Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/350

336 the difference (1 to 6) is the result of mental sexual traits, which, even at this early age, present themselves. During the next four years the proportion in reference to crimes against persons is nearly double, being 1 to 11; while against property the proportion decreases, being 1 to 5. The average physical strength of the sexes for the second period (twelve to sixteen years) is about equal, so that this sudden proportional increase in crimes against persons in the male sex is the result almost entirely of those qualities which mentally characterize the male. This conclusion is rendered nearly positive by the fact that the maximum is attained by the males in the next five years, sixteen to twenty-one, and is only 1 to 12, during which period it is that the greatest difference in strength between the sexes is developed; yet this difference is represented by an increase of only 1 in the proportion. This agrees with what we know of men, that the development of the passions keeps just in advance of the development of the physical strength, just as the strength declines in advance of the passions. Studying for a moment longer this second period of life (twelve to sixteen) we learn this important fact: that in woman's criminal career it is, proportionally with man, the best period in her life, for at this time also occurs the greatest difference in crimes against property, 1 to 5, the maximal difference in the sexes, as to crimes against persons, being reached at twenty-one years. For the periods following of ten years each, the proportion steadily decreases in the following order, 1 to 9, 1 to 7, until at the decade, between forty and fifty years, we reach again the proportion of childhood (1 to 6). Now, the inference is, not that men grow better and women worse; but that the period of greatest passional intensity has been passed, while in both sexes the will has attained its greatest force. In other words, the period of caution has been reached. This accords with the law that the greatest mental vigor corresponds with structural completion. That this explanation is plausible is shown by the fact that the last decade mentioned is the period in which the proportion between the sexes in crimes against property is more nearly equal, being 1 to 2 and a fraction, and which for former decades steadily held at 1 to 3. There is a further confirmation of this, in the fact that for two periods, fifty to sixty, and sixty and upward, crimes against persons increase among men; the proportion being 1 to 9 and 1 to 10 respectively. That this is not the result of any increase of morality in the other sex, the uniform ratio of the sexes for crimes against property, during the ages last named, renders probable. From the same source we may obtain information which tends to show the truth of the remark made by M. Quetelet, that the proportion of women as to men increases "according to the necessity of the greater publicity before the crime can be perpetrated." In the division of crime called offenses against the currency, we have the conditions favorable to a more even proportion of the sexes. In an offense of this kind the