The Criminal

§ 3. Anomalies of the Hair.

The beard in criminals is usually scanty. As against 1.5 per cent. cases of absence of beard in normal persons, Marro found 13.9 per cent. in criminals, and a very large proportion having scanty beard. The largest proportion of full beards among criminals was found by Marro in sexual offenders.

On the head the hair is usually, on the contrary, abundant. Marro has observed a notable proportion of woolly-haired persons, a character very rarely found in normal individuals. The same character has been noted among idiots. In contrast with what is found among the insane, baldness is very rare. Among criminal women remarkable abundance of hair is frequently noted, and it has sometimes formed their most characteristic physical feature, accompanied by an unusual development of fine hair on the face and body. Salsotto, who has given special attention to criminal women, finds a considerable distribution of hair between the pubes and the umbilicus (as in men) in 10 per cent. of the forty women he examined as to this character; such distribution among normal women only occurring (according to Schulze) in 5 per cent. cases. Salsotto also found abundant hair in seven out of the forty around the anus, a part in normal women rarely supplied with hair. The excess of down on the face is found with special frequency in women guilty of infanticide. It is worth while pointing out that (as Dr. Langdon Down notes) there are frequent anomalies in the development of hair among idiots. Some are hirsute over the entire body; 11 per cent. have continuous eye-brows.

This abundance of hair seems to be correlated with the animal vigour which is often so noticeable among criminals. It may at the same time be to some extent explained by arrest of development or atavism leading to the deficiency of beard which in its fully developed form marks, with few exceptions, only the highest human races. Strong sexual instincts are but the effervescence of this animal vigour; hence, perhaps, the connection between the presence of an unusual amount of hair and infanticide. In the case selected by Bucknill and Tuke as a typical example of insanity in women due to repressed sexual instinct, the chief physical characteristic noted was the amount of hair on the body; and in a case recorded by Dr. H. Sutherland (West Riding Asylum Reports, vol. vi.) of a girl whose illness and subsequent death were in his opinion due to “unsatisfied sexual desire,” the long fair hair, which she delighted in letting flow down to her knees, was specially noted. It was observed of the French writer, Restif de la Bretonne, of whose extraordinary and abnormal sexual proclivities, even at an early age, he has himself left ample evidence in his autobiographical book, Monsieur Nicolas, that his body was remarkably hairy.

In regard to colours, the proportion of dark-haired persons is considered greater among criminals than among the ordinary population in England, Italy, and Germany. An exception to this general rule in the case of sexual offenders (rape and pæderasty) appears to be well marked in Italy; though, so far as I have been able to ascertain, it has not been frequently observed in England. Marro associates the fair hair of sexual offenders with the precocious puberty of fair-haired women, as shown by the investigations of Professor Pagliani. The researches of Marro and Ottolenghi over a very considerable field give the following results for North Italy:—

Ottolenghi notes that the prevailing fair colour is reddish.[26]

Grey hair was found by Ottolenghi to be vastly more frequent at an early age among ordinary working men and peasants than among the 200 male criminals he examined: thus, between the ages of 30 to 33 it was 60 per cent. for the former, only 12 per cent. for the latter. This does not hold true for criminal women, who become grey more quickly than ordinary women. The male criminal in this respect resembles the epileptic, and especially the cretin, in whom grey hair is seldom seen. Baldness, Ottolenghi shows, is very rare, comparatively, in the criminal, in relation not only to the normal man but even to the epileptic and the cretin. In this respect the criminal differs greatly from the ordinary professional man, in whom baldness is frequently found.[27]

To the existing statistics of the colour of hair among criminals, taken as a whole, it is not possible at present to attach much value. There is no uniform system of description and nomenclature; it is difficult to make full allowance for ethnic divergence, and there rarely exists an adequate standard of comparison for the normal persons of corresponding race. Of 129 persons “wanted” at Scotland Yard, I find that 45 have “dark brown” hair, and of these 17 (i.e., 37.7 per cent.) are described as “dangerous,” “desperate,” “expert,” or “notorious”; 46 have “brown” hair, and of these 14 (i.e., 30 per cent.) are “dangerous,” etc.; 11 are “dark” (9) or “black” (2), and of these 3 (i.e., 27.2 per cent.) are “dangerous”; 27 are described as “light brown,” “light,” “sandy,” “fair,” “auburn” (one, a woman), “red” (one, a man, who is “dangerous”), and of these 9 (i.e., 33.3 per cent.) are “dangerous,” etc. This gives a proportion of red-haired persons about the same, according to my observations, as is found among middle-class men in the city, but considerably lower than is found, according to Dr. Beddoe, the chief authority on this subject (in his Races of Britain), among the lower classes in London—i.e., about 4 per cent. This is the class from which the criminals in question were chiefly drawn, but they do not exclusively belong to London; many come from the northern towns, and in many of these, Leeds, for instance,[28] according to my observations, the proportion of red-haired persons is decidedly larger than in London, and certainly not smaller.

