========+==========+=========+===========+==========+===========+========== | Offenses | | Murder | Assault | Bodily | Offenses Years. | against | Insult. | and | in | Injuries | against | Morals. | | Homicide. | General. | Punished | Personal | | | | | as Crime. | Liberty. --------+----------+---------+-----------+----------+-----------+---------- 1882 | 7.8 | 117 | 1.0 | 60 | 111 | 10 1883 | 7.6 | 119 | 1.0 | 63 | 121 | 11 1884 | 7.6 | 127 | 0.8 | 68 | 142 | 15 1885 | 7.6 | 119 | 0.9 | 65 | 151 | 17 1886 | 8.9 | 124 | 0.8 | 68 | 153 | 19 1887 | 8.8 | 133 | 0.8 | 68 | 163 | 19 1888 | 9.1 | 130 | 0.6 | 64 | 156 | 18 1889 | 8.4 | 131 | 0.6 | 68 | 166 | 21 1890 | 8.8 | 138 | 0.6 | 74 | 175 | 23 1891 | 8.5 | 133 | 0.6 | 74 | 173 | 24 1892 | 9.0 | 137 | 0.9 | 76 | 177 | 26 1882-91 | 8.3 | 129 | 0.8 | 68 | 153 | 18 1894 | 10.5 | 156 | 0.7 | 87 | 208 | 29 1895 | 10.9 | 161 | 0.7 | -- | 220 | -- 1896 | 11.1 | 158 | 0.6 | -- | 220 | -- ========+==========+=========+===========+==========+===========+========== “The great economic crisis beginning in 1873 was accompanied by the characteristic phenomenon that dissatisfaction with the existing economic, social, and political conditions affected wider circles than heretofore, that this embittered people’s minds, and brought about sharp oppositions and struggles of the industrial classes against each other, especially the struggle of labor against capital. The need of an economic reform was more and more felt, which is to be attained, in the opinion of the powerful, by force, and in that of the thoughtful, by social legislation. All public life since the seventies has been dominated by this idea.” [79] Here also economic conditions are causes of crime, and show themselves principally in resistance to officials, etc. The tables show also an increase in the cases of perjury, bodily injuries, and other crimes that are the consequences of grossness. The increase is due, according to Dr. Müller, to bad economic conditions. For as a consequence of these the number of civil cases rose from 60,000 (the average for 1871–1873) to 120,000 and 135,000 (1876–1877) and it is by these cases that perjury becomes possible. It is necessary to attribute to the same causes the great increase in the number of cases of crimes against personal liberty (also, since 1876, to the abolition of the requirement of a complaint for prosecution).