Drink commonly accredited with the production of crime--Minor offences usually committed under its influence--Drink a factor in the causation of most crimes against the person--Double personality caused by drink--Drunken cruelty--Drunken rage--Assaults on the drunken--Sexual offences--Child neglect--Mental defect behind the drunkenness of some offenders--Malicious mischief and theft--Drunken kleptomania--The professional criminal and drink--Thefts from the drunken--Amount of crime not in ratio to amount of drinking in a district--The vice existent apart from crime, in the country--And in the wealthier parts of the city--Drunkenness and statistics--Summary. Though the differences among prisoners in antecedents and faculties must be taken into account if they are to be treated in a rational manner, there are factors which are common to the causation of crime in many cases. Their influence may vary in strength, but it cannot be disregarded. Drink is denounced--and consumed--by all classes. There are many who attribute all evils to its use, and some of these take the logical course and advocate the prohibition of its manufacture and sale. Others make the theory an excuse for doing nothing to remedy social conditions; for "you never can stop men from drinking," and if drink be the cause of social evils, and you cannot stop its use, why should they worry? Any theory of the causation of evil will be fashionable if it offers a superficial explanation of the facts and affords an excuse for doing nothing more troublesome than giving good advice to the poorer classes. Drink has brought misery and degradation on many, through their own indulgence or that of those on whom they have been dependent; if it does not cause, it is often an aggravation of poverty; and it is with no wish to minimise its ill effects that I protest against exaggerating them. Our social troubles are not traceable to any one cause, and it is not profitable to single out a particular vice and place all evil to its account; nor is the practice more laudable when the vice is not one to which we are ourselves inclined. By all means let temperance be taught and drunkenness be discouraged; this too we shall do better when we search for the causes of intemperance.