of
Victoria, what do we find? According to the returns for 1887, one
arrest on a charge of crime was made in every 30 of the population,
and on looking down the list of offences for which these arrests were
made, it will be seen that Victoria, notwithstanding her
widely-diffused material well-being, is just as much addicted to
crimes against person and property as some of the poor and squalid
States of Europe. It may be said in extenuation of this condition of
things, that Victoria contains a larger grown-up population, and
therefore a larger percentage of persons in a position to commit crime
than is to be found in older countries. This is, to a certain extent,
true, but the difference is not so great as might at first sight be
supposed. Assuming that the criminal age lies between 15 and 60, we
find that in the seven Australasian colonies 563 persons out of every
1,000 are alive between these two ages. In Great Britain and Ireland
559 persons per 1,000 are alive between 15 and 60. According to these
figures the difference between the population within the criminal age
in the colony, as compared with the mother country, is very small, and
is quite insufficient to account for the relatively high percentage of
crime exhibited by the Victorian criminal statistics.

All these considerations force us back to the conclusion that an
abundant measure of material well-being has a much smaller influence
in diminishing crime than is usually supposed, and compels us to admit
that much crime would still exist even if the world were turned into a
paradise of material prosperity tomorrow.

In further confirmation of this conclusion let us glance for a moment
at another aspect of the relations between poverty and crime. It is
generally calculated that the working class population of England and
Wales form from 90 to 95 per cent. of the total population of the
country. According to the investigations of Mr. Charles Booth, as
contained in his work on East London, the working classes constitute
about 92 per cent. in the districts be had under examination, the
remaining 8 per cent. being made up of the lower and upper middle
classes. Let us therefore assume that 10 per cent. of the population
consists of the middle and upper classes, and that the other 90 per
cent. of the community is composed of working people. Many
statisticians will not admit that the middle and upper classes form 10
per cent. of the nation, and assert that 5 per cent