[287]. Criminal Man, p. 145.
[288]. Tr. by H. P. Horton, “The Modern Criminal Science Series,” Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1911, 471 pp.
[289]. “It is brought out in Guerry’s statistics that the crime of rape occurs in England and France oftenest in the hot months; and Curcio has observed the same thing in Italy....
“In England, according to Guerry, and in Italy, according to Curcio, the maximum number of murders falls in the hottest months....
“Poisoning also, according to Guerry, occurs oftenest in May. The same phenomenon is to be observed in the case of Rebellions. In studying (as I have in my ‘Political Crime’) the 836 uprisings that took place in the whole world in the period between 1791 and 1880, one finds that in Asia and Africa the greatest number falls in July. In Europe and America the greater prevalence of rebellions in the hot months could not be more clearly marked. In Europe the maximum proved to be in July [in this connection one might also point to the beginning of the present European war which falls in the midsummer of 1914], and in South America in January, which are respectively the two hottest months. The minimum falls in Europe in December and January, and in South America in May and June, which again correspond in temperature.
“If now we pass from the whole of Europe to the particular countries, we still find the greatest number of uprisings in the hot months....
“Benoiston de Chateauneuf points out that duels in the army are more frequent in the summer.
“I have proved that the same influence manifests itself in the case of men of genius (‘Man of Genius,’ Part I.).
“Ferri, in his ‘Crime in its Relation to Temperature,’ has proved from a study of the French criminal statistics from 1825 to 1878 that one can deduce an almost complete parallelism between heat and criminality, not only for the different months, but also for years of different degrees of heat. The influence of the temperature on crime from 1825 to 1848 appears to be very pronounced and constant, and is often even greater than that exercised by agricultural production. Since 1848, notwithstanding the more serious agricultural and political disturbances, the coincidence between temperature and criminality becomes from time to time plainly apparent, especially in the case of homicide and murder....
“The connection comes out much more plainly, however, in the statistics of rape and offenses against chastity, which follow to an even greater degree the annual variations in temperature....