ABSTRACT
Crime was still, however, routinely linked to the behaviours, lifestyle choices and morality of the poor. The great expansion in the trade, the increase in the wages paid, coupled with the moderate prices of food have almost annihilated every possible excuse for the commission of crime on the plea of want. The extensive spread of education during the last forty or fifty years has done much to remove the cause of crime so far as it arose from the ignorance of the people. The political and social disaffection which so widely existed in former years, and which often led to riot, sedition, and other crimes, is now virtually unknown, and consequently its influence as an inciter to crime has passed away also. The vast increase in the circulation of good and cheap literature, the establishment of Mechanics’ Institutes, Bands of Hope, Temperance Societies, Ragged Schools, would also all tend to counteract the disposition to crime.
