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THE SCIENCE SERIES

Edited by EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE, Ph.D., and F. E. BEDDARD, M.A., F.R.S.

1. +The Study of Man.+ By A. C. HADDON.

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13. +Fatigue.+ By A. MOSSO.

14. +Earthquakes.+ By CLARENCE E. DUTTON.

15. +The Nature of Man.+ By ELIE METCHNIKOFF.

16. +Nervous and Mental Hygiene in Health and Disease.+ By AUGUST FOREL.

17. +The Prolongation of Life.+ By ELIE METCHNIKOFF.

18. +The Solar System.+ By CHARLES LANE POOR.

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24. +Thinking, Feeling, Doing.+ By E. W. SCRIPTURE.

25. +The World's Gold.+ By L. DE LAUNAY.

26. +The Interpretation of Radium.+ By F. SODDY.

27. +Criminal Man.+ By CESARE LOMBROSO.

_For list of works in preparation see end of this volume_

The Science Series

CRIMINAL MAN

CRIMINAL MAN

ACCORDING TO THE CLASSIFICATION OF

CESARE LOMBROSO

BRIEFLY SUMMARISED BY HIS DAUGHTER

GINA LOMBROSO-FERRERO

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

CESARE LOMBROSO

_ILLUSTRATED_

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1911

COPYRIGHT, 1911

BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

CONTENTS

_PART I.--THE CRIMINAL WORLD_

CHAPTER I PAGE

THE BORN CRIMINAL 3

Classical and modern schools of penal jurisprudence--Physical anomalies

of the born criminal--Senses and functions--Psychology--Intellectual

manifestations--The criminal in proverbial sayings.

CHAPTER II

THE BORN CRIMINAL AND HIS RELATION TO MORAL INSANITY AND EPILEPSY 52

Identity of born criminals and the morally insane--Analogy of physical

and psychic characters, origin and development--Epilepsy--Multiformity

of disease--Equivalence of certain forms to criminality--Physical and

psychic characters--Cases of moral insanity with latent epileptic

phenomena.

CHAPTER III

THE INSANE CRIMINAL 74

General forms of criminal insanity, imbecility, melancholia, general

paralysis, dementia, monomania--Physical and psychic characters of the

mentally deranged--Special forms of criminal insanity--Inebriate

lunatics from inebriation--Physical and psychic characters--Specific

crimes--Epileptic lunatics--Manifestations--Hysterical lunatics--

Physical and functional characters--Psychology.

CHAPTER IV

CRIMINALOIDS 100

Psychology--Tardy adoption of criminal career--Repentance--

Confession--Moral sense and affections--Habitual criminals--Juridical

criminals--Criminals of passion.

_PART II.--CRIME, ITS ORIGIN, CAUSE, AND CURE_

CHAPTER I

ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF CRIME 125

Atavistic origin of crime--Criminality in children--Pathological

origin of crime--Direct and indirect heredity--Illnesses,

intoxications, and traumatism--Alcoholism--Social causes of crime--

Education and environment--Atmospheric and climatic influences--

Density of population--Imitation--Immigration--Prison life--Economic

conditions--Sex--Age.

CHAPTER II

THE PREVENTION OF CRIME 153

Preventive institutions for children and young people--Homes for

orphans and destitute children--Colonies for unruly youths--

Institutions for assisting adults--Salvation Army.

CHAPTER III

METHODS FOR THE CURE AND REPRESSION OF CRIME 175

Juvenile offenders--Children's Courts--Institutions for female

offenders--Minor offenders, criminals of passion, political offenders,

and criminaloids--Probation system and indeterminate sentence--

Reformatories--Penitentiaries--Institutes for habitual criminals--

Penal colonies--Institutions for born criminals and the morally

insane--Asylums for insane criminals--Capital punishment--Symbiosis.

_PART III.--CHARACTERS AND TYPES OF CRIMINALS_

CHAPTER I

EXAMINATION OF CRIMINALS 219

Antecedents and psychology--Methods of testing intelligence and

emotions--Morbid phenomena--Speech, memory, and handwriting--

Clothing--Physical examination--Tests of sensibility and senses--

Excretions--Table of anthropological examination of criminals and

the insane.

CHAPTER II

SUMMARY OF CHIEF FORMS OF CRIMINALITY TO AID IN DISTINGUISHING

BETWEEN CRIMINALS AND LUNATICS AND IN DETECTING SIMULATIONS OF

INSANITY 258

A few cases showing the practical application of criminal anthropology.

APPENDIX

WORKS OF CESARE LOMBROSO (BRIEFLY SUMMARISED)

_I._ THE MAN OF GENIUS 283

_II._ CRIMINAL MAN 288

_III._ THE FEMALE OFFENDER. (In Collaboration with Guglielmo Ferrero.) 291

_IV._ POLITICAL CRIME. (In Collaboration with Rodolfo Laschi.) 294

_V._ TOO SOON: A Criticism of the New Italian Penal Code 298

_VI._ PRISON PALIMPSESTS: Studies in Prison Inscriptions 300

_VII._ ANCIENT AND MODERN CRIMES 302

_VIII._ DIAGNOSTIC METHODS OF LEGAL PSYCHIATRY 303

_IX._ ANARCHISTS 305

_X._ LECTURES ON LEGAL MEDICINE 307

_XI._ RECENT DISCOVERIES IN PSYCHIATRY AND CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND

THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THESE SCIENCES 309

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE CHIEF WORKS OF CESARE LOMBROSO 310

INDEX 315

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Fig. 1. FOSSETTE OCCIPITAL 6

