1884. The United Kingdom, it will be seen, has been selected as the
measure of comparison with the colony of Victoria. This selection has
been made on the ground that the colony of Victoria is not composed of
the inhabitants of any one of the three kingdoms, but contains a
mixture of them all. It will also be observed that the homicidal crime
of each of the three kingdoms differs from the other, but this is a
consideration which we shall not further comment upon at present.

After these preliminary explanations we are now in a position to
examine the contents of our statistical table in its bearing upon
crimes of blood. It will now be possible to see what light the criminal
statistics of Victoria, as compared with the criminal statistics of the
United Kingdom, throw upon these crimes; and the disturbing factor of
race being eliminated, what is the influence of climate pure and simple
upon them. According to the isotherms for the year the Victorians live
in an atmosphere between eight and ten degrees hotter than our own.
Side by side with this additional heat, there is, as compared with
the United Kingdom, an additional amount of crime. In the colony of
Victoria, in proportion to every 100,000 inhabitants over ten years of
age, there are nearly one-third more murders annually than in the
United Kingdom. On what ground is this considerable increase of
homicide to be accounted for, except on the ground of climate? The
higher percentage is not caused by difference of race; it is not
caused by worse economic conditions--these conditions are much
superior to our own--the meaning of the figures is not obscured by any
material differences of legal procedure or legal nomenclature. It
cannot be urged that the Victorian population are the dregs of the
home population; the very opposite is the fact. The bad characters who
emigrate are the only disturbing element; but, after all, these men
are not so numerous, and the evil effects of their presence is