TEE RELATIONS OF SEX TO CRIME. 735 



people to whom this woman belonged do not possess imaginations 

 sufficiently acute to invest love with any charm. Their relation with 

 an object of love is emotional; their only gratification is possession. 

 As possession was impossible, there was yet a way to establish a link 

 between herself and wished-for lover. She brought a false charge 

 against a man who had never spoken a Avord to her in his life. She 

 took pride in the fact that his name was associated with hers in a 

 manner most congenial to her emotions. It was the nearest approach 

 to possession possible. This girl was very properly placed upon bread 

 and water for her offense; but I am quite confident that such a false 

 accusation, except for purjDOses of revenge, is only possible in a woman 

 of hysterical tendencies, and in whom the emotions have passed be- 

 yond the inhibitory power of the moral sense. A false accusation of 

 this nature is not a very rare one for women to make, and it is usually 

 accompanied by two noteworthy circumstances the woman is gen- 

 erally very young, and the man in some way nearly unattainable by 

 the accuser. 



To the liability of insanity to accompany the hereditary trans- 

 mission of crime, I have already made sufficient reference ; but the 

 class described above are not insane, they simply lack the normal 

 equipoise between the different faculties of mind. As to how far this 

 may affect the relations of women to the different classes of crime we 

 have no means of forming an opinion. As it is a mental characteristic 

 more frequently observed in women than men, it is reasonable to si;p- 

 pose that it has some influence. Its effect upon the votaries of the 

 social evil is, however, very great, and careful study will be made of 

 it in the chapter devoted to woman's crime against her sex. 



Particular stress has been laid by other authors upon the fact that 

 the great excess of men over women in certain crimes against the per- 

 son, as murder and assassination, was the result of intoxication and 

 brawlino- to which men are addicted. If this is one of the factors of 

 such excess, it will be interesting to know it. If this is any explana- 

 tion, it follows that one sex must so greatly exceed the other in the 

 matter of intoxication and disorderly conduct, as it is termed by the 

 police courts, as not only to include the ratio between the sexes for 

 crimes mentioned, but also to include the chances of no such result 

 following, as but a small percentage of debauches and brawls results 

 in either murder or assassination. As it is in great cities that men 

 addicted to disorderly conduct are mostly to be found, and as there 

 also they are more liable to terminate in crimes against the person, I 

 shall select statistics from cities touching upon this matter, bearing in 

 mind, however, that a perfect contrast between the sexes cannot be 

 secured, as the offenses under analysis include drunkenness and fight- 

 ing in the male, and both those, with the addition of prostitution, in 

 the female. The ratios are based upon the statistics furnished by the 

 report of the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction. For 