Fig. 2. SKULL FORMATION 11

Fig. 3. SKULL FORMATION 11

Fig. 4. HEAD OF CRIMINAL 16

Fig. 5. HEAD OF CRIMINAL 16

Fig. 6. LAYERS OF THE FRONTAL REGION 23

Fig. 7. FIGURES MADE IN PRISON. MURDER OF A SLEEPING VICTIM 32

Fig. 8. CRUCIFIX POIGNARD 32

Fig. 9. WATER-JUGS 42

Fig. 10. DRAWINGS IN SCRIPT. DISCOVERED BY DE BLASIO 44

Fig. 11. ALPHABET. DISCOVERED BY DE BLASIO 45

Fig. 12. BOY MORALLY INSANE 56

Fig. 13. BOY MORALLY INSANE 56

Fig. 14. AN EPILEPTIC BOY 60

Fig. 15. FERNANDO. EPILEPTIC 60

Fig. 16. ITALIAN CRIMINAL. A CASE OF ALCOHOLISM 82

Fig. 17. SIGNATURES OF CRIMINALS 163

Fig. 18. CRIMINAL GIRL 114

Fig. 19. THE BRIGAND SALOMONE 114

Fig. 20. BRIGAND GASPARONE 166

Fig. 21. BRIGAND CASERIO 120

Fig. 22. TERRA-COTTA BOWLS. DESIGNED BY A CRIMINAL 134

Fig. 23. ART PRODUCTION FROM PRISON 136

Fig. 24. A COMBAT BETWEEN BRIGANDS AND GENDARMES. DESIGNED

BY A CRIMINAL 136

Fig. 25. A VOLUMETRIC GLOVE 224

Fig. 26. HEAD OF A CRIMINAL. EPILEPTIC 224

Fig. 27. ANTON OTTO KRAUSER. APACHE 236

Fig. 28. A CRIMINAL'S EAR 224

Fig. 29. ANTHROPOMETER 237

Fig. 30. CRANIOGRAPH ANFOSSI 238

Fig. 31. PELVIMETER 239

Fig. 32. DIAGRAM OF SKULL 241

Fig. 33. DIAGRAM OF SKULL 241

Fig. 34. ESTHESIOMETER 245

Fig. 35. ALGOMETER 248

Fig. 36. CAMPIMETER OF LANDOLT (MODIFIED) 248

Fig. 37. DIAGRAM SHOWING NORMAL VISION 250

Fig. 38. DYNAMOMETER 253

Fig. 39. HEAD OF AN ITALIAN CRIMINAL 254

INTRODUCTION

BY CESARE LOMBROSO

[Professor Lombroso was able before his death to give his personal

attention to the volume prepared by his daughter and collaborator,

Gina Lombroso Ferrero (wife of the distinguished historian), in

which is presented a summary of the conclusions reached in the

great treatise by Lombroso on the causes of criminality and the

treatment of criminals. The preparation of the introduction to this

volume was the last literary work which the distinguished author

found it possible to complete during his final illness.]

It will, perhaps, be of interest to American readers of this book, in

which the ideas of the Modern Penal School, set forth in my work,

_Criminal Man_, have been so pithily summed up by my daughter, to learn

how the first outlines of this science arose in my mind and gradually

took shape in a definite work--how, that is, combated by some, the

object of almost fanatical adherence on the part of others, especially

in America, where tradition has little hold, the Modern Penal School

came into being.

On consulting my memory and the documents relating to my studies on this

subject, I find that its two fundamental ideas--that, for instance,

which claims as an essential point the study not of crime in the

abstract, but of the criminal himself, in order adequately to deal with

the evil effects of his wrong-doing, and that which classifies the

congenital criminal as an anomaly, partly pathological and partly

atavistic, a revival of the primitive savage--did not suggest themselves

to me instantaneously under the spell of a single deep impression, but

were the offspring of a series of impressions. The slow and almost

unconscious association of these first vague ideas resulted in a new

system which, influenced by its origin, has preserved in all its

subsequent developments the traces of doubt and indecision, the marks of

the travail which attended its birth.

The first idea came to me in 1864, when, as an army doctor, I beguiled

my ample leisure with a series of studies on the Italian soldier. From

the very beginning I was struck by a characteristic that distinguished

the honest soldier from his vicious comrade: the extent to which the

latter was tattooed and the indecency of the designs that covered his

body. This idea, however, bore no fruit.

The second inspiration came to me when on one occasion, amid the

laughter of my colleagues, I sought to base the study of psychiatry on

experimental methods. When in '66, fresh from the atmosphere of clinical

experiment, I had begun to study psychiatry, I realised how inadequate

were the methods hitherto held in esteem, and how necessary it was, in

studying the insane, to make the patient, not the disease, the object of

attention. In homage to these ideas, I applied to the clinical

examination of cases of mental alienation the study of the skull, with

measurements and weights, by means of the esthesiometer and craniometer.

Reassured by the result of these first steps, I sought to apply this

method to the study of criminals--that is, to the differentiation of

criminals and lunatics, following the example of a few investigators,

such as Thomson and Wilson; but as at that time I had neither criminals

nor moral imbeciles available for observation (a remarkable circumstance

since I was to make the criminal my starting-point), and as I was

skeptical as to the existence of those "moral lunatics" so much insisted

on by both French and English authors, whose demonstrations, however,

showed a lamentable lack of precision, I was anxious to apply the

experimental method to the study of the diversity, rather than the

analogy, between lunatics, criminals, and normal individuals. Like him,

however, whose lantern lights the road for others, while he himself

stumbles in the darkness, this method proved useless for determining the

differences between criminals and lunatics, but served instead to

indicate a new method for the study of penal jurisprudence, a matter to

which I had never given serious thought. I began dimly to realise that

the _a priori_ studies on crime in the abstract, hitherto pursued by

jurists, especially in Italy, with singular acumen, should be superseded

by the direct analytical study of the criminal, compared with normal

individuals and the insane.

I, therefore, began to study criminals in the Italian prisons, and,

amongst others, I made the acquaintance of the famous brigand Vilella.

This man possessed such extraordinary agility, that he had been known to

scale steep mountain heights bearing a sheep on his shoulders. His

cynical effrontery was such that he openly boasted of his crimes. On his

death one cold grey November morning, I was deputed to make the

_post-mortem_, and on laying open the skull I found on the occipital

part, exactly on the spot where a spine is found in the normal skull, a

distinct depression which I named _median occipital fossa_, because of

its situation precisely in the middle of the occiput as in inferior

animals, especially rodents. This depression, as in the case of animals,

was correlated with the hypertrophy of the _vermis_, known in birds as

the middle cerebellum.

This was not merely an idea, but a revelation. At the sight of that

skull, I seemed to see all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain

under a flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the criminal--an

atavistic being who reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of

primitive humanity and the inferior animals. Thus were explained

anatomically the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent superciliary

arches, solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the orbits,

handle-shaped or sessile ears found in criminals, savages, and apes,

insensibility to pain, extremely acute sight, tattooing, excessive

idleness, love of orgies, and the irresistible craving for evil for its

own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the victim, but to

mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its blood.

I was further encouraged in this bold hypothesis by the results of my

studies on Verzeni, a criminal convicted of sadism and rape, who showed

the cannibalistic instincts of primitive anthropophagists and the

ferocity of beasts of prey.

The various parts of the extremely complex problem of criminality were,

however, not all solved hereby. The final key was given by another case,

that of Misdea, a young soldier of about twenty-one, unintelligent but

not vicious. Although subject to epileptic fits, he had served for some

years in the army when suddenly, for some trivial cause, he attacked and

killed eight of his superior officers and comrades. His horrible work

accomplished, he fell into a deep slumber, which lasted twelve hours and

on awaking appeared to have no recollection of what had happened.

