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Page 12
In opposition to this theory of the intimate relation between
temperature and crime, it may be urged that the greater prevalence of
crimes of blood in hot latitudes is a mere coincidence and not a
causal connection. This is the view taken by Dr. Mischler in Baron von
Holtzendorff's "Handbuch des Gef�ngnisswesens." He says the real
reason crimes of blood are more common in the South of Europe than in
the North is to be attributed to the more backward state of
civilisation in the South, and to the wild and mountainous character
of the country. To the latter part of this argument it is easy to
reply that Scotland is quite as mountainous as Italy, and yet its
inhabitants are far less addicted to crimes against the person. But it
is more civilised, for, as M. Tarde ingeniously contends, the bent of
civilisation at present is to travel northward. Admitting for a moment
that Scotland is more civilised than Spain or Italy, all savage
tribes, on the other hand, are confessedly less advanced in the arts
of life than these two peninsulas. But, for all that, many of these
savage peoples are much less criminal. "I have lived," says Mr.
Russell Wallace, "with communities of savages in South America and in
the East who have no laws or law courts, but the public opinion of the
village freely expressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of
his fellows, and any infraction of these rights rarely or never takes
place." Mr. Herbert Spencer also quotes innumerable instances of the
kindness, mildness, honesty, and respect for person and property of
uncivilised peoples. M. de Quatrefages, in summing up the ethical
characteristics of the various races of mankind, comes to the
conclusion that from a moral point of view the white man is hardly any
better than the black. Civilisation so far has unfortunately generated
almost as many vices as it has virtues, and he is a bold man who will
say that its growth has diminished the amount of crime. It is very
difficult then to accept the view that the frequency of murder in
Spain and Italy is entirely due to a lack of civilisation.
Nor can it be said to be entirely due to economic distress. A
condition of social misery has undoubtedly something to do with the
production of crime. In countries where there is much wealth side by
side with much misery, as in France and England, adverse social
circumstances drive a certain portion of the community into criminal
courses. But where this great inequality of social conditions does not
exist--where all are poor as in Ireland or Italy--poverty alone is not
a weighty factor in ordinary crime. In Ireland, for example, there in
almost as much poverty as exists in Italy, and if the amount of crime
were determined by economic circumstances alone, Ireland ought to have
as black a record as her southern sister. Instead of that she is on
the whole as free from crime as the most prosperous countries of
Europe. In the face of these facts it is impossible to say that the
high rate of crime in Italy and Spain is to be wholly accounted for by
the pressure of economic adversity.
Will not difference of race suffice to account for it? Is it not the
case that some races are inherently more prone to crime than others?
In India, for instance, where the great mass of the population is
singularly law-abiding, a portion of the aboriginal inhabitants have
from time immemorial lived by plunder and crime. "When a man tells
you," says an official report, quoted by Sir John Strachey, "that he
is a Badhak, or a Kanjar, or a Sonoria, he tells you what few
Europeans ever thoroughly realise, that he, an offender against the
law, has been so from the beginning and will be so to the end; that
reform is impossible, for it is his trade, his caste--I may almost say
his religion--to commit crime." It is not poverty which makes many of
these predatory races criminals. Speaking of the Mina tribe inhabiting
one of the frontier districts of the Punjab, Sir John Strachey says:
"Their sole occupation is, and always has been, plunder in the native
States and in distant parts of British India; they give no trouble at
home, and, judging from criminal statistics, it would be supposed that
they were an honest community. They live amid abundance, in
substantial houses with numerous cattle, fine clothes and jewels, and
fleet camels to carry off their plunder." Special laws have been made
for dealing with these tribes; a register of their numbers is kept;
they can be compelled to live within certain local limits, but in
spite of these coercive measures crime is not suppressed, and "a long
time must elapse before we see the end of the criminal tribes of
India."
Coming back to European peoples, it is worthy of note that both
Hungary and Finland are inhabited by the same race. These two
countries are separated by about fifteen degrees of latitude, but in
the matter of murder the people of Finland are much more nearly allied
to the Hungarians than to their immediate neighbours, the Swedes and
Norwegians. The Finns commit about twice as many murders in proportion
to the population as the Teutons of Scandinavia, but only about half
as many as the Hungarians; and it is not improbable to suppose that
while the effect of race makes them more murderous than the
Scandinavians, the effect of climate makes them less murderous than
the inhabitants of Hungary.
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