Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/755

Rh people to whom this woman belonged do not possess imaginations sufficiently acute to invest love with any charm. Their relation with an object of love is emotional; their only gratification is possession. As possession was impossible, there was yet a way to establish a link between herself and wished-for lover. She brought a false charge against a man who had never spoken a word to her in his life. She took pride in the fact that his name was associated with hers in a manner most congenial to her emotions. It was the nearest approach to possession possible. This girl was very properly placed upon bread and water for her offense; but I am quite confident that such a false accusation, except for purposes of revenge, is only possible in a woman of hysterical tendencies, and in whom the emotions have passed beyond the inhibitory power of the moral sense. A false accusation of this nature is not a very rare one for women to make, and it is usually accompanied by two noteworthy circumstances—the woman is generally very young, and the man in some way nearly unattainable by the accuser.

To the liability of insanity to accompany the hereditary transmission of crime, I have already made sufficient reference; but the class described above are not insane, they simply lack the normal equipoise between the different faculties of mind. As to how far this may affect the relations of women to the different classes of crime we have no means of forming an opinion. As it is a mental characteristic more frequently observed in women than men, it is reasonable to suppose that it has some influence. Its effect upon the votaries of the social evil is, however, very great, and careful study will be made of it in the chapter devoted to woman's crime against her sex.

Particular stress has been laid by other authors upon the fact that the great excess of men over women in certain crimes against the person, as murder and assassination, was the result of intoxication and brawling to which men are addicted. If this is one of the factors of such excess, it will be interesting to know it. If this is any explanation, it follows that one sex must so greatly exceed the other in the matter of intoxication and disorderly conduct, as it is termed by the police courts, as not only to include the ratio between the sexes for crimes mentioned, but also to include the chances of no such result following, as but a small percentage of debauches and brawls results in either murder or assassination. As it is in great cities that men addicted to disorderly conduct are mostly to be found, and as there also they are more liable to terminate in crimes against the person, I shall select statistics from cities touching upon this matter, bearing in mind, however, that a perfect contrast between the sexes cannot be secured, as the offenses under analysis include drunkenness and fighting in the male, and both those, with the addition of prostitution, in the female. The ratios are based upon the statistics furnished by the report of the Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction. For