Misdea, while representing the most ferocious type of animal,

manifested, in addition, all the phenomena of epilepsy, which appeared

to be hereditary in all the members of his family. It flashed across my

mind that many criminal characteristics not attributable to atavism,

such as facial asymmetry, cerebral sclerosis, impulsiveness,

instantaneousness, the periodicity of criminal acts, the desire of evil

for evil's sake, were morbid characteristics common to epilepsy, mingled

with others due to atavism.

Thus were traced the first clinical outlines of my work which had

hitherto been entirely anthropological. The clinical outlines confirmed

the anthropological contours, and _vice versa_; for the greatest

criminals showed themselves to be epileptics, and, on the other hand,

epileptics manifested the same anomalies as criminals. Finally, it was

shown that epilepsy frequently reproduced atavistic characteristics,

including even those common to lower animals.

That synthesis which mighty geniuses have often succeeded in creating by

one inspiration (but at the risk of errors, for a genius is only human

and in many cases more fallacious than his fellow-men) was deduced by

me gradually from various sources--the study of the normal individual,

the lunatic, the criminal, the savage, and finally the child. Thus, by

reducing the penal problem to its simplest expression, its solution was

rendered easier, just as the study of embryology has in a great measure

solved the apparently strange and mysterious riddle of teratology.

But these attempts would have been sterile, had not a solid phalanx of

jurists, Russian, German, Hungarian, Italian, and American, fertilised

the germ by correcting hasty and one-sided conclusions, suggesting

opportune reforms and applications, and, most important of all, applying

my ideas on the offender to his individual and social prophylaxis and

cure.

Enrico Ferri was the first to perceive that the congenital epileptoid

criminal did not form a single species, and that if this class was

irretrievably doomed to perdition, crime in others was only a brief

spell of insanity, determined by circumstances, passion, or illness. He

established new types--the occasional criminal and the criminal by

passion,--and transformed the basis of the penal code by asking if it

were more just to make laws obey facts instead of altering facts to suit

the laws, solely in order to avoid troubling the placidity of those who

refused to consider this new element in the scientific field. Therefore,

putting aside those abstract formulae for which high talents have panted

in vain, like the thirsty traveller at the sight of the desert mirage,

the advocates of the Modern School came to the conclusion that sentences

should show a decrease in infamy and ferocity proportionate to the

increase in length and social safety. In lieu of infamy they substituted

a longer period of segregation, and for cases in which alienists were

unable to decide between criminality and insanity, they advocated an

intermediate institution, in which merciful treatment and social

security were alike considered. They also emphasised the importance of

certain measures which hitherto had been universally regarded as a pure

abstraction or an unattainable desideratum--measures for the prevention

of crime by tracing it to its source, divorce laws to diminish adultery,

legislation of an anti-alcoholistic tendency to prevent crimes of

violence, associations for destitute children, and co-operative

associations to check the tendency to theft. Above all, they insisted on

those regulations--unfortunately fallen into disuse--which indemnify the

victim at the expense of the aggressor, in order that society, having

suffered once for the crime, should not be obliged to suffer

pecuniarily for the detention of the offender, solely in homage to a

theoretical principle that no one believes in, according to which prison

is a kind of baptismal font in whose waters sin of all kinds is washed

away.

Thus the edifice of criminal anthropology, circumscribed at first,

gradually extended its walls and embraced special studies on homicide,

political crime, crimes connected with the banking world, crimes by

women, etc.

But the first stone had been scarcely laid when from all quarters of

Europe arose those calumnies and misrepresentations which always follow

in the train of audacious innovations. We were accused of wishing to

proclaim the impunity of crime, of demanding the release of all

criminals, of refusing to take into account climatic and racial

influences and of asserting that the criminal is a slave eternally

chained to his instincts; whereas the Modern School, on the contrary,

gave a powerful impetus to the labors of statisticians and sociologists

on these very matters. This is clearly shown in the third volume of

_Criminal Man_, which contains a summary of the ideas of modern

criminologists and my own.

One nation, however--America,--gave a warm and sympathetic reception to

the ideas of the Modern School which they speedily put into practice,

with the brilliant results shown by the Reformatory at Elmira, the

Probation System, Juvenile Courts, and the George Junior Republic. They

also initiated the practice, now in general use, of anthropological

co-operation in every criminal trial of importance.

For this reason, and in view of the fact that America does not possess a

complete translation of my works--_The Criminal, Male and Female_, and

_Political Crime_ (translation and distribution being alike difficult on

account of the length of these volumes)--I welcome with pleasure this

summary, in which the principal points are explained with precision and

loving care by my daughter Gina, who has worked with me from childhood,

has seen the edifice of my science rise stone upon stone, and has shared

in my anxieties, insults, and triumphs; without whose help I might,

perhaps, never have witnessed the completion of that edifice, nor the

application of its fundamental principles.

PART I

THE CRIMINAL WORLD

CHAPTER I

_THE BORN CRIMINAL_

A criminal is a man who violates the laws decreed by the State to

regulate the relations between its citizens, but the voluminous codes

which in past times set forth these laws treat only of crime, never of

the criminal. That ignoble multitude whom Dante relegated to the

Infernal Regions were consigned by magistrates and judges to the care of

gaolers and executioners, who alone deigned to deal with them. The

judge, immovable in his doctrine, unshaken by doubts, solemn in all his

inviolability and convinced of his wisdom, which no one dared to

question, passed sentence without remission according to his whim, and

both judge and culprit were equally ignorant of the ultimate effect of

the penalties inflicted.

In 1764, the great Italian jurist and economist, Cesare Beccaria first

called public attention to those wretched beings, whose confessions (if

statements extorted by torture can thus be called) formed the sole

foundation for the trial, the sole guide in the application of the

punishment, which was bestowed blindly, without formality, without

hearing the defence, exactly as though sentence were being passed on

abstract symbols, not on human souls and bodies.

The Classical School of Penal Jurisprudence, of which Beccaria was the

founder and Francesco Carrara the greatest and most glorious disciple,

aimed only at establishing sound judgments and fixed laws to guide

capricious and often undiscerning judges in the application of

penalties. In writing his great work, the founder of this School was

inspired by the highest of all human sentiments--pity; but although the

criminal incidentally receives notice, the writings of this School treat

only of the application of the law, not of offenders themselves.

