and crimes are asserted, in an act
of parliament, to be sixty thousand persons and above; which is scarcely
credible. Harrison asserts, that seventy-two thousand criminals were
executed during this reign for theft and robbery, which would amount
nearly to two thousand a year. He adds, that, in the latter end of
Elizabeth's reign, there were not punished capitally four hundred in a
year; it appears that, in all England, there are not at present fifty
executed for those crimes. If these facts be just, there has been a
great improvement in morals since the reign of Henry VIII. And this
improvement has been chiefly owing to the increase of industry and of
the arts, which have given maintenance, and what is almost of equal
importance, occupation to the lower classes.

* Stowe, p. 505. Holingshed, p. 840.

** Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 232.

*** 21 Henry VIII.

**** 21 Henry VIII., 22 Henry VIII. C 8., 3 Henry VIII. c.

There is a remarkable clause in a statute passed near the beginning of
this reign,[*] by which we might be induced to believe that England was
extremely decayed from the flourishing condition which it had attained
in preceding times. It had been enacted in the reign of Edward II.,
that no magistrate in town or borough, who by his office ought to keep
assize, should, during the continuance of his magistracy, sell, either
in wholesale or retail, any wine or victuals. This law seemed equitable,
in order to prevent fraud or private views in fixing the assize: yet the
law is repealed in this reign. The reason assigned is, that "since the
making of that statute and ordinance, many and the most part of all the
cities, boroughs, and towns corporate, within the realm of England, are
fallen in ruin and decay, and are not inhabited by merchants, and men
of such substance as at the time of making that statute: for at this
day the dwellers and inhabitants of the same cities and boroughs are
commonly bakers, vintners, fishmongers, and other victuallers, and there
remain few others to bear the offices." Men have such a propensity to
exalt past times above the present, that it seems dangerous to credit
this reasoning of the parliament without further evidence to support it.
So different are the views in which the same object appears, that some
may be inclined to draw an opposite inference from this fact. A more
regular police was established in the reign of Henry VIII. than in any
former period, and a str