do. 228
Scotland, 1880-84 do. do. 289
Ireland, 1880-84 do. do. 101
Hungary, 1876-80 do. do. 82
Spain, 1883-84 do. do. 74

To what conclusions do the statistics contained in this table point?
It is useless burdening this chapter with additional figures to prove
that England and France are the two wealthiest countries in Europe.
The wealth of England, for instance, is perhaps six times the wealth
of Italy; but, notwithstanding this fact, more thefts are annually
committed in England than in Italy. The wealth of France is enormously
superior to the wealth of Ireland, both in quantity and distribution,
but the population of France commits more offences against property
than the Irish. Spain is one of the poorest countries in Europe,
Scotland is one of the richest, but side by side with this inequality
of wealth we see that the Scotch commit, per hundred thousand of the
population, almost four times as many thefts as the Spaniards. With
the exception of Italy it is the poorest countries of Europe that are
the least dishonest, and, according to our table, even the Italians
are not so much addicted to offences against property as the
inhabitants of England.

Perhaps the most instructive figures in these international statistics
are those relating to England and Ireland. The criminal statistics of
the two countries are drawn up on very much the same principles; the
ordinary criminal law is very much the same, and there is very much
the same feeling among the population with respect to ordinary crime;
in fact, with the exception of agrarian offences, the administration
of the law in Ireland is as effective as it is in England. On almost
every point the similarity of the criminal law and its administration
in the two countries almost amounts to identity, and a comparison of
their criminal statistics, in so far as they relate to ordinary
offences against property, reaches a high level of exactitude. What
does such a comparison reveal? It shows that the Irish, with all their
poverty, are not half so much addicted to offences against property as
the English with all their wealth, and it serves to confirm the idea
that the connection between poverty and theft is not so close as is
generally imagined.

International statistics then, as far a