12 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lyzing the circumstances which bear upon infanticide, we are studying 

 the darkest page of woman's criminal history. It proves that under 

 a sufficient motive, and with every opportunity which her peculiar 

 relation to that offense gives, she demonstrates her capacity to equal 

 man in both the degree and number of her criminal acts. It is, how- 

 ever, an offense so characteristically entwined with her sexual life, 

 and with her relations to society, that we must have a due regard for 

 circumstances in contrasting it with any crime or series of crime in 

 men. As already perceived, I am disposed in this inquiry to assign 

 it but one value : her disposition to entertain the criminal idea, and 

 under favorable opportunity to give that idea expression. In other 

 respects the crime stands alone, and can be used only in contrasting 

 woman against woman. There are certain abnormal states of sexual 

 cerebration connected with this offense which will more readily pre- 

 sent themselves when we study the crime against society the social 

 evil. 



In considering the effect of married or celibate life upon women in 

 relation to crime, we are beset by many difficulties in regard to data. 

 The officials upon whom devolve the duty of collecting criminal statis- 

 tics, have yet to learn that they deprive their labor of much of its sci- 

 entific usefulness by their errors of omission. The information has 

 but little value that so many male or female criminals are married or 

 unmarried. A proper study of the subject requires that this informa- 

 tion be given in its relation to crime as it affects persons or property, 

 the age at which the criminal career began in the two classes re- 

 spectively, and crime among the widowed or divorced. Nearly all 

 these facts are wanting. We can, however, collect sufficient data to 

 enable us to shadow forth the probable truth in regard to this im- 

 portant matter. We may safely term marriage the unit of force in 

 our present civilization. I have briefly called attention to its innate 

 strength and weakness, which are inseparable from human mutability. 

 It is easy to perceive the manner in which marriage may act as a con- 

 servator of morals, and its operation as a promoter of crime is equally 

 evident ; but the extent of its operation in either direction is difficult 

 if not impossible to measure. In the examination of the returns of 

 crime for the years 1867, 1871, and 1873, in New York City,' and 

 which show great uniformity in the social condition of the sexes, we 

 are met with the strange fact that the percentages of the married of 

 both sexes correspond, being thirty-nine per centum ; while for males 

 the percentage of the unmarried is fifty-five, and for females in the 

 same social condition it is forty-two. Regarding marriage as a con- 

 servator of morals in its affirmative rather than its negative relation, 

 this statement places man on a level with woman ; but observing fur- 

 ther that the excess of male criminals is furnished from the unmarried, 



Table " B," 23d and 2'7th, and Table " A," 29th, " Annual Reports of the Prison As- 

 sociation, State of New York." 