It is interesting to compare these statistics of the hair of London criminals with a body of statistics concerning the colour of the hair of 1220 insane persons (omitting the grey-haired) in the New Brunswick Asylum; although as the racial mixture is certainly not quite identical, and the nomenclature probably varies, no strict comparison is possible. Of these 1220 insane persons the hair of 1050 is described as “dark,” “dark brown,” “brown,” while 170 have “light,” “auburn,” or “red” hair. One person in seven among the insane persons has fair hair, one in five among criminals; one person in fifty among the insane has red hair, one in 129 among the criminals; one in forty among the insane has auburn hair, one in 129 among the criminals. So that while the proportion of fair-haired is distinctly smaller among the insane, the proportion of red-haired and auburn-haired is very decidedly larger than among the criminals.

So far as exact evidence on the colour of the hair goes, it points chiefly to a relative deficiency of red-haired persons among criminals. This may perhaps be accounted for. There seems to be a lessened power of resistance to disease among persons of brilliant pigmentation. The extensive anthropological statistics of the American War showed a very marked inferiority on the part of fair persons. These statistics have been criticised by De Candolle, who believes, however, that even with deductions they may probably still be accepted. Our evidence as to the proportion of bright-haired people in lunatic asylums seems to point in this direction. These red-haired people, with their “sanguine” temperament of body, are peculiarly susceptible to zymotic disease; they take scarlet fever, for instance, very easily, and suffer from it severely. Among the manifold risks of a criminal life the brightly pigmented person, with his sensitive vascular system, seems to be soon eliminated.

§ 4. Criminal Physiognomy.

The science of physiognomy is still in a vague and rudimentary condition, although the art has long been practised with more or less success. There are, for instance, a large number of proverbs in which some of the most recent results reached by the criminal anthropologists of to-day were long ages back crystallised by the popular intelligence. Such are the Roman saying, “Little beard and little colour; there is nothing worse under heaven;” the French, “God preserve me from the beardless man;” the Tuscan, “Salute from afar the beardless man and the bearded woman;” the Venetian, “Trust not the woman with a man’s voice.”

Many of the old physiognomists, especially the two greatest, Dalla Porta and Lavater, tell us how they immediately recognised criminals, although they sometimes ludicrously failed; and Lavater once mistook the portrait of an executed assassin for Herder’s. A criminal anthropologist of to-day, Professor Enrico Ferri, declares that out of several hundred soldiers whom he examined, he found one, and one only, whom his face declared to be a murderer; he was told that this man had, in fact, been found guilty of murder. Garofalo, the Neapolitan jurist, observes that he is scarcely deceived twice out of ten times. Nor is this acuteness of perception by any means confined to skilled observers. It is very commonly found among women. Many persons, on first meeting an individual, are conscious of an unfavourable impression which they succeed in out-living, but which is subsequently justified. Sometimes the revealing glance is found, perhaps with a shock of horror, in a face already familiar. It is a mistake to attempt to stifle such instinctive impressions as irrational. They are part of the organised experiences of the race, and, subject to intellectual control, they are legitimate guides to conduct.

Professor Lombroso tells us that his mother, who had always lived far from the world, was twice able to discover the criminal character of young people whom as yet no one had suspected. A more curious example, he goes on to remark, occurred in connection with the murderer Francesconi. There was nothing remarkable about him, nothing to indicate ferocity or a temper unlike that of other people; his beard was abundant and forehead high; one just perceived a slight degree of prognathism and some prominence of the frontal eminences. Yet years before his crime, a young girl of sixteen (afterwards the Countess della Rocca), who had never quitted the paternal home, and had no experience of life, refused to speak to him when every one welcomed him on account of his wit. When asked why she treated him as though he were a scoundrel, she replied: “If he is not a murderer he will become one.” When Lombroso afterwards asked her by what sign she was guided to this too speedily verified prophecy, she replied: “By his eyes.” Lombroso once asked an intelligent schoolmistress to submit to thirty-two young girls twenty portraits of thieves and twenty of great men. Eighty per cent. of these children recognised the first as bad people, the second as good. On another occasion he showed two hundred photographs of youths to three medical men, and they all selected one as of the criminal type; a little girl of twelve also selected the same. This youth had never appeared in a court of justice, but he had cruelly betrayed those who had assisted him to obtain a good position in life. He was not legally a criminal, but, as Lombroso remarks, he was so anthropologically.

Beautiful faces, it is well known, are rarely found among criminals. The prejudice against the ugly and also against the deformed is not without sound foundation. What Hepworth Dixon wrote in 1850 on this point is still of general application in all civilised countries:—“The population of Millbank is always numerous and always changing; but its character remains substantially the same. Year after year the visitor might drop in and see no difference. There is a certain monotony and family likeness in the criminal countenance which is at once repulsive and interesting. No person can be long in the habit of seeing masses of criminals together without being struck with the sameness of their appearance. A handsome face is a thing rarely seen in a prison; and never in a person who has been a law-breaker from childhood. Well-formed heads, round and massive, denoting intellectual power, may be seen occasionally, but a pleasing, well-formed face, never.”

