SCOTCH AND IRISH CRIME.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 207, 23 March 1877, Page 7

SCOTCH AND IRISH CRIME.

It is highly probable in an important debate on the Irish land question, which may be looked for early in the coming session, an attempt will be made to repeat the outrageous slanders of the Irish. people in which Mr. M'Laren, the member for Edinburgh, and others at regular intervals indulge. lam informed that the most elaborate preparations are being made — statistics examined, and official reports copied — the sole object being, so far as I can discover, to make out a case against Irishmen of all classes and creeds, stamping them as behind the other peoples of the United Kingdom in eocial morality, in regard for public order, and decorum, and in intelligence. With an anxious desire to help the gentlemen who are conducting this pleasing inquiry in finding out the truth, I have with some pains collected from official records a few statistics, ■which I commend to their countrymen. For the present I deal with Scotch and Irish crime simply. The English and Welsh attend to their own business, and discreetly avoid comparisons. To compare the crime of the populations of either Leinster, Munster, or Connaught with the crime of a strictly Scotch population equal to the populations of any of the three provinces would be unfair to Scotland, for the simple reason that the conditions are not equal. There is no manufacturing district in any of the provinces named. But Ulster affords a perfect test. There the population in many ways— in descent, in social arrangement, and to some extent in religion — corresponds with the population of Scotland more closely perhaps than any other portion of the United Kingdom. How, Then, do offences in Ulster compare with offences in a portion of Scotland equal in population to that of Ulster ? Let the following terrible record answer. Offences against property — Ulster, 3,184°Scotland, 12,274. Offences against morals— Ulster, 47; Scotland! 87. Murder and attempts at murder, offences against the lives of infants and children— Ulster, 92; Scotland, 99. Offences against veracity — Ulster, 6; Scotland, 9. Manslaughter — Ulster, 20; Scotland, 23. Police offences — i.e., smaller charges, such as brawls, drunkenness— Ulster, 59,008 j Scotland, 56,465. As to this latter feature, I need not point how much more strict the Irish police are than the Scotch in the matter of drunk and disorderly offences. With these official returns before them I shall watch with some curiosity the answer which the Ulster members will give to the attack which will be made on Ireland next session But if your space permitted I could show that the other provinces of Ireland bear a better comparison even than Ulster, with strictly Scotch populations. The figures show conclusively that in every station Qi life the Irishman jg a pux«r-lifed, more law-abiding citizen than

his Scotch neighbor. He commits fewer murders and he steals less ; he is more truthful than the Scotchman. In one point he seems to be more guilty. He is more quarrelsome in his cups than the Scot, but, as I have already said, the Scotch police allow a brawling toper to roll home where an Irish policeman would direct his steps to the nearest station. Statistics of the kind I have given cannot be too widely known, and with your permission I shall return again to the subject. For the present, however, I may say generally that taking the crime of Ulster it is all round 9 per cent, less than the crime of Scotland, and taking specially vicious offences, it is 47 per cent, less.— London Letter.