Louisiana is the only Southern State with a large city, and has, of course, its State Prison filled. At the date of the annual report for 1854, there were 295 prisoners, 114 of whom were foreigners, being over threeeights of the number, 55 being Irishmen, 15 German, 12 French, 6 English, 3 Mexican, 3 Prussian, 3 Italian, and the remainder from other countries. In California, a statement recently published gave the whole number admitted since the opening of the Penitentiary, to be 501 convicts, three fifths of whom were foreigners.

The Philadelphia Sketch Book for April, 1855, states that the number of persons in prison last year, according to the penitentiary reports, was 5,646. In other words, that of the offences committed during the year, one-fifth, or 5,646 of the aggregate cases, were sufficiently grave to incur a penitentiary punishment; while the remaining 20,899 cases were punished with ordinary jail and house of refuge incarceration. The following was the proportion to the whole number of cases in the four principal northern States:

Being over two-thirds of the entire number of cases in the four States named, of which 10,751 were foreigners, being more than one-half of the whole number.

A speech delivered in the United States Senate, January 25, 1855, by the Hon. JAMES COOPER, of Pennsylvania, stated that in the conviction for capital offences the proportion of foreign to native born was startling, and that out of two hundred and twenty convictions which took place, in about eighteen months, in seven States, viz. in New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Louisiana, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland, there were 138 of foreigners to 82 of natives.

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In still further corroboration of the facts before recited, the following article from a New York journal of 1853, may be cited:

"Fitzgerland will be hung at the Tombs to-day for shooting his wife. Neary, sentenced to the same fate for a similar offence, is respited one week, in order that the sheriff's jury may determine whether he has lost his reason. If the latter execution takes place, it will make seven in this city within the last year! In all England and Wales, the whole number of executions during the year 1852, as appears by a parliamentary report, was only nine. The population of this city is 600,000-the population of England and Wales is 18,000,000. In other words, New

York, with a population of only one-thirteenth as large as England and Wales, hangs seven-ninths as many in the same space of time.

"The little we fail in point of number, however, is more than made up in the atrocity of the offences. Of the nine hung in England, one murdered his wife, one her husband, one her mother-in-law, one his employer who had dismissed him, one his uncle, one a stranger on the highway, one hiş own illegitimate child, one the illegitimate child of his wife, one the illegi timate child of his paramour; but of the seven, three murdered their wives -namely, Grunzig by poison, Fitzgerland by shooting, Neary by beating the brains out with a mallet and chisel; Stookey murdered a negro, Clark murdered a policeman, and Saul and Howlett a watchman. Three of the English murders were of infants, but all of the New York murders were of full grown persons, three of whom sustained the most sacred of all relations to those who deprived them of life. But, in truth, New York of right has the precedence of all England and Wales on this score, even in regard to number. Doyle, who murdered the woman with whom he boarded in Pearl street, was sentenced to be hung, and ought to have been hung, and would have been hung in England, but was sent to the State prison for life. Sullivan, who killed the man in Cliff street, who endeavored to prevent his beating his wife, was found guilty of murder, and ought to have been hung, and would have been hung in England, but was sent to the State prison for life. Johnson, one of the condemned with Saul and Howlett, was sent to the State prison for life. There are now at the Tombs ten men awaiting trial for murder, one of whom, Carnell, the fiendish Dey street murderer, has already been convicted once, and is now awaiting a second trial. The whole number of arrests in this city for homicide, within the last year, has been, as near as we can ascertain, about thirty-five. The whole number of arrests in this city, during the year 1852, was about 35,000; the whole number of commitments in England and Wales, was 27,510. The whole number of arrests for offences committed upon the person in New York, in 1852, was 5,468; in England and Wales, the whole number of commitments. for the same class of offences, during the same period, has been about 2,000. In England, last year, there were 13 convictions for burglary; in New York, 146 arrests for the same offence. During the last seven years, there were 66 convictions for this offence; in New York, during the same period, over 1,000 arrests. But this does not furnish the worst aspect of the case. The disparity between England and this city is yearly becoming greater-while crime is increasing there slightly, it is here increasing with fearful rapidity. The whole number of convictions. for murder in England, in 1846, was 13; the whole number of arrests in New York, for murder, for the nine months preceding May 1, 1846, was 10. In England, the convictions of 1847, were 19; in New York,

during the year ending May 1, 1847, the arrests were 18. In 1849, the convictions in England were 19; in New York, the arrests for the year ending November 1, were 13. In 1850, the convictions in England, 11; in New York, during the fifteen months ending with the last of December, 1850, they were 16. In 1851, the English convictions were 16; the New York arrests 36. In 1852, the English convictions were 16; the New York arrests were 30. The total number of commitments for all kinds of offences in England and Wales, during the last seven years, was 194,424; the total number of arrests in New York during the same period, was over 200,000. We are not able to make an exact comparison between the absolute number of crimes perpetrated in England, and in New York city, since the Parliamentary tables before us relate only to commitments in the case of offences generally, and to convictions in cases of murder, whereas our Police tables only give the number of arrests. Of course, many are arrested who are not committed or bound over for trial, but their number is by no means so great as to destroy the remarkable significance of the figures we have put in connection. Now, what are the causes of the remarkable difference between this city and England, in extent of crime? England has its immense cities, abounding with ignorant and vicious classes of population-it has its London, its Liverpool, its Birmingham, its Manchester, and its Leeds, and yet this single city of New York, if we may trust official tables, exceeds not only each of them in crime, but all put together. It cannot be ascribed to any peculiar character of our people, distinct from theirs-for it is notorious, that the greater part of our criminality springs from the foreign element of our population. Of the seven murderers above specified, for instance, six of them were foreigners, one being a German, three Irish, one English, and one a Nova Scotian; and the seventh, though born in this city, was of Irish parentage. The same people that chiefly commit the crimes here are found in vast numbers in every English city. Why, then, the difference in the extent of that crime? The causes which produce this result are various and complex, some of which we may consider hereafter. The most important of them are, doubtless, the comparative inefficiency of our police in preventing crime, the comparative uncertainty of our courts in punishing crime, the neglect of our young vagrant population, and the vast number of disorderly groggeries, licensed and unlicensed, that have all the while, without restraint, been stimulating the passions and bad propensities of all the lower classes of our population. It is time that these matters should be seriously and earnestly looked at and cared for. Our streams of crime are increasing in torrents, and they threaten to overwhelm us. The facts we have given, startling as they are, cannot be denied. Official documents prove them. Read and ponder."

