local effort, and contribution, but by a _general_ assessment, under the
name of "Centimes Additionels," yet varying in particular districts,
according to the necessity and amount of the defensive force, but, in
all, imposed by the authority and levied by the officers of government.
And what has been the result? Is it that crime, from being generally
brought to light, evinces the same steady and alarming increase which is
conspicuous in all parts of the British islands? Quite the reverse:
criminal law and a powerful system of police appear there in their true
light, as checking and deterring from crime. Population is advancing
steadily though slowly in that country, crime is stationary or
declining;[7] and while the most powerful and efficient police in Europe
only bring to light about 7000 serious criminals annually out of
34,000,000 souls--that is, 1 in 6700--in Great Britain, out of a
population, including England and Scotland, of 18,000,000 in round
numbers, there were in 1842 no less than 34,800 persons charged with
serious crimes before the criminal tribunals, or 1 in 514--in other
words, serious crime is _fourteen times_ as prevalent in Great Britain
as it is in France. Nothing can more clearly demonstrate the deplorable
fallacy of those who ascribe the present extraordinary frequency and
uninterrupted growth of crime in this country, as attested by the
criminal returns, to the vigilance of the police in bringing it to
light.

In truth, so far from its being the case that crime is now better looked
after, and therefore more frequently brought to light than formerly, and
that it is that which swells our criminal returns, the fact is directly
the reverse. So weak, feeble, and disjointed, are the efforts of our
various multiform and unconnected police establishments over the country
generally,[8] that we assert, without the fear of contradiction by any
person practically acquainted with the subject, that the amount of
undetected and unpunished crime is rapidly on the increase, and is now
greater than it was in any former period. We would recommend any person
who doubts this statement, to go to any of the criminal establishments
in the country, and compare the list of informations of serious crimes
lodged with those of offenders committed; he will find the latter are
scarcely ever so much as a third of the former. These facts do not
appear in the criminal returns, because they are not called for; and the
police-offic