The great founders of criminal statistics, Quetelet and Guerry, observed that the change of seasons carried with it a change in criminality.

We visited a number of towns in Belgium (at Brussels I saw the beginning of the Observatory with Quetelet), and passed by Cologne, Frankfort, Fribourg, and Basle to Zurich.

The following tables have been carefully prepared from those of Dr. Thomson, with the addition of some scanty facts from other sources,scanty, because, as Quetelet indignantly observes, less pains have as yet been taken to measure accurately the physical powers of man than those of any machine he has constructed or any animal he has tamed.

But from the beginning of accurate statistics we know that the duration of life in any nation is a fair index of its progress in civilization, Quetelet gives statistics, more or less reliable, from every nation of Northern Europe, showing a gain of ten to twenty-five per cent, during the last century.

It is singular how little pains have been taken to ascertain definitely what a man can do with his body,far less, as Quetelet has observed, than in regard to any animal which man has tamed, or any machine which he has invented.

Quetelet discovered that sometimes after lecturing, or other special intellectual action, he could perform gymnastic feats impossible to him at other times.

The same idea is sometimes expressed by the word "typical," which was much used by Quetelet, who was the first to give it a rigorous interpretation, and whose idea of a type lies at the basis of his statistical views.

It has been translated into French by M. Quetelet; and both foreign and English men of science have been accustomed to regard it as indicating a new point of departure in the important branch of science to which it is devoted.

Yet the generalizations for which they were seeking a basis were trivial in comparison with those which our author hurtles out after a glance at M. Quetelet.