This is especially manifest in the crime of infanticide.  For the perpetration of this crime women possess the power, and the vast number of women convicted of this offence in proportion to men is ample proof that they often possess the will.  Of course the temptation to women to commit this kind of crime is often extreme; it is the product, in many instances, of an overwhelming sense of shame; and the perpetrators of infanticide are often far from being the most debased of their sex.  Still, the prevalence of infanticide among women is an evidence that, where the temptation is strong and the power sufficient, women are just as criminally inclined as men.

It has also to be borne in mind that women are very frequently the instigators of crime and escape punishment because they are not actually engaged in its commission.  In almost all cases where robberies are committed by a pack of thieves, a part of the preparatory arrangements is entrusted to women, and women lend a helping hand in disposing of the spoil.  It is the men, as a rule, who receive all the punishment, but the guilt of both sexes is very much the same.  In many cases of forgery and fraudulent bankruptcy among the well-to-do classes, for which men only are punished, the guilt of women is equally great.  Household extravagance, extravagance in dress, the mad ambition of many English women to live in what they call “better style” than their neighbours sends not a few men to penal servitude.  The proportion of female crime in a community is also to a very considerable extent determined by the social condition of women.  In all countries where social habits and customs constrain women to lead retiring and secluded lives the number of female criminals descends to a minimum.  The small amount of female crime in Greece[27] is an instance of this law.  On the other hand, in all countries where women are accustomed to share largely the active work of life with men, female crime has a distinct tendency to reach its maximum.  An instance of this is the high percentage of female crime in Scotland.  According to the Judicial Statistics for the year 1888 no less than 37 per cent. of the cases tried before the Scotch courts consisted of offences committed by women.  It is true only 11 per cent. of these offences were of a serious nature—­the remainder being more or less trivial, but, even after taking this circumstance into consideration, the unwelcome fact remains that Scotch women commit a higher percentage of crimes in proportion to men than the female population of any other country in Europe.  The proportion of English female offenders to male is not half so high; it was only 17 per cent. in 1888, and is showing a tendency to decrease, being as high as 20 per cent. for the twenty years ended 1876.  The proportion of female offenders in Scotland to the total criminal population is moving in an opposite direction.  The late Professor Leone Levi, in a paper read before the Statistical Society in 1880, stated that Scotch women formed 27 per cent. of the persons tried before the criminal courts; they now form 37 per cent., a most alarming rate of increase.