II. W. D. MORRISON. The preface to “Crime and its Causes” contains an abridgment of the opinion of the author upon the influence of economic conditions. He says there: “Economic prosperity, however widely diffused, will not extinguish crime. Many people imagine that all the evils afflicting society spring from want, but this is only partially true. A small number of crimes are probably due to sheer lack of food, but it has to be borne in mind that crime would still remain an evil of enormous magnitude even if there were no such calamities as destitution and distress. As a matter of fact easy circumstances have less influence on conduct than is generally believed; prosperity generates criminal inclinations as well as adversity, and on the whole the rich are just as much addicted to crime as the poor.” [182] The chapter “Climate and Crime” contains some observations that are of interest in connection with our subject. In speaking of the great number of crimes against persons in Italy, the author says: “Nor can it be said to be entirely due to economic distress. A condition of social misery has undoubtedly something to do with the production of crime. In countries where there is much wealth side by side with much misery, as in France and England, adverse social circumstances drive a certain portion of the community into criminal courses. But where this great inequality of social conditions does not exist—where all are poor as in Ireland or Italy—poverty alone is not a weighty factor in ordinary crime. In Ireland, for example, there is almost as much poverty as exists in Italy, and if the amount of crime were determined by economic circumstances alone, Ireland ought to have as black a record as her southern sister. Instead of that she is on the whole as free from crime as the most prosperous countries of Europe.” [183] —This quotation is one of the best samples of Morrison’s logic and knowledge of facts! Italy is poor; Ireland is poor; the former has many crimes, the latter few. Hence, economic conditions are not an important factor. To say nothing of the care necessary in comparing two countries where the penal law, police, courts, etc. are very different, there is an error of logic in the quotation. For poverty may be in one of these countries a determinant that leads to a certain phenomenon, while in another country it does not lead to it, because neutralized by a counter-determinant. And then, the knowledge of facts that Morrison gives evidence of here, is not great. It is not at all true that in Italy every one is poor. On the contrary, there is plenty of wealth in that country, while Ireland, on the other hand, is drained by landlords who live elsewhere. [184]— The chapter that interests us next is that entitled “Destitution and Crime.” “A ‘destitute person’ is a person who is without house or home, who has no work, who is able and willing to work but can get none, and has nothing but starvation staring him in the face.” [185]