e fact that they form four per cent. of the
total criminal population. As has already been pointed out, beggars
and thieves are almost the only two sections of the criminal community
likely to be driven to the commission of lawless acts by the pressure
of absolute want. It very seldom happens that murders, for instance,
are perpetrated from this cause; in fact, not one murder in ten is
even committed for the purpose of theft. The vast majority of the
remaining offences against the criminal law are only connected in a
remote degree with the economic condition of the population, and in
hardly any instance can it be said of them, that they are the outcome
of destitution. In order, however, to err on the safe side, let us
assume that one per cent. of offenders, other than vagrants and
thieves, are to be ranked among the destitute. What is the final
result at which we then arrive with respect to the percentage of
persons forced by the action of destitution into the army of crime? In
the case of vagrants and thieves it has just been seen that the
proportion amounted to four per cent.; adding one per cent. to this
proportion, brings up the total of offenders who probably fall into
crime through the pressure of absolute want to five per cent. of the
annual criminal population tried before the courts.

These figures are important; they demonstrate the fact that although
there was not a single destitute person in the whole of England and
Wales, the annual amount of crime would not be thereby appreciably
diminished. At the present day it is a very common practice to pick
out a case of undoubted hardship here and there, and to assume that
such a case is typical of the whole criminal population. It is, of
course, well to point out such cases, and to emphasise them as much as
possible till we reach such a pitch of excellence in our administration
of the law as will render all unmerited hardship exceedingly rare. As
it is, such cases are becoming less frequent year by year, and it is
an entire mistake to suppose, as is too often done, that a serious
amount of the crime perpetrated in England is committed by men and
women who are willing to work but cannot get it to do. An opinion of
that kind has an alarming tendency to encourage crime; it creates a
false sentiment of compassion for the utterly worthless; it prevents
them from being dealt with according to their deserts, and worst of
all, it is apt to make the working population imagi