402 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



against the person is found in the rural sections (34.2 per cent.), 

 while those against property predominate in the professional (40.9 

 per cent.) and the clerical and official (49.8 per cent.) ranks. 



These figures present material for the politico-social and economic 

 philosophers, with whom it is left to discover the true points of causal 

 relations and to trace the relative virulence of the social disease as it 

 approaches those great active centers where the struggle for existence 

 grows constantly more intense. In short, the want line focuses the 

 brunt of battle, and here, whatever specific form it assumes, the overt 

 act (that constitutes crime) is most pronounced whether manifested 

 under the world-old principles of greed against need, or in the more 

 purely sporadic form, in either case the burden of the attack may be 

 said to be committed by those who stand nearer the want end of the 

 economic problem, hence the solution must fall more largely to the 

 social and economic phases of the question. 



No clear understanding of the criminological problem from either 

 a concrete or academic standpoint is possible without a table of re- 

 cidivists. This has been omitted from the twelfth census. It renders 

 it valueless to the student of crime. The recidivist table is a method 

 by which we may roughly measure (approximately) the bulk of the 

 criminal aggression and presents the only stable criterion upon which 

 anything like a reliable estimate of the force of the criminal disease 

 may be based with any degree of certainty. Upon its figures alone 

 both the protective and corrective agencies may be said to operate 

 with perfect safety. The repeater has earned his place in the crim- 

 inal category by inherent right. Eecidivism is the classification in 

 the rough by which he is assigned sui generis. The generalization 

 may be crude and not always fair, but it presents the only rule possible 

 under the circumstances. The subtler psychological conditions that 

 underlie human conduct escape utterly any and every analytical proc- 

 ess. Every attempted classification upon the basis of accredited con- 

 duct must of necessity be but crudely inductive, but it is the only 

 feasible method whereby to differentiate the true criminal from the 

 offender by circumstance. 



The latter may not repeat the same act under similar conditions, 

 his inhibitory powers coming to the rescue, the former is almost cer- 

 tain to do so, owing to their lack, or total absence. It is the demarca- 

 tion between the instinctive and accidental malfeasant. The separa- 

 tion may waste some gold in the process, but in the main the method 

 is correct. At any rate, it is necessary to a complete understanding of 

 the criminal problem and the tentativeness of criminal and corrective 

 measures. It clarifies the former and helps to simplify the latter. 

 The first offender represents an invasion upon the healthy social 

 tissue; the recidivist stands for the already diseased, hence their 



