576 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL 'impetus'to the fulfilment of services, and the'test' of the require- ments of the community, which the competitive system affords. Lastly he asks whether the ill-effects resulting from the imperfect working of the competitive system can be mitigated, if they cannot be entirely removed, by certain courses of action, such as self-denial with regard to luxuries, and a recognition of our responsibilities to others in the regulation of our money affairs. Of all the six volumes before us Mr. Morrison's treatise on Crime and its Causes seems the most valuable. He is acquainted with the statistics of the matter, and uses them with care and effect. He possesses a knowleclge of the new school of criminal anthropology, which has of recent years contributed to the elucidation of some fresh aspects of the subject. He has the advantage of practical experience of prison management; and he displays a calm, judicial temper, which is firmly and consistently resolved to test vague impression by solid fact. In his 'first chapter he considers the statistics of crime. He urges that they would be greatly improved, if the ' data respecting the age, sex, and occupation of the offender' were 'completed' by his
' personal and social history.' This, he maintains, would prove of
immense assistance to judges in determining the severity of sentences. He points out that increased vigilance or the reverse on the part of the police may have an important influence on the recorded statistics of crime which may escape notice, if attention is not directed to it. He argues that the general tendency shown to an increase in crime at a more rapid rate than population does not, as is sometimes believed, meet with an exception in the case of England. The decrease in the daily average of persons in prison is, he contends, misleading, and depends on the length of the sentences imposed. The number of persons committed to prison has increased; and the proportion of grave offences is in many cases as great for the five years 1884 88 as it was for the five years 1870.--74. The proportion of convictions to inhabitants is very much the same as twenty years ago, while the cost of criminal justice and jurisdiction, which affords a measure though an inadequate measure of the burden imposed by crime on the nation, is continually increasing. Mr. Morrison then considers in successive chapters the various factors influencing the amount of crime whether climatic or social or individual. After careful examination of statistical evidence, he arrives at the conclusion that hot and changeable climates tend to increase the number of crimes against the person, but that climatic influences may, as the comparative smallness of crime in India shows, be counteracted by social organisation. He points out that crime decreases as soon as summer is over, and the temperature begins to fall, and that this difference is not due to the increase of tramps in the summer, or the prevalence of drunkenness occasioned by higher wages, or the greater number of occasions for social intercourse and opportunities for disorder, but apparently to climatic influences. He shows that destitution and poverty can be held responsible for but a
