It should be pointed out, however, that the latter figures afford no indication whatever as to the frequency of the offence of mendicancy in Berlin. Detention in the Labour House is a secondary punishment, and those who receive it form only a small proportion of the total number of persons prosecuted for begging. The following statement shows, for a period of twelve years, the numbers apprehended, prosecuted, and convicted in Berlin for this offence (the difference between the apprehensions and prosecutions represents those who were simply warned and discharged):-- -------------+-----------+----------+---------- | | | Year. | Appre- | Prosecu- | Convic- | hensions. | tions. | tions. | | | -------------+-----------+----------+---------- | | | 1894 | 21,678 | 19,244 | 11,216 1895 | 19,318 | 16,780 | 9,434 1896 | 22,048 | 19,064 | 10,058 1897 | 23,434 | 20,343 | 10,681 1898 | 20,378 | 16,931 | 8,781 1899 | 16,556 | 13,672 | 7,043 1900 | 17,334 | 14,097 | 7,246 1901 | 20,674 | 17,054 | 9,885 1902 | 23,582 | 18,962 | 11,545 1903 | 21,576 | 17,524 | 10,706 1904 | 19,019 | 15,562 | 10,069 1905 | 16,148 | 13,197 | 8,301 | | | -------------+-----------+----------+---------- Comparing the average number of apprehensions for mendicancy during the last five years with those of the first five in the table, a decrease will be found of from 21,371 to 20,199, in spite of a large increase in the population. CHAPTER VIII. THE TREATMENT OF VAGRANCY IN SWITZERLAND. It is a noteworthy fact that the treatment of the vagrant and the loafer on disciplinary principles has been carried out most systematically in countries so fundamentally different in political government as Germany and Switzerland. In the Swiss Republic this question is regulated by Cantonal laws. The Federal Legislation on the subject, dating from 1850, merely orders that vagrants and mendicants shall be dealt with in the cantons in which they may be arrested in accordance with the laws of those cantons, yet adding that, if of foreign nationality, they shall be expelled from the country. While, therefore, each canton makes its own vagrancy laws, the spirit of these laws is entirely free from the weak sentimentality which, in some respects, characterises our own. The law in force in the canton of Berne, for example, states that: