In France, rapes and offences
against modesty are most numerous in May, June, and July, as
Villerme, Lacassagne, and others have shown. Villerme,
investigating 1,000 such cases, found a gradual ascent in
frequency (only slightly broken in March) to a maximum in June
(oscillating between May and July, when the years are considered
separately), and then a gradual descent to a minimum in December.
Legludic gives, for the 159 cases he had investigated, a table
showing a small February-March climax, and a large June-August
maximum, the minimum being reached in November-January.
(Legludic, _Attentats aux Moeurs_, 1896, p. 16.) In Germany,
Aschaffenburg finds that sexual offences begin to increase in
March and April, reach a maximum in June or July, and fall to a
minimum in winter (_Monatsschrift fuer Psychiatrie_, 1903, Heft
2). In Italy, Penta shows that sexual offences reach a minor
climax in May (corresponding, in his experience, with the maximum
for crimes generally, as well as with the maximum for
conceptions), and a more marked climax in August-September
(Penta, _I Pervertimenti Sessuali_, 1893, p. 115; id. _Rivista
Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1899).
Corre, in his _Crime en Pays Creole_, presents charts of the
seasonal distribution of crime in Guadeloupe, with relation to
temperature, which show that while, in a mild temperature like
that of France and England, crime attains its maximum in the hot
season, it is not so in a more tropical climate; in July, when in
Guadeloupe the heat attains its maximum degree, crime of all
kinds falls suddenly to a very low minimum.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285