This is the difference between the Classical and the Modern School of

Penal Jurisprudence. The Classical School based its doctrines on the

assumption that all criminals, except in a few extreme cases, are

endowed with intelligence and feelings like normal individuals, and that

they commit misdeeds consciously, being prompted thereto by their

unrestrained desire for evil. The offence alone was considered, and on

it the whole existing penal system has been founded, the severity of the

sentence meted out to the offender being regulated by the gravity of his

misdeed.

The Modern, or Positive, School of Penal Jurisprudence, on the contrary,

maintains that the anti-social tendencies of criminals are the result of

their physical and psychic organisation, which differs essentially from

that of normal individuals; and it aims at studying the morphology and

various functional phenomena of the criminal with the object of curing,

instead of punishing him. The Modern School is therefore founded on a

new science, Criminal Anthropology, which may be defined as the Natural

History of the Criminal, because it embraces his organic and psychic

constitution and social life, just as anthropology does in the case of

normal human beings and the different races.

If we examine a number of criminals, we shall find that they exhibit

numerous anomalies in the face, skeleton, and various psychic and

sensitive functions, so that they strongly resemble primitive races. It

was these anomalies that first drew my father's attention to the close

relationship between the criminal and the savage and made him suspect

that criminal tendencies are of atavistic origin.

When a young doctor at the Asylum in Pavia, he was requested to make a

post-mortem examination on a criminal named Vilella, an Italian Jack the

Ripper, who by atrocious crimes had spread terror in the Province of

Lombardy. Scarcely had he laid open the skull, when he perceived at the

base, on the spot where the internal occipital crest or ridge is found

in normal individuals, a small hollow, which he called _median occipital

fossa_ (see Fig. 1). This abnormal character was correlated to a still

greater anomaly in the cerebellum, the hypertrophy of the vermis,

_i.e._, the spinal cord which separates the cerebellar lobes lying

underneath the cerebral hemispheres. This vermis was so enlarged in the

case of Vilella, that it almost formed a small, intermediate cerebellum

like that found in the lower types of apes, rodents, and birds. This

anomaly is very rare among inferior races, with the exception of the

South American Indian tribe of the Aymaras of Bolivia and Peru, in whom

it is not infrequently found (40%). It is seldom met with in the insane

or other degenerates, but later investigations have shown it to be

prevalent in criminals.

This discovery was like a flash of light. "At the sight of that skull,"

says my father, "I seemed to see all at once, standing out clearly

illumined as in a vast plain under a flaming sky, the problem of the

nature of the criminal, who reproduces in civilised times

characteristics, not only of primitive savages, but of still lower types

as far back as the carnivora."

=FIG. 1

FOSSETTE OCCIPITAL

(see page 6)=

Thus was explained the origin of the enormous jaws, strong canines,

prominent zygomae, and strongly developed orbital arches which he had so

frequently remarked in criminals, for these peculiarities are common to

carnivores and savages, who tear and devour raw flesh. Thus also it was

easy to understand why the span of the arms in criminals so often

exceeds the height, for this is a characteristic of apes, whose

fore-limbs are used in walking and climbing. The other anomalies

exhibited by criminals--the scanty beard as opposed to the general

hairiness of the body, prehensile foot, diminished number of lines in

the palm of the hand, cheek-pouches, enormous development of the middle

incisors and frequent absence of the lateral ones, flattened nose and

angular or sugar-loaf form of the skull, common to criminals and apes;

the excessive size of the orbits, which, combined with the hooked nose,

so often imparts to criminals the aspect of birds of prey, the

projection of the lower part of the face and jaws (prognathism) found in

negroes and animals, and supernumerary teeth (amounting in some cases to

a double row as in snakes) and cranial bones (epactal bone as in the

Peruvian Indians): all these characteristics pointed to one conclusion,

the atavistic origin of the criminal, who reproduces physical, psychic,

and functional qualities of remote ancestors.

Subsequent research on the part of my father and his disciples showed

that other factors besides atavism come into play in determining the

criminal type. These are: disease and environment. Later on, the study

of innumerable offenders led them to the conclusion that all

law-breakers cannot be classed in a single species, for their ranks

include very diversified types, who differ not only in their bent

towards a particular form of crime, but also in the degree of tenacity

and intensity displayed by them in their perverse propensities, so that,

in reality, they form a graduated scale leading from the born criminal

to the normal individual.

Born criminals form about one third of the mass of offenders, but,

though inferior in numbers, they constitute the most important part of

the whole criminal army, partly because they are constantly appearing

before the public and also because the crimes committed by them are of a

peculiarly monstrous character; the other two thirds are composed of

criminaloids (minor offenders), occasional and habitual criminals, etc.,

who do not show such a marked degree of diversity from normal persons.

Let us commence with the born criminal, who as principal nucleus of the

wretched army of law-breakers, naturally manifests the most numerous and

salient anomalies.

The median occipital fossa and other abnormal features just enumerated

are not the only peculiarities exhibited by this aggravated type of

offender. By careful research, my father and others of his School have

brought to light many anomalies in bodily organs, and functions both

physical and mental, all of which serve to indicate the atavistic and

pathological origin of the instinctive criminal.

It would be incompatible with the scope of this summary, were I to give

a minute description of the innumerable anomalies discovered in

criminals by the Modern School, to attempt to trace such abnormal traits

back to their source, or to demonstrate their effect on the organism.

This has been done in a very minute fashion in the three volumes of my

father's work _Criminal Man_ and his subsequent writings on the same

subject, _Modern Forms of Crime_, _Recent Research in Criminal

Anthropology_, _Prison Palimpsests_, etc., etc., to which readers

desirous of obtaining a more thorough knowledge of the subject should

refer.

The present volume will only touch briefly on the principal

characteristics of criminals, with the object of presenting a general

outline of the studies of criminologists.

PHYSICAL ANOMALIES OF THE BORN CRIMINAL

_The Head._ As the seat of all the greatest disturbances, this part

naturally manifests the greatest number of anomalies, which extend from

the external conformation of the brain-case to the composition of its

contents.

The criminal skull does not exhibit any marked characteristics of size

and shape. Generally speaking, it tends to be larger or smaller than the

average skull common to the region or country from which the criminal

hails. It varies between 1200 and 1600 c.c.; _i.e._, between 73 and 100

cubic inches, the normal average being 92. This applies also to the

cephalic index; that is, the ratio of the maximum width to the maximum

length of the skull[1] multiplied by 100, which serves to give a

concrete idea of the form of the skull, because the higher the index,

the nearer the skull approaches a spherical form, and the lower the

index, the more elongated it becomes. The skulls of criminals have no

characteristic cephalic index, but tend to an exaggeration of the

ethnical type prevalent in their native countries. In regions where

dolichocephaly (index less than 80) abounds, the skulls of criminals

show a very low index; if, on the contrary, they are natives of

districts where brachycephaly (index 80 or more) prevails, they exhibit

a very high index.

