ogressive physical enfeeblement. Most of the best and strongest
intellectual work done in the towns is done by immigrants, not by
town-bred folk.

Sec. 7. (_C_) This intellectual weakness of town life is best expressed
in terms which show the intimate relation between intelligence and
morals. A lack of "grit," pertinacity of purpose, endurance,
"character," marks the townsman of the second generation as compared
with the countryman. As the intellectual powers of the townsman,
though quantitatively impaired, are more highly developed than those
of the countryman, so it is with his "morals." In positive
attainments of conscience, virtue, and vice, the townsman shows
considerable advance. This point is commonly misunderstood. The annals
of crime afford irrefutable evidence of the greater criminality of the
towns. London, containing less than one-fifth of the population of
England and Wales, is responsible for more than one-third of the
annual number of indictable crimes.[284] In France the criminality of
the urban population is just double that of the rural population.[285]
In 1884-86, out of each 100,000 city population sixteen were charged
with crimes; out of each 100,000 rural population only eight. It is
indeed commonly recognised in criminology that, other things being
equal, crime varies with the density of population. There is no
difficulty in understanding why this should be so. The pressure of
population and the concentration of property afford to the
evil-disposed individual an increased number of temptations to invade
the person or property of others; for many sorts of crime the
conditions of town life afford greater security to the criminal;
social and industrial causes create a large degenerate class not
easily amenable to social control, incapable of getting regular work
to do, or of doing it if they could get it.

If the town were a social organism formed by men desirous of living
together for mutual support, comfort, and enjoyment in their lives, it
might reasonably be expected that a wholesome public feeling would be
so strongly operative as to outweigh the increased opportunities of
crime. But, as we have seen, the modern town is a result of the desire
to produce and distribute most economically the largest aggregate of
material goods: economy of work, not convenience of life, is the
object. Now, the economy of factory co-operation is only social to a
very limited extent; anti-social feelings are touche