374

AMOUNT OF ENGLISH PAUPERISM.

Dissenters, and even for the capital of the Empire as much within 12 per cent. as the Church! The number of the non-established churches of England and Wales is greater than of the Church. Each of the ten Protestant sects in London has made more progress since 1851 than the Established Church.

These facts show how little comparative good the poor get from the Established Church of the Empire.

W

IX.

E must glance at the enormous amount of English pauperism, as we learn it from official sources, and then at the relations of pauperism to crime :

Amount expended in the Relief and Maintenance of the Poor in England and Wales, exclusive of all the immense expenditure of Poor-Law Administration in the Unions and Parishes.

Thus we find during seventeen years, ending 1848, there was expended, for the relief of abject pauperism in England and Wales alone, $440,000,000, "without reckoning the vast sums sunk in the administration of the Poor-Law in the dif ferent Unions, or the immense sums given away annually by charitable individuals and societies, all of which went to keep the poor from starvation."

In view of all this, Mr. Kay well says: "Now, without proceeding further, it surely cannot, and will not be contended, that a laboring population, which requires such an expenditure

ENGLISH PAUPERISM UNPARALLELED.

-375

as this and that, too, in addition to the vast amount of charitable donations devoted annually to the same purpose-to keep part of it from actual starvation, can be in a very happy, prosperous or satisfactory condition! What country is there in Europe, or in the world, where such an expenditure is found to be necessary to save the laborers from starvation? What other country in Europe, or in the world, is obliged to keep up such a poor-law system, and for such a purpose? What other country in the world is there, where private individuals are obliged to dole out so many charitable donations for the same unhappy purpose? Why should not our peasants be, at least, as well able to depend on their own exertions for subsistence, as the peasants of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, or the provinces of France? Why should not our peasants be as well able to dispense with charitable donations, and as much above receiving them, as our middle classes? In addition to the hundreds of thousands assisted by charitable individuals, 1,876,541 paupers were relieved by Boards of Guardians, or about one person out of every EIGHT of the population was a pauper in 1848."

I shall hereafter show, that, in spite of all the relief which a drain by emigration of hundreds of thousands would afford, the number of paupers, the amount of distress, the catalogues of crime, and the sums expended, have all been steadily swelling. After showing, from reliable tables, how rapidly ignorance and crime have gone on hand in hand, the writer says: "It shows how fearfully crime is increasing among our poor, and how clear and undeniable it is, that the greatest part of their immorality is the direct and immediate effect of the utter neglect of their education."

I

X.

NOW cite the statistics of Mr. Porter, whose Progress of

the Nation stands at the head of all works on this subject.

He is summing up the results of his careful and prolonged

376

STATISTICS OF IGNORANCE AND CRIME.

investigations of the inseparable connection between ignorance and crime. Coming from a lesser name, the facts would be almost incredible. Mr. Porter says:

"The most cursory glance at these figures must carry conviction to every mind, that instruction has power to restrain men from the commission of crimes, of such a nature, at least, as will bring them before a bar of justice. If we class together those who can neither read nor write, and those who have acquired only an imperfect acquaintance with those elementary branches of knowledge-the scaffolding merely for the erection of the moral edifice-we find, that in the ten years comprised in the returns, there were, out of 252,544 persons committed, and whose degrees of instruction were ascertained, the great proportion of 229,300, or more than 90 in 100, uninstructed persons; while only 1,085 persons had enjoyed the advantages of instruction beyond the elementary degree, and only 23,159 had mastered, without advancing beyond, the acts of reading and writing.

"These numbers embrace both males and females. If we examine the returns, with the view of determining the moral influence of instruction upon females, we find that among the 252,544 persons above described, there were 47,113 females, 18 65 per cent. of the whole; but when we inquire in what proportion females are divided among the different classes as respects instruction, we see, that among the 220,300 uninstructed persons, there were 44,881 females, or 19.57 per cent.; while among 22,159 who could read and write well, there were but 2,189 females, or 9.88 per cent.; and among the better instructed 1,085 persons, there were only 43 females or 3.96 per cent. The proportions in each 10,000 persons accused that were furnished by the males and females of the social classes, were as follows: "In each 10,000 persons committed for crime, there were:

"Of the 43 instructed females accused of crimes throughout England and Wales in ten years, the large proportion of 15 belong to the first year of the series. Of these, 12 were accused of simple larceny, 1 for receiving stolen goods, 1 for fraud, and 1 for perjury. There were, consequently, in nine years, only twenty-eight educated females brought to the bar of criminal justice, viz. 8 in 1887, 5 in 1838, 4 in 1839, only 1 in 1840, and in 1841 not one educated female was committed for trial among 7,673,633 females then living in that part of the United Kingdom. In the remaining four years the numbers were: in 1842, 4; 1843, 6; 1844, 2; and in 1845, 3.

