6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



an imaginary yet appreciable value. Again, let us group all those 

 crimes against persons which involve the taking of human life, and 

 observe the extent to which the sexes are engaged. For all crimes 

 against persons, Quetelet places the ratio at sixteen to one hundred ; 

 but in the class of crimes I have selected, involving infanticide, poi- 

 soning, parricide, assassination, and murder, we find this ratio nearly 

 doubled, being thirty to one hundred. It is evident that woman's 

 tendency to crime must be measured by some other standard than 

 innate morality. If we apply to these figures the theory that the 

 degree of crime is in a measure the test of propensity, we obtain some 

 startling results. Take the felonies named above in the aggregate, 

 and while the marked difference of sex in the commission of total 

 crime is evident, we see that in the perpetration of these grave offenses 

 she exceeds her ratio of crimes against property. I think this shows 

 the probability that those emotions or passions which serve as the 

 incentives to crime, approach in intensity the same mental conditions 

 in the other sex. When we consider the strong emotional nature of 

 women, and that many of these emotions are of an organic or sex- 

 ual origin, and their social relations, and the habit of dependence, 

 which they have inherited, upon these relations, we must admit that 

 the moral elements of crime are so strengthened as to modify mate- 

 rially their deficiencies of strength and want of opportunity. 



Many of woman's social relations are well calculated to clear and 

 make easy the way to crime. It is another confirmation of the fact 

 that society prepares the crime, and the criminal executes it. Com- 

 pensation is found for her in the fact that society also places obstacles 

 in her way by removing many temptations and opportunities for 

 offense. But, in those crimes which are the natural outgrowth of her 

 sexual and social relations, we find woman standing upon man's own 

 level as a criminal. Thus, in infanticide and in poisoning, both of 

 which, from the degree of offense involved, show a strong action of 

 the exciting cause, all sexual difference in numbers disappears, and it 

 is evident that the tendencies to those two crimes are equivalent in 

 the sexes. 



As the preceding shadows forth the interesting fact that woman, 

 as a criminal, is under forces of both restraint and non-restraint other 

 than sexual differences of mind or body, compared to man, it will 

 be necessary to refer briefly to the nature and extent of these modify- 

 ing circumstances, in order to appreciate the true bearings of the 

 question. These conditions spring mainly from her social relations. 

 This leaves us another important class of modifying conditions which 

 may be traced to sexual relations. Two classes can therefore be 

 made: {A) social conditions, and {B) sexual conditions, modifying 

 woman's relation to crime. 



T[ie first {A) which exist sufficiently near to the subject to call 

 for analysis are : (1) occupation, (2) opportunity, and (3) marriage; 