=SKULL FORMATION

FIG. 2 FIG. 3=

In 15.5% we find trochocephalous or abnormally round heads (index 91). A

very high percentage (nearly double that of normal individuals) have

submicrocephalous or small skulls. In other cases the skull is

excessively large (macrocephaly) or abnormally small and ill-shaped with

a narrow, receding forehead (microcephaly, 0.2%). More rarely the skull

is of normal size, but shaped like the keel of a boat (scaphocephaly,

0.1% and subscaphocephaly 6%). (See Fig. 2.) Sometimes the anomalies are

still more serious and we find wholly asymmetrical skulls with

protuberances on either side (plagiocephaly 10.9%, see Fig. 3), or

terminating in a peak on the bregma or anterior fontanel (acrocephaly,

see Fig. 4), or depressed in the middle (cymbocephaly, sphenocephaly).

At times, there are crests or grooves along the sutures (11.9%) or the

cranial bones are abnormally thick, a characteristic of savage peoples

(36.6%) or abnormally thin (8.10%). Other anomalies of importance are

the presence of Wormian bones in the sutures of the skull (21.22%), the

bone of the Incas already alluded to (4%), and above all, the median

occipital fossa. Of great importance also are the prominent frontal

sinuses found in 25% (double that of normal individuals), the

semicircular line of the temples, which is sometimes so exaggerated that

it forms a ridge and is correlated to an excessive development of the

temporal muscles, a common characteristic of primates and carnivores.

Sometimes the forehead is receding, as in apes (19%), or low and narrow

(10%).

_The Face._ In striking contrast to the narrow forehead and low vault of

the skull, the face of the criminal, like those of most animals, is of

disproportionate size, a phenomenon intimately connected with the

greater development of the senses as compared with that of the nervous

centres. Prognathism, the projection of the lower portion of the face

beyond the forehead, is found in 45.7% of criminals. Progeneismus, the

projection of the lower teeth and jaw beyond the upper, is found in 38%,

whereas among normal persons the proportion is barely 28%. As a natural

consequence of this predominance of the lower portion of the face, the

orbital arches and zygomae show a corresponding development (35%) and the

size of the jaws is naturally increased, the mean diameter being 103.9 mm.

(4.09 inches) as against 93 mm. (3.66 inches) in normal persons. Among

criminals 29% have voluminous jaws.

The excessive dimensions of the jaws and cheek-bones admit of other

explanations besides the atavistic one of a greater development of the

masticatory system. They may have been influenced by the habit of

certain gestures, the setting of the teeth or tension of the muscles of

the mouth, which accompany violent muscular efforts and are natural to

men who form energetic or violent resolves and meditate plans of

revenge.

Asymmetry is a common characteristic of the criminal physiognomy. The

eyes and ears are frequently situated at different levels and are of

unequal size, the nose slants towards one side, etc. This asymmetry, as

we shall see later, is connected with marked irregularities in the

senses and functions.

_The Eye._ This window, through which the mind opens to the outer

world, is naturally the centre of many anomalies of a psychic character,

hard expression, shifty glance, which are difficult to describe but are,

nevertheless, apparent to all observers (see Fig. 4). Side by side with

peculiarities of expression, we find many physical anomalies--ptosis, a

drooping of the upper eyelid, which gives the eye a half-closed

appearance and is frequently unilateral; and strabismus, a want of

parallelism between the visual axes, which is insignificant if it arises

from errors of refraction, but is very serious if it betokens

progressive or congenital diseases of the brain or its membranous

coverings. Other anomalies are asymmetry of the iris, which frequently

differs in colour from its fellow; oblique eyelids, a Mongolian

characteristic, with the edge of the upper eyelid folding inward or a

prolongation of the internal fold of the eyelid, which Metchnikoff

regards as a persistence of embryonic characters.

_The Ear._ The external ear is often of large size; occasionally also it

is smaller than the ears of normal individuals. Twenty-eight per cent.

of criminals have handle-shaped ears standing out from the face as in

the chimpanzee: in other cases they are placed at different levels.

Frequently too, we find misshapen, flattened ears, devoid of helix,

tragus, and anti-tragus, and with a protuberance on the upper part of

the posterior margin (Darwin's tubercle), a relic of the pointed ear

characteristic of apes. Anomalies are also found in the lobe, which in

some cases adheres too closely to the face, or is of huge size as in the

ancient Egyptians; in other cases, the lobe is entirely absent, or is

atrophied till the ear assumes a form like that common to apes.

_The Nose._ This is frequently twisted, up-turned or of a flattened,

negroid character in thieves; in murderers, on the contrary, it is often

aquiline like the beak of a bird of prey. Not infrequently we meet with

the trilobate nose, its tip rising like an isolated peak from the

swollen nostrils, a form found among the Akkas, a tribe of pygmies of

Central Africa. All these peculiarities have given rise to popular saws,

of a character more or less prevalent everywhere.

_The Mouth._ This part shows perhaps a greater number of anomalies than

any other facial organ. We have already alluded to the excessive

development of the jaws in criminals. They are sometimes the seat of

other abnormal characters,--the lemurine apophysis, a bony elevation at

the angle of the jaw, which may easily be recognised externally by

passing the hand over the skin; and the canine fossa, a depression in

the upper jaw for the attachment of the canine muscle. This muscle,

which is strongly developed in the dog, serves when contracted to draw

back the lip leaving the canines exposed.

The lips of violators of women and murderers are fleshy, swollen and

protruding, as in negroes. Swindlers have thin, straight lips. Hare-lip

is more common in criminals than in normal persons.

_The Cheek-pouches._ Folds in the flesh of the cheek which recall the

pouches of certain species of mammals, are not uncommon in criminals.

_The Palate._ A central ridge (_torus palatinus_), more easily felt than

seen, may sometimes be found on the palate, or this part may exhibit

other peculiarities, a series of cavities and protuberances

corresponding to the palatal teeth of reptiles. Another frequent

abnormality is cleft palate, a fissure in the palate, due to defective

development.

_The Teeth._ These are specially important, for criminals rarely have

normal dentition. The incisors show the greatest number of anomalies.

Sometimes both the lateral incisors are absent and the middle ones are

of excessive size, a peculiarity which recalls the incisors of rodents.

The teeth are frequently striated transversely or set very wide apart

(diastema) with gaps on either side of the upper canines into which the

lower ones fit, a simian characteristic. In some cases, these spaces

occur between the middle incisors or between these and the lateral ones.

