Galton has proved the existence of this _Criminality and economic conditions

capacity of man, and a number of other scientists have done the same

for the animal and vegetable kingdoms. [812] Hence, “uniformity in

variability” for all living nature must be considered as a universal

law.

The same thing must be true for men’s moral qualities. In ranking any

number of persons according to the intensity of their innate social

sentiments (supposing it were possible to apply a measure to these), we

should find that here also the law in question held good; with the

great majority the social sentiments would have only a moderate

intensity, while there would be one small minority in which they would

be weak, and another in which they would be very strong. We have no

need to revert to the influence of the environment, for we have seen

that it gives to all an egoistic or altruistic impulse, differing

naturally according to the individual. [813] Supposing that the

environment were the same for all, there would still be great

differences between men as to the intensity of their social sentiments.

What is now the importance of this fact for the etiology of crime? In

my opinion, the answer to this question will not be different from

those which have been given to analogous questions when we were

treating of the etiology of prostitution and alcoholism (pp. 407, 408

and 428), namely, that in every society, everywhere and always, an

individual, according as his social sentiments are weaker or stronger

than another’s, runs more or less risk than he of becoming a criminal,

supposing the environment of the two to be the same in effect. The man

who, according to the intensity of his social sentiments, would be

placed in the line between A and B, would run more danger of becoming a

criminal than the man who belonged between C and D. This point is of

great importance for anyone who is investigating why the first falls

into crime and not the latter. But it has little weight for criminal

sociology, which concerns itself, not with definite persons, but only

with general social facts.

The evidence that individuals differ quantitatively always and

everywhere does not give the explanation of the problems whose solution

sociology seeks, although they must be taken into account. The task

that is incumbent upon it is to explain why individuals who, as a

consequence of their innate qualities, run more danger than others of

becoming criminals, actually become so. He who is born with weak social

instincts runs more danger of becoming a criminal. But the certainty

that he will become such does not exist—that depends upon the

environment.

To sum up; I am of the opinion that individual differences are of great

importance for one who is studying an individual by himself, but that

they do not belong to the domain of the etiology of criminality.

E. The Classification of Crime.

Before proceeding to the treatment of crimes separately, it is

necessary to divide them into some main groups. It is a grave error

(committed, however, by many criminologists) not to take account of the

very different nature of crimes, if one is concerned with their

etiology. It is, to be sure, permissible to treat conjointly moral

forces which may prevent the execution of criminal ideas and which

apply to all crimes. I have done so in the preceding pages. But we

cannot treat the origin of the criminal idea itself in this same way.

There are criminals and criminals. There are enormous differences

between a professional thief, and a man who has been guilty of assault

and battery in a state of intoxication, just as there are between a

ravisher and a political criminal. And anyone who does not take account

of these differences must necessarily limit himself to certain

generalities.

I propose to treat of crimes divided into four categories in accordance

with the motives which led their authors to commit them. Three of these

categories form quite definite units, while the fourth is more

heterogeneous.

The first is composed of crimes that have an economic aim (economic

crimes). The greater part of the so-called crimes against property,

such as theft, embezzlement, etc., belong to this category, but not

all, for malicious mischief, for example, is generally dictated by a

desire for vengeance. On the other hand some crimes against the person,

like procuration, the object of which is economic and not sexual,

belong here. As for crimes against the state, we must add

counterfeiting to this category. Then there are other crimes that may

be committed either for economic or non-economic reasons; for example,

murder (for the purpose of robbery or for revenge), perjury (for the

profit of winning a civil suit, or to prevent the conviction of a

friend), arson (to get the insurance money, or for revenge), etc.

It may be urged here that, notwithstanding the similarity of their

motives the crimes of any class still present many differences. This is

true in part, and I have accordingly subdivided them. But on the other

hand these differences are not very great from the standpoint of

criminal sociology. For the jurist the difference between

counterfeiting bank-notes, burning a house to get the insurance, and

procuration is very important; but for sociology it is much less so. A

man who knows how to make counterfeit bank-notes, will commit this

crime, whenever he wishes for any reason to enrich himself in a

dishonest fashion, but he will become neither an incendiary nor a

procurer. A former prostitute, on the contrary, will not think of

making bank-notes, but will become a procuress. The kind of economic

crime committed by the person who has a mind to commit such a crime,

depends principally upon chance (occupation etc.).

The second category includes sexual crimes, and the fourth political

crimes—two categories quite distinct therefore.

The other misdemeanors and crimes form the third category, and are more

or less heterogeneous. The principal motive of these crimes is

vengeance. Among them are insults, malicious mischief, assaults,

homicide, etc. Other motives are: the fear of shame (infanticide,

which, however, may also be committed for economic reasons); then fear

of falling into the hands of justice (perjury, rebellion); and some

others beside. [814]

Finally, to give a picture of the quantitative proportions of the

principal crimes, I add here some figures upon criminality in some of

the countries of Europe. These figures may at the same time serve to

show to those who are not acquainted with criminal statistics, how

regular a course crime has from one year to another.

It is crimes of vengeance, therefore, which form the largest group,

then come economic crimes, and then sexual and political crimes, both

with low figures. If we do not count the very minor offense of insult

in the third group, the first and third groups will be nearly of the

same size. There are, then, almost no political crimes in England. As

in Germany, sexual crimes are very rare, and it is the economic crimes

and those committed out of revenge, etc., that are the most important.

The latter preponderate even more in England than in Germany.

Germany, 1896–1900. [815]

==============================+===================================================================

| Number of Persons Convicted of the Following

| Crimes in

Crimes. +---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-----------------

| | | | | | 1896-1900

| 1896. | 1897. | 1898. | 1899. | 1900. |---------+-------

| | | | | | Number. | %

------------------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+-------

Theft and embezzlement | 109,545 | 112,591 | 116,977 | 113,159 | 114,831 | 113,420 | 29.96

fact in general | 8,164 | 7,922 | 8,490 | 8,124 | 8,068 | 8,153 | 2.15

Procuration, etc. | 2,816 | 2,671 | 2,765 | 2,622 | 2,648 | 2,711 | 0.72

Counterfeiting | 234 | 166 | 203 | 212 | 186 | 200 | 0.05

Perjury | 1,523 | 1,450 | 1,478 | 1,316 | 1,198 | 1,393 | 0.37

pretenses | 28,649 | 25,169 | 26,546 | 26,580 | 26,079 | 25,604 | 6.76

Forgery | 4,761 | 5,068 | 5,185 | 5,479 | 5,231 | 5,144 | 1.36

Robbery and extortion | 1,048 | 995 | 1,114 | 1,114 | 1,009 | 1,056 | 0.28

Fraudulent bankruptcy | 931 | 924 | 871 | 952 | 905 | 916 | 0.24

Total of economic crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 41.89

Bigamy | 76 | 72 | 64 | 70 | 64 | 69 | 0.02

Incest | 462 | 381 | 397 | 411 | 448 | 419 | 0.11

Rape, etc. | 4,483 | 4,182 | 4,507 | 4,597 | 4,762 | 4,506 | 1.19

Total of sexual crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 1.32

Insults | 53,968 | 54,143 | 55,988 | 55,514 | 52,883 | 54,499 | 14.39

Malicious mischief | 17,485 | 17,486 | 18,213 | 18,858 | 18,261 | 18,060 | 4.77

Arson | 479 | 468 | 501 | 519 | 472 | 487 | 0.13

Assaults | 116,613 |117,864 | 122,561 | 126,490 | 124,646 | 121,632 | 32.12

Rebellion | 18,377 | 18,484 | 17,968 | 19,817 | 17,951 | 18,393 | 4.86

Homicide | 1,511 | 1,562 | 1,468 | 1,542 | 1,580 | 1,532 | 0.40

etc. | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 56.67

Political crimes | 561 | 428 | 466 | 416 | 305 | 435 | 0.12

| | | | | +---------+------

General total | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 378,629 |100.00

==============================+=========+=========+=========+=========+=========+=========+======

England, 1881–1900.

=============================+=======================================================

| Number Arraigned for Each of the Crimes Given:

+-------------------------------------+-----------------

Crimes. | | 1881-1900

| Annual Averages. | Average.

+--------+--------+--------+----------+---------+-------

|1881-85.|1886-90.|1891-95.|1896-1900.|Absolute |

| | | | | Number. | %

----------------------------+--------+--------+--------+----------+---------+-------

Theft (of every kind) | 57,373 | 52,573 | 50,432 | 45,960 | 51,584 | 32.92

Embezzlement | 1,475 | 1,345 | 1,335 | 1,387 | 1,385 | 0.88

Receiving stolen goods | 1,302 | 1,239 | 1,348 | 1,241 | 1,282 | 0.82

Burglary | 1,464 | 1,530 | 1,665 | 1,630 | 1,572 | 1.00

Robbery and extortion | 320 | 322 | 310 | 278 | 307 | 0.20

Fraud | 1,054 | 965 | 997 | 870 | 971 | 0.62

Counterfeiting, etc. | 534 | 410 | 365 | 309 | 402 | 0.26

Perjury | 100 | 85 | 78 | 77 | 85 | 0.05

Fraudulent bankruptcy | 49 | 41 | 43 | 35 | 42 | 0.03

Total of economic crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 36.78

Bigamy | 116 | 99 | 104 | 103 | 105 | 0.07

under 16 | -- | 305 | 258 | 236 | 249 | 0.16

Rape, etc. upon adults | 647 | 639 | 636 | 595 | 629 | 0.40

Total of sexual crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 0.63

Malicious mischief | 21,779 | 19,646 | 18,484 | 17,470 | 19,594 | 12.51

Arson | 155 | 133 | 117 | 104 | 127 | 0.08

Assaults | 72,707 | 66,020 | 63,601 | 59,611 | 65,484 | 41.80

Assaults upon officers | 322 | 285 | 291 | 278 | 294 | 0.19

homicide) | 13,223 | 11,850 | 12,626 | 12,524 | 12,555 | 8.01

Total of crimes of vengeance | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 62.59

Political crimes | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.00

| | | | +---------+-------

General total | -- | -- | -- | -- |156,668 |100.00

=============================+========+========+========+==========+=========+=======

France, 1881–1900. [817]

=====================+===========================================================

| Number Arraigned for Each Crime.

+-------------------------------------------+---------------

Crimes. | | 1881-1900

| Annual Averages. | Averages.

+---------------------+----------+----------+--------+------

|1881-1885.|1886-1890.|1891-1895.|1896-1900.|Average | %

---------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+--------+------

Vagrancy | 15,629 | 19,050 | 18,449 | 14,148 | 16,819 | 11.17

Mendicity | 9,421 | 14,625 | 14,707 | 11,274 | 12,506 | 8.30

Aggravated theft | 1,668 | 1,715 | 1,517 | 1,308 | 1,552 | 1.03

Simple theft | 44,596 | 47,941 | 49,145 | 43,750 | 46,358 | 30.78

Counterfeiting | 98 | 141 | 134 | 111 | 121 | 0.08

Procuration | 341 | 361 | 406 | 304 | 353 | 0.23

Forgery | 355 | 304 | 237 | 224 | 280 | 0.19

pretenses | 4,210 | 4,422 | 3,898 | 3,496 | 4,006 | 2.66

Breach of trust | 4,106 | 4,495 | 4,488 | 4,834 | 4,480 | 2.98

Commercial frauds | 3,221 | 3,015 | 2,607 | 2,931 | 2,941 | 1.95

bankruptcy | 86 | 63 | 63 | 44 | 64 | 0.04

Simple bankruptcy | 934 | 967 | 802 | 860 | 890 | 0.59

Perjury | 126 | 126 | 151 | 136 | 134 | 0.09

crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 60.09

Bigamy | 6 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 0.00

Adultery | 1,038 | 1,758 | 1,838 | 2,212 | 1,711 | 1.14

adults | 103 | 76 | 95 | 70 | 86 | 0.06

children | 717 | 592 | 584 | 452 | 586 | 0.39

crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 1.59

insults | 3,513 | 2,918 | 2,940 | 2,877 | 3,062 | 2.03

Insults to officials | 13,492 | 13,728 | 15,258 | 13,450 | 13,982 | 9.28

Malicious mischief | 3,291 | 4,876 | 4,530 | 4,382 | 4,269 | 2.84

Arson | 207 | 245 | 263 | 213 | 252 | 0.17

Serious assaults | 187 | 155 | 178 | 183 | 175 | 0.12

Intentional assaults | 27,768 | 28,971 | 33,443 | 36,158 | 31,585 | 20.97

Violence to officials| 3,721 | 3,746 | 3,926 | 3,502 | 3,723 | 2.47

Homicide | 518 | 506 | 515 | 461 | 500 | 0.33

Infanticide | 191 | 191 | 157 | 118 | 164 | 0.11

vengeance, etc. | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 38.32

Political crimes | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0.00

| | | | +--------+-----

General total | -- | -- | -- | -- |150,607 |100.00

=====================+==========+==========+==========+==========+========+======

Here, also, the political crimes and the sexual offenses show the

smallest figures. The economic crimes exceed considerably those

committed out of revenge, etc., a fact to be accounted for in great

part by the inclusion of vagrancy and mendicity among the economic

crimes. These tables hardly lend themselves to international

comparison, since certain acts are regarded as misdemeanors in one

country, and as contraventions in another.