In looking through the large number of photographs in Lombroso’s great work, L’Uomo Delinquente, very few pleasant faces can be found. The two or three attractive ones are those of women in whom the glow of youth, plumpness, and abundant hair serve as a disguise to features that will scarcely bear examination. The proportion of good-looking faces among the excellent photographs in Inspector Byrnes’ Professional Criminals of America, is much larger. As the able chief of the Detective Department of New York, who, however, distinctly recognises a criminal type of face, remarked to a visitor: “Look through the pictures in the Rogues’ Gallery and see how many rascals you find there who resemble the best people in the country. Why, you can find some of them, I daresay, sufficiently like personal acquaintances to admit of mistaking the one for the other.” Those, however, belong to the aristocracy of crime; they are criminals by calculation; they have achieved a certain amount of success, and a passable face is part of their stock-in-trade. Yet even among these the proportion of faces that will bear examination is by no means large.

Émile Gautier, who was with Prince Krapotkine in the Lyons prison, remarks that he is not acquainted with the anatomical peculiarities of criminals, but that he knows that prisoners are not like the rest of the world. “Their cringing and timid ways, the mobility and cunning of their looks, a something feline about them, something cowardly, humble, suppliant, and crushed, makes them a class apart. One would say, dogs who had been whipped; hardly, here and there, a few energetic and brutal heads of rebels.”

A curious fixed look of the eye has often been considered a characteristic mark of, more especially, the instinctive criminal, a mark which cannot be disguised. “I do not need to see the whole of a criminal’s face,” said Vidocq, “to recognise him as such; it is enough for me to catch his eye.” Lombroso finds that the eyes of assassins resemble those of the feline animals at the moment of ambush or struggle; he has often observed it when the man has been making a muscular effort, as in compressing a dynamometer. Sometimes this feline and ferocious glance alternates with a gentle, almost feminine gaze; this combination giving them a strange power of fascination which has often been exercised on women.

Insistence on the feline aspect is very frequent among those who describe criminals. Thus, for instance, Professor Sergi:—“I have had occasion lately to observe a homicide, aged fifteen, who three months before committing this murder had attempted another, and at another time showed his ferocious nature by attacking a cow with a bill-hook and wounding it in several places. He has been condemned to eleven years’ imprisonment, is well developed for his age, and apparently has no morphological abnormalities, but he is prognathous, his nose is depressed, and all the lower part of the face, from the upper jaw down, has a savage cast. What most distinguishes him is his look; his eye is cruel and feline in the true sense of the word. Reserved, taciturn, even when he was free, now that he is in prison he has the appearance of a wild beast, the glance of a tiger.”

An interesting point in connection with the criminal physiognomy is that it is to a large extent independent of nationality. The German criminal is not very unlike the Italian, nor is the French unlike the English criminal. M. Joly remarks, “I should say that in M. A. Bertillon’s office I was shown nearly sixty photographs of Irish, English, and American thieves. It would have been difficult in many cases to discern the Anglo-Saxon rather than any other physiognomy.”

There is, in the opinion of many of the Italian criminal anthropologists, a special physiognomy for different crimes, though this statement is qualified by the well-known fact that quite different crimes may be committed by the same person. Dr. Marro, in his Caratteri dei Delinquenti, describes no fewer than eleven different classes of criminals, though the distinctions are not all physiognomical. Professor Lombroso’s descriptions are however the most vigorous and picturesque, though it is scarcely possible to receive them without qualification. Thieves he describes as frequently remarkable for the mobility of their features and of their hands; the eyes are small and very restless; the eyebrows thick and close; the nose often crooked or incurved; the beard thin; the forehead nearly always narrow and receding; the complexion pale or yellowish, and incapable of blushing. In those guilty of sexual offences Lombroso finds the eyes nearly always bright; the voice either rough or cracked; the face generally delicate, except in the development of the jaws, and the lips and eyelids swollen; occasionally they are humpbacked or otherwise deformed. Sometimes in incendiaries Lombroso has noted a peculiar delicacy of the skin, an infantile aspect, and abundance of hair, occasionally resembling a woman’s. The eye of the habitual homicide is glassy, cold, and fixed; his nose is often aquiline, beaked, reminding one of a bird of prey, always voluminous; the jaws are strong; the ears long; the cheek-bones large; the hair dark, curling, abundant; the beard often thin; the canine teeth much developed; the lips thin; nystagmus frequent; also spasmodic contractions on one side of the face, by which the canine teeth are exposed. The forger and sharper, on the other hand, has frequently a singular air of bonhomie, a kind of clerical appearance, which is indeed necessary in his business, because it inspires confidence. Some have angelic faces; others are small, pale, and haggard. The poisoner also frequently has a peculiarly benevolent aspect. “In general,” Lombroso concludes, “born criminals have projecting ears, thick hair, a thin beard, projecting frontal eminences, enormous jaws, a square and projecting chin, large cheek-bones, and frequent gesticulation. It is, in short, a type resembling the Mongolian, or sometimes the Negroid.”

