The Calcutta Law Journal Short Notes of Cases Articles and other Matters August 1 1920

In years of great economic distress there is no doubt often a rise in the number of crimes but these crimes are generally confined to cases of petty thefts and larcenies which are no index to the true criminality of the delinquents (x) 1 have myself observed the lowcaste people in the villages of Bengal the Goalas and.Jfushars in the villages of Behar who live in a state of perptual penur [...] Thus the vices of drinking gambling smoking rape and arson which were at one time peculiar to the feudal lords and barons of ancient and medieval Europe were gradually propagated to the common people through the tendency of the latter towards imitting the former just as to-day the new and novel kinds of crimes— murder for greed alone rape and indecent assaults—committed for the first t [...] But the question is why of all people where the lords and barons criminally inclined if they really were so ?—and how is it that the great cities are so much the more important centres of delinquency than the villages ? The law of imitation may undoubtedly be said to play an important part in the diffusion and propagation of criminality but to say that it explains the origin of crime is sure [...] The throwing of vitriol by the jilted lover on the face of the fickle girl is a crime which has quite come into fashion through imitation amongst the lower class of people in France; the difiguring of the face by means of a razor or poniard is a common enough crime amongst disappointed lovers in Italy. [...] These then are some of the reasons of the extraordinary corruption of the feudal lords and barons of medieval Europe and no doubt the corruption gradually spread from them to the common people.