he population. This is a responsibility which no body of
men ought lightly to incur, and in considering the advantages to be
derived from some new legislative enactment, an equal amount of
consideration should be bestowed upon the fact that the new enactment
will also be the means of providing a fresh recruiting ground for the
permanent army of crime.

A man, for instance, goes to prison for contravening some municipal
bye-law; he comes out of it the friend and associate of habitual
criminals; and the ultimate result of the bye-law is to transform a
comparatively harmless member of society into a dangerous thief or
house-breaker. One person of this character is a greater menace to
society than a hundred offenders against municipal regulations, and
the present system of law-making undoubtedly helps to multiply this
class of men. One of the leading principles of all wise legislation
should be to keep the population out of gaol; but the direct result of
many recent enactments, both in this country and abroad, is to drive
them into it; and it may be taken as an axiom that the more the
functions of Government are extended, the greater will be the amount
of crime.

These remarks lead me to approach the question of what is called "the
movement" of crime. Is its total volume increasing or decreasing in
the principal civilised countries of the world? On this point there is
some diversity of view, but most of the principal authorities in
Europe and America are emphatically of opinion that crime is on the
increase. In the United States, we are told by Mr. D.A. Wells,[4] and
by Mr. Howard Wines, an eminent specialist in criminal matters, that
crime is steadily increasing, and it is increasing faster than the
growth of the population.

[4] _Recent Economic Changes_, p. 345.

Nearly all the chief statisticians abroad tell the same tale with
respect to the growth of crime on the Continent. Dr. Mischler of
Vienna, and Professor von Liszt of Marburg draw a deplorable picture
of the increase of crime in Germany. Professor von Liszt, in a recent
article,[5] says, that fifteen million persons have been convicted by
the German criminal courts within the last ten years; and, according
to him, the outlook for the future is sombre in the last degree. In
France, the criminal problem is just as formidable and perplexing as
it is in Germany; M. Henri Joly estimates that crime has increased in
the former country 133 per cent. within the l