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Page 40
[24] _Revue Scientifique_, September 13, 1890.
Facts such as these should serve to remind us that the growth of
wealth may be accompanied, and is accompanied, by degeneracy of the
worst character unless there is a corresponding growth of the moral
sentiments of the community. "The perfection of man," says M. de
Laveleye, "consists in the full development of all his forces,
physical as well as intellectual, and of all his sentiments; in the
feeling of affection for the family and humanity; in a feeling for the
beautiful in nature and art." It is in proportion as men strive after
this ideal that crime will decay, and material prosperity only becomes
a good when it is used as a means to this supreme end. Otherwise, the
mere growth of wealth, be it ever so widely diffused, will deprave the
world instead of elevating it. The mere possession of wealth is not a
moralising agent; as Professor Marshall[25] truly tells us, "Money is
general purchasing power, and is sought as a means to all kinds of
ends, high as well as low, spiritual as well as material." According
to this definition, money may as readily become a source of mischief
as an instrument for good; its wider diffusion among the community
has, therefore, a mixed effect, and it works for evil or for good,
according to the character of the individual. It is only when the
character is disciplined by the habitual exercise of self-restraint,
and ennobled by a generous devotion to the higher aims of life, that
money becomes a real blessing to its possessor. If, on the other hand,
money has merely the effect of making the well-to-do rich, and the
poor well-to-do, it will never diminish crime; it will merely cause
crime to modify its present forms. Such, at least, is the conclusion
to which a consideration of the contents of this chapter would seem to
lead.
[25] _Principles of Economics_, p. 81.
CHAPTER VI.
CRIME IN RELATION TO SEX AND AGE.
In the present chapter we shall proceed to discuss the effect exercised
by two characteristics of a distinctly personal nature in the production
of crime, namely, age and sex.
As sex is the most fundamental of all human distinctions we shall
begin by considering the part it plays among criminal phenomena.
According to the judicial statistics of all civilised peoples, women
are less addicted to crime than men, and boys are more addicted to
crime than girls. Among most European peoples between five and six
males are tried for offences against the law to every one female. In
the southern countries of Europe, females form a smaller proportion of
the criminal population than in the northern. This circumstance may be
accounted for in several ways. In the first place, it may be the case
that women in the south of Europe are better morally than in the
north; it may be that the social conditions of their existence shield
them from crime; or it may be that the crimes men are most prone to
commit in the south are of such a nature that women are more or less
incapable of perpetrating them. It is perfectly well known that in the
south of Europe women lead more secluded lives than is the case in the
north; they are much less immersed in the whirl and movement of life;
it is not surprising, therefore, to find that they are less addicted
to crime. Nor is this all. The crimes committed in the South consist
to a large extent of offences against the person; physical weakness in
a multitude of cases prevents women from committing such crimes. In
the North, on the other hand, a large proportion of crimes are in the
nature of thefts and offences against property. Most of these crimes
women can commit with comparative ease; the result is that they form a
larger proportion of the criminal population. Assaults are offences
women are less capable of committing than men; hence, if we find that
the crime of a country consists largely of personal violence, we shall
also find that the percentage of female criminals will be relatively
small. In Italy, where offences against the person are so prevalent,
females only form about nine per cent. of the criminal population; in
England, where personal violence is seldom resorted to, females form
between 17 and 18 per cent. of the persons proceeded against, and
about 15 per cent. of the numbers convicted.
A consideration of these circumstances tends to show that although
southern women commit fewer crimes in proportion to men than northern
women, this fact is partly owing to the character of the crime. But it
is also owing to more secluded habits of life, and to the freedom from
moral contamination of a criminal nature which these habits secure.
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