CHAPTER XIII .sx CRIME .sx THE decrease or increase of crime over a period of years is of obvious importance in any attempt to estimate social progress or decadence , but it is not easy to arrive at any close measure of such decrease or increase .sx General impressions are of little use :sx if there occur one or two sensational cases of " cat-burglaries " or robberies effected by the use of the motor-car , the newspapers rush to the conclusion that burglary or robbery is on the increase , and the man in the street follows and believes that crime generally is increasing .sx The statistics of crime are the only safe guide , and even they require close examination and interpretation .sx The Home Office publishes annually a volume of Criminal Statistics which records the number of crimes reported or known to the police , of prosecutions , of convictions and of fines or imprisonments ; but these figures may mislead unless they are studied in connection with changes in the law and in public sentiment towards crime and criminals .sx The proceedings of the courts are materially affected by the series of Acts which have relieved the work of the higher courts by extending the powers of the Courts of Summary Jurisdiction ( Police Courts ) , and by the Acts which have enabled both higher and lower courts to substitute probation for conviction and imprisonment .sx There has also in recent time been a marked change of judicial practice in the direction of greater leniency , which makes it impossible to measure the number and gravity of offences by the number or length of the sentences imposed ; while a similar leniency on the part .sx of the public may affect in some degree the number of prosecutions .sx The police returns of crimes committed , though less disturbed by these influences , are dependent to some extent on opinion as to whether a crime has or has not been committed , and it is always possible that even the most carefully drawn instructions may not secure complete uniformity in their mode of compilation , .sx In what follows and in the Tables in the Appendix the figures used are :sx ( a ) In the case of the more serious offences , viz .sx those triable on indictment by Assizes or Quarter Sessions ( though many of them are also triable by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction ) , the numbers of offences committed so far as known to the police .sx The police include in their returns all indictable offences reported or otherwise known to them , and by taking the numbers of offences so returned we avoid the difficulties arising from the numerous transfers of jurisdiction , as the character of the offence remains the same whether tried by the higher courts or by the Courts of Summary Jurisdiction or not tried at all .sx These are , moreover , the only published figures which show the local distribution of crime .sx ( b ) In the case of minor offences ( those not in the ordinary course triable on indictment but only by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction ) , the number of persons charged .sx There are in this case no returns of " offences " :sx it would obviously be useless for the police to attempt to ascertain how many minor assaults have been committed , or how many persons have been drunk and incapable or have driven motor-cars at a dangerous speed .sx The area for which figures are given is Greater London , that is , the City of London which has its own polite force , and the Metropolitan Police District which includes the rest of the County of London , the whole of Middlesexand the parishes of Herts , Essex , Kent and Surrey , lying within fifteen miles of Charing Cross .sx The years for which comparisons are made are 1893 , when the criminal statistics were recast and fixed on the present basis , and 1928 , the last year for which figures are available .sx As the population of Greater London has increased by 35 per cent .sx between 1893 and 1928 , the actual figures are not comparable , and the figures used throughout this chapter are those showing the proportion of offences to every million of population .sx Taking first crimes of violence ( o the person , the figures of indictable offences show increase or decrease per million of population as follows :sx Murder , decrease from 9 to 3 .sx Manslaughter , decrease from 6 to 3 .sx Wounding , increase from 50 to 58 .sx Other crimes of violence , decrease from 29 to 8 .sx The increased figure under the head of wounding does not represent a real increase in crime .sx In 1893 Courts of Summary Jurisdiction had no power to try cases of malicious wounding , and in less serious cases there was a tendency to reduce the charge to one of assault and so avoid the delay and cost of committal for trial :sx but in 1926 these courts were given jurisdiction to try charges of malicious wounding and accordingly they now dispose finally of many such cases which are then classed under their proper head .sx Allowing for this change , there is clearly a substantial reduction in crimes of violence to the person known to the police , and the nature of these crimes is such that no appreciable number is likely to have escaped their knowledge .sx Though the figures given are those for single years , an examination of the statistics shows that averages for the years immediately before and after each date would give results that are not materially different .sx The returns for the whole of England and Wales also show similar reductions .sx If we turn to the minor offences which are tried only in Courts of Summary Jurisdiction we find a still greater fall in the number of assaults from 4,098 to 1,028 .sx On the other hand , the number of cases of cruelty to children appears to have increased from 33 to 40 , but this increase is due to prosecutions by Education Authorities for the offence of permitting school children to be in a verminous condition an offence created by the Children Act of 1908 .sx The more serious cases of cruelty or neglect , prosecuted by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children , have