-No. 7.

LETTER from JAMES CORDER, Esq., Clerk to the Strand Union, relative to the progress of Crime, particularly in reference to Infanticide. Strand Union Office, 32, Carey Street, 17th May, 1838.

Gentlemen, THE record of crime even in modern times is so imperfect, that it is very difficult to prepare with proper accuracy statistical returns from which comparisons may be made and conclusions safely drawn. Much has been said since the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act to lead the public to believe that one of the effects of that law would be, a frightful increase in the crime of infanticide. With a view to confirm or confute this position various returns have been attempted to be procured from coroners, parish officers, and the police; but these returns, even where obtained, have been, it is believed, not sufficiently certain to warrant comparisons or conclusions being drawn from them. It occurred to me with a view to aid in so desirable an investigation, that a careful search of the Sessions Papers which have been for upwards of a century printed under the authority of the corporation of London, and which contain a record of every case tried at the Old Bailey Sessions during that long period might produce results which could be relied on with certainty, and would tend to show whether in the most populous county of England any increase in the murder of bastard children has taken place since the month of August, 1834, the period when the operation of the Poor Law Amendment Act commenced.

Before I proceed to show the result of these searches, it may not be irrelevant briefly to advert to the previous and present state of the law on this subject.

The murder of bastard children by the mother was a crime of so frequent occurrence, and was considered so difficult to be proved, even in the time of James the First, that an act was passed in the 21st year of the reign of that monarch which made the concealment of the death of a bastard child an undeniable evidence of murder in the mother, except she could prove by one witness at least that it was actually born dead. The act is intituled, "An Act to prevent the destroying and murthering of Bastard Children," and the preamble of it is as follows:"Whereas many lewd women that have been delivered of bastard children, to avoid their shame and to escape punishment, do secretly bury or conceal the death of their children, and after if the child be found dead, the said women do allege that the said child was born dead'; whereas it falleth out sometimes (although hardly it is to be proved) that the said child, or children, were murthered by the said women their lewd mothers, or by their consent or procurement." But this law, which was continued by two subsequent acts of Charles I., was considered to savour too strongly of severity, and which was consequently construed most favourably for the unfortunate object of accusation, was repealed, together with an Irish act upon the same subject, by the statute 'generally called Lord Ellenborough's Act, which was passed in the 43d year of the reign of George III.

This latter act, except as to its repeal of the former, is repealed by the 9th George IV. c. 31, and by the 14th section of which act it is enacted, that if any woman shall be delivered of a child, and shall, by

secretly burying or otherwise disposing of the dead body of the said child, endeavour to conceal the body thereof, every such offender shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, in the common goal or house of correction for any term not exceeding two years; and it shall not be necessary to prove whether the child died before, at, or after its birth. It is likewise provided by this act, that if any woman tried for the murder of her child shall be acquitted thereof, it shall be lawful for the jury by whose verdict she shall be acquitted, to find, in case it shall so appear in evidence, that she was delivered of a child, and that she did by secretly or otherwise disposing of the dead body of such child endeavour to conceal the birth thereof, and thereupon the court may pass such sentence as if she had been convicted upon an indictment for the concealment of the birth.

This provision is in effect nearly the same as that of the 43d Geo. III. c. 58. sec. 3, except that the woman may now be indicted for the concealment as a specific misdemeanor, whereas under the 43d Geo. III. she could only be found guilty of this offence after a trial on an indictment or inquisition for murder. Also by this new act the offence is extended to the concealment of the birth of any child, whether a bastard or not.

From this brief outline of the law upon the subject, it will appear that the crime of infanticide has frequently engaged the attention of the legislature, and that even in the time of James I. the crime was of such frequent occurrence as to call for a special enactment for its prevention by rendering the conviction of offenders less difficult.

The following is the result of an examination of the trials at the Old Bailey Sessions during 64 separate years, and extending over a surface of more than a century :

NUMBER OF FEMALES indicted for INFANTICIDE at the General Sessions of Oyer and Terminer, held at the Old Bailey in each of the undermentioned years, with the verdicts or results.

Thus it appears that during the 64 years in question the total number of females indicted for the crime of infanticide was 60, and the verdicts or results were as follow:

Thus it is obvious that infanticide has never, during the last century at least, very deeply stained the annals of crime in the county of Middlesex. It is equally obvious that the crime in question has not increased in that particular county, and when the vast increase which has taken place in the population is duly considered, it is fair to infer the crime in question has actually diminished.

In the year 1750 the population of Middlesex was 641,500; when the last census was taken in the year 1831 it had reached 1,358,200, being an increase exceeding 100 per cent. It should also be observed, that the 4th and 5th Wm. IV. c. 36, intituled "An Act for establishing a new Court for the Trial of Offences committed in the Metropolis," generally known as the "Central Criminal Court Act," received the royal assent on the 25th July, 1834, and came into operation on the 31st of October in the same year, by which the jurisdiction of the Old Bailey Sessions was very considerably extended, and nine parishes in the county of Essex, ten in the county of Kent, and seventeen in the county of Surrey, besides the borough of Southwark, added to it. The parishes and places thus added contained, according to the census of 1831, a population of 467,404 souls, making a total population within the present jurisdiction of the court of 1,825,734 souls, including 109,482 female servants. And yet it is a remarkable fact that with this vast increased population during the year 1837, when the Poor Law Amendment Act had been in operation three years, there was only one case of infanticide tried at the Criminal Sessions of this extensive district, and that ended in an acquittal.

That with an increase of population there is unfortunately an increase of crime in general, is too clearly proved by official and Parliamentary Returns to be denied. Thus it appears that in the seven years ending 1755, the average number of capital convictions in the county of Middlesex was only 61, and in the seven years ending 1762 the average number was only 25; whereas during the seven years 1822-1829, the average number of capital convictions in the county of Middlesex was 163.

That the increase of crime has kept pace with the increase of the population is also apparent from the following table exhibiting the number of

Committals for Crime in the County of Middlesex, during the

It is therefore, I venture to submit, clearly evident, that although there has been a vast increase in the population since the year 1730, and although there has been a very considerable increase in committals for crime and in capital convictions, the crime of infanticide has not increased in the most populous district in the kingdom.

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I have the honour to be, Gentlemen, your very obedient servant,

(Signed)

To the Poor Law Commissioners,

Somerset House, London.

J. CORDER.

APPENDIX (C.)

TABULAR STATEMENTS.

-No. 1.

Statement of the Number of Unions formed, with the Agency of each AssistantCommissioner; the Number of Parishes united; the Population; and the Average Amount of Poor-Rates.