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Page 35
It has been pointed out in the preceding chapter that the offences
people, in a state of destitution, are most likely to commit are
beggary and theft. In the case of persons who are in a state of
poverty, but not destitute, it may be said that the offence they are
most likely to commit is theft in one or other of its forms. What then
are the international statistics of theft, and what is the relative
wealth of the several countries from which these statistics are drawn?
An answer to these two questions will throw a flood of light upon the
nature of the relations between poverty and crime. If these statistics
show that in those countries where there is most poverty there is also
most theft, the elucidation of such a fact will at once raise a strong
presumption that the connection between poverty and offences against
property is one of cause and effect. If, on the other hand,
international statistics are not at all conclusive upon this important
point, it will show that there are other factors at work besides
poverty in the production of offences against property. With these
preliminary remarks I shall now append a table of the number of
persons tried for theft of all kinds in some of the most important
countries of Europe within the last few years. In no two of these
countries is theft classified in the same manner, but in all of them
it is equally recognised as a crime; if, therefore, all offences
against property, of whatever kind, are put together under the common
heading of "theft," and if the number of cases of thefts (as thus
understood) tried in the various countries of Europe are carefully
tabulated, we possess, in such a table, a criterion wherewith to
judge, in a rough way, the respective position of those countries in
the matter of offences against property.
The appended table is extracted from a larger one, the work of Sig. L.
Bodio, Director-General of Statistics for the kingdom of Italy. The
calculations for every country, except Spain, are based on the census
of 1880 or 1881; the calculations for Spain are based on the census of
1877. In all the countries except Germany and Spain the calculations
are based on an average of five years; for Germany and Spain the
average is only two years.
Italy, 1880-84 Annual trials for theft per 100,000 inhabitants 221
France, 1879-83 do. do. 121
Belgium, 1876-80 do. do. 143
Germany, 1882-83 do. do. 262
England, 1880-84 do. do. 228
Scotland, 1880-84 do. do. 289
Ireland, 1880-84 do. do. 101
Hungary, 1876-80 do. do. 82
Spain, 1883-84 do. do. 74
To what conclusions do the statistics contained in this table point?
It is useless burdening this chapter with additional figures to prove
that England and France are the two wealthiest countries in Europe.
The wealth of England, for instance, is perhaps six times the wealth
of Italy; but, notwithstanding this fact, more thefts are annually
committed in England than in Italy. The wealth of France is enormously
superior to the wealth of Ireland, both in quantity and distribution,
but the population of France commits more offences against property
than the Irish. Spain is one of the poorest countries in Europe,
Scotland is one of the richest, but side by side with this inequality
of wealth we see that the Scotch commit, per hundred thousand of the
population, almost four times as many thefts as the Spaniards. With
the exception of Italy it is the poorest countries of Europe that are
the least dishonest, and, according to our table, even the Italians
are not so much addicted to offences against property as the
inhabitants of England.
Perhaps the most instructive figures in these international statistics
are those relating to England and Ireland. The criminal statistics of
the two countries are drawn up on very much the same principles; the
ordinary criminal law is very much the same, and there is very much
the same feeling among the population with respect to ordinary crime;
in fact, with the exception of agrarian offences, the administration
of the law in Ireland is as effective as it is in England. On almost
every point the similarity of the criminal law and its administration
in the two countries almost amounts to identity, and a comparison of
their criminal statistics, in so far as they relate to ordinary
offences against property, reaches a high level of exactitude. What
does such a comparison reveal? It shows that the Irish, with all their
poverty, are not half so much addicted to offences against property as
the English with all their wealth, and it serves to confirm the idea
that the connection between poverty and theft is not so close as is
generally imagined.
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