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Justices remarks on the lightness of the Calendar and the comparative freedom of the Colony from crime, gives the figures shewing that the diminution of serious crime in 1869 as compared with 1868 (which in its time compared favorably with 1867), amounted to 22.404 and of minor offences to 18.440th.
Since then there appear to have been sudden, and very well as abnormal and unusual, augmentation of crime, originating so far as is known entirely with Gaming Licenses, and which may be regarded as forming one of the most interesting subjects of inquiry by the Police Commission now sitting.
I confess that I do not as yet see any adequate explanation of the sudden access of crime that appears to have led to the meeting which memorialized Your Lordship for a Commission of Inquiry into the Police.
I have no doubt that the unavoidable absence of Mr Deane and Mr. Creagh, as well as the differences between the latter and the Superintendent Gainer, operated very injuriously on the Police Force, which apparently must have been in some particulars less efficient than usual during several months. Nevertheless, whatever may have been the state of crime generally, it is certain that,