CRIME STATS FOR 1879 TELL US A GREAT DEAL
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
In December of 1879 the Chatham Daily Planet printed the record of arrests for the year and they did a painstaking job of analyzing the data available to them and came up with some fascinating conclusions that would appear in very few, if any, publications in 2010!
There were, in 1879, 760 arrests made , $1,174.43 paid in fines and fees, $1,853.45 paid out for the care of drunks, 195 tramps were booked and a grand total of 375 dogs were tagged.
Of the 760 arrests made, the newspaper reported that, sorry to say, 404 of them were Canadians,113 were Irish, 3 were Swedes, 3 were French, 2 were Spanish and 1 was Danish. I am not sure what they expected. Were they hoping that most crimes would have been committed by non-resident Americans or Europeans simply passing through Chatham and Kent County??
Not shy about identifying criminals by religion ( can you imagine how that would go over to-day?), the Chatham newspaper identified that, of the 760 arrests made, 193 of them were of the Methodist faith, 190 were Roman Catholic, 1 was identified as an Evangelist and another 57 responded with No religion What the rest of the 760 were, remains a mystery.
In what the Chatham Daily Planet described as another argument in favor of marriage, it was reported that 371 of the 760 men arrested were single men while another 31 had gone astray after losing their wives. Obviously the newspaper had determined some time before this, possibly in an editorial stance, that married men were a much more stable group and that young men needed to be married in order to be tamed or civilized. Many might argue that same point in 2010, I suppose!
In another attempt to do a bit of sermonizing, the writer determined that the largest number of criminals ( 347 out of 760) had not learned a trade and had no definite calling. The article went on to address Chatham parents, in general, by stating that fathers and mothers should make a note of this and give their boys a trade of some sort as such statistics should carry more weight than any lecture on good morals.
Now if you were wondering what exactly these 760 crimes consisted of ( as I was) you are in for a shock. I expected, since the paper was making such a big deal of it, that there had been some pretty serious criminal activity in Chatham during 1879. As it turned out, almost all of the crimes were either simple drunks or other misdemeanors resulting from the use and abuse of alcohol. This accounted for 90% of all of these 760 arrests! In fact, the most serious crimes for the year 1879 were two burglaries and in one of these burglaries all of the stolen merchandise recovered and the guilty party captured, tried and duly punished ( 18 months in jail).
Apparently the creation and subsequent sale of loaves of bread that were deemed short weight was rather a serious infraction and these loaves were seized from the offending bakery and distributed to the poor within the town limits of Chatham. Not a bad idea when you think about it!
The newspaper was most pleased about the fact that there had been a dramatic decrease in the number of tramps applying for and receiving shelter in the police station during the year. In 1877 the number had been 412, in 1878 there had been 213 and in 1879 the number had decreased to 195. No reason was offered for this steady decrease but it was obviously a cause for celebration.
I am not sure how the publication of the years crimes, in the manner presented in this December 1879 edition of the Chatham Daily Planet, would go over in to-days world. I am sure there would be an uproar among certain groups and I am not, personally, totally sold on the concept but it does give one a very clear picture of who, what, where and why crimes were being committed. Wouldnt it be nice if the worst crime committed in Chatham-Kent to-day was a simple burglary?
Oh yes.did you notice that not one single woman was included in these crime statistics? I am not sure what this means. Were women without taint of sin? Did they not report on female transgressions? Or maybe women were so cunning and wily that they got away with all of their crimes! I leave that with you for your own personal contemplation and speculation!
I choose to remain absolutetly neutral on the topic and Lisa's response is not printable in this publication!
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
