of London, Middlesex, and the Tower Hamlets, who beheld this wide-spreading bodily and mental ruin with shame and sorrow; the Committee resolved, "that, in their opinion, the best and safest course would be, to adhere literally to the rule laid down by parliament, and resolutely refuse to grant or renew licenses, but to such publicans as should bona-fide keep victualling-houses, inns, coffee-houses, and ale-houses; meaning thereby such as should have fit and comfortable accommodations for those who might prefer drinking of beer to spirituous liquors, and who should keep a stock suitable to the supply of customers of that description."

The quarter-sessions, as will be seen, was pleased to ratify and confirm these reports, and to recommend to magistrates in their respective divisions to adopt the most effectual means of carrying them into execution: adding, by way of special resolution, that notice be given to all licensed victuallers in this county, of the determination of the magistrates not to grant or renew any certificate for license, but to such persons only as shall bona-fide keep taverns, inns, coffee-houses, or ale-houses, as directed by the Act of the 16th Geo. II. cap. 8, and who have sufficient room and accommodation for those who choose to drink beer, with a stock suitable to the supply of such customers."

What proportion of moral evil, or of popular demoralisation, might have been prevented had these reports been acted on, it is not for your Committee to say. It has, however, been their melancholy duty to observe, that since the period in question, crime has increased in the inordinate degree above stated.

With regard to public-houses, your Committee beg leave to remind the Court, that as the law now stands, the licensing magistrates have no power to remove a landlord or shut up a house during the time for which it is licensed; and that, in consequence of this security, many publicans are known to harbor the worst company, though to them the best customers, and to allow such a course of vitiating licentiousness, as cannot but corrupt the youth of both sexes, and greatly add to the number of criminals.

There is one particular evil which your Committee lament the want of legal authority in the magistrates to prevent, namely, the allowing of public-houses in Southwark, and in the immediate neighborhood of the metropolis, to open on the Sabbath-day before the conclusion of the morning-service. The present practice is for the publican to open his house at day-light, and to shut up at the commencement of and during divine service. Nothing is more notorious, than that great numbers of artificers, servants, and others, resort to such houses at a very early hour on the VOL. XXIX. NO. LVIII.

Pam.

X

Sunday morning, where they remain drinking until the last toll of the bell for church, when the landlord ejects them for his own sake, and generally in such a state of drunkenness, as to make it obvious that they must have spent as much money in this wretched way as would have bought their families a comfortable dinner. Thus prepared for every thing that is bad, the Court may easily conjecture how the remainder of the Sabbath is spent by such persons, and will readily concur with its Committee, in regarding the want of due authority over the licensed publicans, as among the causes of increasing crime.

The consequences of unlicensed wine-rooms, flash-houses, and other receptacles for known thieves and prostitutes, are too obvious to call for remark. Your Committee can only lament that such things are observing, with regard to unlicensed wine-rooms, that they continue, in open and avowed defiance of the police, employ ing singing men and singing women to allure customers and increase consumption. Without offering an opinion, whether the non-suppression of such houses arises from the want of authority in the police magistrates, or from indisposition to exercise it, your Committee feel bound to declare their belief, that they greatly

contribute to the increase of crime.

With regard to fairs held in London and its immediate neighborhood, it is when they are not under the vigilant and effectual superintendance of the police, that your Committee mean to say they generate crime, in a more extensive and rapid degree than almost any other periodical occurrence.

Your Committee enter on the two last causes to which they impute the increase of crime, with a deep sense of the importance of the inquiry, and a most unfeigned anxiety not to offer any opinions to the Court, but such as are borne out by known public facts or by the records of the country.

The chances of a criminal escaping from the only punishment which he seriously regards are known to be so numerous, as almost to justify his sanguine calculations, that it will never fall to his lot to suffer the extreme rigor of the law.

Out of an immense calendar presented every six weeks for trial at the Old Bailey, and the numerous capital convictions which follow, the very small number that are ordered for execution, and the frequent remission of sentence even to a part of them, it is feared, leads to those flattering conclusions which encourage crime, by disarming the law of its terrors.

Your Committee beg leave solemnly to protest against the supposition, that they are advocates for more frequent capital punishment. It is not for them to deal out the awful issues of life and death; but they are bold to aver their decided conviction,

that punishments less in degree, if they were certain in their nature and speedy in their execution, would be infinitely more efficacious in deterring from crime.

Your Committee have spoken of death, as the only punishment which the criminal seriously regards.

Respecting transportation, the punishment next in degree, they will appeal to facts. Whatever terrors may formerly have existed of transportation to New South Wales, they have long ceased to deter from crime.

In the instructions given by Earl Bathurst to John Thomas Bigge, Esq. on his proceeding to New South Wales, dated so far back as the 6th of January, 1819, and printed by order of the House of Commons, his lordship says: "Many circumstances have since concurred (alluding to the infancy of the settlement) to render the punishment lighter in itself, to diminish the apprehension entertained in this country of its severity, and to break down all proportion between the punishment and the crime for which it is now inflicted." In another paragraph of the same instructions his lordship observes, "that numerous applications are made from those who are sentenced to imprisonment for minor transgressions, that they may be allowed to participate in the punishment to which the greatest offenders are condemned."

