removal. For the criminal, just like the " savage, has within him the seeds of the logician, the man of taste and breeding, the orator, the statesman, the man of virtue, and the saint; which seeds, though planted in his mind by nature, yet, through want of culture and exercise, must be for ever buried, and be hardly perceivable by himself or by others."*

The London pickpockets are a class well known for their precocious intellects, cleverness, and general shrewdness. For the most part they are Irish cockneys, whom neglect or destitution had driven to crime. Here we have a highly susceptible race, easily acted upon for good or evil, capable of the worst crimes or the highest virtues, just as circumstances may arise to develop either. This numerous class certainly exhibits no sign of mental obliquity; of which even Dr. Wallis himself could find no trace.

To the demoralizing influences which surround the "dangerous classes" from their birth may properly be attributed this hereditary tendency to crime. The parents' (especially the mother's) influence is omnipotent for good or evil; as every impression produced on the brain during infancy becomes indelible. "Infancy," observes a learned physiologist, "is the age of sensation, and as every

* Inquiry into the Human Mind, by Dr. Reid.

thing is new to the infant, everything attracts its eyes, ears, etc.; so, that which to us is an object of indifference, is to it a source of pleasure."* No circumstance, however trivial, escapes the scrutinizing eye of the child, or fails to contribute its quota towards his future character. That the offspring of a thief should, as he grows up, manifest a predatory disposition, is perfectly natural; and it would indeed be indicative of cerebral disorganization for any one to expect a different result. So strongly has one writer felt on the subject of parental influence, that he says: “Every crime committed in the world is owing to evil training during childhood."+ Herein lies the real source of a depravity which, unlike some constitutional qualities, is not inherited of necessity or by natural transmission, but simply arises from accidents, all of which are preventible. For "at an age," to quote the language of Dr. Brown, "when the ideas of virtue and vice are obscure, and no analysis has yet been made of complex emotions, it is not wonderful that the child, whose parents are perhaps his only objects of love, should resemble them still more in disposition than in countenance."‡

Bichat's General Anatomy, vol. i.

Lectures on the Education of Man, by Thomas Hopley, F.S.S.

Philosophy of the Human Mind (Influence of Particular Suggestions on the Moral Character).

CHAPTER III.

INCOMMODIOUS DWELLINGS AND LOW LODGING-HOUSES.

66

1

Philosophy is in the wrong not to descend more deeply into physical man; there it is that the moral man lies concealed."-DUPATEY.

"The parallel between the infection of disease and the infection of crime holds strictly."-LORD STANLEY.

"If it be desirable to pollute the rising generation, to sink them below the possibility of recovery, then let the low lodging-houses and wretched single rooms and cellars of our lowest classes be continued-they are as full of children as they are of disease and sin."-ALEXANDER THOMSON, of Banchory.

As active agencies in the promotion of juvenile crime, I cannot omit to notice the miserable hovels in which our poor do congregate, and the low lodging-houses that may appropriately be termed dens of infamy and guilt.

It is an undisputed fact, that the moral character of a people materially depends upon their physical condition. To the houses and household relations. of the labouring classes, therefore, are to be attributed a large proportion of the crime, no less than

And

of the diseases which periodically occur. although some measures have of late years been adopted, and efforts been made, to improve the wretched dwellings of the poor, nevertheless enough of misery presents itself to inspire horror and alarm, as well as to bring into operation the most skilful appliances, at least for its amelioration, if not for its entire removal.

Dr. Letheby's recent official report upon the sanitary state of the metropolis has revealed a state of things which is as revolting to morals and decency as it is inconsistent with the great wealth and intelligence of the first city in the world. The habits and practices of a large and growing class of our London population exceed in grossness even some of the worst phases of savage life; and, so far as investigations have been carried out, all the large provincial towns exhibit the same alarming aspect. What can be more horrible than to contemplate a social condition where not only thousands of families are cooped up, each in one small ill-ventilated apartment, but "where adults of both sexes, belonging to different families, are lodged in the same room, regardless of all the common decencies of life, and where from three to five adults, men and women, beside a train or two of children, are accustomed to herd together like brute beasts or savages, --where all the offices of nature are performed in

*

the most public and offensive manner, and where every human instinct of propriety and decency is smothered." But there exist other and greater evils, far too shocking for relation, calculated not merely to stifle all moral sentiment, but to deaden the gentler feelings of our nature.

In these miserable haunts of poverty, the physical atmosphere is as tainted as the moral. In fact, the air is "one foul choking steam of stench,” utterly unfit to support vigorous life. According to Dr. Letheby, who applied chemical tests to assist his investigation, the atmosphere of these overcrowded domiciles, or human dens, "is not only deficient in the due proportion of oxygen, but it contains three times the usual amount of carbonic acid, besides a quantity of aqueous vapour charged with alkaline matter that stinks abominably."† Here, then, in the very heart of our great capital, amid all our splendid palaces and luxury, we have the active elements of decomposition insidiously destroying the health and morals of tens of thou-sands of the people. But, unfortunately, the disastrous results of this baneful evil are not confined to the lower classes. A pestilential disease now and again stalks abroad from these fruitful hotbeds of infection, which baffles the best medical

* Report on the Sanitary State of the City.

+ Ibid.