We know all the importance of the question; it is one that touches our good name, and we feel indignation against any one who shall attempt to rob us of it, by any mean or unfair tricks. Let us see how our "model" controversialist deals with this matter. "In order not to cause a useless waste of time by going over all sorts of crimes," he selects the greatest one, that of murder or homicide. Then he selects England, and compares it with nearly all the Catholic countries of Europe, and shows it to be at least four times better than the very best of them. We do not propose to ferret this out; we cannot lay our hands upon the statistics of this particular crime, which seem to be everywhere very loosely given; but we can show shortly, that his conclusions are utterly false. He gives the number of persons _imprisoned_ on this charge of homicide in England and Wales, during 1852, as 74, and the annual mean for three years as 72. This will strike every one as simply ridiculous. Luckily, the _Statistical Journal_ of 1867 gives the following tables of this crime for 1865, as follows: Verdicts Of Coroners' Juries. Wilful murder, 227 Manslaughter, 282 Total, 509 Police Returns. Wilful murder, 135 Manslaughter, 279 Concealment of birth, 232 Total, 646 Criminal Tables. Wilful murder cases tried, 60 Manslaughter, cases tried, 316 Concealment of birth, cases tried, 143 Total, 519 {54} If 519 were tried, we may judge of the number _imprisoned_. The author of the article in the _Journal_ says: "The police returns do not correspond with the coroners', and the discrepancy is so great that I can only account for it on the supposition that, according to the police view of it, infanticide is not murder." The number of coroners' inquests held in 1865, in England and Wales, was Total 25,011 Verdict of accidental deaths, . . 11,397 He continues, "Open verdicts, as they are termed, such as, 'found dead,' or 'found drowned,' are rendered in many cases when a more accurate knowledge would have led to the verdict of 'wilful murder.'" It is just as easy to compare the total of first-class criminals of all sorts, as to select homicide. Alison [Footnote 19] says, "The proportion of crime to the inhabitants was _twelve times_ greater in Prussia (Protestant) than in France, (Catholic,) and in Austria, (Catholic,) the proportion of convicted crime is not _one fourth_ of what is found in Prussia." The _Statistical Journals_ for 1864-65 show that France is better than England. [Footnote 19: _History of Europe_, vol. iii. chap, xxvii. 10, 11.] There were no less than 846 deaths of children under one year old, in 1857, in England and Wales from violent causes, [Footnote 20] from which we may form some little idea of the extent of only one sort of homicide.