nd prosecution of delinquents, and an annual total of expenditure is
reached for the United Kingdom of more than seven and a half millions
sterling. In addition to this enormous sum, it has also to he
remembered that a great loss of property is annually entailed on the
inhabitants of the three kingdoms by the depredations of the criminal
classes. The exact amount of this loss it is impossible to estimate,
but, according to the figures in the police reports, it cannot fall
short of a million sterling per annum.

[9] _American Prisons_, 1888.

These formidable figures afford ample food for reflection. Apart from
its danger to the community, the annual loss of money which the
existence of crime entails is a most serious consideration. It is
equal to a tenth of the national expenditure, and every few years
amounts to as much as the cost of a big European war. It is tempting
to speculate on the admirable uses to which the capital consumed by
crime might be devoted, if it were free for beneficent purposes. How
easy it would be for many a scheme, which is now in the region of
dreamland, to be immediately realised. Unhappily, it is almost as vain
to look forward to the abolition of crime as it is to look forward to
the cessation of war. At the present moment the latter event, however
improbable, is more likely to happen than the former. War has ceased
to be a normal condition of things in the comity of nations; it has
become a transitory incident; but crime, which means war within the
nation, is still far from being a passing incident; on the contrary, a
conflict between the forces of moral order and social anarchy is going
on continually; and, at present, there is not the faintest prospect of
its coming to an end.

What is the cause of this state of warfare within society? Which of the
combatants is to blame? Or is the blame to be laid equally on the
shoulders of both? In other words, are the conditions in which men live
together in society of such a nature that crime is certain to flow from
them; and is crime simply a reaction against the iniquity of existing
social arrangements? Or, on the other hand, does crime spring from the
individual and his cosmical surroundings; and is it the product of
forces over which society has little or no control? These are questions
which cannot be answered off-hand, they involve considerations of a
most complicated character, and it is only after a careful examination
of all the factor