indisputable. At most it is merely approximate. One
obstacle in the way of its entire accuracy consists in the circumstance
that the proportion of persons tried, as compared with the amount of
crime committed, is in no two countries precisely the same. In France,
for instance, more murders are perpetrated, for which no one is
ultimately tried, than in Italy or in England; that is to say, a
murderer runs more risk of being placed in the dock in this country
than in France. But the difference between the two countries is again
to a great extent adjusted by the fact that once a man is placed in
the dock in France he has far less chance of being acquitted than if
he were tried according to English law. On the whole, therefore, it
may be assumed that the international statistics of trials, corrected
when necessary by the international statistics of convictions, present
a tolerably accurate idea of the extent to which the crime of murder
prevails among the nationalities of Europe. In any case these figures
will go some way towards helping us to see whether climatic conditions
have any influence upon the amount of crime. This we shall now inquire
into.

On looking at the isotherms for the year it will be observed that the
average temperature of Italy and Spain is ten degrees higher than
the average temperature of England. On the other hand, the average
temperature of Hungary is very much the same as the average temperature
of this country; but Hungary is at the same time exposed to much
greater extremes of climate than England. In winter it is nearly ten
degrees colder than England, while in summer it is as hot as Spain.
The advocates of the direct effect of climate upon crime contend that
account must be taken not merely of the degree of temperature, but
also of the variations of temperature to which a region is exposed.
According to this theory one of the principal reasons the crime of
murder is, at least, fourfold higher in Hungary than in England, is to
be found in the violent oscillations of temperature in Hungary as
compared with England. In Italy murders are, at least, ten times as
numerous as in England; in Spain they are seven times as numerous; the
chief cause of this condition of things is said to be the serious
difference of temperature. In the United States of America there are
more crimes of blood in the South than in the North; the main
explanation of this difference is said to be that the climate of the
South