According to subsequent accounts, which state the surprising advances which have been made by that colony in commerce, wealth, and civilisation, your Committee have reason to think that transportation to New South Wales continues to be an object of desire, rather than of dread, with a great proportion of the convicts.

But were it otherwise, the Court will see how little comparative risk those who really dread banishment beyond the seas have, for some years past, run of experiencing that fate.

Your Committee annex "A return of the number of persons sentenced to transportation at the assizes and sessions for the county of Surrey, within the last seven years, distinguishing for what terms they were so sentenced."

From this account it appears, that in seven years, namely, from 1821 to 1827, the total number sentenced for transportation were 1007. Of these, according to information obtained from the Secretary of State's Office, not more than about two-thirds were actually transported: the rest had their sentences commuted for different terms of imprisonment on board the Hulks, at the Penitentiary, the houses of correction, &c., where, it is understood, the term of confinement seldom exceeds from three to four years.

To show how lightly imprisonment in the county jail or houses of

correction is regarded, notwithstanding that to imprisonment in the latter is added the employ of the tread-wheel, your Committee subjoin "An account of the number of recommitments to the several prisons in the county of Surrey in each year, from January 1823 to December 1827, distinguishing sex and age, and how many times each person has been committed."

From this account it appears, that in five years there were no less than 2009 instances of recommitments. The account does not quote a higher number than six recommitments, though it is known to your Committee that several have been recommitted to the tread-mill at Brixton, from that number up to as many as nineteen times.

It is on such premises that your Committee confidently submit to the Court, that the escape from capital punishment, of which the criminal assures himself, and the comparative insignificance of all other punishments known to the administration of British law, constitute that hardihood and fearlessness as to the consequences of detection, to which your Committee cannot but impute, among other causes, the increase of crime.

Lastly, your Committee beg leave to call the attention of the Court to that vast addition to the mass of crime which arises from the almost daily discharge of criminals whose sentences have been remitted, or whose terms of imprisonment have expired at the Hulks, the Penitentiary, the jails and houses of correction. Great as is the encouragement held out to reform, and infinite as are the pains taken to produce it, by the regulations of your prisons, by the zeal of your officers, and by the efforts of pious and worthy individuals, your Committee cannot conceal from themselves that there are very few of the discharged prisoners who do not return to their unlawful courses. When to this consideration is added the swarm of incipients before noticed, with the attendant incitements of gin-shops, licentious publicans, flash houses, and the almost uncontrolled dominion of the streets, is it surprising that a feeble police should frequently crouch before ferocious gangs of robbers, that the persons of passengers should be so frequently surrounded, assaulted, and plundered, or that the dwellings of the inhabitants of this county should be rendered insecure, and have become exposed to such continual danger from burglars and housebreakers, as to have induced the imposition of that duty which your Committee is humbly endeavoring to discharge?

The most likely means to prevent or lessen the Increase of Crime. Your Committee, in approaching the third and last proposition which they proposed to discuss, namely, "the most likely means

to prevent or lessen the increase of crime," acknowlege themselves to do so with the utmost diffidence. They are aware that it may be deemed presumptuous in them, who are not members of the government, and but few of whom are legislators, to suggest new laws to those who have such superior means of judging of any change of system which the interests of the public may seem to require; yet, regarding the delivery of their frank opinion on this part of the subject to be implied in their instructions, they will proceed, in full reliance on the Court's indulgence.

Referring to their former observation, that several of the assigned causes for the increase of crime would point out their own remedies, your Committee will detain the Court as shortly as possible where such is obviously the case.

As far as the state of the streets contribute to crime, it can only be counteracted by a vigilant and efficient police, removing from them the openly abandoned of both sexes." To accomplish this, it might perhaps require some further legislative interference, or exposition of the law respecting vagrants and reputed thieves, strictly to justify their apprehension, as well as a much more efficient night and day patrole than exists at present. But when apprehended, whither, alas! would you send them? As the law stands at present, after a few short weeks of maintenance at the expense of the county, they return, for ever branded with infamy, cut off from all hope of employment, advanced in the knowlege of every thing that is bad and wicked, and left with scarce any alternative but plunder or starvation.

On that source and nurse of crime, the multitude of gin-shops, your Committee can say no more, than that they concur in the opinion of a former Committee, whose reports stand in the Appendix as ratified and confirmed by the sessions; and believe with them, that there is no hope of relief, but by limiting the sale of gin, and other spirituous liquors, to the bona-fide keepers of taverns, inns, coffee-houses, and ale-houses, as directed by the 16th Geo. II. cap. 8, and to such of them only as shall have sufficient accommodations and stock of good malt liquor for those who prefer drinking it, and who, instead of the present gin-closets in alleys and obscure places, will confine the sale of spirits to a taproom of a suitable size, in which the bar should, as formerly, be placed open to observation.

The want of due control over public-houses, as well as the existence of unlicensed wine-rooms, flash houses, and other receptacles for known thieves and abandoned characters, will fall generally under the consideration of public-houses, which it is proposed to defer; especially as a bill is now pending in parliament, which is said to have for its object a material alteration with