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So there are other statistics showing a like state of things. According to the reports made on the subject, there were received into the houses of Correction, in Massachusetts, 29,076 persons, during the years 1850, 51, 52, 53 and 54, of which number 11,149 were of foreign birth, being considerably over one-third of the number. Of 1,056 inmates of the House of Correction, in Boston, in 1852, there were 738 foreigners, being two-thirds of the number.

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A respectable local newspaper, a few months since, published the following statistics of crime and pauperism in Hudson county, New Jersey, viz. 21,000 inhabitants, of whom 12,000 are natives, 5,000 Irish, and 4,000 other foreigners; 4,168 persons confined to city prison and county jail, of whom 77 were natives, leaving 4,099 foreigners, of whom 3,608 were Irish; 188 inmates of the alms-house, none of whom are natives; all being Irish; 723 received aid from the poor-master, of whom 3 were natives, and 720 Irish.

Of 107 committed to the Jersey City prison during the month of June, 1855, but 13 were natives, 3 of whom were colored, while the others were foreigners, 71 of whom were Irish, 14 English, and 9 German. According to a report of the Marshal of the same city, there were, during the month of September last, 113 arrests for the following offences: Drunkenness, 61; breach of the peace, 26; assault and battery, 14; vagrancy, 1; violation of the Sabbath, 2; disorderly house, 1; assaulting females in the street, 1'; larceny, 7-total, 113. Of this number 82 were born in Ireland, 20 in the United States, 6 in Germany, 3 in England, 1 in Scotland, and 1 was colored. The Captain of the Watch reported, that during the same month there were 218 lodged in the watch-house, of whom 29 were females, whose nativity is not given, 67 Irish, 60 German, 22 English, 30 Americans, and 10 colored.

The Buffalo Advertiser publishes the following statement of persons committed to the jail of Erie county, New York:

In the four cities of Buffalo, Albany, Brooklyn, and New York, the number of convictions was 3,733 in the year 1852, of which 2,802 were foreigners, being over two-thirds of the number.

Of 301 arrested in New York city for drunkenness, during the first week of August, 1855, there were 252 foreigners, 211 of whom were from Ireland, 16 from Scotland, 12 from England, 7 from Germany, 3 from, France, and 3 from Wales; and of 314 arrested for the same offence the week following, 268 were foreigners, 218 of whom were Irish, 17 German, 14 English, and 14 Scotch...

The inspectors of the Moyamensing prison, at Philadelphia, report that of 273 sentenced in the year 1853 to hard labor, 114 were foreigners, 68 of whom were Irish.

The following imperfect statistics of arrests made in Philadelphia, show the same state of things. In the third ward of that city, there were, during a period of three months, over 700 arrests by the police, of which number but 189 were Americans, 22 blacks, and 502 foreigners, of whom 491 were Irish, 61 German, 23 English, 4 Scotch; in the seventh ward, the arrests from the 14th of September, 1854, to the end of the year, numbered 492, and during the month of February, 1855, they numbered 89, making an aggregate of 581, of whom but 69 were Americans, 143 blacks, and 369 foreigners, of whom 327 were Irish, 10 English, 6 German, and the remainder from other countries; in the tenth ward, during the same periods, there were 433 arrests, of whom 123 were natives, including blacks, and 310 foreigners, of which number there were 219 Irish, 38 English, 22 German, 14 Spaniards, 8 Poles, and 1 Frenchman; in the 12th ward, the number of arrests, from October, 1854, to January, 1855, were 245, and during February, 1855, there were 70, making an aggregate of 315, of which number 63 were natives, including blacks, and 252 foreigners, of whom 120 were Irish, 110 German, 11 English, and 3 Frenchmen; in the 14th ward, the arrests from September 27, 1854, to January 1, 1855, were 221, 97 of whom were foreigners, of which number 77 were Irish, 14 German, and 6 English; of 281 arrests made in the 19th ward, but 27 were Americans and 1 colored person, the remaining 253 were foreigners, 207 being Irish, 26 German, 14 English, and 6 Dutch; of 344 arrests in the 20th ward, 109 were Americans, and 7 colored persons, the remaining 328 being foreigners, of whom 159 were from Ireland, 58 from Germany, 10 Englishmen, and 1 Frenchman. The following is the number of arrests made by the police of the twenty-third ward, with their places of nativity, from October 1st, 1854, to October 1st, 1855: American 44, French 1, German 17, Irish 111, black 8, Scotch 2, English 60, unknown 5-total 248.

CHAPTER VI.

INTEMPERANCE.

INTEMPERANCE is undoubtedly one of the great causes of crime. Thus of 613 commitments to the State Prisons of New York in 1852, twothirds confessed intemperate habits, and how many were of that class called moderate drinkers does not appear; and the New York Prison