The epidemic of murder, after a momentary lull, has begun
to rage again, and one local paper contains, in a single issue, accounts of twelve murders. They are not any of them of much individual interest, but wo note with pain that the majority of them were com- mitted with the knife, and that, in almost all, no adequate provoca- tion was so much as suggested. One of the worst—the murder of a prostitute at Birmingham—was committed from jealousy, in all ages a cause of murder ; but at Bilston, some ticket-of-leave men mur- dered_a householder, in order to rob more easily; and at Newcastle, a tax-collector was stabbed to death for collecting the dog-tax. The number of violent assaults, too, has been unusually great, and the magistracy are still far too lenient. The use of the knife ought in- variably to entail the maximum penalty allowed by law.
