the Victorian
statistics of this offence.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Countries|Population|Years.| Tried | Convicted
| over Ten.| | Annual Per | Annual Per
| | |Average 100,000 |Average 100,000
| | | Inhabitants.| Inhabitants.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Victoria | 581,838|1882-6| 22 3.2 | 14 2.5
United
Kingdom |26,594,582|1882-6| 505 2.35 | 226 .96
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Before proceeding to analysis the contents of this table, it will be
as well to explain the method on which it has been constructed, and
the sources from which it is derived. The population of Victoria, over
ten years of age, has been calculated according to the Victorian
census for 1881, as contained in Part II. of the Victorian Statistical
Register. In order to make the Victorian table harmonise in all
particulars with Dr. Bosco's table for England, Scotland, and Ireland,
the excess of births over deaths has been calculated up to the end of
1884. The United Kingdom, it will be seen, has been selected as the
measure of comparison with the colony of Victoria. This selection has
been made on the ground that the colony of Victoria is not composed of
the inhabitants of any one of the three kingdoms, but contains a
mixture of them all. It will also be observed that the homicidal crime
of each of the three kingdoms differs from the other, but this is a
consideration which we shall not further comment upon at present.

After these preliminary explanations we are now in a position to
examine the contents of our statistical table in its bearing upon
crimes of blood. It will now be possible to see what light the criminal
statistics of Victoria, as compared with the criminal statistics of the
United Kingdom, throw upon these crimes; and the disturbing factor of
race being eliminated, what is the influence of climate pure and simple
upon them. According to the isotherms for the year the Victorians live
in an atmosphere between eight and ten degrees hotter than our own.
Side by side with this additional heat, there is, as compared with
the United Kingdom, an additional amount of crime. In the colony of
Victoria, in proportion to every 100,000 inhabitants over ten years of