THE JUKES. 63 



4. It partially explains the proportionate decrease of crime in 

 successive terms of life, as shown by Dr. Neison. 



5. With the advance of age the effects of imprisonment and 

 disease cumulate. They produce induced pauperism which acts as 

 a substitution of careers, from criminal to pauper condition. 



6. This accounts for another portion of the decrease of crime 

 ratio among criminals. 



7. The vices of criminals so disease them that the average death- 

 rate is raised, and this rate increases in an accelerated ratio, espe- 

 cially from the thirty-fifth year. 



8. This explains another proportionate decrease of crime. 



There is another tendency among criminals that affects the pro- 

 portionate decrease of crime, which it may be well to state here, 

 although the evidence of it is not gathered from the " Jukes," but 

 from the "Further Studies of Criminals," and is here stated. 



9. That the tendency of many criminals from the age of twenty- 

 five is to change from executors of crimes to contrivers of the same, 

 from the thirty-fifth to the forty-fifth to become crime capitalists 

 or the keepers of liquor shops or brothels where crimes are planned. 

 They thus measurably avoid arrest and imprisonment. 



10. Reform is more probable with adult criminals than adult 

 paupers. 



11. The law of human development is in the direction of least 

 resistance.* 



12. Effective methods of reform require that obstacles to sound 

 physical and mental organization should be removed, so that the 

 direction of least resistance shall, by artificial design, be opened up 

 in the channels of social order. 



13. The " Jukes " are conspicuous for lack of continuity of effort 



* When I first made this statement in the edition of 1875, I thought it was new 

 to me. During a visit to Dr. E. Van de Warker, of Syracuse, the subject of the direction 

 of least resistance came up in conversation. Then I recollected that I was indebted to Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer for the idea. Many years ago I had read his Physiology of Laughter^ and 

 had forgotten it so completely that, unconsciously, I adapted the illustration of the distribu- 

 tion of nervous force contained in that essay to the explanation of the social phenomena I 

 was comparing — the relations of harlotry, pauperism and crime. 



