A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis: Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their PreventionColquhoun, Patrick
History
A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis: Containing a Detail of the Various Crimes and Misdemeanors by which Public and Private Property and Security are, at Present, Injured and Endangered: and Suggesting Remedies for their Prevention
Colquhoun, Patrick
Crime -- England -- London; Police -- England -- London
_Another cause_ of the increase of Crimes in the Metropolis and its
environs, may be traced to the situation of idle and profligate menial
servants out of place, and destitute of the means of obtaining
situations from the loss of character.--These too, seek for resources
in Public-houses, where they soon become the associates of Thieves,
Pickpockets, Burglars, and Highwaymen; and it is believed to be
chiefly from this class, particularly _Riding Footmen_, and
_Postillions_, that the corps of Highway Robbers is constantly
recruited.--While others less skilled in horsemanship become Footpads,
Burglars, and Pickpockets.
With the major part of this class the transition is easy--depravity
had previously taken hold of their minds--every other resource has
failed them, and to this they resort, as soon as they can find means,
to enlist in any gang that will receive them, where, to those who
confine themselves chiefly to burglaries, their knowledge of the
interior of the houses of their former masters, and their probable
acquaintance with some of the female servants, will be a considerable
recommendation, and even a ground of seduction.
_Another Cause_, and no inconsiderable one, of the progress and
increase of crimes may be developed, by contemplating the deplorable
state and condition of the lower order of the Jews in the Metropolis,
who are of the Society of the Dutch Synagogue.[89]--Totally without
education, and very seldom trained to any trade or occupation by which
they can earn their livelihood by manual labour:--their youths
excluded from becoming apprentices, and their females from hiring
themselves generally as servants, on account of the superstitious
adherence to the mere ceremonial of their persuasion, as it respects
meat not killed by Jews, nothing can exceed their melancholy
condition, both with regard to themselves and Society. Thus excluded
from these resources, which other classes of the Community possess,
they seem to have no alternative but to resort to those tricks and
devices, which ingenuity suggests, to enable persons without an honest
means of subsistence to live in idleness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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