Nature of Crim ed in the Years Convicted Acquitted ed, no Bills in in Not Prosecut- Executed found in Nine Years. from the Pers 151 224 257 282 Letters containing B and stealing 2 4 2 2 1 10 15 30 25 13 shooting, stat 15 26 Poison with concealing the 8 9 8 Oath, unlawful, takin Perjury- Piracy Rape, &c. Riot, and feloniously Prisoners of War, aid assault with Int Robbery on the Pers other Places Sacrilege Sheep stealing, and ki 48 Stolen Goods, receivi 82 Transports being at la 2 2 3 7 79 169 177 10 2 assault with 10 15 | |ä╗ཆ|*| | | ¢ °g" ཋ 10 733 8 5 7 96 60 122 70 77 42 71 327 569 313 47,375 15,524 12,132 748 Not Executed. ommitted to the different Gaols in England and Wales, for ein, from the Year 1805 to the Year 1818, both inclusive; BILLS were found, and who were not Prosecuted, and the Year 1818, both inclusive; together with the SENTENCES of D, &c. &c. Whitehall, Home Department, 19th Feb. 1819. 9 1810 1811 6 5433 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 3733 3859 4891 4 1413 1478 1685 4826 6036 7347 11758 11335. 1564 1782 1744 2174 2232 0* 4 67* 45* 82* 120* 70* 57* 95* 115* 97* number, if not the degree of crimes, hath been, with little intermission, increasing; and that their aggregate amount is now of the most alarming and humiliating nature, are facts which are established on such authentic evidence, as alone might justify the assertion, that as a nation we have not the power of godliness. In this increase are included all those crimes which may be committed by the most inexperienced childhood, and those which cannot be perpetrated without the most consummate skill and ingenuity, the most imposing address, the boldest hardihood, and the most unrelenting cruelty. These crimes have been committed by the young and by the old, by men and by women, without any consideration whether the law is lenient in its enactments, or whether it is written with severity, and executed with rigour. In the crowded prisons, some of which, from the want of proper classification and a vigilant superintendence, are organized schools of iniquity', the prisoners learn to look at their trial and their punishment with the 1 Police Report for 1816. p. 38.76. 112. for 1817. p. 498. most hardened indifference and unconcern, and spend, it may be, the last moments of life in projecting new offences", in corrupting and hardening the inexperience of youth", and in the indulgence of the most unrestrained debauchery. Murder, in its most aggravated forms, holds a conspicuous rank in the swollen catalogue of crime; and such is often his obduracy, that the murderer, after his conviction upon the clearest evidence, will upon the scaffold persist in denying his guilt; or will invent a plausible tale, and will expire in sullen indifference to the account which he is to render, or with songs of exultation, and all the assumed confidence of a well-founded hope. 8. If the degenerate character of women; if frivolity, dissipation, and extravagance; if the most flagrant incontinence ; if excess of juvenile delinquency; if acts of fierceness and cruelty; if wanton perjury, and the spirit of our laws; if the n Ibid. o Ibid. for 1817. m Police Report for 1817. p. 500. 653.793. for 1816. p. 322. for 1817. p. 737. p. 515. 642. 791. decided increase of offences of the most aggravated nature;-if these things shall be thought not sufficiently authenticated, or incapable of imputing to our national character, that we are "lovers of pleasures 66 more than lovers of God," that we have "a form of godliness," but deny "the power of it," let other testimonies be alleged, and supply the defective proof of our unworthiness. It is in itself an imputation upon the age, that more or less favourable comparisons are frequently drawn between modern and more ancient manners, as if the rule of Christian obedience and of personal responsibility was of a fluctuating and variable standard; that each and all of the offences which have been noticed have their advocates and apologists; that their guilt is overlooked by the thoughtless, and denied by the perverse; that the attempts to reform it are feebly supported, and peevishly and pertinaciously opposed; and that whatever be the ostensible zeal of associated multitudes, there is a want of personal exertion, of personal influence, and personal example, |