In opposition to this theory of the intimate relation between temperature and crime, it may be urged that the greater prevalence of crimes of blood in hot latitudes is a mere coincidence and not a causal connection.  This is the view taken by Dr. Mischler in Baron von Holtzendorff’s “Handbuch des Gefaengnisswesens.”  He says the real reason crimes of blood are more common in the South of Europe than in the North is to be attributed to the more backward state of civilisation in the South, and to the wild and mountainous character of the country.  To the latter part of this argument it is easy to reply that Scotland is quite as mountainous as Italy, and yet its inhabitants are far less addicted to crimes against the person.  But it is more civilised, for, as M. Tarde ingeniously contends, the bent of civilisation at present is to travel northward.  Admitting for a moment that Scotland is more civilised than Spain or Italy, all savage tribes, on the other hand, are confessedly less advanced in the arts of life than these two peninsulas.  But, for all that, many of these savage peoples are much less criminal.  “I have lived,” says Mr. Russell Wallace, “with communities of savages in South America and in the East who have no laws or law courts, but the public opinion of the village freely expressed.  Each man scrupulously respects the rights of his fellows, and any infraction of these rights rarely or never takes place.”  Mr. Herbert Spencer also quotes innumerable instances of the kindness, mildness, honesty, and respect for person and property of uncivilised peoples.  M. de Quatrefages, in summing up the ethical characteristics of the various races of mankind, comes to the conclusion that from a moral point of view the white man is hardly any better than the black.  Civilisation so far has unfortunately generated almost as many vices as it has virtues, and he is a bold man who will say that its growth has diminished the amount of crime.  It is very difficult then to accept the view that the frequency of murder in Spain and Italy is entirely due to a lack of civilisation.

Nor can it be said to be entirely due to economic distress.  A condition of social misery has undoubtedly something to do with the production of crime.  In countries where there is much wealth side by side with much misery, as in France and England, adverse social circumstances drive a certain portion of the community into criminal courses.  But where this great inequality of social conditions does not exist—­where all are poor as in Ireland or Italy—­poverty alone is not a weighty factor in ordinary crime.  In Ireland, for example, there in almost as much poverty as exists in Italy, and if the amount of crime were determined by economic circumstances alone, Ireland ought to have as black a record as her southern sister.  Instead of that she is on the whole as free from crime as the most prosperous countries of Europe.  In the face of these facts it is impossible to say that the high rate of crime in Italy and Spain is to be wholly accounted for by the pressure of economic adversity.