But the effects of summer and winter are more strongly marked and more exact in their recurrence, than the effects of north and south. Of a hundred attempts against public morals committed During the three summer months. Of a hundred cuts and wounds committed yearly. 28. 27. 27. 27 During the three summer months. 28. The influence, then, of the atmosphere* upon hundred per year. Domestic thefts form a fourth of the crimes against property: the number of crimes against property have increased, the number of crimes against the person diminished of later years. * But the difference between the north and the south of France becomes still more remarkable, if after comparing them together we then compare France with England. England and Wales contain about half the population of France; they are guilty, I may fairly say, of more than double the amount of crime; but in this total, so much greater than the total of France, there is not more than one rape, or attempt to commit rape, in England, to every three offences of a similar description in France. There is not more than one murder, or attempt to commit murder, in England, to every six murders, or attempts to commit murder, in France. ning of Buildings dulent Bankrupt ery on the Highway. ious Characters by Coin as in Comm. Write nings, various. 118 Robbery in Dwell Houses. 37 28 Fraudulent Bankruptcies 32 24 Fictitious Characters by. 22 24 24 24 14 5 Frauds in Com? Writings 21 3 Counterfeiting Seals 1000 crime-the influence of climate, thus seeing it, as we do, in conjunction with the influence of the seasons, is difficult to controvert, and seems sufficient, in a slight degree, to separate France from other countries, and the different divisions of France from each other. But it is in the influence which age and which sex exercise upon crime in France, that there more especially lies a vast field of inquiry-as to the morals, the habits, and the character of the French. In respect to the influences of age, I publish a table, the only one of the sort ever made, and which I think no reader will look at without considerable interest. Take infanticides alone-there are in France a hundred and eighteen; in England and Wales, in spite of the great increase in these cases during the years 1829, 1830, and 1831, about twenty-eight convictions and thirty committals. Is it the severity of our penal code which produces this effect? Not so: for since capital punishments have become more rare in France, the number of crimes against persons (crimes of personal violence) have diminished. No very accurate conclusion can be drawn from two countries of which the laws and the police are different still, make every allowance for these, and you will yet find the same difference between France and England that there is between the south of France and the north. There will be more crimes in England against property, fewer crimes against the person, and a larger total of crimes altogether. VOL. I. K |
