18.5.
2th. The direct contrary, however, is established by Mr Deane's Returns which shew that in heinous offences the decrease has been 13.8 per cent and in minor offences only 2.9 per cent.
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It is also a mere delusion to affirm that he can trace either cases of Murder or violence to the Licensed Gambling Houses in the sense that he evidently seeks to convey to Your Lordship, viz: that the Licensing system caused those Crimes. He alludes to a quarrel, ending in an assault, about a smoky chimney which took place on a Sunday, a day when the Licensed Houses were closed. The quarrel arose between the servants residing in those houses and their neighbours in the adjoining building. Now though Thomas à Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral, I have never heard it argued that Churches and Cathedral Churches on that account be abolished, and I should not if the system of Inspection instituted led also to the detection of an attempt, alluded to by Mr Smale, to pass a forged note in a Licensed House, argue that such leading indirectly, as an occurrence it has since then to was the breaking up of a gang of Forgers, a source rather for congratulation than otherwise, Mr Smale might as well say that the State should close the shop of a person who had detected an attempt to pass a forged note.