A STUDY OF CALMS. 523 



The data for the next five classes of misdemeanors mentioned above 

 were all taken from the blotters in the record room of the New York 

 chief of police. Crime is there classified under 136 different heads, and 

 the arrests for each, recorded for each day. The classes considered by 

 me were studied for periods varying from two to seven years. The 

 figures indicate the total number of arrests made for those periods, by 

 the entire police force of old New York, the present borough of Man- 

 hattan. 



The terms ' assault and battery ' and ' drunkenness ' are, I think, 

 self-explanatory. Each arrest for ' insanity ' meant that some one had 

 been picked up on the streets in a state of acute mania, or that the 

 police had been called to some house to remove a person in such a 

 condition. In most cases it probably meant an initial attack of the 

 disease, or the beginning of a recurrent attack. Otherwise the person 

 would have been in an asylum, or other authorities than the police 

 would have been appealed to. 



To state in the briefest possible manner the seeming influence of 

 calm days upon the distribution of these crimes : The number of males 

 arrested for assault and battery upon such days was 89% of the 

 normal, — by which term I mean the average daily occurrence for the 

 whole period studied; of females for the same crime, 45% of the 

 normal; of males for drunl^enness, 77%; of males for insanity, 67%; 

 of females for insanity, 34%. The figures show that there was a 

 deficiency in the occurrence of all these crimes, the magnitude of 

 which may be computed in each case by subtracting the percentage 

 of occurrence from 100%, which is expectancy. In securing the data 

 for suicide, two sources were made use of. In fact it is not solely a 

 study of successful suicide, but of suicidal intent. From the stand- 

 point of our study it is just as valuable a datum from which to work, 

 to know that somebody tried to die at his own hand even though he did 

 not succeed, as to know he was successful in the attempt. An attempt 

 at suicide is a crime and is so recorded in the police records, which 

 were tabulated for a period of five years. This gave us 984 of our data. 

 The remainder were secured by going over some 28,000 death certifi- 

 cates for the same period in the coroner's office. The results showed 

 that but 63% of the normal number of suicides (and unsuccessful 

 attempts) occurred on calm days. 



The next class of data given in the list is that of death. It is based 

 upon the record of deaths for all causes in the city for a period of two 

 years. In it we have a notable difference from the crimes and mis- 

 demeanors we have been studying, in that the occurrence for calm days 

 was above the normal, being 104%. In this respect it resembles the 

 study of attendance in the public schools, and also the last two classes 

 of data given, those of the * policemen off duty for sickness' and of 



