780 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Khmers believe in unlucky places, which one can not in- 

 habit or cultivate without exposure to death ; in places haunted 

 by evil spirits, which one can not visit without perishing ; in 

 stones or statues which one can not touch without falling sick ; 

 and places which one can not pass without making an offering. 

 There are in the province of Kampot a mountain at the foot of 

 which the Chinese dies who attempts to pass it, and a defile 

 where it is necessary to alight from one's horse or carriage and 

 cast an offering of branches upon a cup placed at the fork of two 

 roads, saying, " I offer thee a parasol." A statue of a woman of 

 the Brahmanic period stands on a river island in the province of 

 Sambaur, before which women can not present themselves, but 

 which men are permitted to caress in order to insure the fidelity 

 of their wives. 



Many women and children wear cords which they buy of the 

 witches, in order to preserve them from certain maladies ; and 

 from these sometimes hang little leather cylinders which are 

 believed to be very effective. In certain provinces of Upper 

 Cambodia characters are tattooed on the breast as preservatives 

 against attacks by the tiger and panther, and against snake 

 bites. 



The Cambodians are usually pleasantly disposed, but very re- 

 vengeful for injuries. Theft is common, but less so than in Cochin 

 China. Assassination does not excite any great degree of atten- 

 tion or cause any deep remorse in the murderer. They bear pain 

 with much courage ; but illness reduces their energy to a very 

 low degree. Prisoners condemned to death by decapitation march 

 courageously to punishment, smoking their last cigarette, with- 

 out bravado and without weakness. 



The paddy gathered and deposited in the granary is protected 

 by a stone for which they have a superstitious regard ; and they 

 employ the achars, the religious literati of the village, to read 

 prayers and invocations over the store. Translated for The Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique. 



THE latest report of the directors of convict prisons in England gives satisfac- 

 tory evidence that serious crime is perceptibly diminishing throughout the coun- 

 try. Thus, during the five years ending in 1859, when the population of England 

 and Wales was 19,257,000, the sentences to penal servitude numbered 2,589. The 

 years 1885 to 1889 showed the much lower total of 945 ; the population then 

 being 27,830,179. Since that period a further decrease has been registered. A 

 reduction in the number of young convicts has been remarked. Even as late as 

 1887 it stood at 3'2 per cent of the whole prison population. In 1892 it was 1'2 

 per cent. These observations agree with the statement that the diminution in 

 the whole amount of criminality is mainly attributable to a decrease in the num- 

 ber of young offenders, while the proportion of older delinquents has increased. 



