On the other hand, official returns of criminal statistics, and a
majority of the members of the Central Commission, when pursuing
an inquiry suggested by myself into Italian crime since 1873
--for previously to this date there are no criminal
statistics in Italy except for 1853 and 1869-70--came to the
conclusion that there was a tendency towards a diminution of
crime. But their decision was formed from an entirely partial
standpoint, which they had taken up in the exigency of polemical
discussion. They compared, in fact, the years just concluded,
1881-5, with 1880, and thus it naturally followed that after a
maximum they had a relative decrease. And it was only this
ingenious comparison which gave an appearance of actual proof to
their optimistic assertions; for when a fever is at forty degrees,
the fall of even half a degree is very important. They paid
special attention to the so-called high criminality, which is
tried by the Assize courts, and is actually decreasing, though by
the purely artificial effect of more and more effective measures
of correction. But I have always maintained, and I have the
support of M. Oettingen, that we cannot separate crimes and
offences tried by the Assizes from those tried by the Tribunals,
for there is only a difference of degree between them, as is clear
in regard to theft, assaults and wounding, forgery and the like.
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