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45
The unstable classes are in the majority, especially in the case of women offenders.
In the case of some men whose conduct in other respects than as regards the charge
might be regarded as stable, the actual offence itself may be in part due
to the recent conditions of the labour market. This would apply in particular
to such offences as begging, stealing and possibly to desertion. As a check on
these possibilities, it seemed desirable to extract from the records the evidence
as to the regularity of the past employment of the offenders. They were, therefore,
grouped under three heads, regular employment, occasional employment and
unemployable, but as it appeared that a small number had only just left school
and had not yet been in any place, they were accorded a special section.

From this it appears that in men the greater number of cases of stealing arise
among the unemployable or those with very irregular employment, while in the
women the largest figure is for those in regular work.
The relationship between emotional stability and working capacity is shewn in
the following tables.

The relation between lack of employment and emotional instability is evident
and bears out the general observation that an employer, particularly for rough
and poorly-paid work, will put up with a good deal of stupidity but not with outbursts
of temper. Those who combined emotional stability nearly amounting
to apathy, with little capacity for employment, were of the lower intellectual grades ;
the unstable who were regularly employed were for the more part of the higher
grade. The offences of the more stable and employable were either stealing, or of
a miscellaneous character, such as cruelty, assault or desertion.