Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/465

Rh offenses coming under this distinction are adultery, fornication, lewd conduct, drunkenness, carrying concealed weapons, extortion. From official returns made to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from the various prisons for the year in which the previous study was made, it appeared that more than 54 per cent of the commitments were for crimes which in Virginia would have been punished by fine only, and the persons so punished never would have appeared, of course, in the prison statistics of the former State. Statistically speaking, then, the only comparisons that would approach fairness, under the conditions named, would be to reduce the actual number of prisoners confined for crimes in Massachusetts 33 per cent to conform to the number of crimes known to the two States in common. The balance, then, would have to be reduced 54 per cent on account of the crimes punishable in Massachusetts by imprisonment for which a fine only is imposed in Virginia. This illustration indicates how unwise it is to undertake to prove the moral or immoral condition of one community as compared with another by criminal statistics. The more accurate the statistics, the more unjust and vicious the comparison.

Another exceedingly effective illustration drawn from criminal statistics relates to some of the most perfect statistical showings I have ever had occasion to examine. From the year 1860 to 1879, inclusive, the criminal statistics of Massachusetts are perfect, and are the results of the certified reports of the clerks of all the criminal courts in the State. From the official statistics, as reported by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor in its Eleventh Annual Report, January, 1880, I have drawn certain comparative columns covering the crime of Massachusetts for the twenty years named. These columns are shown in the table on page 450.

What would a superficial examination of the foregoing figures, which, as I have said, are among the most accurate statistics I have ever examined, prove as to the progress of crime in the State named? I will use what I have seen or have known others to use, referring to these statistics. The increase in population in Massachusetts for the twenty years covered by the table was 50·4 per cent. The percentage of increase of crime for the same period was 70·4 per cent. If we look back to 1875, we shall find that the table shows that the population increased 34·1 per cent over 1860, and that for the same period crime increased 144 per cent, while in 1873 the increase of crime was 179·3 per cent. These figures, perfectly true and accurate, used deftly, give an exceedingly black eye to the State of Massachusetts, and no one can gainsay the bare statistical conclusion or attack the accuracy of the figures on which the conclusion is based. A very casual study of all the
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