RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 373 



of the relation of crime to mental defect, it is reasonable to expect 

 that if the latter were to increase, it would tend to make crimes 

 more common. Crime has a sociological as well as a biological 

 and psychological basis, and the variations that occur in the 

 amount of crime at different times and in different countries are 

 correlated in large measure with social, economic, educational and 

 other factors which fluctuate greatly at different times and places. 

 Whether or not most crimes are increasing or decreasing is by no 

 means easy to ascertain. This is especially the case in our own 

 countr}'-, owing to the unreliable nature of our statistics. 



Homicide, according to the statistical data we possess, has 

 been for several years on the increase in the United States, but 

 it has decreased in most of the countries of Europe. Statistics 

 for different crimes show varying trends, but the general situation 

 m Europe has probably been on the whole improving. That 

 there has been an increasing hereditary predisposition to crime 

 in any country is a conclusion quite unwarranted by any data 

 at present available. 



When we consider suicide, however, the evidence points 

 unequivocably to the increase of this crime, if we may call suicide 

 a crime, in nearly all countries of the civilized world. In the 

 United States Mr. Hoffman has found that in 100 of our largest 

 cities the suicide rate had increased from 11.7 per 100,000 in 1890 

 to 20.3 per 100,000 in 191 5. In France the suicide rate has more 

 than trebled since 1830, and in Prussia it has more than doubled. 

 In England and Wales it increased from 77 per million in 1890 to 

 104 in 1905. There is much variation in the suicide rate in the 

 different countries of Europ,e, but its increase has been so general 

 and so marked in most countries as to give rise to much specula- 

 tion as to its probable cause. The growing frequency of suicide is 

 often regarded as connected with the alleged increase of insanity 

 and nervous disorders, and hence as symptomatic of racial 

 deterioration. It is also explained as the results of our changing 

 environment which is commonly held to be productive of more 

 nervous strain than in previous years. Race, religion, economic 

 pressure, health and various other circumstances profoundly 



