--Co-operative and mutual societies, provident
societies and insurance against old age, funds for sick and infirm
workmen, employers' liability for accidents during work, from
machinery or otherwise; popular savings' banks, charity
organisation societies and the like, obviate a large number of
offences against property and the person much better than a penal
code.--I have maintained in the Italian Parliament that the reform
of religious charities, which in Italy represent funds to
the amount of two milliards, might lead to the prevention of
crime.--Measures for the discouragement of mendacity and vagrancy,
above all agricultural colonies, as in Holland, Belgium, Germany,
and Austria, would be the best penal substitute for the very
frequent offences committed by vagabonds. Thus it may be
concluded that a prudent social legislation, not stopping short at
mere superficial and perfunctory reforms, might constitute a
genuine code of penal substitutes, which could be set against the
mass of criminal impulses engendered by the wretched conditions of
the most numerous classes of society.
[14] Coiners and forgers of notes constitute .09 per cent. of the
total of condemned persons in France, and .
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