It is very interesting to compare this concluding remark with some observations made by Dr. Langdon Down, who has carefully studied and endeavoured to classify the facial characteristics of idiots. Dr. Down finds a resemblance between feeble-minded children and the various ethnic types of the human family; he specially refers both to a Mongolian and a Negroid type. Just as Professor Lombroso finds the Mongolian type most common among his criminals, so Dr. Down finds it most common among his idiots: “more than 10 per cent. of congenital feeble-minded children are typical Mongols. Their resemblance is infinitely greater to one another than to the members of their own families.” Their characteristics are very marked: the hair is brownish (not black, as in the Mongol), straight, and sparse, the face flat and broad, the cheeks rounded and widened laterally, the eyes obliquely placed, and the fissure between the eyelids very narrow, the forehead wrinkled transversely, the lips large and thick, the nose small, the skin tawny. In Dr. Down’s Negroid type of idiot there are characteristic cheek-bones, prominent eyes, puffy lips, retreating chins, woolly but not black hair, and no pigmentation of skin. These points of resemblance are of considerable interest if we are of opinion that the instinctive criminal is best defined as a moral idiot.

As to the causes and indelibility of the criminal expression there is much divergence of opinion. Certain writers have spoken too incautiously on this point. Thus Professor Sergi, in the description of the homicidal lad, already quoted in part, goes on to remark: “In him nothing is acquired, everything is congenital.” And Maudsley, in a sombre and powerful description of the criminal physiognomy which has often been quoted, speaks of it as branded by the hand of nature. “Everything is congenital,” says Professor Sergi; yet we rarely hear of a baby who looks round from its mother’s breast with fierce and feline air. We have to distinguish between the anatomical physiognomy and the expression or mimique. To the ordinary observer the latter is far more striking; he notices at once if a countenance is sad or merry, angry or good-tempered, cowed or elate; he does not so readily observe the shape of the jaws, or the cut of the ears, or the lines of the forehead, yet such marks as these are alone strictly organic and can safely be called congenital.

M. Joly cites some interesting examples of discrepancy in the descriptions of the same criminal under varying conditions, even when the descriptions are the work of good observers. Some years ago a youth of nineteen, named Menesclou, was executed for having violated and killed a little girl, whom he afterwards cut up and burnt. A journalist on the staff of the Figaro, whose reports are considered very exact, thus described him at the trial: “Imagine a sort of abortion, bent and wrinkled, with earthy complexion, stealthy eyes, a face gnawed by scrofula, of cunning, dissipated, and cruel aspect. The forehead is low, the beard sparse and slovenly; the hair, black and thrown backwards, reaches to the shoulders; it is a head absolutely repulsive.” On the other hand, the chaplain of the prison, the Abbé Crozes, thus wrote:—“Menesclou by no means resembles the portraits which the journalists have drawn of him. Far from being repulsive, hideous, repugnant, he had a sympathetic and prepossessing physiognomy, the air of a young man who has been well brought up, a gentle, honest, naïve face; he looked, to me, like a page in a good house.”

In another example the varying descriptions have the advantage of being written by the same person, the Abbé Moreau, successor to the Abbé Crozes as chaplain to the Roquette Prison, and author of the valuable and interesting book, Le Monde des Prisons. “At the trial of Campi,” he wrote, “I had only perceived a coarse demoniac, brutal, cynical, making violent repartees. His repellant head was photographed on my memory; a slovenly beard framing a yellow, bilious face, the muscles of a beast of prey, and, lighting up the livid features with sinister gleam, two small piercing mobile eyes, of a ferocity which I could scarcely bear to see. Campi left on me the most melancholy impression; his head had appeared to me enormous; his shoulders of extraordinary breadth.” Here is another portrait by the same hand of Campi as he appeared in prison:—“I had now before me a young man of ordinary size, slim rather than broad, with a calm face lighted by a good-natured smile; the eyes had lost their ferocity. He approached me with a certain timidity, holding his cap in his hand; and waited respectfully until I spoke to him.”

It is clear that several factors go to make up our impressions of physiognomy. It is well known that it is difficult to estimate the dimensions of an individual seen alone at a distance, whether a criminal at the bar or an actor on the stage. An actor off the stage is as commonplace as a criminal in the streets. Add to this the horror of the spectator, to whose mental vision the crime is present, and the probable perturbation of the criminal whose fate is being argued. Would the conscientious reporter of the Figaro have written such a description had he simply met Menesclou as a stranger in the streets? And would the worthy Abbé’s impression of Campi have changed so greatly if the latter had not, when in complete command of himself, chosen to appear in an attitude of respectful humility?

In the Middle Ages there was a law by which, when two persons were suspected of a crime, the ugliest was to be selected for punishment. At the present day judges are, consciously or unconsciously, influenced by physiognomy, and ordinary human beings, who also in a humble way sit in judgment on their fellows, are influenced in the same manner. The modern criminal anthropologists, with all their minute and patient investigations, have not yet, however, succeeded in making criminal physiognomy a very exact science, and the more criminal amongst us may still find consolation in the reflection that there are no unfailing criteria by which our crimes may be read upon our faces.

