It may be said--to sum up our brief discussion of this large question of women’s criminality--that certain great barriers, partly artificial, partly natural, have everywhere served to protect women from crime. It is not possible absolutely to prove this conclusion, because women cannot be put strictly under the same conditions as men; a woman who lived under the same conditions as men, it need scarcely be said, would no longer be a woman. But it is made probable by the considerations here brought forward, and by statistics. Thus let us take the statistics for one year in a country where crime is so largely developed, and so carefully studied as Italy; an average year, 1886, may be selected. It will be found that a hundred condemned persons of each sex may be arranged according to age as follows:-- +----------------------------------------------------+ | | Men. | Women. | | |-----------------|-----------------| | Below 14 | 1.29 per cent. | 1.41 per cent. | | From 14 to 18 | 6.04 " | 6.02 " | | " 18 " 21 | 13.39 " | 10.65 " | | " 21 " 35 | 46.91 " | 39.38 " | | " 35 " 50 | 23.29 " | 30.94 " | | " 50 " 70 | 8.40 " | 11.63 " | | Above 70 | 0.68 " | 0.57 " | +----------------------------------------------------+ Thus below puberty the relative criminality of girls is rather greater than that of boys, to become about equal at puberty; then during the earlier and chief period of child-bearing the criminality of women falls suddenly, becoming level with that of men at about the time of the cessation of the child-bearing period; after this the criminality of women becomes relatively much greater than that of men, becoming again about the same, and in some years exceeding it, at the age of 70. (_d_) One is inclined on first approaching the subject to make the clear line of demarcation between crime and vice, which is necessary in practical life. From the anthropological point of view, however, it appears on closer examination impossible to draw this clear line.