=FIG. 4

HEAD OF CRIMINAL

(see page 14)=

=FIG. 5

HEAD OF CRIMINAL

(see page 18)=

Very often the teeth show a strange uniformity, which recalls the

homodontism of the lower vertebrates. In some cases, however, this

uniformity is limited to the premolars, which are furnished with

tubercles like the molars, a peculiarity of gorillas and orang-outangs.

In 4% the canines are very strongly developed, long, sharp, and curving

inwardly as in carnivores. Premature caries is common.

_The Chin._ Generally speaking, this part of the face projects

moderately in Europeans. In criminals it is often small and receding, as

in children, or else excessively long, short or flat, as in apes.

_Wrinkles._ Although common to normal individuals, the abundance,

variety, and precocity of wrinkles almost invariably manifested by

criminals, cannot fail to strike the observer. The following are the

most common: horizontal and vertical lines on the forehead, horizontal

and circumflex lines at the root of the nose, the so-called crow's-feet

on the temple at the outer corners of the eyes, naso-labial wrinkles

around the region of the mouth and nose.

_The Hair._ The hair of the scalp, cheeks and chin, eyebrows, and other

parts of the body, shows a number of anomalies. In general it may be

said that in the distribution of hair, criminals of both sexes tend to

exhibit characteristics of the opposite sex. Dark hair prevails

especially in murderers, and curly and woolly hair in swindlers. Both

grey hair and baldness are rare and when found make their appearance

later in life than in the case of normal individuals. The beard is

scanty and frequently missing altogether. On the other hand, the

forehead is often covered with down. The eyebrows are bushy and tend to

meet across the nose. Sometimes they grow in a slanting direction and

give the face a satyr-like expression (see Fig. 5).

The blemishes peculiar to the delinquent are not only confined to the

face and head, but are found in the trunk and limbs.

_The Thorax._ An increase or decrease in the number of ribs is found in

12% of criminals. This is an atavistic character common to animals and

lower or prehistoric human races and contrasts with the numerical

uniformity characteristic of civilised mankind.

Polymastia, or the presence of supernumerary nipples (which are

generally placed symmetrically below the normal ones as in many mammals)

is not an uncommon anomaly. Gynecomastia or hypertrophy of the mammae is

still more frequent in male criminals. In female criminals, on the

contrary, we often find imperfect development or absence of the

nipples, a characteristic of monotremata or lowest order of the mammals;

or the breasts are flabby and pendent like those of Hottentot women.

The chest is often covered with hair which gives the subject the

appearance of an animal.

_The Pelvis and Abdomen._ The abdomen, pelvis, and reproductive organs

sometimes show an inversion of sex-characters. In 42% the sacral canal

is uncovered, and in some cases there is a prolongation of the coccyx,

which resembles the stump of a tail, sometimes tufted with hair.

_The Upper Limbs._ One of the most striking and frequent anomalies

exhibited by criminals is the excessive length of the arms as compared

with the lower limbs, owing to which the span of the arms exceeds the

total height, an ape-like character.

Six per cent. exhibit an anomaly which is extremely rare among normal

individuals--the olecranon foramen, a perforation in the head of the

humerus where it articulates with the ulna. This is normal in the ape

and dog and is frequently found in the bones of prehistoric man and in

some of the existing inferior races of mankind.

Several abnormal characters, which point to an atavistic origin, are

found in the palm and fingers. Supernumerary fingers (polydactylism) or

a reduction in the usual number are not uncommon. Sometimes we find

syndactylism, or palmate fingers, a continuation of the interdigital

skin to the second phalanx. The length of the fingers varies according

to the type of crime to which the individual is addicted. Those guilty

of crimes against the person have short, clumsy fingers and especially

short thumbs. Long fingers are common to swindlers, thieves, sexual

offenders, and pickpockets. The lines on the palmar surfaces of the

finger-tips are often of a simple nature as in the anthropoids. The

principal lines on the palm are of special significance. Normal persons

possess three, two horizontal and one vertical, but in criminals these

lines are often reduced to one or two of horizontal or transverse

direction, as in apes.

_The Lower Limbs._ Of a number of criminals examined, 16% showed an

unusual development of the third trochanter, a protuberance on the head

of the femur where it articulates with the pelvis. This distinctly

atavistic character is connected with the position of the hind-limb in

quadrupeds.

_The Feet._ Spaces between the toes like the interdigital spaces of the

hand are very common, and in conjunction with the greater mobility of

the toes and greater length of the big-toe, produce the prehensile foot,

of the quadrumana, which is used for grasping. The foot is often flat,

as in negroes. In the feet, as in the hands, there is frequently a

tendency to greater strength or dexterity on the left side, contrary to

what happens in normal persons, and this tendency is manifested in many

cases where there is no trace of functional and motorial

left-handedness.

_The Cerebrum and the Cerebellum._ The chief and most common anomaly is

the prevalence of macroscopic anomalies in the left hemisphere, which

are correlated to the sensory and functional left-handedness common to

criminals and acquired through illness. The most notable anomaly of the

cerebellum is the hypertrophy of the vermis, which represents the middle

lobe found in the lower mammals. Anomalies in the cerebral convolutions

consist principally of anastomotic folds, the doubling of the fissure of

Rolando, the frequent existence of a fourth frontal convolution, the

imperfect development of the precuneus (as in many types of apes), etc.

Anomalies of a purely pathological character are still more common.

These are: adhesions of the meninges, thickening of the pia mater,

congestion of the meninges, partial atrophy, centres of softening,

seaming of the optic thalami, atrophy of the corpus callosum, etc.

Of great importance, too, are the histological anomalies discovered by

Roncoroni in the brains of criminals and epileptics. In normal

individuals the layers of the frontal region are disposed in the

following manner:

1. Molecular layer. 2. Superficial layer of small cells. 3. Layer of

small pyramidal cells. 4. Deep layer of small nerve cells. 5. Layer of

polymorphous cells (see Fig. 6).

In certain animals, the dog, ape, rabbit, ox, and domestic fowl, the

superficial layer is frequently non-existent and the deep one is found

only to some extent in the ape.

In born criminals and epileptics there is a prevalence of large,

pyramidal, and polymorphous cells, whereas in normal individuals small,

triangular, and star-shaped cells predominate. Also the transition from

the small superficial to the large pyramidal cells is not so regular,

and the number of nervous cells is noticeably below the average.

Whereas, moreover, in the normally constituted brain, nervous cells are

very scarce or entirely absent in the white substance, in the case of

born criminals and epileptics they abound in this part of the brain.