§ 5. The Body and Viscera.

Notwithstanding their agility and spasmodic activity, the muscular system of criminals is generally feeble. Such few observations as have yet been made show that muscular anomalies are found with remarkable frequency. Thus the investigations of Guerra on the bodies of 12 normal persons and 18 criminals, showed 11 anomalous muscular conditions in the latter as against 5 in the former.

Lacassagne some years ago pointed out the remarkable length of the extended arms (la grande envergure). Although many observers refer to this peculiarity, and in many isolated cases it is marked and doubtless connected with the agility of criminals, as among some lower races and the apes, I am not acquainted with any extended series of observations in which criminals and normal persons are fairly compared in this respect. Marro’s series, although the normal persons are in too small number, as he himself points out, is as reliable as any, and does not in the average show any preponderance of long-armed individuals among criminals. There is, however, reason to believe that individuals with exceptionally long arms are more often met with among criminals.

“Among the inmates of the Elmira Reformatory,” remarks Dr. H. Wey, “the greatest physical deficiency and least resistive power is found in the respiratory apparatus. Pigeon-breasts, imperfectly developed chests, and stooping shoulders abound. During a period of eight years, with 26 deaths, 13, or 50 per cent., were from diseases of the chest, not including affections of the heart.”

In his answers to my Questions a prison surgeon remarks, “Many men have large nipples and large well-marked areolæ. This is often very remarkable.” I am not aware that this has been noticed by any other observer, and the point deserves further examination.

Heart disease is common among criminals. Out of 54 examined by Flesch, 20 per cent. died of heart disease, 50 per cent. showed affections of the heart. Valvular insufficiency and cardiac atrophy seem to be remarkably prevalent. Penta found endarteritis and atheroma in 82 of his 184 instinctive criminals, i.e. 44 per cent., although many of them were young. The condition, he says, was diffused and pronounced; 20 of these 82 showed aortic insufficiency. It may be noted that arterial anomalies are extremely frequent. Thus Guerra found 14 arterial anomalies in his 18 criminals as against 4 in his 12 normal persons. Heart disease is also common among the insane. Its tendency to produce mental alterations has often been noted; pride, egotism, and an inclination to violence are found, especially (according to Witkowski) among those affected with ventricular hypertrophy; with aortic disease, neurotic and hysterical states; with mitral disease, melancholy and attacks of violence. This is not surprising when we remember the intimate connection that subsists normally between the heart and the brain, the vascular system forming, as it were, the basis of the brain.

The sexual organs in women criminals very frequently reveal pathological conditions. Undescended testis has been frequently found by one of the medical officers who answered my Questions. Unusual size of penis by another. It is interesting to note in this connection that Drs. Bourneville and Sollier found exaggerated development of the glans penis extremely common among the idiots at the Bicêtre, and that among 728 individuals examined they found no fewer than 262 presenting anomalies of the sexual organs, an enormous proportion when compared with the ordinary population.[29] Ottolenghi believes that “on the whole anomalies of the genital organs have in sexual offenders no small diagnostic importance, especially when united to other characters which distinguish them from the honest and from criminals in general—as the greater frequency of fair hair, of malformed ears, of bichromatism of the iris, of blue eyes, of twisted noses, of facial asymmetry, of voluminous lower jaws, and of various neuroses, especially epilepsy.”[30]

It may be noted here that Marro and Ottolenghi have recently studied metabolism in criminals. The chief point that comes out is an augmented elimination of phosphoric acid in the urine. The same has been observed in chronic alcoholism. These researches will, no doubt, be continued.[31]

§ 6. Heredity.

The detailed study of criminal heredity and of criminal habit, or recidivism, scarcely forms part of criminal anthropology. It is an important branch of criminal sociology. But the facts of heredity form part of the evidence in favour of the reality of the criminal anthropologist’s conclusions, and it is not possible to ignore them here entirely. Moreover, the attitude of society towards the individual criminal and his peculiarities must be to some extent determined by our knowledge of criminal heredity.

The hereditary character of crime, and the organic penalties of natural law, were recognised even in remote antiquity. They were involved in the old Hebrew conception, which seems to have played a vital part in Hebrew life, of a God who visited the sins of the parents upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. We know also the story in Aristotle of the man who, when his son dragged him by his hair to the door, exclaimed—“Enough, enough, my son; I did not drag my father beyond this.” And Plutarch puts the doctrine of heredity in a shape that is both ancient and modern—“That which is engendered is made of the very substance of the generating being, so that he bears in him something which is very justly punished or recompensed for him, for this something is he.” Or again—“There is between the generating being and the generated a sort of hidden identity, capable of justly committing the second to all the consequences of an action committed by the first.”

