Note 7 — Chapter VI · THE SPIRITUALISTS.1

To prove his thesis the author reminds us of the fact that domestics, although not subject to privations, furnish a large percentage of the thefts; that the percentage of thefts committed by unmarried persons continually increases; and finally, that the investigation (of 107 cases tried in 10 years before the assizes at Rheims), made by a magistrate (Ch. Vuébat), has proved that economic factors have little importance for criminality, and moral factors much. “To sum up, it is not the increase of poverty that is the cause of the increase of crime; it is not property in general that leads to crime against property. This is not saying that poverty, and innocent poverty, does not exist, nor that it is not a bad counselor, nor that it is not the duty of the upper classes and of the government to concern themselves with the lot of the poor. It does mean that a man is less led into evil-doing by the faults of others or by the fault of destiny than by his personal faults.”7