Italy, 1891–1895. [818]

===============================+==================================================

| Number Convicted of Each Crime.

+------+------+------+------+------+---------------

Crimes. | | | | | | 1891-1895.

| | | | | +--------+------

| 1891.| 1892.| 1893.| 1894.| 1895.|Absolute|

| | | | | |Numbers.| %

-------------------------------+------+------+------+------+------+--------+------

Simple theft |44,380|38,750|35,343|37,022|41,875| 39,474 | 29.07

Aggravated theft |14,512|15,103|15,230|15,238|17,132| 15,441 | 11.37

Fraud (of every kind) | 6,288| 6,202| 6,446| 6,861| 7,917| 6,742 | 4.97

Counterfeiting, etc. | 85| 59| 59| 68| 90| 72 | 0.05

Forgery | 788| 626| 683| 726| 839| 732 | 0.54

Procuration | 182| 188| 185| 162| 267| 196 | 0.15

Robbery, extortion, etc. | 683| 719| 824| 879| 966| 814 | 0.60

Total of economic crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 46.75

Rape etc. | 724| 797| 879| 902| 1,066| 873 | 0.64

the order of the family | 1,036| 1,246| 1,269| 1,373| 1,411| 1,267 | 0.93

Total of sexual crimes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 1.57

Defamation and insults | 9,030| 9,957| 9,005|11,247|12,196| 10,287 | 7.58

Malicious mischief | 5,396| 4,938| 4,493| 5,069| 5,617| 5,102 | 3.76

Arson | 213| 156| 197| 210| 197| 194 | 0.14

Minor assaults |24,275|27,617|23,740|27,479|28,924| 26,407 | 19.45

Serious assaults | 6,491| 8,440| 9,124| 8,211| 9,199| 8,293 | 6.11

Threats | 4,788| 5,997| 5,875| 6,702| 8,053| 6,283 | 4.63

officials |10,293|11,829|11,999|11,835|11,800| 11,551 | 8.51

Homicide | 1,686| 1,946| 2,145| 2,035| 2,049| 1,972 | 1.45

Infanticide and abortion | 60| 59| 54| 64| 81| 63 | 0.05

etc. | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 51.68

the state | 11| 9| 10| 10| 12| 10 | 0.00

| | | | | |--------|------

General total | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |135,773 |100.00

===============================+======+======+======+======+======+========+======

The results of the Italian statistics agree in general with those that

have gone before.

Netherlands, 1897–1901. [819]

==========================+=============================================

| Number of Convicts for Each Crime.

+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------------

Crimes. | | | | | | 1897-1901.

|1897.|1898.|1899.|1900.|1901.+--------+------

| | | | | |Absolute| %

--------------------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--------+------

Vagrancy and mendicity |2,139|2,173|2,209|1,873|1,857| 2,050 | 16.42

Simple theft |1,685|1,830|1,740|1,544|1,758| 1,711 | 13.71

Aggravated theft | 936| 919| 761| 837|1,029| 896 | 17.18

Receiving stolen goods | 95| 69| 88| 82| 98| 86 | 0.69

Embezzlement | 320| 262| 295| 309| 269| 291 | 2.33

to the debauch of a minor| 14| 6| 10| 14| 16| 12 | 0.10

false pretenses | 102| 115| 97| 112| 115| 108 | 0.87

Extortion and blackmail | 8| 12| 6| 9| 5| 8 | 0.07

Forgery | 75| 72| 49| 64| 42| 60 | 0.48

Perjury | 29| 18| 15| 22| 18| 20 | 0.16

Fraudulent bankruptcy | 14| 14| 12| 20| 12| 14 | 0.11

Total of economic crimes | | | | | | | 42.12

upon adults | 88| 81| 94| 110| 97| 94 | 0.75

upon children | 13| 5| 13| 6| 18| 11 | 0.09

Total of sexual crimes | | | | | | | 0.84

Simple insults | 356| 319| 330| 288| 291| 316 | 2.53

Insults to officials | 549| 508| 431| 421| 440| 469 | 3.76

Malicious mischief | 916| 900| 861| 857| 874| 881 | 7.06

Arson | 10| 12| 22| 25| 15| 17 | 0.14

Rebellion, etc. |1,188|1,091|1,069|1,166|1,112| 1,125 | 9.01

Assaults |4,241|4,020|4,101|3,814|3,715| 3,978 | 31.87

Assaults upon officials | 340| 286| 331| 330| 296| 316 | 2.53

Homicide | 16| 16| 12| 14| 19| 15 | 0.12

Infanticide and abortion | 4| 3| 4| 4| 0| 3 | 0.02

vengeance, etc. | | | | | | | 57.04

Political crimes | 3| 1| 1| 0| 0| 1 | 0.00

| | | | | +--------+------

General total | | | | | | 12,482 |100.00

==========================+=====+=====+=====+=====+=====+========+======

These figures thus confirm in general the results of the preceding

tables. The most frequent crimes are those committed out of revenge

etc. and the economic crimes. The sexual crimes only reach low figures,

and the political crimes are negligible.

We have placed certain crimes, like homicide and arson, in all the

tables, among the crimes of vengeance, etc., although they may also be

committed from an economic motive. The French and Italian criminal

statistics give information upon the frequency of the motives which

lead to these crimes.

France, 1881–1900. [820]

================================+===========================================

| Percentage of the Crimes of Homicide and

Presumable Motive of the Crimes.| Arson due to Each Cause.

+----------+----------+----------+----------

|1881-1885.|1886-1890.|1891-1895.|1896-1900.

--------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------

Cupidity | 26 | 28 | 31 | 26

Love, jealousy | 2 | 2 | 6 | 3

Adultery | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2

Concubinage, debauch | 6 | 6 | 5 | 8

Hate, revenge | 24 | 27 | 28 | 28

Domestic disputes | 15 | 13 | 9 | 12

Drink-shop quarrels | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1

Various motives | 22 | 20 | 18 | 20

================================+==========+==========+==========+==========

About 28% of the crimes, then, had an economic motive, about 12% had a

sexual motive, and 40% were committed out of revenge.

Italy, 1880–1881. [821]

=======================================+=============================

|Percentage of Crimes of Blood

Presumable Motive of the Crimes. | due to Each Cause.

+--------------+--------------

| 1880. | 1881.

---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------

Cupidity | 9.2 | 9.98

Question of interests | 4.2 | 8.76

Love, lawful or unlawful | 7.5 | 8.76

Family relations and questions of honor| 2.6 | 3.11

Defense of life | 4.9 | 3.04

,, ,, property | 1.7 | 1.89

Domestic disputes | 3.0 | 4.43

Anger | 30.3 | 23.67

Hate and revenge | 26.5 | 28.46

Cruelty | 4.1 | 2.72

Drunkenness | 3.2 | 4.25

Politics | 0.1 | 0.14

Various and unknown motives | 2.6 | 0.79

=======================================+==============+==============

Finally, it must not be forgotten that certain crimes of a different

kind (leze-majesty and malicious mischief, for example) are sometimes

committed simply that the author of them may get himself imprisoned,

and hence should be classed as economic crimes.

We have now reached the question: how close a connection have the

different crimes with economic conditions? We shall give only a

detailed sketch of the subject; to treat it more fully would require

extensive monographs. We shall limit ourselves to indicating the

general lines.

CHAPTER II.

ECONOMIC CRIMES.

It is necessary to divide these crimes into separate groups.

Notwithstanding their partial similarity they differ too much among

themselves to be treated together. I propose to speak of them under the

four following heads: A. Vagrancy and mendicity; B. Theft, and

analogous crimes; C. Robbery, homicide for economic reasons, etc. (that

is to say, economic crimes committed with violence or directed against

life); D. Fraudulent bankruptcy, adulteration of food, etc. (that is to

say, economic crimes committed almost exclusively by the bourgeoisie,

while those of the first three categories are committed almost

exclusively by the poor). Some crimes, like that of embezzlement,

belong to the second class as well as to the fourth (for example, a

workman’s making off with a bicycle loaned to him, and the embezzlement

of deposits by a bank director).

It seems to me unnecessary to explain this division. It creates four

fairly distinct groups, which contain all the economic crimes. However,

I must point out why I treat vagrancy and mendicity in this way, while

both are generally regarded not as misdemeanors but as contraventions.

[822] Properly speaking they ought not, therefore, to appear in a work

on criminality, but the following are the reasons why they nevertheless

find a place here; first, they are the most important and the most

common contraventions; second, there is a very close relation between

vagrancy on the one hand, and criminality properly speaking on the

other. This relation has been shown by many authors. As Professor Prins

says in his “Criminalité et répression”, vagrancy and mendicity are the

novitiate of crime. I will only recall here the opinions of two

writers, Josiah Flynt and E. Sichart. The former, the author of

“Tramping with Tramps”, has given up a part of his life to tramping for

some years in America, Germany, and in other countries, in order to

familiarize himself with the vagrant and the criminal; his conclusions

accordingly have great value. He is of the opinion that the vagrants

endowed with great energy become professional criminals, to fall again

into vagrancy as soon as their physical and mental forces decline so as

no longer to permit them to carry on their criminal trade with success.

[823]

Sichart, the prison director, having examined 3,181 convicts, found

that 28% of them had been convicted before for vagrancy, and 27% for

mendicity—55% in all. [824] These figures differed according to the

kind of criminal. There were to

each 100 thieves 44.2 vagrants, 35.0 mendicants

,, 100 swindlers 11.1 ,, 20.2 ,,

,, 100 sexual offenders 14.0 ,, 17.3 ,,

,, 100 incendiaries 15.1 ,, 15.5 ,,

,, 100 perjurers 4.2 ,, 4.7 ,,

For these reasons, then, it is necessary to treat of vagrancy and

mendicity.

A. Vagrancy and Mendicity.

In examining the etiology of these contraventions, we perceive that

different causes lead to them. We shall treat them successively and

endeavor to find their relation to the economic life.

First. As a first cause of vagrancy and mendicity is the fact that

under capitalism there are always workmen who cannot sell their labor.

The number of these persons increases greatly at the time of a crisis.

When the men out of work have no resource in their family and no longer

receive aid from their union, they are obliged to go from place to

place looking for employment, and if they do not succeed in finding it

must have recourse to begging in order not to die of hunger. Statistics

furnish the proof that the army of vagrants and mendicants is in fact

made up in part of the unemployed who, though they wish to, cannot find

work.

In the first place, vagrancy and mendicity increase in winter (as in

general all economic criminality does), when forced unemployment is at

its height, and needs are most pressing, while they diminish in summer.

The following figures with reference to some of the German states show

these facts.

Grand-Duchy of Baden, 1884–1891. [825]

=========+===================+================

| Number Convicted |Number Convicted

Months. | of Vagrancy and | per Diem, the

| Mendicity. | Minimum = 100.

---------+-------------------+----------------

January | 7,232 | 364

February | 6,315 | 336

March | 4,816 | 235

April | 2,945 | 148

May | 2,743 | 133

June | 2,475 | 124

July | 2,540 | 124

August | 2,410 | 118

September| 1,989 | 100

October | 2,672 | 130

November | 3,857 | 195

December | 5,310 | 259

=========+===================+================

Hesse, 1899–1900. [826]

==================+===============================

| Number Convicted of Vagrancy

Months. | and Mendicity.

+----------------+--------------

|Absolute Number.|Daily Average.

------------------+----------------+--------------

December-February | 479 | 5.32

March-May | 334 | 3.63

June-August | 259 | 2.82

September-November| 531 | 3.64

==================+================+==============

The following figures confirm those that have preceded.

Saxony, 1882–1887. [827]

======+==================================================================================

| Number Convicted of Vagrancy and Mendicity.

+-------------------++-------------------++-------------------++-------------------

| First Quarter. || Second Quarter. || Third Quarter. || Fourth Quarter.

Years.+--------+----------++--------+----------++--------+----------++--------+----------

| |Percentage|| |Percentage|| |Percentage|| |Percentage

|Absolute| of ||Absolute| of ||Absolute| of ||Absolute| of

|Numbers.| Annual ||Numbers.| Annual ||Numbers.| Annual ||Numbers.| Annual

| | Total. || | Total. || | Total. || | Total.

------+--------+----------++--------+----------++--------+----------++--------+----------

1882 | 6,752 | 36.1 || 4,220 | 22.6 || 3,181 | 17.0 || 4,546 | 24.3

1883 | 6,619 | 36.6 || 3,934 | 21.7 || 2,957 | 16.5 || 4,567 | 25.2

1884 | 6,641 | 37.6 || 3,855 | 21.8 || 2,721 | 15.5 || 4,462 | 25.2

1885 | 6,555 | 35.9 || 3,424 | 18.7 || 2,872 | 15.7 || 5,440 | 29.7

1886 | 7,139 | 41.5 || 3,507 | 20.4 || 2,654 | 15.4 || 3,900 | 22.7

1887 | 5,787 | 39.1 || 3,344 | 22.6 || 2,251 | 15.2 || 3,411 | 23.1

======+========+==========++========+==========++========+==========++========+==========

These statistics justify the conclusion drawn by Ostwald, from whom I

have taken the figures for Hesse. This author is a competent witness,

as he tramped as a vagrant for some time himself. He says: “These

figures directly contradict the statement that antipathy to regular

work forms the principal source of vagrancy and mendicity; especially

as there is no inclination to frequent the highways in winter. It is

the need that comes of unemployment that drives out these poorest of

the poor; and whoever wishes to do away with vagrancy must make the

economic existence of the working people secure, instead of visiting

the victims of poverty with Draconian punishments.” [828]

Another proof in support of the assertion that unemployment is a cause

of mendicity and vagrancy, is to be found in the fact that the figures

for vagrancy and mendicity rise considerably at the time of economic

crises. The same phenomenon occurs more or less when the price of grain

or bread goes up. Then those whose labor is only poorly paid must find

some means of increasing their resources; and further when bread is

dear less of other things can be bought, which brings about a decrease

in production and consequently an increase in forced idleness.

