On the one hand, the decrease of more serious crime against property is simply due to prisoners electing to be sentenced by the inferior court, which is at the discretion of the Tribunals in France, but legally established in Belgium, by the laws of 1838 and 1848, and in England by the Acts of 1856 and 1878--an election of the slighter but more certain punishment of the magistrates in preference to going before a jury. Indeed, crimes against the person, in which there is less power of election, do not exhibit so marked a decrease; and accordingly we see that in Belgium the increase of ``correctionalised'' crimes is due far more to crimes against property (62 per cent in 36 years) than to those against the person (9 per cent.). On the other hand, the growth of slighter delinquency is partly the effect of special enactments, which are constantly creating new infractions, offences or contraventions. For France may be mentioned the law of 1832 on eluding supervision, that of 1844 on the game laws, that of 1857 on the false description of goods for sale, of 1845 on railway offences, of 1849 on the expulsion of refugees, of 1873 on drunkenness, and of 1874 on requisition of horses. I dealt with the statistical results of these laws, and with the influence of the increasing number of police <p 71>agents, in my ``Studies on Criminality in France'' (Rome, 1881); and I will here add only a single observation. If it is true, as M. Joly says, that other laws, passed since 1826, have extinguished a few offences, or at least have diminished their frequency under less severe regulations, yet it is also true that the new infractions created in the past half-century show far higher numbers than those of the infractions which have been extinguished or rendered less easy. So that amongst the 297 per cent. of increase on the offences tried in France between 1826 and 1887, the element due to legal creation of new infractions must not be ignored. It cannot, however, be denied that for certain more frequent offences we have a real and very noteworthy increase, apart from any legislative or statistical cause of disturbance. The same observation may be made in regard to England. There also the increase of 76 per cent, during thirty years of offences tried summarily is due in part to new infractions, created by special legislation, and especially by the Education Act of 1873, under which there were more than forty thousand infractions in 1878, and more than sixty-five thousand in 1886. In regard to this delinquency in England (wherein are included, over and above real offences, certain infractions corresponding to the police contraventions of the Italian, French, Belgian and Austrian codes) it is to be observed that the increase of 76 per cent. in thirty years is due rather to contraventions than to offences. And this would establish a remarkable <p 72>difference between the variations of delinquency in England and in France.