There are two factors, it must be remembered, in criminal heredity, as we commonly use the expression. There is the element of innate disposition, and there is the element of contagion from social environment. Both these factors clearly had their part in Sbro ... who is regarded by Lombroso as the classical type of “moral insanity.” His grandfather had committed murder from jealousy; his father, condemned for rape, had killed a woman to test a gun. He in his turn killed his father and his brother. Practically, it is not always possible to disentangle these two factors; a bad home will usually mean something bad in the heredity in the strict sense. Frequently the one element alone, whether the heredity or the contagion, is not sufficient to determine the child in the direction of crime. A case given by Prosper Lucas seems to show this: “In November 1845 the Assize Court of the Seine condemned three members out of five of a family of thieves, the Robert family. This case presented a circumstance worthy of remark. The father had not found among all his children the disposition that he would have desired; he had to use force with his wife and the two younger children, who up to the last were rebellious to his infamous orders. The eldest daughter, on the other hand, followed, as if by instinct, her father’s example, and was as ardent and violent as he in attempting to bend the family to his odious tastes. But in one part of the family the instinct was lacking; they inherited from their mother.”

The influence of heredity, even in the strict sense of the word, in the production of criminals, does not always lie in the passing on of developed proclivities. Sometimes a generation of criminals is merely one stage in the progressive degeneration of a family. Sometimes crime seems to be the method by which the degenerating organism seeks to escape from an insane taint in the parents. Of the inmates of the Elmira Reformatory, 499, or 13.7 per cent., have been of insane or epileptic heredity. Of 233 prisoners at Auburn, New York, 23.03 per cent. were clearly of neurotic (insane, epileptic, etc.) origin; in reality many more. Virgilio found that 195 out of 266 criminals were affected by diseases that are usually hereditary. Rossi found 5 insane parents to 71 criminals, 6 insane brothers and sisters, and 14 cases of insanity among more distant relatives. Kock found morbid inheritance in 46 per cent. of criminals. Marro, who has examined the matter very carefully, found the proportion 77 per cent., and by taking into consideration a large range of abnormal characters in the parents, the proportion of criminals with bad heredity rose to 90 per cent. He found that an unusually large proportion of the parents had died from cerebro-spinal diseases, and from phthisis. Sichard, examining nearly 4000 German criminals in the prison of which he is Director, found an insane, epileptic, suicidal, and alcoholic heredity in 36.8 per cent. incendiaries, 32.2 per cent. thieves, 28.7 per cent. sexual offenders, 23.6 per cent. sharpers. Penta found among the parents of 184 criminals only 4 to 5 per cent. who were quite healthy.

Even when well-marked disease is absent in the parents, exhausting and debilitating influences, age at time of conception and overwork, may play a disastrous part. Dr. Langdon Down (Mental Diseases of Childhood) has shown how the same influences play a part in the production of idiocy; how, for instance, a man may during periods of strain and overwork conceive idiot children, and at other periods healthy children. Marro has made some interesting investigations into the ages of the father at the period of conception of criminals, as compared with ordinary persons and with the insane. He divided the fathers into three groups, according to age at conception: the first included those in the period of immaturity, which he reckoned as below 25 years of age; the second was the period of maturity from 26 to 40; the third from 41 onwards, the period of decadence. Plate VII. represents in a graphic form the percentage of fathers belonging to each period in various groups; the first column in each group representing the proportion of fathers belonging to the period of immaturity, the second those belonging to the period of maturity, the third those belonging to the period of decadence. It will be seen that the largest proportion of immature parents is among the class of thieves, although among the insane the proportion is still larger. More remarkable is the abnormally large proportion of criminals with parents belonging to the period of decadence. It is most marked among the murderers, 52.9 per cent. of whose fathers had passed the period of maturity; but it is very large also, exceeding the insane among those convicted of assault and wounding (not represented in the Plate), and among sharpers. Sexual offenders have the largest proportion of mature fathers, the smallest of youthful fathers. Suspecting that among idiots a very large proportion of elderly fathers would be found, I applied to Dr. Langdon Down, who has kindly gone through the notes of one thousand cases, and confirmed this suspicion. He finds that in 23 per cent. cases there has been a disparity of age of more than ten years at the birth of the idiot child, the father in nearly every case being the elder, and that in many cases this disparity has reached more than 25 years. It appears, then, Dr. Down adds, that the disparity of age is a factor in the production of idiocy. It may be added that the elderly parent, by dying and leaving his children young and unprotected, has also a social influence in the creation of criminals.

Relation of Age of Parents in Normal Persons, the Insane and Criminal.

It is interesting to compare these results with those of Korosi, Director of the Hungarian Statistical Bureau, on the ordinary population. He has investigated 24,000 cases, and found that the children of fathers below 20 are of feeble constitution; that fathers aged from 25 to 40 produce the strongest children, and that above 40 fathers tend to beget weak children. The most healthy children have a mother below the age of 35; the children born between 35 and 40 are 8 per cent. weaker; after 40, 10 per cent. weaker. The children born of old fathers and young mothers, it should, however, be added, are generally of strong constitution. If the parents are of the same age the children are less robust.