In the first part of this work I have mentioned authors who have shown

for different countries that the curve of vagrancy rises or falls as

economic conditions become worse or better. I add here the data that I

have been able to find elsewhere.

England, 1856–1896. [829]

=======+========================++=======+========================

| Vagrants Convicted. || | Vagrants Convicted.

Years. +--------+---------------++Years. +--------+---------------

|Absolute| To 100,000 of || |Absolute| To 100,000 of

|Numbers.|the Population.|| |Numbers.|the Population.

-------+--------+---------------++-------+--------+---------------

1856-57| 19,270 | 99.7 ||1876-77| 22,475 | 90.9

1857-58| 21,473 | 109.9 ||1877-78| 23,662 | 94.5

1858-59| 16,401 | 83.0 ||1878-79| 25,790 | 101.6

1859-60| 16,374 | 82.2 ||1879-80| 30,323 | 117.5

1860-61| 17,496 | 86.9 ||1880-81| 28,088 | 107.8

1861-62| 20,636 | 101.4 ||1881-82| 28,729 | 109.0

1862-63| 21,758 | 105.8 ||1882-83| 28,825 | 108.2

1863-64| 20,414 | 97.7 ||1883-84| 28,370 | 105.3

1864-65| 20,307 | 96.7 ||1884-85| 27,467 | 100.9

1865-66| 19,607 | 91.8 ||1885-86| 26,546 | 96.4

1866-67| 21,071 | 97.5 ||1886-87| 28,690 | 103.0

1867-68| 24,125 | 110.2 ||1887-88| 31,380 | 111.5

1868-69| 29,890 | 134.8 ||1888-89| 28,032 | 98.5

1869-70| 28,367 | 126.3 ||1889-90| 25,001 | 86.5

1870-71| 24,902 | 109.4 ||1890-91| 22,577 | 77.6

1871-72| 21,325 | 92.4 ||1891-92| 23,623 | 80.3

1872-73| 19,433 | 83.2 ||1893 | 24,830 | 83.3

1873-74| 19,582 | 82.8 ||1894 | 25,676 | 85.4

1874-75| 17,692 | 73.5 ||1895 | 23,524 | 77.4

1875-76| 19,841 | 81.4 ||1896 | 25,188 | 81.9

=======+========+===============++=======+========+===============

When we compare these figures with the course of economic events, we

find the following: 1856 was a bad year economically, and 1857 and 1858

were still worse; in 1859 the situation improved, to become worse again

in 1860, 1861, and 1862. The improvement was restored in 1863, while

1864 and 1865 were fair; in 1866, 1867, and 1868 conditions became

worse again, but improved from 1869 to 1874. With 1875 things took a

turn for the worse, and this condition lasted till 1879, when there was

a slight improvement; 1880, 1881, and 1882 were fair, while 1883 was a

passably good year. In 1884 a period of depression began, which lasted

till 1888, following which there was an improvement until 1891, with

the succeeding years up to 1894 not so good. In 1895 things once more

took a turn for the better. [830]

With some exceptions the curve of vagrancy rises and falls, then,

pretty much as the economic situation grows worse or improves.

Bavaria, 1835–1861.

Dr. G. Mayr has proved that during the period named there was a close

connection between the movement of the price of grain and the figures

for vagrancy. (See p. 42 of this work.) [831]

Flanders, 1839–1848.

Ducpetiaux had given proofs of the same correlation. (See pp. 33–37.)

France, 1840–1886.

Lafargue has proved that vagrancy and mendicity follow in general the

curve for bankruptcies. (See p. 235.) [832]

Hesse, 1895–1900. [833]

======+====================================================

|Number of those Convicted of Vagrancy and Mendicity.

Years.+-------------------+--------------------------------

| Absolute Figures. | To 100,000 of the Population.

------+-------------------+--------------------------------

1895 | 2,583 | 21.96

1896 | 2,244 | 21.49

1897 | 1,968 | 18.49

1898 | 1,658 | 15.60

1899 | 1,267 | 11.82

1900 | 1,442 | 12.95

======+===================+================================

In this period the economic depression in Germany, dating from about

1890, began to decrease.

Netherlands, 1860–1891.

Since there are no statistical investigations of the course of vagrancy

and mendicity I have composed the following chart from the official

data.

[Illustration: I. Number Convicted of Vagrancy and Mendicity to 100,000

of the Population. II. Price of Bread (in Centimes per Kilogram).]

A comparison of the two curves shows that there is a parallelism,

tolerably constant up to 1869. After this it ceases with some

exceptions. The great fall in the price of bread, beginning with 1878

(as a consequence of the agrarian crisis), even coincides with a

considerable increase in vagrancy and mendicity. To explain this we

must consult the statistics of failures. These show that the great

increase of vagrancy and mendicity coincide with an equally great

increase in the number of bankruptcies, beginning in 1875 and lasting

to 1882. For the following years there is no relation between the two

phenomena apparent.

Prussia, 1854–1870.

I have composed the following table by means of the data given by

Starke in his “Verbrechen und Verbrecher in Preussen” (pp. 55 and 115).

======+=================+===============================

| Number of New |Price of 50 Kilograms in Marks.

Years.|Cases of Vagrancy+---------+---------+-----------

| and Mendicity. | Wheat. | Rye. | Potatoes.

------+-----------------+---------+---------+-----------

1854 | 14,619 | 12.90 | 10.40 | 3.17

1855 | 16,665 | 14.21 | 11.45 | 3.37

1856 | 20,414 | 13.51 | 10.64 | 3.13

1857 | 15,801 | 10.18 | 6.87 | 2.18

1858 | 15,318 | 9.08 | 6.38 | 1.91

1859 | 16,978 | 8.93 | 6.79 | 1.98

1860 | 16,320 | 10.48 | 7.65 | 2.41

1861 | 14,239 | 11.04 | 7.71 | 2.79

1862 | 12,846 | 10.68 | 7.97 | 2.47

1863 | 11,840 | 9.18 | 6.78 | 2.04

1864 | 12,026 | 7.95 | 5.69 | 2.10

1865 | 11,640 | 8.13 | 6.24 | 2.03

1866 | 13,664 | 9.80 | 7.30 | 2.05

1867 | 15,339 | 12.89 | 9.87 | 2.95

1868 | 14,801 | 12.48 | 9.84 | 2.62

1869 | 15,091 | 9.70 | 8.08 | 2.16

1870 | 13,320 | 11.04 | 7.78 | 2.58

======+=================+=========+=========+===========

Although the curves of the price of foodstuffs and of vagrancy do not

exactly conform, the influence of the price is none the less evident.

The three periods of high prices (1854–56, 1860–62, and 1867–68)

coincide with high figures for vagrancy and mendicity. (It is to be

noted that the effect of an economic depression does not always make

itself felt the following year.)

Kingdom of Saxony, 1889–1892.

Bebel showed that mendicity increased greatly in the above period (a

crisis of great intensity). (See pp. 228–229 of this work.) [834]

I am of the opinion that these data show sufficiently that the increase

or diminution of vagrancy and mendicity are regulated by the economic

situation; in other words, that a great many persons become guilty of

these contraventions not because they are not willing to work, but

entirely as a consequence of an unfavorable economic environment. There

are some exceptions to this rule. Above (pp. 89–90) I have shown that

these exceptions do not weaken the general conclusion; the unfavorable

influence of the economic depression may be neutralized by

counter-determinants. It must further be remarked especially with

regard to vagrancy and mendicity, that the application of the laws

relative to these offenses is quite arbitrary, and it happens at the

time of a crisis that the courts do not punish those who are guilty of

them, whence it follows that the statistics do not give an accurate

picture of the reality. [835]

It is impossible to fix exactly how far the influence of economic

depressions extends; in other words, we cannot determine the number of

vagrants and mendicants who become such directly through forced

idleness. When it is necessary to record a certain number of

convictions for vagrancy and mendicity, although the economic

conditions are most favorable, we shall not even then be able to say

that this proves that the convictions fell only upon persons who could

have found work, but did not wish it.

Under the present economic system unemployment is chronic, that is to

say, it is present even in times of economic prosperity. Consequently

it has not been proved that those who are convicted during these

periods are necessarily lazy and do not want to work. The only figure

that I have been able to find with regard to the importance of this

cause of vagrancy and mendicity is this: that in Germany, out of a

total of 200,000 mendicants, there are 80,000 (40%) who are really in

search of work. [836] This figure being only approximate, its

significance is not great.

Before leaving the subject of this cause, we must say something with

regard to the objection that the workers who, on account of a long

period of unemployment, fall finally into vagrancy, are inferior to the

average, generally do not know a trade, and are often addicted to

alcohol; and that consequently in this case an individual factor plays

a rôle beside the economic factor.

It is true that most of the vagrants and mendicants do not know a

trade, nor are worth much as workmen. In his study Dr. Bonhoeffer says

that 55.4% of the vagrants and mendicants examined by him had not

learned a trade, or had learned it insufficiently. [837] This author

also shows (we shall return to this later) that a great proportion of

these people are also physically inferior to the average. This

inferiority is in part not the cause but the effect of the conditions

under which they have been living (insufficient food, etc.), [838] and

in part congenital weakness.

However, supposing that each of these individuals knew a trade,

supposing also that they were all robust and healthy and in a condition

to work regularly, would there then be fewer persons without work than

there are now? The answer to this question must be negative. Even if

every workman knew a trade, this fact would not increase the demand for

skilled workmen. At any given time the labor market demands only a

certain number of skilled workmen, and a certain other number of

unskilled laborers; the number of unskilled laborers available has no

influence. The same thing is true as to fitness for work; if all the

workmen had the same energy, the same zeal, etc., this would not

increase the demand for workmen; this demand is regulated by other

factors.

In my opinion it cannot be a question of individual causes; individual

differences explain partially who remain without work, and so become

vagrants; but it is the economic system which causes the existence of

persons without work. Vagrancy and mendicity would be no less extensive

even if all the workers knew a trade and were equal in zeal and energy.

In the second place the world of vagrants and mendicants is composed of

people too old to work, or more or less incapable of working, from

physical or psychical causes, so that they are no longer employed. So

far as I know the data concerning the age of vagrants and mendicants

are not numerous; I can cite those that follow.

England, 1894–1900. [839]

=======+==========+================================

| |Of Whom there were of the Age of

|Number of +----------------+---------------

Years. |Mendicants| 50 to 60 years.| Over 60.

|Convicted.+----------+-----+----------+----

| | Numbers. | % | Numbers. | %

-------+----------+----------+-----+----------+----

1894 | 13,021 | 1,638 | 12 | 1,916 | 14

1895 | 10,497 | 1,387 | 13 | 1,490 | 14

1896 | 11,839 | 1,512 | 12 | 1,801 | 15

1897 | 10,735 | 1,338 | 12 | 1,701 | 15

1898 | 11,047 | 1,540 | 13 | 1,838 | 16

1899 | 9,308 | 1,374 | 14 | 1,667 | 17

1900 | 8,402 | 1,253 | 14 | 1,690 | 20

=======+==========+==========+=====+==========+====

Netherlands, 1896–1901. [840]

======+===========+================================

| Number of |Of Whom there were of the Age of

| Persons +----------------+---------------

Years.| Convicted | 50 to 60 years.| Over 60.

|of Vagrancy+----------+-----+----------+----

------+-----------+----------+-----+----------+----

1896 | 2,181 | 541 | 24 | 273 | 12

1897 | 2,139 | 529 | 25 | 278 | 13

1898 | 2,173 | 534 | 24 | 291 | 13

1899 | 2,215 | 564 | 25 | 285 | 12

1901 | 1,857 | 491 | 26 | 257 | 13

===================================================

Russia, 1897.

In the work of Löwenstimm already cited we find mentioned the fact that

out of a total of 7,916 mendicants arrested in St. Petersburg, 1,185

(14.9%) were between 50 and 60 years of age, and 982 (12.4%) over 60.

[841]

As has been said, a certain number of vagrants are weak or sickly, and

consequently are nearly or quite unable to work. In “Les habitués des

prisons de Paris”, Dr. Laurent gives the following description of some

vagrants observed by him, true types of this kind of individual. “I

have known at the Santé in recent years an individual who has passed

almost the whole of his life in prison, who was born and lived in

misery. A natural child, his mother received him as a mistake and a

burden and tried to destroy herself and him. Later, convulsions twisted

him upon a hospital bed, and he has remained half-paralyzed. So far

from knowing how to read or write he can hardly see clearly, for an

opaque film covers his left eye. He has undergone more than twenty

sentences for mendicity and vagrancy, and he is still only 37 years

old. He leaves prison only to enter it again. So he complains bitterly

and blames the judicial authorities, who, instead of placing him in an

asylum, where he belongs, cast him into prison, because, says he, the

food does not cost so much.

