"We yesterday published, in a very short compass, some grave particulars of the unfortunate county of Dorset. It is not simply the old story of wages inadequate for life, hovels unfit for habitation, and misery and sin alternately claiming our pity and our disgust. This state of things is so normal, and we really believe so immemorial in that notorious county, that we should rather deaden than excite the anxiety of the public by a thrice-told tale. What compels our attention just now is a sudden, rapid, and, we fear, a forced aggravation of these evils, measured by the infallible test of crime. Dorsetshire is fast sinking into a slough of wretchedness, which threatens the peace and morality of the kingdom at large. The total number of convictions, which "In 1846 was 798, and "In 1847 was 821, mounted up, "In 1848, to 950; "and up to the special general session, last Tuesday, (Dec. 1849,) for less than eleven months of the present year, to the astonishing number of 1193, being at the rate of 1300 for the whole year! Unless something is done to stop this flood of crime, or the tide happily turns of itself, the county will have more than _doubled_ its convictions within four years! Nor is it possible for us to take refuge in the thought that the increase is in petty offences. In no respect is it a light thing for a poor creature to be sent to jail, whatever be the offence. He has broken the laws of his country, and forfeited his character. His name and his morals are alike tainted with the jail. He is degraded and corrupted. If his spirit be not crushed, it is exasperated into perpetual hostility to wealth and power. * * * * * "It is, then, no light affair that a rural county, the abode of an ancient and respectable aristocracy, somewhat removed from the popular influences of the age, with a population of 175,043 by the late census, should produce in four years near 4000 convictions, being at the rate of one conviction in that period for every sixty persons, or every twelve householders." We might express our doubts of the real respectability of the ancient aristocracy of Dorsetshire. They do not injure society in a way of which the laws take notice; but had they nothing to do with the making of the 4000 criminals? In 1834, an English writer estimated that about 120,000 of the people were always in jail. At the present time the number is still greater. The humane and able author of "Letters on Rural Districts," published in the "Morning Chronicle" of London, thus speaks of the frightful immorality among the agricultural population of Norfolk and Suffolk counties:—