held to bail; 319 males and 77
females were committed for trial: 8 males and 1 female under 10 years of
age; 322 males and 37 females under 15; 755 males and 152 females under
20; 645 males and 235 females under 25; 341 males and 165 females under
30; 497 males and 220 females under 40; 300 males and 116 females under
50; 125 males and 78 females under 60; and above that age 41 males and 20
females. Tried by the education test of the whole number taken into
custody, 782 males and 421 females could neither read nor write; 1925
males and 570 females could read and write imperfectly; 317 males and 23
females could read and write well; 6 males come under the head of
superior instruction. The value of property stolen was 11,425 pounds; of
property recovered 3829 pounds; the return of destitute persons taken in
charge by the police is, men 141, women 115, children 79. During the
same period 1603 males and 1097 females were brought to the station
house. Children missing and found by the police; males 496, females 319.
The return of the metropolitan police for 1857, was 2825 brothels, and
8600 prostitutes. In the City, the number of such houses and persons is
very small; the prison population at any particular time is 6000, costing
for the year 170,000 pounds. Our juvenile thieves cost us 300 pounds
a-piece. The average income of the London thief is estimated at 2 pounds
per week.

Again, let us look at the classes whose labours and occupations and modes
of life are inconsistent with health, or not favourable to any great
development of moral principle. Almost 20,000 persons are engaged in
Sunday trading; the number of ragged children is nearly 30,000, the
number of families living in one room is estimated as high as 150,000.
It appears from a report by Mr. Goderich, officer of health in the parish
of Kensington, that in a place called the Potteries there are 1147 human
beings and 1041 pigs congregated within a space of less than nine acres,
the present number of pigs being below the usual average. The dwellings
of a large proportion of the inhabitants of this locality are mere hovels
with shattered roofs and unglazed windows, the floor is below the level
of the external soil, which has been raised by excessive accumulations of
filth of all kinds, and the walls are at all times partially damp and
giving out pestilential gases, intolerable to those who have not been
born among them, fatal to the health of those who have.