If we confine our attention, therefore, to the Commitment Returns, the most noteworthy feature which strikes us, is the drop between 1851 and 1861--the decade in which the Obligatory Act gave the _coup-de-grâce_ to the parochial system, and for the first time covered the whole of England and Wales with a network of stipendiary police. At first sight it would appear that here was cause and effect, that is, that the signal improvement indicated by these statistics was primarily due to the Act of 1856; it is more likely, however, that the result must, in the main, be placed to the credit of the police reforms of the previous decade, for reasons which will presently appear. In view of these eminently satisfactory figures, it may well be asked how it came about that those persons, who most firmly believed that security was only to be attained through police instrumentality, were so grievously disappointed at the imaginary failure of their pet scheme. In order to find the answer to this question it will be necessary to probe a little deeper into the statistics, and to do so by the light of contemporary events. In the first place it is to be remarked that a closer inspection of the Commitment Returns reveals the fact that a reaction took place between 1860 and 1863, the figures for those years reading as follows: 1860 15,999 1861 18,326 1862 20,001 1863 20,818 This result was due, no doubt, to the combined effects of two distinct causes, one of which produced an actual growth of crime, whilst the other accounted for what was but an apparent increase of delinquency. If it is true that crime was more common than before, it is no less true that offences were more commonly detected, the apparent increase being the necessary result of the efficient action of the newly organized Constabularies, which, naturally enough, did not take full effect until the whole machine was in proper working order. Before preventive police can develop its maximum deterrent energy, it has to prove its title to respect by its success in the detection of crime; criminals do not search the Statutes at Large, nor judge of the efficiency of a policeman from government statistics.[223] They take him as they find him, and learn to fear him only after they have acquired a practical familiarity with his activity, either by personal contact, or vicariously, through the misfortunes of acquaintances. The significance of the heavy Calendars in the early sixties, therefore, is largely discounted by the fact, that the accumulations of former years had to be dispersed, before entire responsibility for the amount of crime prevailing could be laid at the door of the new régime. With regard to the second reason for the despondency above referred to, it must be remembered that offences against property so outnumber other offences, that they entirely dominate all criminal statistics; whilst the public alarm occasioned by a single case of robbery involving