"How much the internal peace of the country may be affected by the prevalence of ignorance or the spread of knowledge, may be reasonably inferred from the state of instruction of persons tried at the Special Commission in October 1842, arising out of the then recent rising in the manufacturing districts. This is shown by the following table:

"In 1840, there were 100 males and 1 female who had received instruction beyond reading and writing, committed for trial in England and Wales. Of this number only 59 (58 males and

LORD ASHLEY ON LONDON CHILDREN.

377

one female) were convicted, being 59 per cent. of the number accused, while the convictions generally in that year exceeded 78 per cent. of the accused.

"In twenty counties of England and Wales, with a population of 8,724,8388 persons, there were convicted fifty-nine instructed persons, or 1 to every 147,870 inhabitants; while the remaining thirty-two counties, with a population of 7,182,491, had not furnished one convict who had received more than the earliest elements of instruction. It is even more worthy of remark, that Middlesex, the metropolitan county, with its 1,576,616 inhabitants among whom the proportion of instructed persons is, at least, equal to that in any other county, did not furnish one educated convict, a fact which, considering the diversity, conditions and occupations, and the amount of temptations that assail its inhabitants, would be most difficult to believe upon any testimony less certain than that of official returns.

"In 1841, in fifteen English counties, with a population of 9,569,064, there were convicted 74 instructed persons, or 1 to every 129,311 inhabitants; while the twenty-five remaining counties of England, and the whole of Wales, with a population of 6,342,661, did not among them furnish one conviction of a person who had received more than the mere elements of education. It will be remembered, as a most interesting fact, one which speaks irresistibly in favor of a general system of education, that not one of the 100 was a female!"

L

XI.

ORD ASHLEY is one of the most enlightened and philanthropic noblemen of Great Britain. In his admirable speech on the wretched condition of the masses of the children of London, delivered in the House of Commons, June 6, 1848, he gives a formidable array of facts, which I have condensed as much as possible; and the reader may safely apply his descriptions to all the larger towns of England. In London they differ only in the stupendous amount-not in character. The results of the inquiries of the "City Museum " all show, as Mr. Kay observes, "that in the midst of London, there is a large and continually increasing number of lawless persons, forming a separate class, having pursuits, interests, manners and customs of their own, and that the filthy, deserted, roaming and lawless children, who may be called the source of nineteen-twentieths of the crime which desolates the metropolis, are not fewer in number than THIRTY THOUSAND! These thirty (now fifty) thousand are quite independent of the number of mere pauper children who crowd the streets of London, and who never enter a school but of these latter nothing will be said here.

"Now, what are the pursuits, the dwelling-houses, and the habits of these poor wretches? Of 1,600, who were examined,

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HOW CRIMINALS ARE MADE.

162 confessed that they had been in prison, not merely once, or even twice, but some of them several times; 116 had ran away from their homes; 170 slept in the 'lodging houses;' 253 had lived altogether by beggary; 216 had neither shoes nor stockings; 280 had no hat or cap, or covering for the head; 101 had no linen; 249 had never slept in bed; many had no recollection of ever having been in a bed; 68 were the children of convicts.

"In 1847, it was found that of 4,000 examined, 400 confessed that they had been in prison, 660 lived by beggary, 178 were the children of convicts, and 800 had lost one or both their parents. Now, what was the employment of these people? They might be classed as street-sweepers; vendors of lucifer matches, oranges, cigars, tapes and ballads; they held horses, ran errands, jobbed for dealers in marine stores,' that being the euphonious term for receivers of stolen goods--an influential race in the metropolis, but for whose agency a very large proportion of juvenile crime would be extinguished. It might be asked, how did the large number who never slept in bed pass the night? In all manner of places: under dry arches of bridges and viaducts, under porticoes, sheds, carts in out-houses, saw-pits, or staircases, or in the open air, and some in lodginghouses."

XII.

ROM Lord Ashley's speech, we now cite facts:

FRO

"Many of them were living in the dry arches of houses not finished, inaccessible except by an aperture only large enough to admit the body of a man. When a lantern was thrust in, six or eight, ten or twelve people might be found lying together. Of those whom we found thus lodged, we invited a great number to come the following day, and there an examination was instituted. The number examined was 88. Their ages varied from 12 to 18, and some were younger. Twenty-four had no parents, 6 had one, 8 had step-mothers, 20 had no shirts, 9 no shoes, 12 had been once in prison, 8 twice, 3 four times, 1 eight times, and 1 (only 14 years old) twelve times.

"The physical condition of these children was exceedingly bad; they were a prey to vermin, they were troubled with itch, they were begrimed with dirt, not a few were suffering from sickness, and two or three days afterwards several died from disease and the effects of starvation. I privately examined eight or ten. I was anxious to obtain from them the truth. I examined them separately, taking them into a room alone. I said, 'I am going to ask you a variety of questions, to which I trust you will give me true answers, and I will undertake to answer any