“An individual 29 years old, the son of a drunkard and a consumptive,

has already been seven times sentenced for mendicity. He has been

half-paralyzed since he was 13 months old and can walk only with

crutches. Epileptic in addition, he drifts from prison to prison.

“These facts are very common, and it is impossible to estimate how many

of these poor devils live in the prisons, which are a kind of refuge

for them. Lately I saw a blind man who had been arrested for mendicity

and sentenced to a fortnight in prison.” [842]

The following figures, taken from the work just quoted, inform us as to

the number of such individuals.

Breslau.

===============================+=========+======

Physical and Mental Condition. |Absolute |

|Numbers. | %

-------------------------------+---------+------

Physical condition weak | 337 | 91

Incapable of military service | |

from physical weakness | 236 | 64

Mental anomalies | 322 | 87

Epilepsy | 43 | 11

Imbecility | 86 | 23

Total number examined | 369 | 100

================================================

Here it must be noted that in the years 1896–97 there were on the

average only 9% of the conscripts of Silesia who were incapable of

military service.

The other figures that are known agree with the ones I have just cited.

Dr. Kurella found 20% to 30% of imbeciles or epileptics among the

vagrants. [843] Dr. Mendel also found a great number of psychic

abnormalities among the vagrants. [844]

All that I have just said demonstrates sufficiently, I believe, that

the cause named above plays a considerable rôle in the etiology of

mendicity and vagrancy. It is still necessary to give an answer to the

question: do all the individuals who fall under the unfavorable

conditions named under one and two, become vagrants or mendicants? It

is evident that the answer must be negative. Three expedients offer

themselves to one who has fallen into the blackest poverty; mendicity,

theft, and suicide. It is partly chance (opportunity etc.), and partly

the individual predisposition which fixes what anyone under the

conditions named will become, whether a mendicant or a thief. Generally

those who have still some intelligence and energy become thieves, the

rest vagrants. [845] The third expedient, suicide, also is frequently

met with among the lower proletariat. [846] Those who have recourse to

it are either those who have known better conditions and find that the

miserable existence that mendicity procures is not worth the trouble of

living, or those who have lost all energy. Sometimes persons commit

suicide to escape the shame of begging or stealing. These have been

called “the heroes of virtue”; but, considered from another point of

view, they may also be called the “victims of vice”, the vice of

others, of course. These have been born with a very strong moral

disposition and have lived in an environment where this disposition has

been developed. These cases prove the degree of intensity that the

social sentiments can attain; they are stronger than the fundamental

desire to live, although those whom these “heroes” are unwilling to

injure, reject these sentiments, by abandoning their fellows who find

themselves in want.

Third. A third category of mendicants and vagrants is made up of

children and young people. Let us see what relation there is between

this fact and the economic and social environment. All those who have

taken up this subject are agreed that a great proportion of the

children are systematically taught to beg by their parents. Whatever

may be the cause for which the parents act thus, these children are

entirely the victims of the detestable atmosphere in which they are

forced to live. Brought up in a wholesome environment they would become

neither mendicants nor vagrants. [847]

Another part of the vagrant body is made up of children who are either

illegitimate or orphans, or deserted by their parents, or forced by bad

treatment to run away from home. Tomel and Rollet mention the following

typical case. A girl of 16 was charged with vagrancy, and made this

heart-rending statement of her case before the tribunal: “I went on

Friday to find the police commissioner of the ward; I told him that I

had been without a lodging place for 15 days, and that I had not eaten

for 48 hours. I was employed at the house of a wine merchant, who, when

my mother died three years ago, took me as a servant (at 13 years of

age) at two sous a day as wages. But my employer failed, his shop was

closed, and I had to go out and wander in search of work without

finding anything. My father, sentenced to hard labor for life, died in

New Caledonia. I have no longer any mother, and since I did not wish to

imitate my grown-up sister, who leads a bad life, I preferred to get

myself arrested.” [848]

It is difficult to tell how many of these children there are. The only

figures that I know of are the following.

Italy, 1885–1889. [849]

Among the minors sent to a house of correction for vagrancy there were

=====================================+=========+======

Divisions. |Absolute |

|Numbers. | %

-------------------------------------+---------+------

Illegitimate children | 91 | 8.0

Orphans | 498 | 43.8

Children whose parents were in prison| 25 | 2.2

Other children | 524 | 46.0

+---------+------

Total | 1,138 |100.0

=====================================+=========+======

We must now speak of another kind of vagrant and mendicant, those whom

some criminologists have called born-vagabonds; children who run away

from home to meet with adventures and to see something more than the

neighborhood where they live. It makes little difference to us here

whence comes this desire; everyone, especially every child, has it more

or less (who is there who does not love to travel?) and there are those

in whom it is very strong. “Who among us,” say Tomel and Rollet, “at

certain moments of existence, does not feel the desire to break with

social conventions, or more simply, to break through the circle of his

horizon, in order to depart in search of the unknown? Put money in the

pocket of the tramp and you make a tourist. The sportsman and the

delinquent are separated only by the thickness of some hundred-sou

pieces.” [850]

These authors have hit the truth of the matter. Such children are

called born-vagabonds, but then we meet thousands of born-vagabonds who

have never become vagabonds in reality. The children who have a great

love of adventure are found in all classes of society, but only those

who come from among the poor become vagrants. It is in poverty then

that we find the “causa efficiens”; the same inclination that brings

poor children to prison, would perhaps lead them to a post of honor if

they had lived in better surroundings. There are people of all kinds

among criminals, and it cannot be denied that the majority of them are

inferior in every way. But this does not apply to this class of little

vagrants. Those who, as a consequence of years of experience, have a

right to speak, are agreed that such children can be made useful

members of society, if they are rationally guided. [851] They are bold

and energetic lads. Could it be believed that all the boys who, in

1889, came on foot to Paris from all parts of France to see the Eiffel

tower (there were some of them under seven years of age) were not brave

and energetic? Brought up in another environment they would have become

sailors or explorers, or would have undertaken long journeys as

tourists—while now they get into prison, to descend later lower and

lower. [852]

Fourth. Finally, the fourth category of vagrants and mendicants. This

consists of those not included in the other three classes of people who

are physically in a condition to work and who have opportunity to do

so, but are not willing to work. It is hard to determine with certainty

how large a part of the army of vagrants and mendicants they make up.

But it seems to me certain that the facts given above prove that they

are not as numerous as some authors and many other people believe.

Besides, how is it that the philanthropic institutions where everyone

admitted has to work, are always full, if it is true that most vagrants

are persons who are not willing to work?

The vagrants of this class are then lazy persons, unwilling to work,

but living at the expense of others, and consequently parasites. It is

with reason that many authors have blamed such persons (though, as Dr.

Colajanni says, justice would require that we should include all

do-nothings, and not the poor only). But this does not advance the

cause of sociology; her task is to find the causes of the phenomenon.

It is incontestable that the zeal and energy, evidenced by modern

peoples in their work, are not innate but acquired. All sound

individuals have, not in the same measure, it is true, an innate

tendency to exercise their muscles and their intellectual faculties,

but without external causes this inclination does not go very far. The

primitive peoples work no more than is necessary to provide for their

very moderate needs. They find people laughable who work more than is

strictly necessary. [853] The enormous change which took place in the

method of production little by little induced men to produce a greater

and greater amount of work; on the one hand were the slaves, forced to

labor hard, and on the other hand the property owners driven to work by

the desire of profit. In our present society the case is almost the

same; the great mass are forced to work by fear of poverty, the smaller

number by the desire for gain. And then the great majority of men have

been accustomed to work from infancy; much work is done from necessity,

but much from habit, which causes a feeling of uneasiness when one

cannot work.

The first reason why there are people who do not want to work, is that

they have not been accustomed to it from childhood. In general

children, like primitive people, who are analogous to them in many

ways, show little zeal for work. It is necessary to train them for a

fairly long time before they set themselves to work assiduously. What

will all those children whose parents have neglected them, or who have

even taught them to beg, turn into when they are grown up, if not into

vagrants and mendicants? They have never learned any trade, have never

become accustomed to work, have never found any pleasure in it, so that

later in life they will never have any desire to do anything. [854]

Part of those who have not been able to work for a long time go the

same road, they lose the habit of working, become lazy, and in the end

are not willing to do anything any more. [855] These, to be sure, are

the least diligent by nature, but that would not alone send them into

vagrancy if they had always been able to find work.

However, there is still one more thing to be said about the

circumstances which give rise to this class of individuals. In the

first place, the long duration, the monotony, and the disagreeable

features of the work of the proletariat, which, as a consequence is

rather hated than loved. [856] In the second place: the small wages of

a large part of the workers, and the comparatively large amounts that

clever beggars are able to secure. Flynt gives the following data as to

the “earnings” of tramps; in New York, $1 a day; in the Eastern States

generally, from 50 cents to $1 or $2, without counting food; in New

Orleans a skilful beggar can “earn” $1 a day. He estimates that in

Germany the daily receipts of a beggar are from a mark and a half to

four marks, and food; in England most beggars get from 18 pence to two

shillings, though some very clever ones even get as much as 10

shillings. [857] Löwenstimm tells that in Petrograd a skilful beggar

has a daily income of three rubles. [858] Florian and Cavaglieri say

that in Paris a beggar gets four francs, and if he is very clever, even

as much as twenty-five francs, a day. [859]

In some cases, then, it is more profitable, and in all cases more easy,

not to work. In consequence of these facts we read very often that the

public ought not to give to these idlers. But the public cannot

distinguish this class of mendicants from the others. It is certainly

true that professional mendicity would diminish if nothing were given

to mendicants; but on the other hand the great misery among the other

poor would be aggravated still more. And I venture to doubt whether the

advantage thus gained on one side would counterbalance the disadvantage

created on the other.

And these laments upon the subject of the stupidity of the public are

generally accompanied by anathemas upon those who prefer the life of

the parasite to work. No one would naturally be inclined to excuse

these individuals. But it is necessary to look at the question from

both sides. If these people are blamed, blame must be attached also to

a state of society in which honest labor is so poorly paid that begging

is often more lucrative. These individuals are cunning egoists and as

long as society is organized as it is, they are right from their point

of view. To be sure, they have no feeling of honor, they attach no

value to the opinion of others, but the feeling of honor is not innate

but acquired. As the facts show, vagrants generally come from an

environment where there can be no question of a development of moral

qualities. Dr. Bonhoeffer shows, for example, that about 45% of the

vagrants examined by him had been brought up in bad home surroundings

(alcoholism of the parents, etc.). Then, as we have seen above, the

social feelings can be developed only where there is reciprocity. I

should like to know whether society really concerns itself with the

fate of these unfortunates to such an extent that they in their turn

care greatly for the opinion of this same society. Certainly not. They

are pariahs, and since they are such the contempt of a hostile world is

a matter of indifference.

As we come to the conclusion of our observations upon the etiology of

vagrancy and mendicity, we have still but one category to consider,

that of those who are indolent by nature. There are individuals in whom

assiduous labor of any kind awakens a strong feeling of discomfort.

[860] As we have already stated above, in speaking of poverty in

general (see p. 288), the cause of this phenomenon is a species of

neurasthenia, more especially physical. It is necessary to recognize

that, while these individuals are out of harmony with society, they are

sick and must be cared for if society is to avoid trouble. Besides,

Professor Benedict, who was the first to point out physical

neurasthenia, himself recognizes [861] that such sick persons need not

become vagrants, if they are brought up in a favorable environment, and

that later the struggle for existence will not be painful to them.

To sum up, it is evident that the principal causes of vagrancy and

mendicity are lack of work, the want of care for the old, the sick, and

the weak, the abandonment of poor children, the low wages and long

hours of the workers. The persons who run most danger of being

incorporated in the army of vagrants are the weak, whether mentally or

physically, but this need not necessarily happen; the “causa causarum”

is the environment. [862]

History proves this also. If vagrancy and mendicity sprang from the

innate qualities of man, there would always have been vagrants and

mendicants, which is not the case. The appearance of these is due to

the economic structure of society. It is not possible to discuss this

at length and the reader is referred to the work of Florian and

Cavaglieri, “I vagabondi” (I, Part One). These authors show that the

first type of vagrant was the runaway slave, and then the serf who had

fled from his lord’s domain. In the following periods the penalties

with which vagrants were threatened (and they were very severe) were

especially designed to force the proletariat to serve the purposes of

the possessors of the means of production. [863] In measure as the

number of available workers increases and the proletariat submits to

the will of the capitalists, this cause becomes less important, and

disappears almost completely in our own time. It is rather the contrary

that takes place, since the army of vagrants and mendicants is now

mainly composed of those who have not been able to find work.

Vagabondage and mendicity are at present punishable because of the

importunity of the mendicants, the losses experienced by persons living

in the country especially, and also because of the danger to society

from the fact that the dangerous criminals are partly recruited from

this class.

