Country folk believe Loudon to be a sink of malaria
and iniquity. It is, in truth, one of the healthiest towns in the world, indeed, but for one or two districts, might be the healthiest, and one of the most innocent in England. It appears from the report of the Home Office that the proportion of habitual and suspected criminals in London is 1 in 784, while in the pleasure towns, like Bath, Leamington, Scarborough, and Ramsgate, it is 1 in '277,—more than three times as great,—in the agricultural towns 1 in 433, or nearly twice as great ; and in the Eastern, Mid- land, and Southern counties, usually twice as great, and in some places four times. And it must be remembered that while the Metropolitan Police knows its criminals, the country police very often does not. It may be taken as a broad fact that the great city is twice as healthy, twice as innocent, and about four hundred times as charitable, as that home of ideal purity and piety, the agricultural village.
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