Such hereditary influences as these seem to have played a part in the production of that typical criminal by instinct, T. G. Wainewright, who appears to have had no criminals or lunatics among his ancestry. The often-quoted case of the criminal family, first mentioned by Despine in his Psychologie Naturelle, is interesting in this connection. Three brothers, the sons of one Jean Chrétien, had children and grandchildren as under—

Nothing is told us of the man and his three sons who produced this awful brood, save that they were not themselves condemned criminals; but whatever the influence was, it existed in all three of the brothers, who each begat murderers and thieves. It is by subtle hereditary influences, as well as by the instinctive habits of a lifetime, that we must explain the influence of criminal contagion on men of honest life and clean record. M. Émile Gautier, a political prisoner with Prince Krapotkine and a number of French working-men in the great prison of Clairvaux, has recorded an experience which is of interest in this connection. “Out of fifty political prisoners,” he writes in his interesting and thoughtful impressions published in the Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle in 1888, “belonging to the average, or even the élite, of the working-class population of a large town like Lyons, a good half-dozen will be found who feel themselves at home in prison, and go immediately towards the criminal-law prisoners, assuming at once, in virtue of I do not know what equivocal predestination, their language, their appearance, their habits, their mental dispositions, even the same negative morality, savagery, treachery, artfulness, rapacity, and unnatural vice.”

Alcoholism in either of the parents is one of the most fruitful causes of crime in the child. To the drunkenness of Jupiter when Vulcan was conceived the Romans attributed the deformity of that god; in the words of the old Latin poet:—

There is to-day no doubt whatever that chronic alcoholism as well as temporary intoxication at the time of conception modifies profoundly the brain and nervous system of both parent and offspring. Some of the most characteristic cases of instinctive criminality are solely or chiefly due to alcoholism in one of the parents. When insanity and alcoholism are combined in the parents, a rich and awful legacy of degeneration is left to the offspring. Thus, one among many instances, Morel quotes a case in which the father was alcoholic, the mother insane, and of the five children one committed suicide, two became convicts, one daughter was mad, and another semi-imbecile. Carefully-drawn statistics of the 4000 criminals who have passed through Elmira, New York, show drunkenness clearly existing in the parents in 38.7 per cent., and probably in 11.1 per cent. more. Out of seventy-one criminals whose ancestry Rossi was able to trace, in twenty the father was a drunkard, in eleven the mother. Marro found that on an average 41 per cent. of the criminals he examined had a drunken parent, as against 16 per cent. for normal persons.

Nor is it necessary that the alcoholism should be carried so far as to produce great obvious injury to the parent. The action of the poison may be slow and carried on from generation to generation. The fathers eat sour grapes; the children’s teeth are set on edge.

The relation of alcoholism to criminality is by no means so simple as is sometimes thought; alcoholism is an effect as well as a cause. It is part of a vicious circle. For a well-conditioned person of wholesome heredity to become an inebriate is not altogether an easy matter. It is facilitated by a predisposition, and alcoholism becomes thus a symptom as well as a cause of degeneration. The conclusions of Dr. Crothers, who has devoted considerable study to this subject, are worthy of attention. He believes that we do not sufficiently study the origin of inebriety. His conclusions are—(1) that inebriety is itself evidence of more or less unsoundness; (2) in a large proportion of cases it is only a sign of slow and insidious brain disease; (3) when crime is committed by inebriates, the probability of mental disease is very strong; (4) using spirits to procure intoxication for the purpose of committing crime is evidence of the most dangerous form of reasoning mania. The crime and the inebriety are only symptoms of disease and degeneration, “whose footprints can be traced back from stage to stage.”[32] It may be added that the danger of alcoholism, from the present point of view, lies not in any mysterious prompting to crime which it gives, but in the manner in which the poison lets loose the individual’s natural or morbid impulses, whatever these may be.

If we set aside these slow and subtle causes and symptoms of degeneration—causes which, while they may have long been recognised, are only now beginning to be understood—there is no doubt whatever that the criminal parent tends to produce a criminal child. There are, as Vidocq said, families in which crime is transmitted from generation to generation, and which seem to exist merely in order to prove the truth of the old proverb: bon chien chasse de race. The investigations at Elmira showed that in 51.8 per cent. the home was “positively bad,” and only “good” in 8.3 per cent. A large number of the criminals investigated by Rossi (Studio sopra una Centuria di Criminali) belonged to criminal families. Two typical examples may be given:—N. N., condemned for fraud and violence; father, alcoholic, convicted of fraud; mother, healthy; six brothers, died young; one brother, a monster; another brother, born with webbed fingers; another brother, highway-robber; another brother, convicted of wounding; two sisters, one insane, the other a prostitute. R. S., a thief, camorrista, convicted of wounding, etc; father, convicted of wounding; paternal uncle, a thief; mother, a drunkard, convicted for fraud and wounding; maternal grandfather, insane; maternal uncles, camorrista; one brother, pickpocket, who five times feigned madness; another brother, camorrista, convicted of fraud; another, thief; another, receiver; another, camorrista and thief; a sister, honest and healthy.

Sometimes the criminal tradition is carried on through many generations and with great skill, a kind of professional caste being formed. The Johnson family of counterfeiters in America is an example of this. The grandfather was a famous counterfeiter in his day; the next generation were well known to the police; in the third generation criminal audacity and skill appear to have reached a very high degree in seven brothers and sisters, one of them, especially, being considered one of the most expert counterfeiters of the day; he has spent a large part of his life in various prisons.