B. Theft and Analogous Crimes.

Before examining the motives inducing the commission of theft (the most

important crime of this group, the others being mostly modifications of

it) we must first stop a moment to ask the question, “Is honesty an

innate characteristic or is it acquired?”

In my opinion it is indisputable that honesty is as little innate as

any other moral conception. [864] No child can distinguish between mine

and thine, it is only little by little that he gains this concept. On

the contrary he has the tendency to monopolize everything that he

desires (the prehensory instinct, Lafargue names it). [865] It is just

this instinct that must be combated to make a child honest. It would,

therefore, be more correct to say that dishonesty is innate. Unless one

takes account of this fact it is impossible to give the etiology of

theft and crimes of the same nature.

The motives for these crimes with which we are now occupied we shall

speak of under three heads. The first group includes the crimes

committed from poverty, the second those that result from cupidity, and

in the third group we shall treat of the criminals by profession.

a. THEFTS COMMITTED FROM POVERTY.

There are some needs which a man must satisfy, without which his

existence is impossible. These are fundamental needs, independent of

environment. If a man has not sufficient food, if he has not (at least

in non-tropical countries) clothing to protect him against cold, if

opportunity for rest is lacking, etc., his life is in danger. In our

present society there are always a number of persons who are in want of

the strict necessaries of life, and who are therefore obliged to steal

if they do not wish to succumb to poverty. It is evident that the word

“poverty” is not to be taken in the most limited sense, so that one who

can still buy a morsel of bread, and yet steals, may still be

considered as a thief from poverty.

We must make here one more observation before we enter upon the proofs

of this thesis. We have defined crime as an egoistic act. However, the

same act may be at once egoistic and altruistic, and this is the case

with some crimes committed from poverty, when an individual steals in

order not to have those in his charge die of hunger. What conflicts of

duty our present society creates!

The proofs that absolute poverty provokes a number of thefts are of

three kinds. The first two are based upon the dynamics of criminality.

First. In winter, when poverty is most pressing, the number of thefts

etc. is much greater than in summer. This is a fact so well known that

it is unnecessary to give detailed proofs of it, and I think it will be

sufficient to give the following statistics dealing with two important

countries for a great number of years.

Germany, 1883–1892. [866]

===============+========================================================================================================

| Number of Punishable Acts Committed in the Months of

Crimes.[867] +--------+---------+-------+-------+------+------+------+-------+----------+--------+---------+----------

---------------+--------+---------+-------+-------+------+------+------+-------+----------+--------+---------+----------

Simple theft {a| 7,991 | 7,342 | 6,909 | 5,777 | 6,097| 6,003| 6,230| 6,481 | 6,249 | 7,436 | 7,966 | 8,523

{b| 113 | 115 | 98 | 85 | 87| 88| 88| 92 | 92 | 106 | 117 | 121

| | | | | | | | | | | |

Aggravated {a| 913 | 877 | 830 | 777 | 840| 856| 879| 866 | 818 | 956 | 971 | 996

theft {b| 102 | 107 | 92 | 89 | 94| 98| 98| 96 | 94 | 106 | 112 | 111

| | | | | | | | | | | |

Embezzlement {a| 1,539 | 1,358 | 1,454 | 1,397 | 1,505| 1,485| 1,583| 1,551 | 1,459 | 1,604 | 1,573 | 1,659

{b| 100 | 97 | 94 | 94 | 98| 100| 103| 101 | 98 | 104 | 105 | 108

| | | | | | | | | | | |

Receiving {a| 682 | 615 | 571 | 442 | 458| 447| 444| 451 | 451 | 556 | 643 | 789

stolen goods{b| 123 | 122 | 103 | 82 | 82| 83| 80| 81 | 81 | 100 | 120 | 142

| | | | | | | | | | | |

Professional {a| 3 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 4| 3| 3| 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 5

and habitual{b| 71 | 130 | 94 | 195 | 94| 73| 71| 71 | 146 | 71 | 73 | 118

| | | | | | | | | | | |

Fraud {a| 2,174 | 2,050 | 1,909 | 1,744 | 1,823| 1,869| 1,932| 1,845 | 1,758 | 2,065 | 2,279 | 2,432

{b| 107 | 111 | 94 | 89 | 90| 95| 95| 91 | 90 | 102 | 116 | 120

===============+========+=========+=======+=======+======+======+======+=======+==========+========+=========+==========

There is, then, a pretty considerable increase as winter approaches,

and a decrease with the summer months. I would call the attention of

the reader especially to the fact that it is the crimes of simple theft

and the receiving of stolen goods which show this change in the most

marked way, while aggravated theft, embezzlement and the professional

and habitual receiving of stolen goods show it in less degree. It is

the two former crimes which have poverty as their cause, while the

three latter are more apt to be committed from cupidity and by

professional criminals.

The following figures, taken from the criminal calendar composed by

Professor Lacassagne, have to do with

France, 1827–1870. [868]

Number of Crimes Against Property for Each Month, Reduced to an Equal

Duration of 31 Days.

January. 16,350

February. 15,400

March. 14,250

April. 13,450

May. 13,625

June. 13,450

July. 13,225

August. 13,425

September. 13,875

October. 14,400

November. 16,100

December. 16,825

We have here, then, as always, a great increase in fall and winter, and

a corresponding decrease in spring and summer.

Second. A second proof of the importance of absolute poverty as a cause

of crime etc. is furnished by the fact that there is a considerable

increase of the crimes in question in times of economic depression

(high price of bread, lack of work, etc.). In Part One I have cited

many works in which this phenomenon is proved for a number of

countries. I refer the reader, therefore, to the more important of

these, and add other data here.

Germany, 1882–1911. [869]

=======+============+===========+================================================

| | | Number of Persons Convicted of Crimes given

| | | below, to 100,000 of Population over 12 Years

|Price of Rye| Imports | of Age.

Years. |in Marks per|and Exports+------+----------+---------+------+-------------

-------+------------+-----------+------+----------+---------+------+-------------

1882 | 152.3 | 6.3 | 250 | 28 | 26 | 37 | 46

1883 | 144.7 | 6.5 | 241 | 25 | 24 | 38 | 46

1884 | 143.3 | 6.4 | 231 | 25 | 23 | 39 | 46

1885 | 140.6 | 5.8 | 214 | 22 | 22 | 38 | 45

1886 | 130.6 | 5.9 | 210 | 20 | 21 | 41 | 45

1887 | 120.9 | 6.2 | 198 | 21 | 20 | 43 | 44

1888 | 134.5 | 6.7 | 194 | 21 | 20 | 44 | 44

1889 | 155.5 | 7.2 | 211 | 23 | 21 | 49 | 47

1890 | 170.0 | 7.6 | 206 | 24 | 21 | 50 | 47

1891 | 211.2 | 7.7 | 216 | 25 | 22 | 54 | 50

1892 | 176.3 | 7.3 | 236 | 31 | 25 | 59 | 52

1893 | 133.7 | 7.3 | 202 | 26 | 22 | 58 | 51

1894 | 117.8 | 7.2 | 198 | 27 | 22 | 60 | 52

1895 | 119.8 | 7.6 | 192 | 24 | 22 | 61 | 53

1896 | 118.8 | 8.2 | 184 | 24 | 19 | 58 | 50

1897 | 130.1 | 8.5 | 188 | 23 | 18 | 61 | 51

1898 | 146.3 | 9.4 | 191 | 25 | 19 | 63 | 52

1899 | 146.3 | 10.0 | 179 | 24 | 19 | 63 | 53

1900 | 142.6 | 10.7 | 181 | 23 | 18 | 60 | 51

1901 | 140.7 | 10.2 | 190 | 26 | 19 | 64 | 52

1902 | 144.2 | 10.6 | 191 | 28 | 20 | 66 | 55

1903 | 132.3 | 11.4 | 182 | 26 | 19 | 64 | 54

1904 | 135.1 | 12.1 | 176 | 24 | 17 | 62 | 54

1905 | 151.9 | 13.2 | 175 | 25 | 17 | 61 | 56

1906 | 160.6 | 14.8[870] | 179 | 28 | 18 | 62 | 58

1907 | 193.2[871] | 15.5 | 178 | 28 | 18 | 61 | 60

1908 | 186.5 | 14.0 | 189 | 32 | 20 | 61 | 63

1909 | 176.5 | 15.1 | 182 | 33 | 20 | 62 | 65

1910 | 152.3 | 16.4 | 176 | 32 | 19 | 63 | 65

1911 | 168.3 | 17.8 | 169 | 30 | 19 | 63 | 65

=======+============+===========+======+==========+=========+======+=============

If, in examining the preceding table, we do not lose sight of the fact

that the rise or fall of the price of grain does not make itself felt

immediately, and that in the criminal statistics of a certain year

there appear also persons who have committed their crime in a preceding

year, it is clear how enormous is the influence of the economic

movement upon economic crimes. The price of grain had formerly a

decisive influence upon the trend of economic crimes; now, in

industrial countries like Germany, it is rather the industrial

situation, without, however, the price of cereals losing all influence.

[872]

England, 1823–1896.

Dr. Tugan-Baranowsky proved for the periods 1823–1850 and 1871–1896 the

correlation between good and bad times and the decrease and increase of

criminality.

For the period 1858–1864 the same proof is given by Mayr (see Part I);

and for the years 1840–1890 by Fornasari di Verce (see Part I). The

figures of the former have reference only to crime in general, and do

not, therefore, show sufficiently the effect upon crimes that are

merely economic. [873]

Grand-Duchy of Baden, 1875–1892.[872]

J. S(chmidt), the statistician, shows the parallelism of the two curves

for the period mentioned (p. 243).

Bavaria, 1835–1861.

Dr. G. Mayr was one of the first statisticians to show the influence of

the price of grain upon crimes against property (pp. 39–42).

Belgium, 1839–1890.

Dr. Weisz has proved the influence of the price of grain during the

period from 1841 to 1860 (p. 61) and Professor Denis that of the

economic happenings for the period from 1840 to 1890 (pp. 235–237),

while Ducpetiaux draws attention especially to the enormous increase of

criminality in Flanders during the years of crisis, 1846–1847 (pp.

32–37). [874]

France, 1825–1886.

The influence of the price of grain upon crimes against property has

been shown for the periods 1845–1864, 1850–1864, and 1855–1864

respectively, by Drs. Weisz (pp. 60–61), Corne (pp. 48–49), and Mayr

(pp. 46–47). Lacassagne and Lafargue have shown the correlation between

the fluctuations of the economic life and those of economic crime for

the years 1825–80 and 1840–86 respectively (pp. 149 and 231 ff.).

Italy, 1873–1890.

For this period Fornasari di Verce has shown the parallelism between

the curves of economic occurrences and of economic crime (pp. 138–143).

New South Wales, 1882–1891.

The same author has shown here also the same correlation (p. 144).

Netherlands, 1860–1891.

Since researches for this country upon our subject are lacking, I have

composed the following diagram from the official data.

[Illustration:

I. Number of those Convicted for Theft to 100,000 of the Population.

II. Price of Bread per Kilogram in Centimes.]

The parallelism of the two curves is striking, there being simply a

slight exception in the years 1871–1873. The increase of theft in the

years 1879–1881 coincides with a very great increase in the number of

bankruptcies, which continued until 1882. [875]

The same parallelism has also been shown for Prussia, Russia,

Wurtemberg, and Zürich by Starke and Müller, Tarnowsky, Rettich, and

Meyer, as quoted in Part I of this work. [876]

Few sociological theses, it seems to me, have been proved as

conclusively as the one of which we have just been speaking. The

important influence of the trend of economic events upon that of

economic criminality has been shown for thirteen different countries

for different periods of the nineteenth century. Some authors are of

the opinion that poverty cannot be the cause of crimes that are

committed when economic conditions are most favorable, and when

economic crimes have consequently reached their minimum. This assertion

still needs fuller proof, as I have already pointed out, since there

are still many persons who are in want of the necessaries of life even

in times of prosperity.

I must say here a few words in answer to a final objection to the

preceding observation; namely, that the increase of theft etc., in

times of economic depression, is, in great part, a consequence, not of

absolute poverty, but of the impossibility of satisfying needs that

have sprung up in more favorable times; and that the increase will be,

therefore, in large measure due to an increase of crimes committed from

cupidity, and not from poverty. This may be true in some cases, but

not, in my opinion in the great majority of cases, for the following

reasons. When the economic situation is favorable, when earnings are

more than usual, and when, consequently, wants increase and become more

intense, can everyone satisfy the desires awakened in him by the spirit

of imitation? Surely not; even at such times of prosperity there are

still many individuals with whom desire is awakened but who are not

able to satisfy it in a lawful manner. On the other hand, wants in

general diminish in times of crisis; cupidity is therefore less

excited, and with a limited income men are quite satisfied with having

the means of subsistence, when there are so many who lack the very

necessaries of life. In my opinion, crimes from cupidity increase

rather than diminish in times of prosperity, while in times of

depression the opposite takes place. This cannot be proved for each

economic crime separately, since criminal statistics do not show

whether a crime is committed from poverty or cupidity. However,

embezzlement, fraud, and aggravated theft are committed in a greater

degree from cupidity than is simple theft, (and by professional

criminals). Now statistics show that it is chiefly simple theft that

follows the course of economic events, the other crimes named doing so

much less; the same is true of the changes during the different

seasons. Finally, while absolute poverty in countries like Germany has

decreased and simple theft also, luxury and cupidity have increased,

together with the other crimes named. [877]

The third proof that poverty is a great factor in the etiology of theft

is the enormous number of widows and divorced women who participate in

these crimes (see pp. 452, 453). There is no reason to believe that

these women are more covetous than married women or spinsters; but it

is certain that their economic situation is often very burdensome.

