Note 17 — Chapter VII · THE THIRD SCHOOL1 AND THE SOCIALISTS.
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
“The relationship between social conditions and crime has often been pointed out by statisticians and sociologists. One of the offenses that comes closest to us—for our society, in spite of all the Christian teaching about charity, regards it as a crime—in times of business depression, is mendicity. We learn from the statistics of the kingdom of Saxony, that in measure as the last great commercial crisis grew worse, beginning in Germany in 1890 with the end not yet in sight, the number of persons sentenced for mendicity also increased. In 1889, in the Kingdom of Saxony 8566 persons were punished for this offense, 8815 in 1890, 10,075 in 1891, and in 1892 as many as 13,120, a very great increase. The impoverishment of the masses on the one hand, with increasing wealth on the other, is the chief mark of our period. In 1874 there was one poor man to 724 persons, while in 1882 the number had reached 1 to 622.17 Crimes and misdemeanors show a similar tendency. In 1874, there were 308,605 persons sentenced in Austria-Hungary, and 600,000 in 1892. In the German Empire in 1882 there were 329,968 persons sentenced for crimes and misdemeanors against the laws, i.e. 103.2 persons to 10,000 of the population over 12 years old; in 1892 the number of those sentenced reached 422,327, or 143.3 to the 10,000, an increase of 39%. Those convicted of crimes and misdemeanors against property were: