to the ears
of the authorities. For these reasons this crime lends itself most
readily to international comparison; nevertheless, differences of
judicial procedure, legal nomenclature, and different methods of
classification stand in the way of making the comparison absolutely
accurate. These differences, however, are not so great as to render
comparison impossible or worthless; on the contrary, the results of
such a comparison are of exceptional value, and go a long way to
determine the question of the effect of climate upon crimes of blood.

Assuming, then, with these reservations, that such a comparison can be
instituted, let us see to what extent murder, in the widest sense of
the word, including wilful murder, manslaughter, and infanticide,
prevails in the various countries of Europe. In ordinary circumstances
this task would be a laborious one, entailing a minute and careful
examination of the criminal statistics and procedure of many nations.
Fortunately, it has recently been accomplished by Dr. Bosco in an
admirable monograph communicated in the first instance to the Journal
of the International Statistical Institute, but now published in a
separate form. Bosco's figures have all been taken from official
sources, and may, therefore, be accepted as accurate; but, before
tabulating-them, it may be useful to make an extract from the
explanatory note by which they are accompanied. "As the composition of
the population, with respect to age, varies in different countries, and
as it has to be remembered that all the population under ten years of
age has no share, at least under normal conditions, in the crime of
murder, it has seemed to me a more exact method to calculate the
proportion of murders to the inhabitants who are over ten years of age,
than to include the total population. For those States where a census
has been recently taken, such, for instance, as France and Germany, the
results of that census have been used; that is to say, the French
census of May, 1886, and the German census of December, 1885. For the
other States the population has been calculated (adding the excess of
births over deaths to the results of the last census) to the end of the
intermediate year for each period of years to which the information
relates; that is to say, to the end of 1883 for Belgium, and to the end
of 1884 for Austria, Hungary, Spain, England, Scotland and Ireland. As
the information respecting Italy refers to 1887 only,