By the same witness we prove “the uniform reproduction of crime is more clearly marked, and more capable of being predicted than are the physical laws connected with the disease and destruction of our bodies.” Before this, Combe had observed a similar uniformity, under similar circumstances, of the recurrence of crimes. He perceived in human conduct the same striking indications of constancy in results, as in the prevalence of disease and the endurance of life. Combe said, in 1854, in writing by way of comment on a certain report to the House of Commons: “During the five years, ending with the last year of an execution, there were committed for the crimes enumerated, 7276 persons, of whom 196 were executed. During the five years immediately following the last execution, there were committed for the same offense 7120. Does not this show that these crimes arose from causes in themselves permanent, and which punishment does not remove?” Rawson also remarked that the greatest variation which had taken place during three years, in the proportion of any class of criminals, at the same period of life, had not exceeded a half per cent. And Dr. Brown states (Vol. 8 of the Assurance Magazine), that “in twenty years, the number of persons accused of various crimes in France, and registered under their respective ages, scarcely varies at any age, from year to year, comparing the proportional per cent under each age with the totals.” M. Quatelet deduced from the statistical returns of government in the same country, that for 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829 and 1830, in each year, there was one person accused out of every 4463 inhabitants, and 61 condemned out of every 100 accused. “In everything which concerns crime,” observed this greatest of statisticians, “the same numbers re-occur with a constancy which cannot be mistaken, and that this is the case, even with those crimes which seem quite independent of human foresight, such, for instance, as murders, which are generally committed after quarrels arising from circumstances apparently casual. Nevertheless, we know from experience, that every year there not only take place the same number of murders, but even the instruments by which they are committed, are employed in the same proportion.” Murder, then, “occurs with as much regularity as the movements of the tides and the rotation of the seasons.”