France commit more crimes of infanticide, abortion,
poisoning, and domestic theft than men. They are addicted equally with
men to the perpetration of parricide, and are more frequently
convicted than men for the ill-treatment of children. English criminal
statistics also show that the proportion of women to men rises with
the seriousness of the offence. The proportion of women to men
summarily proceeded against is 17 per cent., the proportion proceeded
against for murder and attempts to murder is as high as 36 per cent.
Women are also more hardened criminals than men. According to the
statistics of English prisons, women who have been once convicted are
much more likely to be reconvicted than men,[26] and the prison
returns of Continental countries tell the same tale.

[26] In 1889-90 the recommitted males were 44.3 per cent. of the
total number of males committed (exclusive of debtors and naval
and military offenders); the recommitted females 65.8 per cent.
of the total number of females committed exclusive of debtors.

The facts relating to female crime having been stated, it will now be
our business to inquire why women, on the whole, commit fewer crimes
than men. The most obvious answer is that they are better morally. The
care and nurture of children has been their lot in life for untold
centuries; the duties of maternity have perpetually kept alive a
certain number of unselfish instincts; those instincts have become
part and parcel of woman's natural inheritance, and, as a result of
possessing them to a larger extent than man, she is less disposed to
crime. It is very probable that there is an element of truth in the
idea that the care of offspring has had a moralising effect upon
women, and that this effect has acquired the power of a hereditary
characteristic; at the same time, it must be remembered that other
causes are also in operation which prevent women figuring as largely
in criminal returns as men.

Among the most prominent of these causes is the want of physical
power. In all crimes requiring a certain amount of brute strength,
such as burglary, robbery with violence, and so on, the proportion of
women to men is small. A woman very rarely possesses the animal force
requisite for the perpetration of crimes accompanied with much
personal violence. But where the element of personal violence does not
come conspicuously to the front the proportion of female criminals to
male immediately ri