Note 132 — CRIMINALITY.
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
These statistics, probably the best upon the subject, tell the whole story to those who know how to read the figures. They constitute a proof of the enormous influence of the social factors in the etiology of crime. It is impossible to maintain that the influence works the other way, that the moral disposition influences the choice of a profession. Dr. Prinzing rightly says in the article cited: “It is quite impossible that those engaged in the three great groups of occupations, agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce, are persons of different kinds of moral traits. On the contrary, the supposition that the moral endowment of each group is nearly the same is completely justified by the movements that are continually going on under our own eyes, through which the countryman becomes a city-dweller, and the man who has grown up in the practice of agriculture, a workman or assistant in manufacturing and commerce.”132