Beyond this there are sundry kinds of excessive criminal saturations which are exceptional, and therefore transitory. Ireland and Russia present us with conspicuous examples in their political and social crimes; and similarly America, during election contests. So in France before and after December 2 1851, the harbouring of criminals, which in no other quadrennial period from 1826 to 1887 exceeds a record of fifty, rises in 1850-53 as high as 239. So during the famine of 1847, theft of grain rises in France to forty-two in a single year, whilst for half a century it barely reaches a total of seventy-five. It is notorious, again, that in years of dear provisions, or severe winters, a large number of thefts and petty offences are committed for the sole object of securing maintenance within the prison walls. And in this connection I have observed in France that other offences against property decrease during a famine, by an analogous psychological motive, thus presenting a sort of statistical paradox. Thus, for example, I have found that as oidium and phylloxera are more effective than severe punishments in diminishing the number of assaults and cases of unlawful wounding, so famine succeeds better than the strongest bars, or dogs kept loose in the prison yards, in preventing the escape of prisoners, who at such times are detained by the advantage of being supported at the public expense. For a parallel reason in 1847, a famine year, whilst <p 80>all crimes and offences against property increased in an extraordinary fashion, only the crimes of theft and breach of confidence by household servants showed a characteristic decrease, because such persons were deterred by the fear of being dismissed by their employers during the time of distress. The figures are as follows:-- FRANCE (Assizes). 1844. 1845. 1846. 1847. Crimes against property ... 3,767 3,396 3,581 4,235 Breach of confidence by household servants ... ... 136 128 168 104 Thefts by the same ... ... 1,001 874 924 896 M. Chaussinand adds, by way of confirmation of my statement that during economic crises, such as famine and high prices of grain, the number of cases of escape from justice also decreases, _*for_ ``thieves and tramps prefer arrest, in order to escape from the misery which afflicts them outside the prison walls.'' Two fundamental conclusions of criminal sociology may be drawn from this law of criminal saturation.