§ MR. E. H. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S. W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether, pending the preparation of the elaborate annual Return of Criminal Statistics, it would be practicable to issue, soon after the close of each year, a general summary of the crime of the year, in the same way as the Registrar General issues in April a general abstract of the marriages, births, arid deaths registered during the year ended 31st December previous?
§ SIR MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEYIt would only be possible to give such a summary of the cases tried at Assizes and Quarter Sessions, the tables of which are prepared in the Home Office. The other tables which form the greater part of the statistics and without which the summary would have little value, are compiled from returns which are supplied by the police and come in slowly. I may add that the delay which has occurred in the last two years in the publication of the statistics has been quite exceptional, and in my opinion it will be better to expedite the publication of the statistics in future years than to anticipate them by incomplete summaries.