[878]

We shall not employ any further methods to establish our thesis; since

for the reasons already stated they would lead to results of no great

significance, and it seems that the accuracy of the thesis has been

sufficiently shown by the proofs cited.

We have now come to the end of our consideration of the subject of

thefts committed from poverty. There are two ways in which it is the

cause of theft. On the one hand it incites directly the appropriation

of the property of others, and on the other hand it exercises a

demoralizing influence.

b. THEFT COMMITTED FROM CUPIDITY.

We have now to deal with crimes of persons who steal neither from

absolute poverty, nor by profession. Those who are guilty of these

crimes earn enough to satisfy their more pressing needs, and they steal

only when the occasion presents itself (whence their name of occasional

criminals) [879] in order to satisfy their desire for luxury.

The first question, then, which must be answered here is this: how do

these needs arise? The answer can be brief; they are aroused by the

environment. In a society where some are rich, who have more income

than is needed to supply the fundamental necessities, and who create

other needs for themselves, in such a society the cupidity of those who

have not similar incomes at their disposal will be awakened. The

desires which the criminals of whom we are speaking wish to satisfy by

their misdeeds are not different from those of the well-to-do. It goes

without saying that no one has ever desired any luxury that he has not

seen someone else enjoying. It would be a waste of time to discuss

this. Every need that is not strictly necessary, is not innate but

acquired. If one has much, the other, an imitator, wants the same.

There is but one piece of advice to give to those who are not convinced

of this simple truth; that they read some ethnological works treating

of peoples among whom there are neither rich nor poor. They will then

see that cupidity, with us a universal quality, is there unknown. [880]

The division between rich and poor is many centuries old and does not

belong to capitalism alone, although under capitalism the distance

between the two has greatly increased and is still increasing. The

greater this distance is, the more, other things being equal, cupidity

increases. [881]

The cupidity of those who can satisfy only the desire for the bare

necessities is not awakened in the same measure in each of them. As has

already been remarked by Guerry and Quetelet (see Part I), economic

crimes are most numerous in the countries where manufacturing and

commerce are most developed, and where the contrasts of fortune are

consequently the greatest. It is for this reason that the cities, where

the contrasts between poverty and wealth are greatest, give also very

high figures for crimes against property (see pp. 530–531).

Those who live in the same country or the same city are not, in spite

of that, in the same environment. Every great city has thousands of

workers who, because of the character of their labor, have no contact

with luxury; others, on the contrary, have the desire for luxury

awakened in them by the fact that their work brings them in touch with

wealth. Hence it is, for example, that so large a number of economic

crimes are committed by workers occupied in commerce (see p. 446), and

by servants. [882] There are workmen who have never been accustomed to

more than they are able to earn at the time, but there are also those

who have known better days and to whom the impossibility of satisfying

needs previously acquired is a constant source of suffering.

However, the contrast between rich and poor is not the only cause of

the origin of cupidity. We must also sketch in addition to the above,

especially the manner in which commercial capital tries to draw buyers.

The times are long gone by when the producer worked principally to

order. Modern industry manufactures enormous quantities of goods

without the outlet for them being known. The desire to buy must, then,

be excited in the public. Beautiful displays, dazzling illuminations,

and many other means are used to attain the desired end. The perfection

of this system is reached in the great modern retail store, where

persons may enter freely, and see and handle everything, where, in

short, the public is drawn as a moth to a flame. The result of these

tactics is that the cupidity of the crowd is highly excited. [883]

After what has been said it is unnecessary to dwell longer upon the

different ways in which cupidity is awakened in our present society.

However we must note the following. Almost all the thefts of the class

of which we are speaking (those committed by so-called occasional

criminals) are thefts of articles of very small value (see the figures

on p. 201); the exceptions are the thefts of large sums of money. The

authors of these last are in general the employes of banks, etc.,

persons who, from the nature of their work, have the opportunity to

appropriate other people’s money. When we investigate the reasons for

their committing their misdeeds, we shall see that nine times out of

ten (I cannot prove it by figures, but no one will contradict me) the

criminal is a speculator who has lost, or perhaps an individual who

visits prostitutes, and hence has great need of money.

Cupidity is thus excited by the environment, but not in the same degree

in every case, the environment not being the same for all. However,

even supposing that the environment were exactly identical for a number

of persons, cupidity would not be excited in the same measure in some

as in others, since they are not alike, one being born with more

intense desires than others (admitting that it is the environment that

calls forth the desires). The more intense a man’s desires, the more

risk he runs, other things being equal, of falling foul of the law. As

I have already remarked above, this is important for the person who is

seeking the reason why A and not B has stolen, though both live in the

same environment; for sociology this fact is only of secondary

importance, for it does not ask “Who becomes criminal?” but rather “How

does it happen that there are crimes?”

We have now examined one of the sides of the question; the principal

cause of these crimes is the cupidity awakened by the environment. If

the environment were different, cupidity would not be aroused and the

crimes would not be committed. In my opinion most criminologists do not

sufficiently appreciate the importance of this fact. It is very

difficult for anyone who lives at ease to form an idea of what is

passing in the mind of one who has only the bare necessaries of life

and is deprived of every comfort and amusement, while he sees others

who have too much, and yet often work less than he does.

Let us now examine the other side of the question. For this purpose let

us make use once more of the figure of balances in describing the

process that goes on in the brain of the man who hesitates. Upon one of

the pans cupidity exercises its force, in different measure according

to the person. What are the weights upon the other pan balancing the

first? It is the moral forces which must be considered first. I have

fully explained above how the economic environment has prevented the

social instincts from being developed in man, and how this is

especially true for certain classes of persons. It is unnecessary to

repeat this here. It will be sufficient to note certain points which

have a special importance for the kind of crimes with which we are

occupied at the moment.

He who steals, prejudices the interests of another, does him harm, and

at the same time injures society, the existence of which would become

impossible were theft permitted. In my opinion, the present

organization of society, of which the struggle of all against all is

the fundamental principle, has reduced this moral factor to very small

dimensions. In the economic domain each must be egoistic, for without

egoism he would lose in the struggle for existence. In the case of

theft and similar crimes, those injured are almost exclusively

well-to-do persons, to whom the damage is disagreeable, but who, in

general do not suffer much. The thieves, on the other hand, are almost

exclusively persons who have to live on very little. How can we expect

a poor man to take care not to do a small injury to the rich for fear

of causing them a little discomfort, when most rich people are

insensible to the suffering which without intermission, overwhelms the

poor. The present organization of society is responsible for the fact

that a slight sensibility to the misfortune of others offers only a

trifling counterpoise to the tendency to realize one’s desires in a

dishonest manner. [884] The idea that society in itself is injured by

theft cannot constitute any considerable counterpoise, since he who

violates the eighth commandment cannot feel himself at one with a

society which never has helped him when he was in difficulties.

After this general observation let us pass on to particular remarks

that apply to certain classes of persons only. How does it happen that

a great proportion of mankind are honest? To this question the answer

must be, “because they have been accustomed to it from infancy.” The

opposite also is true; a great number of thieves are such because any

moral education was out of the question in the environment in which

they were brought up. They satisfy their “prehensory instinct” without

being conscious of any ill-doing. With these the balance inclines to

the side of dishonesty, unless a counterpoise of some magnitude is

found. Above (pp. 489 ff.) we have seen that most criminals, especially

thieves, come from a totally corrupt environment. [885]

This does not apply to another category of thieves; those who do not

proceed from an absolutely corrupt environment—yet whose surroundings

are not good and wholesome. Ferriani [886] and Aschaffenburg [887] go

so far as to say that almost every child has once stolen something.

This may be a little exaggerated but it certainly has truth at the

bottom of it. If the child has no one to take the trouble to teach him

that he ought not to steal, it is more than likely that he will have to

answer for theft later (occasional theft is committed by children and

minors especially). It is true that all the children whose education

has been defective do not become thieves, nor even the majority of

them; there are those for whom a single prohibition will be enough to

make them respect the property of others for the rest of their lives.

There are others of them, weak characters who, notwithstanding such

prohibition, cannot resist when the temptation is strong. If their

education had been good, the environment in which they were brought up

more favorable, they would not have had to be turned over to justice.

Hear the opinion of one of those most competent to judge of the matter,

Raux, who, having put to himself the question whether the young people

detained in the “Quartier correctionnel” of Lyons have a real tendency

to steal, answers as follows. “Evidently not. Without entering into the

analysis of the circumstances which provoke crime, we shall give, in

support of our assertion, an observation as simple as conclusive. Young

prisoners condemned for theft have shown us upon different occasions a

probity, a most praiseworthy disinterestedness, in the presence of

things that they might have appropriated without exposing themselves to

any reproof.” [888]

We might close our observations upon theft from cupidity at this point

if there were not fear of an objection drawn from what has just been

said, namely the following. If the occasional thief has become such, on

the one side because of the cupidity awakened in him, and on the other

side in consequence of his lack of a good education, and if he differs,

not qualitatively, but only quantitatively from the honest man,

possessing less strength of character than the average—if all this is

true, then the figures for theft should be higher than the statistics

show. All of which would go to prove that it is wrong to deny that

criminals constitute a biological anomaly.

Here is my reply. First. Moral forces do not constitute the only

counterpoise to the tendency toward theft. Since the moral check often

lacks efficacy, another has been created which acts in the same way to

turn the egoist away from crime, namely the fear inspired by the

possibility of punishment. Any one would be credulous indeed to fancy

that those who have an opportunity to steal and do not profit by it are

deterred by moral forces. Without punishment criminality would be much

more extensive than it now is. Where the danger of being found out is

not great, the number of transgressions is enormous (think, for

example, of the cases of smuggling). [889]

Second. Many persons remain honest, not for moral reasons, but because

they lack the courage, cleverness, or other qualities necessary for

being otherwise, qualities which in themselves have nothing to do with

crime.

Third. Still others remain honest for reasons based upon mature

reflection. They find that it is too dangerous to commit an offense,

but do not hesitate in the presence of acts essentially criminal,

although they do not fall under the ban of the law. [890] No one is

ignorant of this, and only certain anthropologists who examine no one

but prisoners, have lost sight of it.

Those who compose the criminal world are by nature very diverse. Some

are the most dangerous individuals that it is possible to imagine,

others are rather weak than wicked. Among these last are ranged the

occasional criminals, who, taken together, form a danger to society,

but taken singly are not dangerous men in the strict sense. Leuss, who

learned to know prisoners, not as judge, or as medical expert, but as a

prisoner himself, says: “The great mass of prisoners are more

good-natured than the average man; the good-nature of thieves

corresponds with their weakness of will, that invincible obstacle to

their maintaining themselves in the world of industry. Stress must

constantly be laid upon the fact that these weak-willed, good-natured

persons are the ones who swell the number of crimes.” [891]

When we place beside the occasional thieves, those who never steal but

commit all sorts of reprehensible (though not illegal) acts, the

comparison is not to the advantage of the latter. Their trickery, their

pitiless egoism, often make them more dangerous to society than the

others; which should be a reason for criminal anthropology not to build

a system based solely upon investigations of prisoners.

Fourth. Finally many more crimes are committed than are mentioned by

criminal statistics. Although I have already spoken of this (p. 84), I

must return to it. In the first place, most criminal statistics give

the figures only for those convicted. Those acquitted have no place,

although, with few exceptions, a crime has nevertheless been committed.

We know that the number of acquittals is very considerable. In Germany,

there were 15 to 20 acquittals to 100 cases tried (1882–1896); [892] in

Italy the number of acquittals ran as high as 51.37% (1890–1895). [893]

In the second place, in many cases the prosecution is postponed for

different reasons, with the result that there is neither an acquittal

nor a condemnation. Then a great many cases never come to trial because

justice cannot discover the authors of the crimes. In Germany, for

example, of all the cases on the dockets in the criminal courts between

1881 and 1891, only 43 to 45% actually came before the judges. [894]

During the period between 1886 and 1890, the examining judges dismissed

on an average 8900 cases, either because the author of the crime was

unknown, or because the proof was insufficient. During the same period

and for the same reasons, 98,741 cases on the average were not

prosecuted by the authorities. [895] The authors of about 25% of the

crimes committed in Italy remained unknown (1887–1894). [896]

These two reasons by themselves show that the number of crimes is much

greater than the statistics would generally lead one to suppose, even

if one takes account of the fact that some of the complaints made to

the prosecutors are false.

In the third place, we have been speaking so far of the cases that come

to the notice of the officers, while in a great number of cases no

complaint is made, especially in the matter of petty theft, either

because the person injured wishes to avoid the annoyance of having to

appear in the police court as witness, or because he wishes to spare

the delinquent.

In the fourth place, a great many small thefts remain unknown even to

the person injured, since he does not notice the loss that he has

suffered.

