the Saturday Review. The Daily News described London as "a lair of footpads and assassins by night" while the Quarterly Review claimed that "the streets of the metropolis are not safe even in the daytime". The press claimed again that the treatment of criminals in prison was not a deterrent and Sir Joshua Jebb, director of convict prisons, came in for particular criticism. Police figures for the last quarter of the year show a significant increase in street robbery, though crime in general was falling. The increase might be attributed to greater reporting of robbery following the publicity of the Pilkington case or to the concentration of police resources in this area as a result of the panic. The Middlesex quarter sessions saw an unprecedented 27 garrotters tried, which Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne claimed were almost all of the violent street robbers in London. Sentences passed in this period tended to be heavier than normal, which was attributed to the panic. During this period, in November and December, the Times continued to focus on the panic printing 18 editorials calling for the return of transportation. It continued to blame the legal system, claiming that "the whole of this great and most expensive judicial hierarchy seems to be established solely to catch thieves and let them go again"; the home secretary (Grey) and prison chaplains were singled out for particular criticism. The newspaper printed correspondence from readers recommending the establishment of new penal colonies in Labrador, the Falkland Islands, Queensland and the Cameroon mountains. Newspaper coverage of the panic declined significantly in December as it was displaced by other stories, including the replacement of Otto of Greece, the capture of Giuseppe Garibaldi in Italy, the Lancashire Cotton Famine and developments in the ongoing American Civil War. The Times reflected on the panic in June 1863 and considered that the crisis had ended due to greater publicity and the refocusing of police resources. The event is now viewed a classic example of a moral panic, a period of intense media coverage with little basis in fact. The Shoreditch Advertiser investigated cases in its district and found not one verifiable case of garrotting among numerous reports, with them all found to be "utterly fictitious or mere drunken squabbles". The panic was largely confined to London, despite the fact that it had lower levels of street robbery than other parts of the