ists a fair consensus of opinion among
civilised communities; and even with regard to this offence it is
impossible to overcome all the judicial and statistical difficulties
which stand in the way of an international comparison.

In spite, however, of the fact that the amount of crime committed in
civilised countries cannot be subjected to exact comparison, there are
various points on which the international statistics of crime are able
to render valuable service. It is important, for instance, to see in
what relation crime in different communities stands to age, sex,
climate, temperature, race, education, religion, occupation, home and
social surroundings. If we find, for example, an abnormal development
of crime taking place in a given country at a certain period of life,
or in certain social circumstances, and if we do not discover the same
abnormal development taking place in other countries at a similar
period of life, or in a similar social stratum, we ought at once to
come to the conclusion that there is some extraordinary cause at work
peculiar to the country which is producing an unusually high total of
crime. If, on the other hand, we find that certain kinds of crime are
increasing or decreasing in all countries at the same time, we may be
perfectly sure that the increase or decrease is brought about by the
same set of causes. And whether those causes are war, political
movements, commercial prosperity, or depression, the community which
first escapes from them will also be the first to show it in the
annual statistics of crime. In these and many other ways international
statistics are of the greatest utility.

From what has already been said as to the immense difficulty of
comparing the criminal statistics of various countries, it follows as
a matter of course that the figures contained in them cannot be used
as a means of ascertaining the position which belongs to each nation
respectively in the scale of morality. Nor is the moral progress of a
nation to be measured solely by an apparent decay of crime. On the
contrary, an increase in the amount of crime may be the direct result
of a moral advance in the average sentiments of the community. The
passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1870 and of the Criminal
Law Amendment Act of 1885 have added considerably to the number of
persons brought before the criminal courts and eventually committed to
prison. But an increase of the prison population due to these