I. Number Convicted of Vagrancy and Mendicity to 100,000 of the Population. II. Price of Bread (in Centimes per Kilogram).
A comparison of the two curves shows that there is a parallelism, tolerably constant up to 1869. After this it ceases with some exceptions. The great fall in the price of bread, beginning with 1878 (as a consequence of the agrarian crisis), even coincides with a considerable increase in vagrancy and mendicity. To explain this we must consult the statistics of failures. These show that the great increase of vagrancy and mendicity coincide with an equally great increase in the number of bankruptcies, beginning in 1875 and lasting to 1882. For the following years there is no relation between the two phenomena apparent.
Prussia, 1854–1870.
I have composed the following table by means of the data given by Starke in his “Verbrechen und Verbrecher in Preussen” (pp. 55 and 115). [[552]]
| Years. | Number of New Cases of Vagrancy and Mendicity. | Price of 50 Kilograms in Marks. | ||
| Wheat. | Rye. | Potatoes. | ||
| 1854 | 14,619 | 12.90 | 10.40 | 3.17 |
| 1855 | 16,665 | 14.21 | 11.45 | 3.37 |
| 1856 | 20,414 | 13.51 | 10.64 | 3.13 |
| 1857 | 15,801 | 10.18 | 6.87 | 2.18 |
| 1858 | 15,318 | 9.08 | 6.38 | 1.91 |
| 1859 | 16,978 | 8.93 | 6.79 | 1.98 |
| 1860 | 16,320 | 10.48 | 7.65 | 2.41 |
| 1861 | 14,239 | 11.04 | 7.71 | 2.79 |
| 1862 | 12,846 | 10.68 | 7.97 | 2.47 |
| 1863 | 11,840 | 9.18 | 6.78 | 2.04 |
| 1864 | 12,026 | 7.95 | 5.69 | 2.10 |
| 1865 | 11,640 | 8.13 | 6.24 | 2.03 |
| 1866 | 13,664 | 9.80 | 7.30 | 2.05 |
| 1867 | 15,339 | 12.89 | 9.87 | 2.95 |
| 1868 | 14,801 | 12.48 | 9.84 | 2.62 |
| 1869 | 15,091 | 9.70 | 8.08 | 2.16 |
| 1870 | 13,320 | 11.04 | 7.78 | 2.58 |
Although the curves of the price of foodstuffs and of vagrancy do not exactly conform, the influence of the price is none the less evident. The three periods of high prices (1854–56, 1860–62, and 1867–68) coincide with high figures for vagrancy and mendicity. (It is to be noted that the effect of an economic depression does not always make itself felt the following year.)
Kingdom of Saxony, 1889–1892.
Bebel showed that mendicity increased greatly in the above period (a crisis of great intensity). (See pp. 228–229 of this work.)[351]