Vagrancy and mendicity take the same course as failures; they increase, however, from 1848 to 1852 in consequence of the political troubles of those years. From 1878 on, failures, and vagrancy and mendicity increase and are parallel. In the periods of industrial revival (1854–59 and 1874–76) vagrancy and mendicity decline sharply. In examining the curve of recidivism it must be remembered that since 1884 many recidivists have been transported.
PLATE III.
I. Vagrancy and Mendicity. II. Failures. III. Recidivists sentenced by the Assizes or the Correctional Tribunals.
Here we see a result contrary to that on the preceding charts: If the failures increase the rapes generally decrease, and vice versa. [[235]]According to this plate the consumption of alcohol has no relation to crimes against morals.
PLATE IV.
I. Rape. II. Consumption of Alcohol. III. Failures.
At the end of his study the author comes to the following conclusion: “The effect of bankruptcy upon criminality and politics is undeniable; it furnishes one of the most striking proofs of the correctness of the historical theory of Karl Marx, that the phenomena of literature and art, of morality and religion, of philosophy and politics, in human society, lead back to the phenomena of economic development.”[23]