summary 281 both in numbers and in relation to the number of murders in general. The main cities studied have been Stockholm, Copenhagen, Vienna and Hamburg. Tyge Krogh also has studied more rural areas in Denmark and Vera Lind in a study of suicide in the Schleswig-Holstein area has found several cases. Several of these studies has found that a substantial number of the murders were of this type. One must note that there at least often is a great uncertainty in the results due to the often not certain motive. Seeking to widen the perspective concerning these crimes material, mostly of other types, relating to several other countries have also been used. One interesting result given in modern research is that women were the most common murderer and children were the most commonvictims. Low social status, lack of power, and poverty were common features among these murderers. Two words that says something about these crimes are proximity and certainty. Cases exists of those murdering somebody unknown, i e the guardian soldier shooting somebody passing or somebody travelling far to commit a crime, like sacrilege in Rome, but those cases are comparably rare. The child, rarely one’s own, more often the child of the friend or the sibling are common victims. If one seeks to be executed it naturally is best to commit a crime carrying with it the reasonably certainty to result in execution. At least when it comes to murder it also was best to ensure that the victim died. That is a possible reason for the many cases of throats being cut. The focus then shifts from the crimes to the execution and at least three aspects concerning it – executions being a joint venture by a system of state and church, the messages given by that system, and the preparation of the condemned. The messages, however, were received by someone, primarily the populace attending, but both messages sent and received at the executions could differ substantially. Everybody was in principle expected to attend and receive the messages, such as school children learning to abhor crime, but at least from the early nineteenth century the presence of first children and then women were criticised in newspapers. Eventually the re-
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