inciting to a particular crime,
is a question to the determination of which the most distinguished
microscopist might be proud to devote the powers of his eye. If the
latter is the case it will somewhat complicate the treatment, for
clearly the patient afflicted with chronic robbery will require
medicines different from those that might be efficacious in a gentleman
suffering from constitutional theft or the desire to represent his
District in the Assembly. But it is permitted to us to hope that all
crimes, like all arts, are essentially one; that murder, arson and
conservatism are but different symptoms of the same physical disorder,
back of which is a microbe vincible to a single medicament, albeit the
same awaits discovery.

In the fascinating theory of the unity of crime we may not unreasonably
hope to find another evidence of the brotherhood of man, another
spiritual bond tending to draw the various classes of society more
closely together.

From time to time it is said that a "wave" of some kind of crime
is sweeping the country. It is all nonsense about "waves" of crime.
Occasionally occurs some crime notable for its unusual features, or for
the renown of those concerned. It arrests public attention, which for a
time is directed to that particular kind of crane, and the newspapers,
with business-like instinct, give, for a season, unusual prominence to
the record of similar offenses. Then, self-deceived, they talk about a
"wave," or "epidemic" of it. So far is this from the truth that one of
the most noticeable characteristics of crime is the steady and unbroken
monotony of its occurrence in certain forms. There is nothing so dull
and unvarying as this tedious uniformity of repetition. The march of
crime is never retarded, never accelerated. The criminals appear to be
thoroughly well satisfied with their annual average, as shown by the
periodical reports of their secretary, the statistician.

A marked illustration occurs to me. Many years ago in London a
well-known and respectable gentleman was brutally garroted. It was during
the "silly season"--between sessions of Parliament, when the newspapers
are likely to be dull. They at once began to report cases of garroting.
There appeared to be an "epidemic of garroting." The public mind was
terribly excited, and when Parliament met it hastened to pass the
infamous "flogging act"--a distinct reversion to the senseless and
discredited methods of physical torture, so a