CRIME.] ENGLAND 251 Cumbers The total number of prisoners confined in the jails of the .nd United Kingdom, under sentence either of juries or of lasses of stipendiary and other magistrates, was 220,817 at the end 1: of 1871, and rose to 220,887 in 1872, and 232,362 at the end of 1873. Of the latter total, 165,142 were imprisoned in England and Wales, 33,419 in Scotland, and 33,801 in Ireland. The classes of convicts confined in the prisons of England and Wales including those imprisoned for debt, and military deserters, under the Mutiny Acts were as follows at the end of the year 1873 : Classes of Prisoners. Males. Females. Total. (, KIMINAL PRISONERS : Convicted (not previously in ) Custodv) ) 1,105 273 1,383 Committed for Trial 10,194 3,106 13 300 Summarily Convicted 86 250 40 187 126 437 Want of Sureties 2 190 854 3 044 Remanded and Discharged 8,206 3,043 11,249 Total 107 945 47 468 155 413 Debtors and under Civil Process Offenders under Mutiny Act 6,404 3 042 283 6,687 3 042 Total 117 391 47 751 165 142
- esof The ages of the 155,413 prisoners excluding debtors
son- and deserters in the prisons of England and Wales, at the end of 1873, were as follows : Ages of Prisoners. Hales. Females. Total. Under 12 Years 1 370 112 1 482 12 and under 21 26 684 8 218 34 902 21 30 . 32 930 14 710 47 640 30 ,, 60 42 528 22 664 65 192 60 Years and upwards 4,167 1,703 5 870 Ages not ascertained 266 61 327 Total 107 945 47 468 155 413 uca- The degree of education of the same 155,413 prisoners a of was as follows : Education of Prisoners j Males. Females. Total. Not able to read or write ... 33 750 18 148 51 898 Proportion per cent, to total.... Able to read, or to read and write imperfectly 31-3 69,553 38-2 28,559 33-4 98,112 Proportion per cent, to total.... Able to read and write well .... 64-4 4 164 60-2 485 63-1 4 649 Proportion per cent, to total. . Superior Instruction 3-8 1S8 I O 12 3-0 200 Proportion per cent, to total.... Instruction not ascertained ., ! 2 ^90 264 o-i 554 Proportion per cent, to total. . . . 0-3 0-6 04 Total 107,945 47 468 155 413 prated Of the 155,413 prisoners in the prisons of England and us. C " Wales at the end of 1873 > no lees tnan 61,274, or two- fifths, were old offenders. The number of their previous convictions was as follows : Number of previous Convictions. Males. Females. Total. Once 15 659 6 182 21 841 Twice 6 938 3 402 10 340 Thrice 3,968 2 227 6 195 Four times .. . 2 725 1 773 4 498 Five times l 845 l 351 3 16 Six or seven times 2 329 1 820 4 149 Eight to ten times .... 1 7 H 2 098 3 822 Above ten times . . 2 585 4 648 7 233 Total 37 773 23 501 61 274 The preceding tables show succinctly to what an extent the prisons of England and Wales are filled by what may be called a criminal population, that is, one living regularly Criminal by crime. It is a population not very young, nearly one- popnla- half of the whole being between the ages of thirty and tioD< sixty, and not possessed of any education worth the name, 33 4 per cent., or just one-third of the whole, being unable either to read or write, and 63 per cent, of the whole only able to read, or to read and write imperfectly. Thus more than 96 per cent, of the entire army of prisoners, male and female, belonged, so far as education went, to the dregs of the population ; while only a quite inappreciable fraction, expressed by O l per cent., was that of a class described as possessed of " superior instruction." Police. Besides the direct cost of prisoners, there are a Expendi- variety of other expenses connected with their apprehension tiire for* and conviction, but it would be impossible to give an police, account ot them. Foremost among these expenses stands that for the police, the total charge for which in the year 1873 amounted to 2,567,491. The expenditure was divided as follows among the various classes of the police : Classes Number. Expenditure. County constabulary 9 892 860 266 Borough police 7 995 620 1 1 1 Metropolitan police, including that i of dockyards J 9,875 1,009,106 City of London police 788 78 008 Total 28 550 2 567 491 Pauperism. There is, as might be expected, an intimate crime connection between crime and pauperism. At the side of and pau- a fixed prison population, steeped in crime, stands a regular P eri sm. workhouse population, sunk in helpless, irretrievable poverty. If far more harmless than the criminal popula tion, the pauper population, on the other hand, is far more numerous, varying between three quarters of a million and a million. The number of paupers, like that of criminals, kept rising and falling, in alternate waves, during the course of the last generation, under the probable influence of good or bad harvests mainly, and the state of trade, with a general tendency to increase within the first half of the period, and to decrease within the second half. The total number of paupers in the United Kingdom, embracing both those kept in workhouses and those receiving public charity out of doors, was 1,022,540 in 1846, of whom 910,561 were in England and Wales, 69,432 in Scotland, and 42,547 in Ireland. At the end of thirty years, in 1876, the total number of paupers in the United Kingdom had fallen to 906,983, of whom 728,350 were in England and Wales, 100,105 in Scotland, and 78,528 in Ireland. Thus tho aggregate decrease within the period was solely due to a decline of pauperism in England, there being an increase of 30,673 paupers in Scotland, and of 35,981 in Ireland. The following table gives the number of paupers, distin- jj um ber guishing "in-door," within workhouses, and " out-door," O f receiving public relief, in England and Wales, for every fifth pauper*, year from 1851 to 1871, and each year thereafter to 1877, on the first day of January in every year : 1877, to Years In -door Out-door Total Jan. 1. Paupers. Paupers. 1851 110,565 750,328 860,893 1856 125,597 752,170 877,767 1861 130,961 759,462 890,423 1866 137,986 782,358 920,344 1871 165,289 916,637 1,081,926 1872 154,233 823,431 977,664 1873 154,171 736,201 890,372 1874 149,558 679,723 829,281 1875 153,711 661,876 815,587 1876 148,931 600,662 749,593 1877 157,191 571,159
728,350
