not aware of any sensible difference between the activity and vigilance of her prosecuting officers and the willingness to convict on the part of her juries now, and the characters of these two departments of the court in the same respects, ten years since.

We have then, for proof of our position that the amount of criminal offences has nearly doubled within the last ten years, evidence from three independent sources. First, beginning with the number of prosecutions in the higher courts, according to Table IV., whose accuracy in other respects we shall presently notice, but whose data in this respect we take to be generally true, we have 1690 prosecutions and 777 convictions in 1843, against 3588 prosecutions and 1443 convictions in 1852; a ratio very nearly of one to two, as we have above supposed. Then, looking at the commitments to the jail, the place where all these subjects of prosecution have at some time been detained, we have for a specimen of a given day, (November 1st,) 136 prisoners in confinement in 1843, against 277 in 1852; little less than one to two. And, lastly, looking at the jails and houses of correction in the aggregate, and the state prison separately, the three institutions which receive substantially all the sentenced convicts, we have an aggregate of 577 in confinement in the jails and houses of correction November 1st, and an average of 270 in the state prison, through the year, of the year 1843, against 1058 in the jails and houses of correction, and 483 in the state prison for the corresponding period of the year 1852; very nearly the ratio of one to two still maintained.

We should be happy to run these general comparisons out into examinations of particular offences. Thus, our readers, i. e. who have taken interest enough in the subject to read thus far, would doubtless be interested to learn how stands the comparison of the crime of murder and some other of the higher offences for the period in question. But will it be believed, that no published tables exist in Massachusetts, by which it can be ascertained how many persons have either been arrested, tried, convicted, or executed, in that State during the last ten years, for any capital crime? We speak with reflection, when we defy any one of her legislators or lawyers, - her attorney-generals, district attorneys, sheriffs, jailers or masters of houses of correction, to produce such. Laborious compilations of stuff of some kind exist among the documents which we have under

taken to examine; but nothing to answer so elementary a question in criminal statistics as that which we have just mentioned.

And this leads us to make a few comments on the last class of documents which we propose to notice under specimen in Table No. IV.- the reports of the Attorney-general and District Attorneys.

In the hands of lawyers, -able men and experienced criminal practitioners, such as have officiated as the prosecuting officers of Massachusetts, one would suppose that the figures of criminal proceedings would be kept to some purpose. But we should be glad to know what purpose such a document as the one above quoted, bearing the title of "The Annual Report of the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for 1852," can serve to the interests of the State or the general student of criminal law?

We mean to attribute official delinquency to no one. On the contrary, looking at the circumstances under which the report was made up, we feel bound to state that the newly installed attorney-general could not, of course, undertake to report upon the criminal business of the Commonwealth which had been transacted before his official connection with it beyond the materials furnished him; and the retiring incumbent, (who, we may be pardoned for noticing with professional pride, has so lately received from the people of the Commonwealth, in his election to the highest office of the State, a flattering testimonial not only to the satisfactory discharge of the duties of his last official position, but to his whole public and professional career,) could do no more than leave behind him, as he has done, a detailed report of his own doings up to the time of quitting office. We feel bound also to add, that the ministerial reduction and compilation of the document seem to have been performed with pains-taking accuracy and fidelity, and that the whole shape of the report, in fact, is nothing different from what has been annually published for several years past. But we desire, if possible, to awaken attention to the want of aim and classification and system in reporting on criminal matters which now reigns supreme in Massachusetts, and to urge with all proper earnestness a thorough reform in the matter.

The results, summed up in the Attorney-General's Report for 1852, are exhibited in the following Table taken from the report itself:

OFFENCES.

TABLE,

Showing the whole amount of the Criminal Business in the Common

wealth."

Now, who that is conversant with Massachusetts law (and a fortiori, how will it be with the people at large?) can form any, the slightest idea, what crimes are intended to be embraced under the heads, "Against the person feloniously," and, "Against the person not feloniously?" The nomenclature was bad enough before the passage of the law, 1852, ch. 37, making "any crime which now is or hereafter may be punishable by death or imprisonment in the state prison," a felony. But since the passage of that act, supposing the returns to be kept strictly conformable to it, who would be any wiser for the information that so many convictions have been had of offences which were or were not liable to punishment in the state prison? Why! in one of the most recent criminal law arguments before the full bench of the Supreme Court which we had the pleasure of attending, we remember to have heard the present accomplished attorney-general of the State, signify to the court his most deliberate opinion that the commonlaw powers of the court extended to sentencing to the

state prison. So that under the head of crimes "Against the person feloniously," why should not we look for common assaults and batteries? And very plainly we should have to seek for adulteries there, now that state-prison offences are ipso facto felonies. How the compiler of these tables has dealt with adultery, bigamy, &c., since the law took effect, we have no means of ascertaining. Probably he was unable to distinguish in the reports themselves between the convictions before or after that period.

