Finally, it must not be forgotten that certain crimes of a different kind (leze-majesty and malicious mischief, for example) are sometimes committed simply that the author of them may get himself imprisoned, and hence should be classed as economic crimes.

We have now reached the question: how close a connection have the different crimes with economic conditions? We shall give only a detailed sketch of the subject; to treat it more fully would require extensive monographs. We shall limit ourselves to indicating the general lines. [[545]]

[[Contents]]

CHAPTER II.

ECONOMIC CRIMES.

It is necessary to divide these crimes into separate groups. Notwithstanding their partial similarity they differ too much among themselves to be treated together. I propose to speak of them under the four following heads: A. Vagrancy and mendicity; B. Theft, and analogous crimes; C. Robbery, homicide for economic reasons, etc. (that is to say, economic crimes committed with violence or directed against life); D. Fraudulent bankruptcy, adulteration of food, etc. (that is to say, economic crimes committed almost exclusively by the bourgeoisie, while those of the first three categories are committed almost exclusively by the poor). Some crimes, like that of embezzlement, belong to the second class as well as to the fourth (for example, a workman’s making off with a bicycle loaned to him, and the embezzlement of deposits by a bank director).

It seems to me unnecessary to explain this division. It creates four fairly distinct groups, which contain all the economic crimes. However, I must point out why I treat vagrancy and mendicity in this way, while both are generally regarded not as misdemeanors but as contraventions.[339] Properly speaking they ought not, therefore, to appear in a work on criminality, but the following are the reasons why they nevertheless find a place here; first, they are the most important and the most common contraventions; second, there is a very close relation between vagrancy on the one hand, and criminality properly speaking on the other. This relation has been shown by many authors. As Professor Prins says in his “Criminalité et répression”, vagrancy and mendicity are the novitiate of crime. I will only recall here the opinions of two writers, Josiah Flynt and E. Sichart. The former, the author of “Tramping with Tramps”, has given up a part of his life to tramping for some years in America, [[546]]Germany, and in other countries, in order to familiarize himself with the vagrant and the criminal; his conclusions accordingly have great value. He is of the opinion that the vagrants endowed with great energy become professional criminals, to fall again into vagrancy as soon as their physical and mental forces decline so as no longer to permit them to carry on their criminal trade with success.[340]

Sichart, the prison director, having examined 3,181 convicts, found that 28% of them had been convicted before for vagrancy, and 27% for mendicity—55% in all.[341] These figures differed according to the kind of criminal. There were to

each 100 thieves 44.2 vagrants, 35.0 mendicants
each,, 100 swindlers 11.1 vagrants,,, 20.2 mendicants,,
each,, 100 sexual offenders 14.0 vagrants,,, 17.3 mendicants,,
each,, 100 incendiaries 15.1 vagrants,,, 15.5 mendicants,,
each,, 100 perjurers 4.2 vagrants,,, 4.7 mendicants,,

For these reasons, then, it is necessary to treat of vagrancy and mendicity.