-fourth natives of Liverpool, and the remainder from various parts of the British dominions. Yet with all deductions it is a fact which should awaken very serious reflection, that a large portion of the existing population of one of the most important towns in the empire is sunk in such deep ignorance, and is in a state of aggression on society, for in such a state, more or less, must we regard all those who require the intervention of the police to preserve good order. Nor is this an accidental or transient condition. With respect to the degree of instruction possessed by the persons taken into custody this year,' says Mr. Greig, the

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head constable, in his official report, 'there does not appear to be any improvement: thus confirming the opinions expressed in a former report, viz., the more one looks into these tables, the more evident it is that the fruitful sources of crime are drunkenness and ignorance; in fact, drunkenness gives to the police more than half their work.'

A corresponding statement respecting the connection of ignorance and crime was recently made by an American gentleman, who had means of forming a judgment from having occupied a high civil office in his own large and important town, as well as from having been led by circumstances to investigate the condition of other cities and states. In his town, he said, the Irish form about one-tenth of the population: they generally arrive in a state of extreme ignorance, and, though constituting so small a part of society, of the criminal population they form full ninetenths; the educational status of that portion of the population being not more than from 3 to 5 per cent. who can read well. Now that this is by no means consequent on any especial national proclivity to crime is proved by the fact that, wherever the children of the Irish emigrants freely avail themselves of the benefits of the common schools, this tendency to crime disappears, and the Irish become undistinguishable from other Americans.

It is very probable that similar statistics might be obtained from other large towns besides Liverpool, proving that the class of persons, both young and old, who continually come under the notice of the police, and may, therefore, be considered to constitute the dangerous or criminal class of the community, are also profoundly ignorant. Such statements are familiar to us in the reports of gaol chaplains: the bulk of prisoners are unpossessed of any useful intellectual culture, unless they have acquired it in the gaol. Educational statistics from the various Reformatories out of London, up to April 1857, lead to a similar result (see Table, p. 83). Out of 1,174 children, of whom there were returns, 551, or about one-half, had no education at all; 369 had a little, but not sufficient to read the Bible or to write a letter; and 259 only had enough to read the Testament tolerably, and to write and cipher a little. An analysis of the returns leads to many points suggesting further consideration. About one-fourth of the boys could read the Testament, and were classed as good;' but only one-sixth of the girls. In some of the boys' reformatories the number is much higher; in the Akbar' frigate it is more than one-third of the whole number, and at Hardwicke more than one-half-the reason of this will be hereafter noticed; while at St. Bernard's Agricultural Colony it is not onetwelfth, at Brook Green one-fifteenth, and at the Arno's Court Girls' Reformatory one-tenth: without these the average would be higher. Now these facts prove that ignorance and crime are fre

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quent concomitants; but they do not prove that either is the cause of the other, still less that ignorance is the origin of crime. The reason that the statistics of Hardwicke Reformatory are so high is, that this school contains many of the cleverest scholars of the National Schools of Cheltenham, who, with their superior talents, have had peculiar power in luring over others to their own evil ways. It is the fact also that in many other Reformatories the very worst and most dangerous young persons, both boys and girls, are those who have had a superior education, and some of whom belong to a higher class of society. It is the experience of gaol chaplains that the worst and most hardened culprits are those who have had great advantages of education; of this the Rev. J. Clay, of Preston, gives a striking instance in his reports; and the criminal annals of the last few years give fearful warnings that no amount of intellectual or even religious training is a complete preservative against crime.

Nor is extreme poverty in itself the cause of crime. An intimate knowledge of two large Reformatories-one for boys,' the other for girls, from their commencement-leads us to the certainty that the crime for which the child has been convicted has in no case been the result of actual want. Indeed, the wretched condition of the children who attend Ragged Schools is to be attributed, in most cases, not to the real unavoidable poverty of the parents, but to that miserable condition which springs from the gratification of the animal passions. It follows, then, that the removal of ignorance by any number of schools, or of poverty by any amount of pecuniary help, would in no way lessen the evil.

The great and real spring of the immense amount of evil with which we are striving to grapple, lies in the deep corruption which must be infused into the hearts of the young by the impure influences with which they have been surrounded from infancy, causing an ignorance of all that is right and good, and in comparison with which book knowledge and intellectual acquirements are of comparatively little consequence. The following Table is a specimen of the kind of homes from which young persons come forth criminals, as well as ignorant of everything good. It is the result of a house-to-house visit to the homes of 91 boys who were in the Liverpool Gaol at Walton, July 4th, 1856. The nine cases here given are a sample of the whole. (Vide Table, p. 85.)

Now, such moral and spiritual condition existing in the child, as is the inevitable consequence of the parental training he has received from infancy, can it be wondered at that he is early drawn aside by the innumerable temptations to evil whieh beset him in every direction? The Liverpool police report, to which allusion has already been made, states, that in this town there are 1,445 public-houses, and 896 beer-houses; 714 known houses

of

Criminal Home Influences.

REPORTS of a House-to-House Visit made to the Parents of the Boys named in this List who were in the Walton Gaol, 4th July, 1856.

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