A tabular statement of CRIMINALS convicted, and of the nature of the sentences inflicted upon them, will also be found in the Appendix. When the improvement in the machinery for detecting crimes and bringing offenders to justice is taken into account, there would not seem to be any serious increase in the amount of crime committed; but there certainly is no room for believing that the intelligence of the age, or the activity of the police, have been successful in diminishing it. Neither does the comparative leniency of the punishments inflicted afford any proof that the crimes committed are less heinous than formerly. The decrease in severity of punishments is to be attributed solely to the amelioration of our criminal code, and the humane desire to reclaim rather than to punish, which now distinguishes our legislature and even pervades the judiciary. Worcestershire, it must be admitted, holds a bad preëminence both in respect to the number and character of the offences committed within its boundaries: a recent return, made by order of the Privy Council, assigns it the very lowest place amongst the English counties as to the proportion of criminals to the population, and within three of the bottom of the list in degree of crime. EDUCATION is regarded by many as the panacea which is to empty our prisons and render the judge’s office a sinecure; and, without being inclined to attribute to it any such efficacy, it cannot be doubted that it does act as a check to the commission of many of the grosser offences against society. A private individual has not at his command the means necessary to compile complete statistics on a subject like this; it is a matter of congratulation, however, that Government caused inquiries to be made, at the last census, which will by and by put us in possession of much important information on this head. Without pretending to accuracy, I believe it will be found that there are in Worcestershire about 550 private and public day and boarding schools, having accommodation for the instruction of 20,000 scholars. It is not, indeed, want of accommodation that is now so much to be complained of—for few of the school-rooms are filled—as inferiority in the quality of the instruction imparted. Earnest efforts are, however, being made by all educational societies and the supporters of public schools to remedy the admitted deficiency. Nearly all the schools now existing in the county, with the exception of the Grammar and Free Schools of which there are some seventy-six, have been founded during the present century, and owe their existence, and in greatest part their continuance, to the voluntary benevolence of persons residing on the spot. Within the last three or four years, public attention has been much directed to the lax administration of the funds of the various charity schools in the county, and should the gentlemen who have taken the matter so zealously in hand be successful in bringing