Indigence, in the present state of Society, may be considered as a principal cause of the increase of Crimes.
The System which prevails in the Metropolis, with respect to these unfortunate individuals who are denominated the _Casual Poor_, will be found on minute inquiry to be none of the least considerable of the causes, which lead to the corruption of morals, and to the multiplication of minor offences in particular.
The number of persons, who with their families, find their way to the Metropolis, from the most remote quarters of Great Britain and Ireland, is inconceivable. In hopes of finding employment they incur an immediate and constant expence, for lodging and subsistence, until at length their little all is in the Pawnbrokers' shops, or sold to raise money for the necessaries of life. If they have been virtuously brought up in the country, despondency seizes upon their minds, in consequence of the disappointments and hardships, their adventurous or incautious conduct has doomed them to suffer; which as it applies to the most deserving of this class, who will not steal, and are ashamed to beg, often exceeds any thing that the human mind can conceive.
Their Parochial Settlements are either at a great distance, or perhaps as natives of Scotland or Ireland, they are without even this resource. The expence of removing, as the Law directs, is too serious a charge to be incurred by the parish where accident has fixed them. They are treated with neglect and contumely by the parochial Officers; and even occasionally driven to despair. Willing to labour, but bereft of any channel or medium through which the means of subsistence might be procured. It is assigned to no person to hear their mournful tale, who might be able to place them in a situation, where they might gain a subsistence; and under such circumstances it is much to be feared, that not a few of them either actually perish for want, or contract diseases which ultimately terminate in premature death.
Such is frequently the situation of the more decent and virtuous class of the labouring people, who come to seek employment in the Metropolis. The more profligate who pursue the same course have generally other resources. Where honest labour is not to be procured, they connect themselves with those who live by petty or more atrocious offences, and contribute in no small degree to the increase of the general phalanx of delinquents. The young female part of such families too often become prostitutes, while the males pursue acts of depredation upon the Public, by availing themselves of the various resources, which the defects in the Police System allow.