It is pleasant to know from Colonel Henderson's Report on
the Metropolitan Police that crime is distinctly decreasing in London. In spite of the recklessness of the people, who expose property, and leave their windows unfastened, and swear at the police for "spy- ing about" their premises, burglaries, robberies, and housebreak- ings have decreased from 647 in 1870 to 575 in 1871, and larcenies from 8,149 to 6,536. This decrease has been effected, moreover, in spite of a great increase in drunkenness, 28,230 bad cases having been charged against 25,564 in the previous year. The cause of increase is, doubtless, the increase in wages ; but the figures must be perplexing to teetotallers, who hold that drinking and crime always increase together. The most curious fact in the Report, however, and the one which most fully suggests the vastness of London, is that daring the year 5,753 persons were lost, 3.734 of them being children under ten. The police recovered 2,619 children and 446 adults, and 62 were cases of suicide. The remainder of the children, of course, were found by their friends.
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