In his ninth chapter, entitled “Le crime et la misère,” this author gives some pages to our subject. It is incontestable, according to him, that poverty exerts an influence upon criminality. The number of crimes increases in the years of poor crops, or when there is a lack of work owing to industrial or agricultural crises. Thus, criminality reached high figures in 1840, 1847, and 1854, when the price of grain was high. In consequence of this and of his personal experience (the author is a magistrate) he thinks the opinion of Garofalo is incorrect, that poverty only gives crime its form and is not a cause of it. For indigence not only puts morality in danger by depriving some persons of the bare necessities, but it also causes the children of the poor in the great cities to be brought up in a pitiable manner. Although the author is of this opinion, however, he does not subscribe to the view that “the poor man is dedicated to crime.” On the contrary, a great proportion of the poor are as honest as possible, and have honorable toil as their only means of support. Judicial statistics show that the rich are as guilty of crime as the poor. “We see, then, that even if all the citizens had means and education, there would always be criminals; the number of them would be a little less, but not much. There would always be traders practising deception with regard to the quantity and quality of their goods, merchants adulterating food, employes abusing the confidence of their employers, notaries embezzling the funds entrusted to them; there would always be wives poisoning their husbands, and husbands killing their wives, and teachers of lay and denominational schools committing sexual crimes.” [218] Most crimes are not committed to escape from want, but rather to procure luxury and pleasure. Hence the rich as well as the poor commit them. “To sum up, I do not believe that the rich are less tempted to take the property of others than the poor. The more wealth one has the more he wants; further, the more wealth increases, the more factitious wants increase, and if one’s wealth becomes insufficient to satisfy these wants, the thought of increasing it by any means is not slow in coming. Admitting that some day all men may be rich and educated, though that seems to me to be an impossible dream, cupidity will always make thieves, rogues, and forgers; hatred and revenge will always inspire homicide, murder, and arson; debauchery will always lead to sexual crimes. Material and intellectual progress will never suppress the passions and will not free men from the struggle that must be maintained against them. It will always be necessary to repress anger and sensuality, to put a bridle upon cupidity, and, in a word, to set the soul free from its passions. The increase of well-being and education will never make the police and the penal code unnecessary.” [219]