there as in Italy. Among the other nations of Europe, murder and homicide have long since become very exceptional crimes, and they are decreasing still.

Many people associate the various forms of criminal delinquency with different races; as, crimes of passion and physical violence with the hot-blooded Latin race, and cooler, more calculating crimes with the nations of northern Europe. But, in reality, the character of a nation's crime depends far more upon the degree and form of social development attained, than upon differences of race and geographical position. These deeds of murder, brigandage and robbery, so very prevalent even now in parts of Spain and Italy, were no less abundant in England a few centuries ago. In the United States such actions are more numerous among the ignorant, degraded and brutal "white trash" and low negroes of the South, and in regions of abandoned farms in New England. They have accompanied the march of civilization westward, and are very prevalent on the frontiers, where social life is rough, and physical strength and ability to shoot well and quickly are more highly esteemed, and indeed far more necessary, than many of the quiet and more sober virtues of the Eastern States.'

In general, there are three distinct stages in the history of any action which becomes a crime:

First: The action is not a crime. It remains entirely unpunished, and no idea of moral evil is connected with it; or it is repressed only by individual and family vengeance, and is essentially a private affair.

Second: Society grows into the belief that such conduct is

1 Crime at Cape Nome, the new gold region of Alaska. San Francisco, July 8th, 1900. (In New York "Sun," July 9th.) "According to a letter just received here, crime is rampant at Cape Nome. The writer of the letter, who is F. C. Graves, a prospector, states that 'murder is an every-day occurrence' and suicides 'average three or four a day.'"

bad for the general welfare. How? The act is recognized as an evil-perhaps a sin-at first, by the wiser, the more intelligent, more Christian portion of the community. Others are converted to this belief. Society resolves upon punishment, and gradually succeeds in inflicting it, thus making the action a crime and multiplying criminals; educating, by this means, the lower masses of the people into the feeling and the knowledge that such conduct is bad for them, bad for all, and wrong-in a word, raising the social standard of morality, advancing civilization through crime.1

Third: Where punishments are wisely chosen, and the nation strong and progressing in civilization, social pressure is generally successful in diminishing the number of offenders under this (now) old form of crime; and sometimes, with the growth of knowledge and changed conditions of life, this kind of criminal act disappears from the statistics. The nation has conquered-has progressed. This evil has practically ceased to exist. Life is on a somewhat higher plane. Man has become more truly social.

Curious light is thrown upon social conditions in thirteenth century England, by a discussion among the lawyers in the time of Bracton, whether the breaking of teeth could be punished as crime under the law. "Everything whereby a man is disabled from fighting is a mayhem. But what

shall be said of him who has his teeth broken; if the breakage of teeth is to be adjudged a mayhem?" And the decision was: Yes, "if they are fore-teeth, . . . for teeth of this kind assist much to victory." A man was important to the community as a fighting animal, and as such was to be socially protected. He who disabled his fellow man from active service to the nation in time of war, or in maintaining the peace and pursuing criminals at home, was to be con

Of course this is but one of the great means by which civilization progresses. 2 Bracton, f. 145, b. 3.

326

Crimes against Property

sidered a criminal so far as the law could make him one. Breaking of the back teeth was not crime. A bruise, or swelling, from a stick or stone did not count; neither did what was then termed a graze. The wound must be of some very considerable length and depth-measured by inches-before the law courts would take any notice of it whatever. Pain and disfigurement hardly entered into the consideration at all. Such was happy England in the good old times-"the golden days." Have we not progressed somewhat? Now, the enforcement of a social penalty has made practically all assaults upon the person criminal. A man shall go about his business where he will, in safety, for the social welfare demands that this shall be so.

Turning now to crimes against property, we find that such offences, in all the great industrial nations of Europe, divide naturally into two main classes with strikingly different tendencies; the one class remaining stationary, or decreasing slightly, while the other rapidly increases. The first class includes robbery, extortion and theft-old forms of crime. In the second are the many forms of fraud, forgery and fraudulent bankruptcy-essentially modern forms of serious delinquency. In general, the worst of the ancient offences, robbery, extortion and most serious theft, show a decrease, especially when the growth of population is considered; while the total of all thefts punished has remained practically the same for many years, in proportion to population, for the nations of Europe we have been considering. The figures quoted in these tables of special crimes are always those of convictions, which would be more likely than any other statistics of these offences to show an increase, if such existed.'

1 Throughout the latter chapters of this book, wherever statistical evidence has been deemed necessary, the author has tried to select those tables which (with equal probability of truth) would be less likely than others to favor the conclusions he himself believes to be the true ones.