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Page 39
What is the period of the year we should expect most crime to be
committed if poverty is at the root of it? In this country, at least,
it is very well known that the labouring classes are apt to suffer
most in the depth of winter, and the depth of winter may be said to
correspond with the months of December, January, and February. It is
in these months that all outdoor occupations come to a comparative
standstill; it is then that the poorest section of the population--the
men without a trade, the men who live by mere manual labour--are
reduced to the greatest straits. In the winter months some of these
men have to pass through a period of real hardship; the state of the
weather often puts an absolute stop to all outdoor occupations, and
when this is the case, it takes an outdoor labourer all his might to
provide the barest necessaries for his home. In addition to this
difficulty, which lies in the nature of his calling, a labourer finds
the expense of living a good deal higher in the depth of winter. He
has to burn more fuel, he has to supply his children with warmer
clothing, in a variety of ways his expenses increase, notwithstanding
the most rigid economy. Winter is not only a harder season for the
outdoor labourer, it is a time of greater economic trial for the whole
working-class population. This, I think, is a statement which will be
universally admitted.
On the assumption that poverty is the principal source of crime we
ought to have a much larger prison population in the depth of winter
than at any other period of the year. The prison statistics for
December, January, and February--the three most inclement months, the
three months when expenses are greatest and work scarcest--should be
the highest in the whole year. As a matter of fact, it is during these
three months that there are fewest people in prison. According to an
excellent return, issued for the first time by the Prison Commissioners
in their thirteenth report, it appears that there was a considerably
smaller number of prisoners in the local prisons of England and Wales
in the winter months--December, January and February, 1889-90--than at
any other season of the year.[22] And this is not an isolated fact. A
glance at the criminal returns for a series of years will at once show
that crime is highest in summer and autumn--a time when occupation of
all kinds, and especially occupation for the poorest members of the
community, is most easily obtained--and lowest in winter and spring,
when economic conditions are most adverse.[23]
[22] See Appendix, iii.
[23] Scotch statistics are in harmony with English. For the year
ended March, 1890, the number of ordinary prisoners in custody in
Scotland was lowest in December, January and February. It was
highest in July, August, September. Crime was also highest when
pauperism was lowest. See 12th Report of Scottish Prison
Commissioners.
All these facts, instead of pointing to poverty as the main cause of
crime, point the other way. It is a curious sign of the times that
this statement should meet with so much incredulity. It has been
reserved for this generation to propagate the absurdity that the want
of money is the root of all evil; all the wisest teachers of mankind
have hitherto been disposed to think differently, and criminal
statistics are far from demonstrating that they are wrong. In the
laudable efforts which are now being made, and which ought to be made
to heighten the material well-being of the community, it is a mistake
to assume, as is too often done, that mere material prosperity, even
if spread over the whole population, will ever succeed in banishing
crime. A mere increase of material prosperity generates as many evils
as it destroys; it may diminish offences against property, but it
augments offences against the person, and multiplies drunkenness to an
alarming extent. While it is an undoubted fact that material
wretchedness has a debasing effect both morally and physically, it is
also equally true that the same results are sometimes found to flow
from an increase of economic well-being. An interesting proof of this
is to be found in the recent investigations of M. Chopinet, a French
military surgeon, respecting the stature of the population in the
central Pyrenees. M. Chopinet, after a careful examination of the
conscript registers from 1873 to 1888, arrives at the following
conclusions as to what determines the physical condition of the
population. After discussing the cosmical influences and the evil
effects of poverty and bad hygienic arrangements on the people, he
proceeds to point out that moral corruption arising from material
prosperity is also a powerful factor in producing physical degeneracy.
He singles out one canton--the canton of Luchon--as being the victim
of its own prosperity. In this canton, he says, that the old
simplicity of life has departed, in consequence of its prodigious
prosperity. "Vices formerly unknown have penetrated into the country;
the frequenting of public houses and the habit of keeping late hours
have taken the place of the open air sports which used to be the
favoured method of enjoyment. Illegitimate births, formerly very rare,
have multiplied, syphilis even has spread among the young. Food of a
less substantial character has superseded the diet of former times,
and, in short, alcoholism, precocious debauchery, and syphilis have
come like so many plagues to arrest the development of the youth and
seriously debilitate the population."[24]
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