stamps, and‘fishing’–the practice of attaching a weight and bird lime to the
end of a piece of string to stick to letters inside pillar boxes so that they
could be pulled out. The introduction of postal orders in 1881 was a
particularly attractive reason for this crime–they were easily negotiable by
the thieves.^5
Crime and detection–the public appetite
Trials were increasingly referred to the police (magistrates’) courts for minor
offences, under a system of summary jurisdiction. The system was
inexpensive and fast; eighty per cent of cases were tried in magistrates’courts
by 1911, compared to sixtysix per cent in 1857. Only serious cases requiring
a jury were referred to the Crown Courts. This had its problems. The lay
magistrates were overwhelmingly from the middle classes, with the prejudices
against the poor and the working classes that were typical of the age. No
training was required, and all the old attitudes of social status and expectations
remained in place.
More and more prosecutions were brought by the police rather than by
private individuals and, as they hired barristers for the prosecution, so the
accused began to require barristers for the defence.
VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN CRIMEFigure 32. Franz Muller, photographedc.1864