THE CRIMINAL CRISIS

Idle philosophers have started to discuss, for some time, the singular increase in crime after the last war, as if it had not always been like this in the aftermath of all the great world crises, and as if we had the privilege of this morbid state. Occasional moralists have discussed at some length on the corruption of the morals of young people after the trial of the Orléans war council, which, last week, condemned three young rascals who had half knocked out an officer on a train.

It is a phenomenon of immorality of which we fortunately do not have the privilege and which we find among all other peoples; undoubtedly, as the proverb says, a neighbor's illness does not cure ours; but, finally, it's a consolation all the same. Specifically, the latest issue of the World Review contains a documented study by Mr. George Nestler Tricoche on the crime wave in the United States, which provides us with curious information.

Let us not forget that the United States has only been in the active war for two years, and, yet, crimes have increased there to proportions which exceed anything we have to endure in Europe, and in France in particular. . Assassinations reached 10,000 in one year; there were only 9 in London; in New York 226, and 3,360 in Chicago. As for thefts, they are innumerable, not only on the railway, as we have seen some at home, but even on the tramways in all the suburbs of large cities. Mr. Tricoche points out to us a type of banditry that we have not seen again since the exploits of the Bonnot gang. On the other side of the Atlantic, it is daily that we see bandits entering banks in broad daylight, and while some prevent customers from leaving, others oblige, guns in hand, employees to deliver money from the coffers to them. .

There, as with us, criminals are recruited mainly among young people aged fifteen to twenty. An official statistic shows that, for the year 1922 alone, losses resulting from ordinary thefts or break-ins amounted to 525 million dollars. Let's forget about the 250 million dollars lost as a result of bankruptcies or scams by the knights of industry that abound there. Officials also provide their contingent of flights, valued at $200 million. To sum it all up, the misdeeds of rascals of all categories caused a total loss of 16 billion francs in one year. As for automobile thefts, which are rare here, they are common there; in New York alone 6,808 were stolen in twelve months, or 28 per day.

We could continue the comparison, it is all the same to the advantage of poor old France, so much slandered. The Americans certainly have many qualities, but in both bad and good they bring this particularity of doing everything in a big way and in series. Without displaying unseasonable pride, we can still say that, despite our habit of decrying ourselves, we are not worth less than other peoples. On many points, we are even better.

JEAN-BERNARD