In France,
for instance (and the observation will be found to apply to every
country which possesses an extended series of criminal
statistics), the number of crimes against the person varies but
little in sixty-two years. The same thing holds good for England
and Belgium, because their special environment is also less
variable, by reason that hereditary dispositions and human
passions cannot vary profoundly or frequently, except under the
influence of exceptional disturbances of the weather, or of social
conditions. In fact, the more serious variations in respect of
crimes against the person in France have taken place either during
political revolutions, or in years of excessive heat, or of
exceptional abundance of meat, grain, and wine. This is
illustrated by the exceptional increase of crime from 1849 to
1852. Minor offences against the person, on the contrary, which
are more occasional, assaults and wounding, for example, vary in
the main, as to their annual oscillations, with the abundance of
the wine harvest, whilst in their oscillations from month to month
they display a characteristic increase during the vintage periods,
from June to December, notwithstanding the constant diminution of
other offences and crimes against the person.
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