The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1879-12-03
Criminal Statistics of France.

The official report addressed to the
president of the republic in reference to
the administration of justice in criminal
cases in France and Algeria in 1877, has
recently been published, and show that
the number of persons accused and tried
before the criminal courts was 4,4l3, OF
whom $3.50 were men and 1873 women.
The figures showing the civil condition
of the prisoners are calculated to throw
q curious light on the relations between
the celibate and married State on the
one hand, and crime on the other. The
result is, indeed, strikingly in favor of
! the welded az compared with the single
condition. Thus, it is found that, while
the proportion of unmarried persons
tried for the grayest class of crimes is
tlirty-three in every loo, 900, there were
among the married, the widows and the
widoWers only eleven in every 100, 600.
| The country, too, would seem, so far as
these statistics go, to enjoy a purer at
mosphere in a moral n well as in a
physical sense rs compared with the
cities of France; for, while the towns
furnish seventeen prisoners from every
100, 900 of their population, the country
afforded less than one-bllf-namely, only
| eitht per 100, 600. It may, however, be re-
marked that, as the villager or peasant
who has gravely transgressed the lawgen-
erally shuns the locality where everybody
knows him and his misdoings, and ac-
cordingly, seeks the cities. while there
8 little or no compensating movement
| of civ criminals to the rural districts,
the towns probably have placed to their
account in the figures here quoted part
of the sins which properly belong to the
country. AS regards education, the
| statistics do not enable us 10 state any
thing more definite as to its relations
, to crime than it appears to have no effect
in preserving men and women from the
! commission of the gravest descriptions
! of crime. fthe 4,4l3 prisoners in 1877,
! rs many as 1884 were returned as able
to read and write. There were thirty
one persons sentenced to death, but only
twelve were executed. Of persons
! charged with capital crimes, thirty-three
Der cent. of the women were acquitted
but only nineteen per cent. OF the
men 80 charged escaped condemnation,
The Paris police in 1877, took into GUS
tody IS ,ee3 persons, 30, 794 of whom were
males and 4,289 females, Of whom up
ward of one-fourth were under twenty
one years of age and upwards of two
tifths had been previously convicted
The number of suicides in France, in
1877, was 1922, Of whom twenty.one pei
cent. were females. Among unmarried
| persons there were tw~enty-eight suicides
to every 100. ZOO, while in the same num-
her of married persons there were only
eighteen; but among widows and
| widowers the proportion was thirty-one
to every 100, O00. Suicide is far more
frequent in the towns than in the coun-
try, the proportion being twenty:three
! to thirteen in every 100000 respectively.
| Among men it is remarked that suicide
is more common as age increases: AS
regards the causes to which self-de-
struction is attributed, of the total num-
Der of cases, 1922, the report assigns
l,704 to lunacy or diseases OF the brain,
s55 to domestic troubles, e37 to physical
suffering, FOL to drink and drunkenness,
6ss to poverty, 235 to love, jealousy OF
dissipation, and 22s to the desire to
escape the penal consequences of trans
qrcssion of the laws.-London Times.