ers are in no hurry to publish facts which proclaim the
insufficiency of the means of repressing crime at their disposal. But
occasionally, and under the pressure of immediate danger, or a strong
sense of duty on the part of the public functionaries, they do come out.
For example, it was stated by Mr Millar, the head of the Glasgow police,
(a most able and active officer,) in a letter read at the county meeting
of Lanarkshire on 21st January 1843, on the subject of a police for the
rural district of that and the adjoining counties, that in the three
months immediately preceding that date, _ninety-one_ cases of theft,
chiefly by housebreaking, had been reported at the Glasgow
police-office, committed in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, but beyond the
police bounds; and that from his own information, and that of the other
officers of his establishment, this number, great as it was, was not _a
third_ of the crimes of that description which had actually been
committed during that period. On the other hand, it was stated by the
sheriff of the county at the same meeting, that in only fourteen of
these ninety-one cases had any trace whatever been got of the
delinquents. In other words, the number of instances in which any clue
was obtained to the criminals was only fourteen out of 273, or _one in
twenty nearly_. And yet this miserable driblet of one in twenty,
exhibits in the criminal returns for Lanarkshire an increase of 75 _per
cent_ in seven years, or a duplication in ten. This instance, to which
hundreds of others might be added from all parts of the country, shows
how extreme is the illusion of those who lay the flattering unction to
their souls, that serious crime is not now more prevalent than it was
formerly, but only better brought to light.

In truth, it has long been known, that in consequence of the relaxation
of the severity of our criminal code, and the astonishing increase of
serious crimes which cannot be passed over, a vast number of criminals
are now disposed of in the police courts, and never appear in the
criminal returns at all, who, twenty years ago, were deemed felons of
the very highest class, and visited often with death, always with
transportation. It was stated in parliament as a subject of complaint
against the Lancashire magistrates, that during the insurrection of 1842
in that county, nearly ten thousand persons were imprisoned, and let go
after a short confinement, without ever being brought to tria