All this goes to show that crime, taken in the strict sense, and

especially theft, is much more extensive than one would expect at

first, and the objection that might have been made to my thesis is

hence without weight. It is evident that the number of criminals

unpunished cannot be fixed with certainty. Dr. Puibaraud places it at

50%; [897] while Tarde believes that it is greater; [898] Yvernès, the

well-known French statistician, says that 90% of the professional

thieves remain unknown, and Dr. Thomsen, from whom I take this last

fact, says that this applies to other categories of criminals also.

[899] However this may be the number in any case is very considerable.

To sum up. I believe I have shown that the fundamental causes of theft

and similar crimes committed from cupidity are, on the one hand, the

cupidity aroused by the environment and, on the other, neglected

childhood among the poor. It is especially those weak in character who

run the greatest risk of becoming guilty of these crimes.

c. CRIMES COMMITTED BY PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS.

In considering all the kinds of theft and analogous crimes, we note

that the thefts committed by professional criminals represent only a

minority. But as soon as we limit our consideration to the more serious

forms of theft, such as burglary and similar crimes, we shall discover

that they are committed almost exclusively by individuals whose

principal or subsidiary occupation is theft, and who, in general, do

not consider it shameful, and do not feel the slightest repentance.

The question arises, how it is possible for anyone to embrace so abject

a profession, and thus become so harmful a parasite. [900] There are

authors who would have us believe that there are persons who have

chosen crime from pleasure in it. As Leuss observes in his work, “Aus

dem Zuchthause”, this opinion is so absurd that it would be a waste of

time to consider it. No one of sound mind could possibly prefer so

abominable a profession, and one so full of risks from the point of

view of simple calculation. There must be other reasons for the

existence of such persons. [901] If we wish to examine these causes we

must divide professional criminals into separate groups.

The first category is composed of children. Sad as this is it is none

the less true. It is plain that not a single child follows the

profession of thief from pleasure, for a child prefers not to work at

all. These children, then, are taught to steal by their parents. If

they are not very numerous, in the great cities there are always some

cases of this kind. Dr. Puibaraud, former police official in Paris,

describes one of these as follows. “We recall that one day, on visiting

the Petite-Roquette, we found in a cell a child scarcely eight years

old, with a wide-awake face, a quick eye, but whose physiognomy was

already very peculiar. It was a young pickpocket who had been found

drunk upon the street, and who, being arrested by an agent and taken to

the station, had confessed that the gold he had in his possession was

the proceeds of a theft committed by him without the knowledge of his

‘papa.’ This capture ended by the whole family’s being arrested at

their lodgings, near the Place Maubert.

“This gamin was very intelligent and gave the following account of

himself, which was corroborated by what was brought out in the

examination. ‘My father showed me how to pick pockets, but so far I

have only “done” ladies because that is easier. With gentlemen you may

touch their leg when you stick your hand in their pocket and they turn

round, and that’s no joke! With ladies you do not get so close and they

do not feel your hand. It isn’t hard at all. Papa taught me well. We

went every day together to the Palais Royal and Place de la Bastille

omnibus stations. The Palais Royal is no good. The best is the

Madeleine, but Mother G. works that and she quarrels with papa. We

don’t go there any more. Last week papa told me to wait for him at the

Palais Royal omnibus stand. He didn’t come, and, “ma foi!” I went to

work by myself. I got a purse from an old lady. There were sixty francs

in it. I drank a bit and then I was arrested.’” [902]

As we see this child found theft the most natural thing in the world

(and any other child in the same environment would think the same); he

“worked” with his father. If exceptionally favorable circumstances do

not happen to present themselves to such children they will belong to

the army of professional criminals all their lives.

Now, as for the others, those who have not been brought up for a life

of crime, yet practice it as their profession—how can we explain their

manner of life? The answer to this question can be found only in the

works of those who have familiarized themselves with the life of

criminals, and who have lived in their midst in order to know them

(like Flynt, for example), or who are in a position, because of their

profession, to study them in detail, and become their confidants (like

the well-known almoners of the Grande-Roquette: Crozes, Moreau, and

Faure). [903]

Except for a few subsidiary circumstances the life of the professional

criminal may be summed up as follows. With very rare exceptions he

springs from a corrupt environment, perhaps having lost his parents

while still very young, or having even been abandoned by them. Being

misled by bad company, he commits an “occasional” theft while still a

child, for which he must pay the penalty of an imprisonment; he may, at

times owe his entrance into prison to a non-economic misdeed. This,

however, is a very rare exception. [904] As we have remarked above,

prison never improves him, and generally makes him worse. If he is in

contact with the other prisoners, among whom there are naturally a

number of out and out criminals, he hears the recital of their

adventurous life, learns their tricks and all that he still needs to

know to be thoroughly informed as to “the profession.” Nor will the

separate cell be any more profitable to him, brutalized as he already

is by his earlier environment. Then after a certain time he is set at

liberty and returned to society. The partisans of free will say that he

has expiated his fault and can now commence a new life.

That is easy to say, and certainly justice will not concern itself with

him any further until he commits a new offense. But this is not the

same as saying that society pardons him and aids him, in order that he

may remain in the right path. On the contrary, forgetting that we must

forgive those who have trespassed against us, society makes life hard

for him. It is almost impossible for him to find work; the fact that he

has been in prison is enough to insure his being refused everywhere.

Why should anyone hire an old prisoner when there are so many others

who have never got into the courts? And then most prisoners have never

learned a trade, and this is one reason more why they cannot easily

find employment. The liberated convict becomes a nomad, begins by

losing all contact with the normal world (supposing he ever had any)

and feels himself a social pariah. On the other hand he has relations

more and more frequent with the “under world”, with those who recognize

no duty toward a society which is not interested in their fate. His

moral sense comes to be more and more blunted until he becomes a

criminal by profession, having a feeling neither of shame nor of

repentance.

The ignorant public, who know nothing about the professional criminal

except when he appears before the tribunal, is astonished to find that

there are persons so abject. This astonishment is like that of some one

who has never seen a house built, and cannot imagine how such a

colossus can be put up. But he who has seen how the house has been

erected by adding one small brick to another no longer feels any

astonishment. It is the same with the professional criminal; he who has

followed the story of the criminal’s life recognizes with Dr. Havelock

Ellis, that his crime is but the last link of a solidly forged chain.

Generally the professional criminal does not give the least sign of

repentance. He does as much injury to society as he can, without having

any shame about it. Yet he is not entirely deprived of moral sense,

only it extends merely to those who are really his fellows. All the

tales of the world of professional criminals which depict them as void

of all sense of duty toward their fellows, proceed rather from the

imagination of the authors than from facts really observed. The only

competent authors are those who have been able to study the criminal in

his own environment, and not in prison, where his true character makes

itself known as little as that of an animal in a cage. Hear the opinion

of Flynt, for example. “It is often said that his (the professional

criminal’s) lack of remorse for his crimes proves him to be morally

incompetent; but this opinion is formed on insufficient knowledge of

his life. He has two systems of morality: one for his business and the

other for the hang-out.” [905] There follows the description of the

relations existing between him and society of which we have already

spoken, after which the author continues as follows.

“In the bosom of his hang-out, however—and this is where we ought to

study his ethics,—he is a very different man. His code of morals there

will compare favorably with that of any class of society; and there is

no class in which fair dealing is more seriously preached, and unfair

dealing more severely condemned. The average criminal will stand by a

fellow-craftsman through thick and thin; and the only human being he

will not tolerate is the one who turns traitor. The remorse of this

traitor when brought to bay by his former brethren I have never seen

exceeded anywhere.” [906]

After expatiating upon this subject, Flynt continues: “It is thought by

criminologists that the good fellowship of the criminal is due to

self-preservation and the fear that each man will hang separately if

all do not hang together. They maintain that his good feeling is not

genuine and spontaneous emotion, and that it is immaterial what happens

to a ‘pal’ so long as he himself succeeds. This is not my experience in

his company. He has never had the slightest intimation that I would

return favors that he did me; and in the majority of instances he has

had every reason to know that it was not in my power to show him the

friendliness he wanted. Yet he has treated me with an altruism that

even a Tolstoi might admire. At the hang-out I have been hospitably

entertained on all occasions; and I have never met a criminal there who

would not have given me money or seen me through a squabble, had I

needed his assistance and he was able to give it. This same comradeship

is noticeable in all his relations with men who are in the least

connected with his life and business; and it is notorious fact that he

will ‘divvy’ his last meal with a pal. To have to refuse the request of

one of his fellows, or to do him an unkindness, is as much regretted by

the criminal as by anyone else; and I have never known him to tell me a

lie or to cheat me or to make fun of me behind my back.” [907]

This is altogether different from what is generally said and written by

those who allow themselves to be led away by their imagination. It is

plain that the manner in which criminals act toward a society that is

hostile to them will not fail to influence the relations they have with

their fellows, just as war for those who take part in it cannot leave

their moral sense as regards their compatriots unharmed. However,

nothing permits us to put the actions of these persons among themselves

in the same rank as those towards society. In my opinion this fact has

great significance for the moralist and the criminologist; it is one of

the forms of the dualism of ethics. It is of very high importance for

the criminologist, for its shows that we are upon the wrong track,

since it is precisely the more serious forms of crime that the present

methods of repression favor.

In imprisoning young people who have committed merely misdemeanors of

minor importance, and who have not yet lost all touch with normal

society, and putting them in contact with inveterate criminals, or

perhaps putting them into a cage like beasts, without striving to

enlighten their darkened minds or teach them morality, and without

making them capable of sustaining the struggle for existence by

teaching them a trade, we are bringing up professional criminals.

Punishment, as a means of intimidation, misses its aim in great part,

for the professional criminals are recruited among individuals who are

not easily intimidated.

We have now come to the question why a certain number only of those

whose childhood has been neglected and who have committed a light

offense, become professional criminals. In the first place there are

those whom chance favors, since they are assisted, it may be by their

families, it may be by some philanthropist, and so return to the right

path. There are those also who have the advantage of being able to find

work, since no one knows that they have been in prison.

Others have less chance; no one aids them, there is no work for them;

all, however, do not become professional thieves. Those who become such

are the more intelligent, energetic, ambitious, and courageous of these

outcasts; the others become vagrants and mendicants. Here is the

opinion of Flynt upon the criminal by profession, an opinion which

agrees with that of other competent authors. “I must say ... that those

criminals who are known to me are not, as is also popularly supposed,

the scum of their environment. On the contrary, they are above their

environment, and are often gifted with talents which would enable them

to do well in any class, could they only be brought to realize its

responsibilities and to take advantage of its opportunities. The notion

that the criminal is the lowest type of his class arises from a false

conception of that class and of the people who compose it....

“In this same class, however, there are some who are born with

ambitions, and who have energy enough to try to fulfil them. These

break away from class conditions; but unfortunately, the ladder of

respectable business has no foothold in their environment....

“Not all of these ambitious ones are endowed with an equal amount of

energy. Some are capable only of tramp life, which, despite its many

trials and vicissitudes, is more attractive than the life they seek to

escape. Those with greater energy go into crime proper; and they may be

called, mentally as well as physically, the aristocracy of their class.

This is my analysis of the majority of the criminal men and women I

have encountered in the open, and I believe it will hold good

throughout their entire class.” [908]

There are readers, perhaps, who will find that these qualities of the

professional criminal give the lie to the environment hypothesis, since

individual factors are recognized in a certain way. For myself I do not

find it so. The qualities mentioned have nothing to do with crime as

such; they can be utilized to the profit as well as to the detriment of

society; it will depend upon the environment in which the individual

endowed with them has been raised what direction he will take. It would

not be difficult to name a number of historic celebrities (Napoleon,

for example) who, if they had been born in the lower stratum of a great

city, in place of in a favorable environment, would have had only the

sad celebrity of criminals exceptionally endowed.

The psychology of this kind of criminals is not yet complete however.

Besides intelligence, energy, and courage we find cupidity as their

great characteristic. [909] They see others who can enjoy themselves

without working hard, and it is their ambition to do the same, cost

what it may. Since fate has made it impossible for them to attain it

honestly they risk another method. This type of criminal is well

delineated in the remark made by the notorious Lemaire, when he said to

the president of the court: “If I were a property owner, I should not

be here.” [910]

To have invested funds, to spend plenty of money, not to have to work

much, this is their ideal; to share the lot of the working-man, who,

notwithstanding his long and hard labor, never succeeds in procuring

for himself the pleasures of the rich, makes life insipid in their

eyes. M. Gisquet, former prefect of police, gives in his memoirs the

following declaration made by Leblanc, the notorious professional

criminal. “If I were not a thief by vocation I should become one by

calculation; it is the best profession. I have computed the good and

bad chances of all the others, and I am convinced by the comparisons

that there is none more favorable or more independent than that of

thief, nor one that does not offer at least an equal amount of danger.

“What should I have become in the society of honest men? A natural

child, with no one to protect me or to recommend me, I could only

choose a disagreeable trade, become a delivery-boy in a store, or at

most reach the miserable place of shipping clerk in a warehouse; and

there, a supernumerary for many years, I should have died of hunger

before I reached a salary of six hundred francs. As a workman in any

class whatever you exhaust yourself quickly through the fatigues of

your labor, to earn a miserable wage, and to live from day to day; then

when accident, sickness, or old age come you must go beg or die in the

poorhouse....

