Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/351

Rh physical equality is not involved. It becomes a question of secrecy, cunning, and shrewdness. These are mental qualities which exist with equal force in the sexes. Consequently in this division of crime for all ages we find a mean proportion of 1 to 2. Expressed in detail the proportion is equal in childhood, 1 to 2 at the next period, and 1 to 3 for the three following, until, at the decade between forty and fifty years, it drops to 1 to 2, and is equal again for the two following periods. The influences which cause equality in the proportions at the two extremes of ages are probably those which produce the same, or nearly the same, results in relation to the other orders of crime.

This analysis of Mr. Nelson's statistics reveals to us a very interesting period in the lives of both sexes—that between forty and fifty years. For all the classes of crime examined, we find the sexes at this period proportionally approaching equality; being in two classes actually at that of childhood. These two classes of crime are those which involve the greatest violence, crimes against persons; and the least, crimes against the currency. For the first, I have already offered a reasonable explanation, that of the period of caution; but, in reference to the latter, we must search further, in order to get at a probable cause. In the last-named offense, we have as a characterizing mental trait the very condition which explains the decrease in the proportion for crimes against persons, and yet at the terminal periods of life we find it obeying the same law. There is one fact which forces itself upon the attention in connection with this; that the first approach to equality in the proportions of the sexes begins suddenly at the term of life between forty and fifty years. This period, for men especially, is that in which the forces engaged in structural repair and waste are in equilibrium. It is one of structural rest, but of functional activity. At no other period in the life of man, therefore, is he physically more competent to meet the demands of his mental life. With women, it is also a period of structural rest, linked to a state of functional completion, so far as the prime motive of sexual life is concerned. It appears reasonable, in view of this, that physical factors be excluded as a probable cause of the phenomenon. But there exist valid reasons for exempting the male sex partly from the operation of the laws affecting this equalization in the proportion of the sexes. These reasons show presumptively that the subtilesubtle [sic] and obscure laws of crime operate more actively upon the female than the male sex; that, in obedience to these laws, her relations to crime are prolonged into periods of life when men are becoming, to a certain extent, exempt from their operations.

My friend Mr. R. L. Dugdale, of New York, in his brilliant study of the natural history of crime, by an analysis of Tables I. and II. of Mr. Nelson, arrives at important facts. In the tables referred to,