Then, of how little consequence is the only remaining division of offences into "Crimes against property with," or, "without violence?" For ourselves, we should be at a loss whether to embrace arsons, larcenies from the person, malicious mischief, and perhaps some other offences, under one head or the other. We are aware that the distinction is usually made in crimes' classification, and it is perhaps well enough in itself; but it is a mere generality, and fails to convey any definite intelligence to the law-maker or the people.

As to the summaries exhibited by the perpendicular divisions of the tables viz., the number of prosecutions, convictions, &c., - they undoubtedly constitute general items of considerable interest, but quite unworthy, taken by themselves, of the name of criminal statistics, and quite inadequate even to the pains which we believe are already actually bestowed by the reporting officers upon their sepa

We take the liberty of adding, that he seemed to have forgotten the advice which he was currently reported to have given to a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, upon the same subject, some years before. The occasion was a conviction of a New York lawyer (with some other person) in the Municipal Court, of the crime of a conspiracy to cheat a bookseller out of some law-books (!) The presiding justice, upon conviction, imposed a sentence for this common-law offence, of five years in the state prison. Upon some suggestion being made at the bar, which doubtless came to the ears of the learned judge, that a writ of error would be likely to be brought upon the judgment, he was reported to have asked the advice of Mr. Choate, and in accordance with his suggestion to have modified the sentence into one of imprisonment for the same term in the house of correction. At any rate, the change was made from the state prison to the house of correction.

We would add that a writ of error was ultimately brought upon the sentence as awarded, to test among other things the common-law powers of the court, and elaborately argued at Salem, November, 1845. After a long delay, the judgment was silently affirmed. But the occurrence of this case seemed to have slipped out of the memory both of the court and the attorney-general, (who was not, to be sure, in office at that time,) on the occasion of the recent argument to which we have alluded.

rate returns.

To instance one obvious distinction which has not been brought out, it would be well to be informed how many trials had been had out of the sum total of convictions, so that the per centage of acquittals might justly be computed. At present, we only gather that out of 3588 prosecutions for 1852, there had been had 1443 convictions and 209 acquittals. Now of the so-called "convictions," we suppose fully one third if not one half were confessions of guilt, whereas an acquittal almost always implies a trial before the jury.

But by some strange misnomer, these summaries are year after year headed, like the one under examination, "Table showing the whole amount of the criminal business in the Commonwealth." Has the abstracting clerk forgotten that much the largest portion of the criminal business of the Commonwealth is not embraced in the returns of the district attorneys and the attorney-general? Thus, to recur to our abstract of the jails and houses of correction, Table I., how can the student of the State's criminal statistics, reconcile the statement of 9353 commitments for crime with only 3588 prosecutions? Obviously, all the doings of the Police Courts and lower criminal tribunals have been left wholly out of sight. The tables in question only contain the prosecutions before the upper courts.

And this leads us to notice how a change of laws, like a change of motive-power in a factory, seems to throw all the machinery out of gear, unless provision is made to adapt the alteration to every part affected. By the law of 1839, ch. 157, the Police Courts (we do not see why justices of the peace should not also have been embraced)1 were required to make full returns of the cases before them to the attorney-general; and it was the practice of that officer, prior to the abolition of the office in 1843, to embody abstracts of their business, more or less succinctly condensed, into his annual report. During the interregnum, (the office, as our Massachusetts readers are well aware, being restored in 1849.) no provision was made for the return of this class of criminal cases, though the district attorneys were required to return their reports into the Secretary of State's office,

1 This deficiency has in part been supplied by the recent act of 1852, ch. 289, requiring justices of the peace to make returns of their doings to the Secretary of State. We do not see why they should not have been made to the Attorney-General, nor why the act should not have made plain the duty of Police Courts.