THE WEATHER AND CRIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10085, 21 March 1896, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE WEATHER AND CRIME.

A METKOKuLoiiiCAL statistician has been investigating the influence of weather on crime, and hie conclusions point in the same direction as those of his colleagues, who, after a long consideration of the Registrar-General's reports, decided that people showed more disposition to cease battling with the troubles of lite when the weather is remarkably fine than when it is cold and dreary. The barometrical criminologist finds that the ordinary kinds of offences, such as pocket-picking, thefts, and common assaults, increase greatly with hot weathor, and still more when the heat is aggravated by a prolonged absonce of rain. In the winter months, when the atmosphere is clear and cold, the tendency to crime decreases, and curiously enough, the diminution is accentuated with an accompaniment of cold rain and sleet. A south east wind is more conducive to petty larceny than one from the north-east, which seems to exercise a moral influence over the criminally disposed, fully justifying the encomiums passed on it by Kingsley as the "wind of God." Let ail reformers, therefore, speak respectfully of the brave nor'-easter, even though it turns their umbrellas insido out, and blows away their shiniest tall hats into the mud. They should refrain, even under these circumstances, from using hard words which defame its character, for the same gusts which tmke their angry passions rise may extinguish in the breast of a thief the desire to appropriate their purses and watchchains. Thus does good blow out of apparent evil. Policemen have always, of course, their " weather eye " open, but now they know when to keep it opener and openesfc.