fallen to a fraction of the number of those for 1893 .sx Taking next crimes against property , the following are the results for indictable offences :sx On comparing these figures with those for the whole of England and Wales , two very marked differences have to be observed .sx While the number of burglaries and housebreakings in proportion to population has decreased in London , it has doubled in the country generally ( 261 to 556 ) ; and while the proportion of minor larcenies has fallen in London by nearly 60 per cent .sx , the figure for the whole of the country is almost unaltered ( 1,884 to 1,902) .sx So far as burglaries and housebreakings are concerned , the explanation is , in part at least , to be found in the use of the motor-car , which enables the London burglar readily to transfer the scene of his operations from London and other large towns .sx to the surrounding country , where less supervision is possible , escape by car is easier , and with its help more breakings can be accomplished in a short time .sx The following figures supplied by the Home Office show the recent decrease per million of burglaries and housebreakings in the Metropolitan Police District and their increase in the Home Counties :sx One example may be given of the extra-mural activities of the London criminal .sx In one week in 1929 four youths from London in a car broke by night into 20 shops in Norfolk and Suffolk .sx It must not therefore be inferred from the statistics that the number of London burglars has been reduced , or that the total number of persons addicted to this form of crime in England and Wales is on the increase .sx While burglaries and larcenies are becoming fewer in London , certain special types of crime included under these heads show a large increase .sx Thus , in the Introduction by Mr. Locke to the Home Office Statistics for 1928 it is stated that between 1925 and 1928 the number ( actual figures ) of " smash and grab " raids on shops has increased from 135 to 230 , and that of bag-snatching in the street from 66 to 127 .sx These figures , though too small to affect the totals of the classes to which they belong , show the existence of backwaters , even when the general tide may be set towards improvement .sx The reason just given for the reduction in the number of burglaries in London will not serve to explain why .sx minor larcenies are becoming fewer without any corresponding decrease in the rest of the country .sx While one cannot overlook a possibility that the Metropolitan returns of minor larcenies are in some directions defective , there seems no reason to doubt that here , as under most of the other heads , there is a real improvement .sx With the two exceptions just mentioned burglary and housebreaking , and minor larcenies all the figures for London are supported by comparable figures for England and Wales , and they seem on the whole to indicate some degree of improvement in the matter of honesty .sx The small increase in the number of cases of receiving stolen goods may be due to greater detective efficiency ; and the more considerable increases in cases of obtaining by false pretences and other frauds are no doubt to be attributed , in whole or part , to the facilities for such practices which result from improved education .sx On the other hand , the diminution of cases of robbery , of " aggravated larcenies " ( such as larceny from the person and embezzlement ) , and of charges of unlawful possession , must be regarded as significant .sx In the case of forgery and uttering forged papers the proportion has increased only from 25 to 27 , notwithstanding the introduction of the paper currency , while the figure for coining and uttering false coins has fallen from 28 to 6 .sx Under the head of Malicious Injuries to Property there is also improvement , indictable crimes having fallen from 13 to 1 , and those punishable summarily from 468 to 114 .sx Arson , which is included under this head , though it is sometimes a crime of dishonesty rather than of malice , shows a reduction from 4 to I. .sx Sexual Crimes do not on the whole show similar improvement .sx It is true that rape and other offences against women and girls have fallen , according to the Metropolitan Police returns , from 48 to 34 , a resultthat is the more remarkable when it is considered that incest , which was added to the Criminal Code in 1898 , is now included , and that there has been a strengthening of the law with regard to girls under 16 .sx In England and Wales generally the proportion has increased from 52 to 63 .sx On the other hand , unnatural offences have increased from 9 to 12 , and charges of indecent exposure from 22 to 36 .sx Bigamy ( which varies in character from rape by fraud or obtaining money by false pretences , to mere disregard by both parties of the marriage laws ) has increased from 7 to 13 per million .sx It remains to note some interesting changes in those police court offences which are classed in the statistics as " not akin to indictable offences .sx " Offences against the Education Acts show , as might be expected , a great diminution from 2,820 to 594 per million of population .sx Cases of drunkenness have dropped from 5,824 to 3,275 , a large reduction , but less than that for the whole country , where the fall is from 5,681 to 1,551 .sx Begging has fallen from 349 to 197 and " sleeping out " from 91 to 28 .sx On the other hand , the offences of betting and gaming , which appear under two heads in the Tables , have increased from 528 to 648 .sx Charges of soliciting by prostitutes numbered 134 in 1898 and 291 in 1928 ; but in this case the figures must be regarded as an index , not to the number of actual offences , but to the extent of police action , which has from time to time been curtailed by public outcry about alleged cases of mistaken arrest .sx In 1893 the effect of the Cass case in this direction was still being felt , while another case of the same sort had begun to show its influence in the figure for 1928 which is lower than that of 1926 or 1927 .sx