Report of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, for the year
1888. In the year 1886, the number of persons convicted in the
Metropolis of "Annoying male persons for the purpose of prostitution"
was 3,233; in 1888, the number was only 1,475. This enormous decrease
in the course of two years is not due to a diminution of the offence,
but to a change in the attitude of the police. Again, in the year
1887, the Metropolitan police arrested 4,556 persons under the
provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts; but in the year 1888, the
number arrested by the same body under the same acts amounted to
7,052. It is perfectly obvious that this vast increase of apprehensions
was not owing to a corresponding increase in the number of rogues,
beggars, and vagrants; it was principally owing to the increased
stringency with which the Metropolitan police carried out the
provisions of the Vagrant and Poor Law Acts. An absolute proof of the
correctness of this statement is the fact that throughout the whole of
England there was a decrease in the number of persons proceeded
against in accordance with these acts. These examples will suffice to
show what an immense power the police have in regulating the volume of
certain classes of offences. In some countries they are called upon to
exercise this power in the direction of stringency; in other countries
it is exercised in the direction of leniency; and in the same country
its exercise, as we have just seen, varies according to the views of
whoever, for the time being, happens to have a voice in controlling
the action of the police. In these circumstances it is obviously
impossible to draw any accurate comparison between the lighter kinds
of offences in one country and the same class of offences in another.

In the case of the more serious offences against person and property,
the initiative of putting the law in motion rests chiefly with the
injured individual. The action of the individual in this respect
depends to a large extent on the customs of the country. In some
countries the injured person, instead of putting the law in motion
against an offender, takes the matter in his own hands, and
administers the wild justice of revenge. Great differences of opinion
also exist among different nations as to the gravity of certain
offences. Among some peoples there is a far greater reluctance than
there is among others to appeal to the law. Murder is perhaps the only
crime on which there ex