WESLEYAN METHODIST ASSOCIATION MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1857. SHADOWS OF THE PAST, DAWNINGS OF THE FUTURE. No. II. THE year, which has so recently passed away, was in many respects an auspicious year to England. It brought PEACE after two years of fierce conflict between some of the mightiest monarchies of the world! It brought increased prosperity to our trade and manufactures, the value of which, it is believed, will be found at the end of the official year to exceed one hundred and forty millions of pounds sterling, against sixty millions, which was the aggregate value of our commerce only eight years ago! It has shown to Europe and the world, the wonderful elasticity of our Resources,—the Public Income of the country having exceeded by some millions sterling the most sanguine hopes of that craving functionary, the Chancellor of the Exchequer! It has brought us the settlement of some vexed questions of long standing between us and our Cousins in the other Hemisphere. These are all matters for congratulation. But its revelations have not all been in the colours of the rainbow. It has made disclosures with respect to the moral state of the Community, anything but flattering to the national vanity. We had long mourned over a vagrant population of some hundreds of thousands, more closely scattered over this Island than population of all classes over some extensive tracts of the Russian and the Turkish Empires. We had began to regard vagrancy as an almost inseparable feature of the Commonwealth; a kind of necessary evil, resulting from the density of population within our very limited territory. But the last year has shown that whatever may be the fact, in respect of the increase or decrease of Vagrancy, we have intermingled with it, vastly more of the criminal element than for a long time past. An eloquent writer, three years ago, in dilating on the Crime of the Metropolis, observed ;—"We cannot walk round Clapham Common, or Hampstead Heath, or go even a short circuit in Belgravia, or Tyburnia, without being accosted by half-a-dozen fellows, equally prepared to sell your trash, to pick your pocket, or cut your throat, as circumstances may direct!" This observation, might, with some qualification, have been extended to most of our large cities, and to some of our rural districts during the last year. The Expenditure of the country on account of crime, threatens, ere long, to exceed the sums expended in the relief of Destitution. The apparent deterioration of the national character, is F adapted to fill one with shame and confusion. On one hand, we have been startled with disclosures, made under Parliamentary authority, of the adulteration of articles of Trade and Manufacture. On the other, with frauds, monstrous frauds, practised on the credulity of the people in monetary transactions. Now, it is a medical man who has abused the confidence of an unsuspecting friend, and wilfully administered poison instead of the remedy for his recovery. Then, it is a husband who has stealthily mixed the element of death with the medicine which medical skill had prepared for the restoration of his wife. Or, it is the open murderer who stabs in broad daylight, and swells the awful calendar of crime by the perpetration of the deed under circumstances of unmitigated barbarity. There is scarcely an honest man in the country, who will not admit the year 1856 to have been a period of great crimes, and of monstrous frauds,—a year of shams and impostures. The Public Press, charged with the guardianship of the interests of the Nation, has, as in duty bound, sounded the alarm. Journalists, in every department, have taken up the question of the Public Safety,-not endangered by foreign arms, but by our own Vices. Statesmen and Philanthropists are prosecuting inquiries into the causes, or offering suggestions as to the means of prevention and cure. But the detection of Crime is less difficult than the discovery of its Causes.* The inquiries made by well-disposed citizens into the causes of Crime, have not been so successful as might be desired. The Ticket-of-Leave system has been seized upon by many, as the probable cause of the fearful increase of the attacks on life and property during the past year. The most zealous of the Metropolitan magistrates (Sir P. Laurie) has procured the statistics of Crime in connection with the Old Bailey, during this period, from which it appears that forty-three criminals of this class were tried at the Central Criminal Court; of whom, one was sentenced to death,-cne transported for life,-two for twenty years,-two for fifteen years,-four for fourteen years,-one for eight years penal servitude,—seven for six years,—sixteen for four years,—and three were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Only six of the whole number were acquitted. Now, it is granted, these are startling facts, but it were ridiculous to charge the atrocities of the whole Calendar upon our Ticket-of-Leave system. Were Palmer and Dove, Ticket-of-Leave men ?-or must Sadlier, Robson, Paul and Redpath, be reckoned as of this class? The causes of Crime, whatever they may be, lie deeper than the Ticket-of-Leave system. They mingle more fully with the ramifications of society. One great cause may be, the utter neglect in early life to which a large number of the youth of this country are exposed,-another, the prevalence of intemperate habits among so large a portion of the population -a third reason may be, the introduction of a considerable number of foreigners of reckless habits into this country at the close of the war, and the return home of that portion of the militia which * Of course, we speak here of the proximate, not the original causes of crime. EDITOR. Then had been called upon to do the work of regular troops, up to that period. But these causes do not by any means account for all the facts. Sadlier and Palmer were not cast on the world to make their way as best they could. Paul and Redpath had not served in the Foreign Legion, nor had they formed part of the militia and been exposed to all the demoralizing influences of a soldier's life. Robson was not a person whom drunkenness had brought to destitution. And it is precisely this class of criminals that has given to the Calendar of Crime its darkest hue. It is indeed matter of alarm to men, who are not of the Alarmist class, that individuals in the upper classes of society and even of the highest, should enter into league with one other, to swindle thousands of honest men out of their hard-earned savings, and that while the villany is passing through the process of concoction, it should be seen and winked at by numbers of individuals engaged in mercantile pursuits, who must have been privy to one or another of those multifarious shifts by which public detection was staved off to the last possible hour. We have long been accustomed to cry down Chartist lecturers as the most Utopian, and at the same time, most dangerous of Charlatans, but the frequent occurrence of cases like these, would do more to dis-socialize the community than all the declamation which these demagogues have uttered since the five points were first mooted, or which men of their Creed might utter during half a dozen generations, each measured by the length of Methuselah's lifetime! And we believe, the secret cause of this class of villanies, in nine cases out of ten, has been the passion for display the morbid disposition to enact the part of individuals with unlimited resources. A contemporary has well observed, that while "these things are so, we must be prepared to find some 'respectable' men forging certificates, embezzling trusts, and lending other people's money to each other. We must not be astonished that the lower classes should in knavishness imitate some of their 'betters' who sell us sand with our sugar, and red-lead with our cayenne." The year which has been so foully stained with crime, has been memorable for the numerous suggestions of ingenious men as to the means of prevention and of cure. The remedies have been almost as various as the disease. We wish there had been as much of adaptation as of variety in these suggestions. A writer in "the Leader" observes, One person recommends revolvers! another advises the bowie-knife! A collar of iron to defeat the garrotter! A collar of iron with poisoned needlespikes, to poison and kill the garrotter! A life-preserver! A doubling of the Police force. A special police attendant on private persons or private carriages. A sword-stick. A dagger-stick. A blue-light to burn and flabbergast the footpad. A boot-bayonet, set on like a spur, to kick withal. A door-chain, to keep out the sturdy beggar. A little barking spaniel, to give warning to burglars. A small wicket peep-hole, to scan the visitor. A general raid, to kidnap all suspicious characters. A general transportation for attacks on property. A vigorous resort to the gallows for dangerous attacks on the person. Now, we are free to admit that there is somewhat of exaggeration in the above summary of the expedients, to which, certain wise men among |