The abnormal morphological arrangement described by Roncoroni is

probably the anatomical expression of hereditary alterations, and

reveals disorders in nervous development which lead to moral insanity

or epilepsy according to the gravity of the morbid conditions which give

rise to them.

=FIG. 6

_a_) Cortical strata of the circumvolutions of the parietal lobes of a

normal person.

_b_) Cortical strata of the circumvolutions of the parietal lobes of a

criminal epileptic.

1. Molecular stratum. 2. External granular stratum. 3. Stratum of the

small pyramidal cells. 4. Stratum of the large pyramidal cells. 5. Deep

stratum of the small nervous cells or the deep granular stratum. 6.

Stratum of polymorphic cells. S.B. White matter.=

These anomalies in the limbs, trunk, skull and, above all, in the face,

when numerous and marked, constitute what is known to criminal

anthropologists as the criminal type, in exactly the same way as the sum

of the characters peculiar to cretins form what is called the cretinous

type. In neither case have the anomalies an intrinsic importance, since

they are neither the cause of the anti-social tendencies of the criminal

nor of the mental deficiencies of the cretin. They are the outward and

visible signs of a mysterious and complicated process of degeneration,

which in the case of the criminal evokes evil impulses that are largely

of atavistic origin.

SENSORY AND FUNCTIONAL PECULIARITIES OF THE BORN CRIMINAL

The above-mentioned physiognomical and skeletal anomalies are further

supplemented by functional peculiarities, and all these abnormal

characteristics converge, as mountain streams to the hollow in the

plain, towards a central idea--the atavistic nature of the born

criminal.

An examination of the senses and sensibility of criminals gives the

following results:

_General Sensibility._ Tested simply by touching with the finger, a

certain degree of obtuseness is noted. By using an apparatus invented by

Du Bois-Reymond and adopted by my father, the degree of sensibility

obtained was 49.6 mm. in criminals as against 64.2 mm. in normal

individuals. Criminals are more sensitive on the left side, contrary to

normal persons, in whom greater sensibility prevails on the right.

_Sensibility to Pain._ Compared with ordinary individuals, the criminal

shows greater insensibility to pain as well as to touch. This obtuseness

sometimes reaches complete analgesia or total absence of feeling (16%),

a phenomenon never encountered in normal persons. The mean degree of

dolorific sensibility in criminals is 34.1 mm. whereas it is rarely

lower than 40 mm. in normal individuals. Here again the left-handedness

of criminals becomes apparent, 39% showing greater sensibility on the

left.

_Tactile Sensibility._ The distance at which two points applied to the

finger-tips are felt separately is more than 4 mm. in 30% of criminals,

a degree of obtuseness only found in 4% of normal individuals. Criminals

exhibit greater tactile sensibility on the left. Tactile obtuseness

varies with the class of crime practised by the individual. While in

burglars, swindlers, and assaulters, it is double that of normal

persons, in murderers, violators, and incendiaries it is often four or

five times as great.

_Sensibility to the Magnet_, which scarcely exists in normal persons, is

common to a marked degree in criminals (48%).

_Meteoric Sensibility._ This is far more apparent in criminals and the

insane than in normal individuals. With variations of temperature and

atmospheric pressure, both criminals and lunatics become agitated and

manifest changes of disposition and sensations of various kinds, which

are rarely experienced by normal persons.

_Sight_ is generally acute, perhaps more so than in ordinary

individuals, and in this the criminal resembles the savage. Chromatic

sensibility, on the contrary, is decidedly defective, the percentage of

colour-blindness being twice that of normal persons. The field of vision

is frequently limited by the white and exhibits much stranger anomalies,

a special irregularity of outline with deep peripheral scotoma, which we

shall see is a special characteristic of the epileptic.

_Hearing_, _Smell_, _Taste_ are generally of less than average acuteness

in criminals. Cases of complete anosmia and qualitative obtuseness are

not uncommon.[2]

_Agility._ Criminals are generally agile and preserve this quality even

at an advanced age. When over seventy, Vilella sprang like a goat up the

steep rocks of his native Calabria, and the celebrated thief "La Vecchia,"

when quite an old man, escaped from his captors by leaping from a high

rampart at Pavia.

_Strength._ Contrary to what might be expected, tests by means of the

dynamometer show that criminals do not usually possess an extraordinary

degree of strength. There is frequently a slight difference between the

strength of the right and left limbs, but more often ambidexterity, as

in children, and a greater degree of strength in the left limbs.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BORN CRIMINAL

The physical type of the criminal is completed and intensified by his

moral and intellectual physiognomy, which furnishes a further proof of

his relationship to the savage and epileptic.

_Natural Affections._ These play an important part in the life of a

normally constituted individual and are in fact the _raison d'etre_ of

his existence, but the criminal rarely, if ever, experiences emotions of

this kind and least of all regarding his own kin. On the other hand, he

shows exaggerated and abnormal fondness for animals and strangers. La

Sola, a female criminal, manifested about as much affection for her

children as if they had been kittens and induced her accomplice to

murder a former paramour, who was deeply attached to her; yet she tended

the sick and dying with the utmost devotion.

In the place of domestic and social affections, the criminal is

dominated by a few absorbing passions: vanity, impulsiveness, desire for

revenge, licentiousness.

MORAL SENSE

The ability to discriminate between right and wrong, which is the

highest attribute of civilised humanity, is notably lacking in

physically and psychically stunted organisms. Many criminals do not

realise the immorality of their actions. In French criminal jargon

conscience is called "la muette," the thief "l'ami," and "travailler"

and "servir" signify to steal. A Milanese thief once remarked to my

father: "I don't steal. I only relieve the rich of their superfluous

wealth." Lacenaire, speaking of his accomplice Avril, remarked, "I

realised at once that we should be able to work together." A thief asked

by Ferri what he did when he found the purse stolen by him contained no

money, replied, "I call them rogues." The notions of right and wrong

appear to be completely inverted in such minds. They seem to think they

have a right to rob and murder and that those who hinder them are

acting unfairly. Murderers, especially when actuated by motives of

revenge, consider their actions righteous in the extreme.

_Repentance and Remorse._ We hear a great deal about the remorse of

criminals, but those who come into contact with these degenerates

realise that they are rarely, if ever, tormented by such feelings. Very

few confess their crimes: the greater number deny all guilt in a most

strenuous manner and are fond of protesting that they are victims of

injustice, calumny, and jealousy. As Despine once remarked with much

insight, nothing resembles the sleep of the just more closely than the

slumbers of an assassin.