“In our condition we depend only on ourselves; and if we acquire skill

and experience at least they profit ourselves alone. I know very well

that we have risks to run, that the police and the courts are at hand,

that the prison is not very far distant; but out of eight thousand

thieves in Paris, you never have more than seven or eight hundred in

jail; that is not a tenth of the whole. We enjoy, then, on the average,

nine years of liberty to one in prison. Well, where is the worker who

has not a dead season? Besides, what does he do when he is without

work? He carries his possessions to the Mont-de-Piété; while we others,

if we are free, lack for nothing; our existence is a continual round of

feasting and pleasure.” [911]

This is the type of the perfect egoist. In ranking men according to

their social sentiments, such an individual would be put at the very

lowest point in the scale. And then he has grown up under unfavorable

circumstances (illegitimate birth, etc.). The innate egoism of this

individual may perhaps be modified by the individual factor. But this

in no way diminishes the truth of the environment hypothesis, for we

are treating for the moment the question why this particular individual

has become a criminal, and not that of the cause of the existence of

professional criminals. And these two questions are far from being

identical. The existence of individual differences is the reason why

one runs more danger of becoming a professional criminal than another;

but it is the environment which brings it about that the predisposed

individual actually becomes such. The falsity of the environment

hypothesis would be demonstrated if such individuals could be proved to

become criminals under all circumstances. This is of course not the

case. When individuals like these are not brought up in an atmosphere

of poverty, they no longer see on the one side persons who enjoy

everything while doing nothing, and on the other side those who, while

toiling hard, live in poverty,—they will not become examples of

altruism indeed, but they will not become guilty of crime. They may

even become very useful members of society, since they are generally

more largely endowed with intelligence, energy, and courage than the

average man. Rightly exercised, these qualities are very useful; but

badly directed they are very harmful to society. [912]

So far we have been treating of the etiology of theft and analogous

crimes; we shall conclude this section with some observations upon the

causes that have led to the designating of these acts as crime.

Theft is a crime only because it is very harmful to society. [913] If

in the majority of cases the individual does not take account of this,

the assertion is nevertheless true. Everything that is harmful to

society the individual considers as immoral. (Why this is so is a

psychological question, with which we are not concerned here.) If we

picture to ourselves present-day society, based as it is upon exchange,

without the strict prohibition of theft, we shall see that it could not

possibly exist. Life would be especially impossible in a society where

the division of labor has attained a high degree of development, if it

were permissible to take anything without giving an equivalent.

Since the human race has existed there has been private property,

however trifling and unimportant it may have been. It is therefore very

unlikely that theft has ever been permitted [914] (it is impossible to

produce proofs in support of this), since it is difficult to imagine

that anyone would consent to see himself stripped of things destined

for his own use, to which, further he was more or less attached. [915]

But there is a great difference between a prohibited act and a crime.

It is proved that among primitive peoples theft is not reckoned among

the crimes. Hear the opinion of one of the greatest specialists in this

field, Dr. Post. “We find here and there a phenomenon very surprising

from our modern point of view, namely that theft is not universally

regarded as a misdemeanor, but the thief rather respected for his

cleverness. The maximum obligation that a theft lays upon the thief is

simple restitution of the stolen property. The consequence of theft is

thus simply the duty of restitution under the civil law.... Theft lies

entirely outside of the province of criminal law.” [916]

It is not difficult to explain the cause of this. Let the reader

picture to himself the primitive forms of society, so different from

those we have at present; contrasts of possessions were unknown, and

the needs of men consequently less numerous; men produced only for

their own consumption and not for exchange. If by chance more was

produced than was needed, the surplus was given to others, for it was

impossible to exchange it, or to preserve it for any great length of

time, the necessary technique for this not having yet been acquired.

“The law of hospitality” was universal and enjoined men to provide

those in need with whatever they lacked. [917] It is quite

comprehensible that at such a stage of development theft should not be

in evidence, for the motives which drive men to it would be lacking. On

the one hand cupidity was not awakened, and theft did not result from

absolute poverty, since if there was poverty the whole group suffered

together. [918] On the other hand the social instincts, being highly

developed by the environment, constituted a restraint that would

prevent the execution of a theft if the thought of it should occur. But

even supposing that in such a society a theft, for no matter what

cause, should nevertheless be committed, it would be little thought of,

and certainly the thief would not be severely punished, for his act

would not be very harmful to society.

As the social structure changed the ideas about theft changed equally;

with the origin of the system of exchange and of the contrasts of

property, came powerful motives for theft, and at the same time the

social instincts grew weaker. Thus theft came to be considered a more

serious matter than before, and the graded system of punishments for

it, beginning with a fine, ended in capital punishment. [919] It is not

our task to investigate the reason why the punishment for theft has not

always been the same during the whole civilized period; it is enough

for us to establish the fact that the act has always been considered as

a grave offense, the perpetrator of which incurred severe penalties.

C. Robbery and Analogous Crimes.

As the figures reproduced above (pp. 535–542) have shown, the crimes

with which we have now to concern ourselves are relatively rare. It is

unnecessary to say that this has not always been so, but that there

have been great changes in this regard. At one time robbery and similar

acts of violence were the ordinary forms of professional crime. Happily

for peaceable folk this is no longer the case; these crimes have been

in large measure replaced by others less serious, like theft and fraud.

[920] All modern states have not reached the same stage of development,

nor all parts of the same state. There are those of them that, more

than others, recall the past to us. So is it in regard to their

criminality. While robbery may be said to have disappeared from the

states of northern Europe, it is still very common in a country like

Italy, and is met much less frequently in the modernized provinces of

northern Italy than in the backward southern provinces, as the

following figures show. [921]

Italy, 1887–1889.

===================+==========================================

| Average to 100,000 Inhabitants.

Provinces. +-------------------+----------------------

|Robbery, etc., with|Robbery, etc., without

| Homicide. | Homicide.

-------------------+-------------------+----------------------

Apulia | 5.01 | 0.27

Basilicata | 2.42 | 4.18

Sardinia | 2.06 | 12.11

Sicily | 1.22 | 14.56

Liguria | 1.07 | 8.65

Calabria | 0.97 | 6.36

Latium | 0.89 | 17.15

Campania and Molise| 0.71 | 8.08

Piedmont | 0.63 | 4.67

Romagna | 0.63 | 6.47

Abruzzo | 0.58 | 2.07

Marches and Ombria | 0.55 | 2.46

Venetia | 0.33 | 2.58

Emilia | 0.28 | 5.80

Lombardy | 0.21 | 3.14

Tuscany | -- | 5.68

===================+===================+======================

According to the figures given by Dr. Bosco, in the United States,

also, the most backward states give the highest figures for homicide.

[922]

The poorer classes have more resemblance to the people of a bygone day

than have the well-to-do; it appears from the statistics (see pp. 438

ff.) that economic criminality takes a more violent form among the

former than among the latter. [923]

An investigation into the causes of this change in the form of economic

criminality will indicate also the principal causes of the persistent

existence of this kind of crime, however it may have decreased in

modern times. In my opinion these causes are as follows:

First. The opportunity for committing them presented itself more often

formerly, since the means of communication were very primitive,

travelers had to traverse uninhabited countries, etc., and in addition

the states were not so well organized as at present, and had not the

means of suppressing bands of brigands vigorously.

Second. While the opportunity to commit violent economic crimes

successfully was diminishing, there was a constantly increasing

opportunity to commit other economic crimes, such as theft,

embezzlement, and fraud. The accumulation of great wealth in the

cities, the development of credit, in short, the enormous extension of

capitalism, has multiplied the opportunity for economic crimes without

violence.

Third. One of the consequences of the development of society has been

the gradual diminution of the importance of the rôle played by

violence, and, since criminality presents itself always and everywhere

under the same forms as the normal life, violent economic criminality

has also commenced to form a smaller and smaller part in the totality

of economic crimes. The assertion that violence has lost the importance

of its rôle upon the human stage might surprise one, and appear

ironical in times like ours when war is the chronic condition, when the

military preparations of all the states have reached a degree hitherto

unknown. Violence, however, has decreased in so far as it is exercised

by the individual as such. The greater becomes the centralization of

the state, the more it claims for itself the exclusive right to use

violence in the cases where it judges it necessary, and the more it

prohibits individual acts of violence.

It is not the development of the state that is alone to be considered

in this regard; the economic system enters in also. Under capitalism

violence is of no use; he who is master of the means of production

attains his end, i.e. makes a profit, without the use of violence.

Where it is necessary, however, modern man does not recoil from it, as

the wars of expansion prove.

Fourth. Civilization (in the proper sense of the word) has become more

general. Formerly the privilege of a few only, it now extends to a

greater number. The great mass are still deprived of it, but primary

instruction contributes to its development.

When we consider the gradual diminution in the number of economic

crimes committed with violence, it clearly appears how false is the

notion that anyone committing such a crime is for that reason a

biologically abnormal being. Will anyone claim that the number of

biologically abnormal persons has constantly diminished? The contrary

is much more likely.

We need not concern ourselves with the details of this question, since

it has already been thoroughly treated by Professor Manouvrier (see Pt.

I of this work, pp. 168–171). He who uses violence to attain an

economic end may perhaps, physiologically considered, be a perfectly

normal man. How many children are there who do not use force to take a

toy from a weaker child? Must we class them as abnormal on that

account? And are those who voluntarily take part in a war abnormal?

Certainly there is a great difference between those who take part in a

war, and those who, for economic reasons, commit a crime, but this

difference is of a social nature. Our ideas of war and homicide are not

the same, but the act of killing one’s neighbor remains identical. If

homicide were the evident proof of biological abnormality the soldier

also would be abnormal.

Scientific questions can be solved by reason alone, and not by

sentiment. We who experience a profound repulsion at the thought of a

murderer, hold him for a being apart, since we feel ourselves so remote

from him. Scientific research tells us that this feeling is not innate

but acquired, for we detest such acts because the environment in which

we live has accustomed us to hate them. If our environment were

different, our feelings would likewise be different. Besides, war

proves that these feelings are not innate, by hardening the mildest

persons in a very brief time.

With time the number of persons who have a horror of violence has

increased. Does this prove that men have become better, or simply that

they feel a repugnance to the act only and not to its effect? J. J.

Rousseau once said: “If, in order to fall heir to the property of a

rich mandarin living at the farthest confines of China, whom one had

never seen or heard spoken of, it were enough to push a button to make

him die, which of us would not push that button?”

It is certain that beside a great number of persons who would not wish

to charge their consciences with such a crime, there would also be

plenty who would commit it, and their number would be great enough to

make the order of mandarins pass into legendary history. There is no

reason to suppose that there are fewer persons in our day who would

commit such acts, than formerly; if men are no longer as violent as

they once were, they do not recoil any more than formerly when it is a

question of suppressing, through the agency of a third party, those who

oppose them; as witness the wars of expansion.

As the motives of these crimes are the same as those of economic crimes

without violence, we shall treat first those that are caused by

poverty; secondly, those that are committed from cupidity; and thirdly,

those that are the work of professional criminals.

Statistics show that a part of the economic crimes of violence are

committed from poverty, for their movement is influenced by the

fluctuations of economic conditions. We take from the German criminal

statistics the following table of the course of these crimes in the

different months of the year.

Germany, 1888–1892. [924]

Number of Crimes a Day in the Different Months, on the Basis of an

Average of 100 Crimes a Day throughout the Year.

=============+========+=========+======+======+====+=====+=====+=======+==========+========+=========+=========

-------------+--------+---------+------+------+----+-----+-----+-------+----------+--------+---------+---------

Robbery, etc.| 100 | 87 | 78 | 84 | 94 | 98 | 99 | 106 | 84 | 120 | 132 | 116

=============+========+=========+======+======+====+=====+=====+=======+==========+========+=========+=========

The highest figures are shown in the winter months when poverty is at

its height. (The slight increase from April to August, which appears

also in the case of a number of other economic crimes, I am unable to

explain.)

As we have seen in the statistics in Part One, the economic situation

also exercises its influence upon the movement of these crimes during a

period of years. We refer to them here while adding some others.

Germany, 1882–1898. [925]

======+=========================+==============================

| |To 100,000 Inhabitants over 12

Years.| Price of Wheat and Rye | there were Convicted for

|per 100 Kilogr. in Marks.+--------------+---------------

| | Robbery. | Extortion.

------+-------------------------+--------------+---------------

1882 | 185.19 | 1.3 | 1.7

1883 | 165.37 | 1.3 | 1.5

1884 | 159.73 | 1.4 | 1.5

1885 | 154.01 | 1.1 | 1.4

1886 | 147.26 | 1.3 | 1.3

1887 | 145.99 | 1.2 | 1.4

1888 | 155.43 | 1.2 | 1.3

1889 | 169.64 | 1.2 | 1.4

1890 | 181.32 | 1.3 | 1.4

1891 | 216.31 | 1.3 | 1.4

1892 | 184.00 | 1.4 | 1.8

1893 | 146.94 | 1.1 | 1.6

1894 | 127.10 | 1.3 | 1.7

1895 | 132.17 | 1.1 | 1.9

1896 | 139.29 | 1.2 | 1.7

1897 | 152.08 | 1.0 | 1.7

1898 | 170.55 | 1.3 | 1.6

======+=========================+==============+===============

Galton has proved the existence of this law for the intellectual