The so-called “Jukes” family of America is the largest criminal family known, and its history, which has been carefully studied, is full of instruction.[33] The ancestral breeding-place of this family was in a rocky inaccessible spot in the state of New York. Here they lived in log or stone houses, sleeping indiscriminately round the hearth in winter, like so many radii, with their feet to the fire. The ancestor of the family, a descendant of early Dutch settlers, was born here between 1720 and 1740. He is described as living the life of a backwoodsman, “a hunter and fisher, a hard drinker, jolly and companionable, averse to steady toil,” working by fits and starts. This intermittent work is characteristic of that primitive mode of life led among savages by the men always, if not by the women, and it is the mode of life which the instinctive criminal naturally adopts. This man lived to old age, when he became blind, and he left a numerous, more or less illegitimate, progeny. Two of his sons married two out of five more or less illegitimate sisters; these sisters were the “Jukes.” The descendants of these five sisters have been traced with varying completeness through five subsequent generations. The number of individuals thus traced reaches 709; the real aggregate is probably 1200. This vast family, while it has included a certain proportion of honest workers, has been on the whole a family of criminals and prostitutes, of vagabonds and paupers. Of all the men not twenty were skilled workmen, and ten of these learnt their trade in prison; 180 received out-door relief to the extent of an aggregate of 800 years; or, making allowances for the omissions in the record, 2300 years.[34] Of the 709 there were 76 criminals, committing 115 offences. The average of prostitution among the marriageable women down to the sixth generation was 52.40 per cent.; the normal average has been estimated at 1.66 per cent. There is no more instructive study in criminal heredity than that of the Jukes family.

§ 7. Tattooing.

The practice of tattooing is very common among criminals, and is frequently carried to an extraordinary extent, twenty or thirty designs being occasionally found on the same subject. Lombroso was the first to point out the full biological and psychical significance of this practice.

Arms of criminal whose whole body was
more or less tattooed. (Lombroso.)

Alborghetti found 15 per cent. of the inmates of the prison at Bergamo tattooed. Lombroso examined 100 children at the reformatory at Turin, and found 40 of them tattooed. Among 235 other youthful criminals he found 32 per cent. tattooed. Among the ordinary population tattooed children are very rarely seen. Rossi found 23 tattooed among the 100 criminals whom he has so carefully studied. Lacassagne among 800 convicted French soldiers found 40 per cent. tattooed.[35]

The designs vary in character, but certain emblems are frequently repeated. Tardieu out of 160 designs found 20 relating to love, 20 to war, 8 to religion, 8 to occupation, 6 to obscene practices.

A French glazier, thief, deserter from army; had been in Africa.
The chief figure on breast is St. George. (Lombroso.)

Dr. Greaves, the medical officer of Derby Prison, has kindly noted details of the tattoo marks observed on the prisoners received there during three months. Out of 555 persons admitted, 41 (40 men and one woman) were tattooed; i.e., 7.3 per cent. The tattooed individuals were chiefly soldiers, with a few miners and sailors. The favourite devices were flags, ships, anchors, female figures, bracelets, and initials. There were two inscriptions, “Love” and “Jesus wept”; and among the less common devices were a crucifix, Maltese crosses, a ballet girl, a mermaid, and Chinese flower-pots. The most numerous and complex figures were all found on soldiers.

The designs most frequently found by Rossi among his 23 tattooed criminals were—portrait of mistress or nude woman (8); initials, either of self, mistress, or friend (9); a transfixed heart, an emblem sometimes of love, sometimes of vengeance (5); flowers, comets, swords, serpents, etc.

Tattooed inscriptions, as noted by Lacassagne, who has given special attention to this matter, are frequently characteristic of the criminal’s mental attitude; here are a few of the commonest: “Son of misfortune,” “No luck,” “Death to unfaithful women,” “Vengeance,” “Son of disgrace,” “Born under an unlucky star,” “Child of joy,” “The past has deceived me.”

The favourite position for tattooing, among the ordinary population, is the front of the forearm; to a less degree the shoulders, the chest (especially sailors), or the fingers. All who are tattooed on the back or the sexual organs (according to Lombroso) have without exception either been among the Pacific islands or sojourned in a prison. The greater number of tattooed criminals are naturally found among recidivists and instinctive criminals, especially those who have committed crimes against the person. The fewest are found among swindlers and forgers, the most intelligent class of criminals. There is evidence that criminals frequently refrain from tattooing themselves because they know these marks form an easy method of recognition in the hands of the police. It appears that, in Italy at all events, the connection between tattoo marks and crime has been of late recognised by the common soldiers. In 1848 the soldiers of the Piedmontese army considered tattooing a mark of virility. Recently, when Lombroso asked a soldier why he was not tattooed, he replied: “Because those are the things that lead to the galleys;” and an army doctor assured Lombroso that tattooed men were considered a priori as bad soldiers.