; that is to say, to every 10,000 inhabitants of twelve
years and over there were 103.2 criminals; in 1892, the number of
criminals was 422,327, or 143.3--an increase of 39 per cent. Among the
persons punished, there were, for crimes and misdemeanors against
property:--

To Every 10,000
Inhabitants,
12 Years of Age
Year. Total. and Over.
1882 169,334 53.0
1891 196,437 55.8

We think these figures speak volumes. They show how the deterioration of
social conditions intensify and promote poverty, want, misdemeanors and
crimes.

The basis of our social state is the capitalist system of production. On
it modern society rests. All social, all political institutions are
results and fruits of that system. It is the ground from which the whole
social and political superstructure, together with its bright and dark
sides, have sprung up. It influences and dominates the thoughts and
feelings and actions of the people who live under it. Capital is the
leading power in the State and in Society: the capitalist is the ruler
of the propertyless, whose labor-power he buys for his use, and at a
price, that, like all other merchandise, is governed by supply and
demand and oscillates now above, then below the cost of reproduction.
But the capitalist does not buy labor-power out of "sweet charity," in
order to do a favor to the workingmen, although he often so pretends. He
buys it for the purpose of obtaining surplus wealth from the labor of
the workingmen, which he then pockets under the name of profit,
interest, house and ground rent. This surplus wealth, squeezed out of
the workingmen, and which in so far as the capitalist does not squander
it in dissipation, crystallizes in his hands into more capital, puts him
in a condition to steadily enlarge his plant, improve the process of
production, and occupy increased labor forces. That, at the same time,
enables him to step up before his weaker competitors, like a mailed
knight before an unarmed pedestrian, and to destroy them. This unequal
struggle between large and small capital spreads amain, and, as the
cheapest labor-power, next to that of children and lads, woman plays
therein a _role_ of increasing importance. The result is the ever
sharper division of a smaller minority of mighty capitalists and a mass
of capital-less male and female lack-alls whose only