Many criminals, indeed, allege repentance, but generally from

hypocritical motives; either because they hope to gain some advantage by

working on the feelings of philanthropists, or with a view to escaping,

or, at any rate, improving their condition while in prison. Thus

Lacenaire, when convicted for the first time, wrote in a moving strain

to his friend Vigouroux in order to get money and help from him,

"Repentance is the only course left open to me. You may well feel

pleased at having turned a man from a path of crime for which he was not

intended by nature." A few hours later he committed another theft, and

before he died remarked cynically that he had never experienced

remorse. When tried at the Assizes at Pavia, Rognoni pronounced a

touching discourse on his repentance and refused the wine brought him in

prison for some days because it reminded him of his murdered brother.

But he obtained it surreptitiously from his fellow-prisoners, and when

one of them grumbled at having to give up his own portion, Rognoni

threatened him saying, "I have already murdered four, and shall make no

bones about killing a fifth."

Sometimes remorse is advanced by criminals as a palliation of their

crimes. Michelieu justified the _coup de grace_ inflicted on his victim

by saying, "When I saw her in that state, I felt such terrible remorse

that I shot her dead in order not to meet her glance."

Sometimes an appearance of remorse is produced by hallucinations due to

alcoholism. Philippe and Lucke imagined they saw the spectres of the

persons they had murdered a short time before, but in reality they were

suffering from the effects of drink and so little true remorse did they

feel that on being sentenced, Philippe remarked, "If they had not sent

me to Cayenne, I should have done it again." Generally speaking, what

seems to be repentance is only the fear of death or some superstitious

dread, which assumes an appearance of remorse, but is devoid of real

feeling.

A typical instance of hypocrisy and cynicism is furnished by the

Marquise de Brinvilliers, the notorious poisoner, who succeeded in

deceiving the venerable prison-chaplain so completely that he regarded

her as a model of penitence, yet in her last moments she wrote to her

husband denying her guilt and exhibited lascivious and revengeful

feelings.

Many criminals, when in prison, model sculptural representations of

their crimes with crumbs of bread (see Fig. 7).

_Cynicism._ The strongest proof of the total lack of remorse in

criminals and their inability to distinguish between good and evil is

furnished by the callous way in which they boast of their depraved

actions and feign pious sentiments which they do not feel. One criminal

humbly entreated to be allowed to retain his own crucifix while in

prison. It was subsequently discovered that the sacred image served as a

sheath for his dagger (see Fig. 8).

Philippe made the following statement to one of his female companions.

"My way of loving women is a very strange one. After enjoying their

caresses, I take the greatest delight in strangling them or cutting

their throats. Soon you will hear everyone talking about me." Shortly

before he murdered his father, Lachaud said to his friends, "This

evening I shall dig a grave and lay my father there to rest eternally."

Sometimes, indeed, a criminal realises dimly the depravity of his

actions; he rarely judges them, however, as a normal person would, but

seeks to explain and justify them after his own fashion. When asked by

the magistrate if he denied having stolen a horse, Ansalone replied,

"Surely you do not call that a theft; a leader of brigands could hardly

be expected to go on foot!"

Others consider that their actions are less criminal if their intentions

were good; like Holland, who murdered to obtain food for his wife and

children. Others, again, think themselves excused by the fact that many

do worse things with impunity. Any circumstance, the lack or

insufficiency of evidence against them or the fact that they are accused

of an offence different from the one they have really committed, is

seized upon as a mitigation of their guilt, and they always manifest

much resentment against those who administer the law. "London thieves,"

observes Mayhew, "realise that they do wrong, but think that they are no

worse than ordinary bankrupts."

The constant perusal of newspaper reports leads criminals to believe

that there are a great many rogues in higher circles, and by taking

exceptions to be the rule, they flatter themselves that their own

actions are not very reprehensible, because the wealthy are not censured

for similar actions.

=FIG. 7

Figures made in Prison

MURDER OF A SLEEPING VICTIM

Work of a Prisoner

(see page 31)=

=FIG. 8

CRUCIFIX POIGNARD

(see page 31)=

These instances show that criminals are not entirely unable to

distinguish between right and wrong. Nevertheless, their moral sense is

sterile because it is suffocated by passions and the deadening force of

habit.

In the cant of Spanish thieves, justice is called "la justa" (the just),

and this name is given in French slang to the Assizes, but, as Mayor

observes, it may be applied ironically.

In alluding to the unknown author of the crimes committed in reality by

himself, the murderer Prevost remarked, "Whoever it is, he is bound to

end by the guillotine sooner or later." In such cases, although a sense

of truth and justice exists, the desire to act according to it is

lacking.

"It is one thing [observes Harwick] to possess a theoretical notion

of what is right and wrong, but quite another to act according to

it. In order that the knowledge of good should be transformed into

an ardent desire for its triumph, as food is converted into chyle

and blood, it must be urged to action by elevated sentiments, and

these are generally lacking in the criminal. If, on the contrary,

good feelings really exist, the individual desires to do right and

his convictions are translated into action with the same energy

that he displayed in doing wrong."

A philanthropist once invited a number of young London thieves to a

friendly gathering, and it was noticed that the most hardened offenders

were greeted with the greatest amount of applause from the company.

Nevertheless, when the President requested one of them to change a gold

coin outside, and he did not return, those present showed great

indignation and anxiety, abusing and threatening their absent companion,

whose ultimate return was hailed with genuine relief. In this case, no

doubt, envy and vanity played as great a part as a sense of integrity,

in the resentment shown at this fancied breach of faith.

In the prisons at Moscow, offences against discipline are dealt with by

the offenders' fellow-prisoners. The convict population on the island of

San Stefano compiled spontaneously a Draconian code to quell internal

discord arising from racial jealousies.

_Treachery._ This species of morality and justice, which unexpectedly

makes its appearance in the midst of a naturally unrighteous community,

can only be forced and temporary. When, instead of reaping advantages,

interests and passions are injured by acting rightly, these notions of

justice, unsustained by innate integrity suddenly fail. Contrary to

universal belief, criminals are very prone to betray their companions

and accomplices, and are easily induced to act as informers in the hope

of gaining some personal advantage or of injuring those they envy or

suspect of treachery towards themselves.

"Many thieves," says Vidocq, "consider it a stroke of luck to be

consulted by the police." In fact, Bouscaut, one of a notorious band of

malefactors in France, was chiefly instrumental in causing the arrest of

the gang; and the brigand Caruso aided the authorities in capturing his

former companions.

_Vanity._ Pride, or rather vanity, and an exaggerated notion of their

own importance, which we find in the masses, generally in inverse

proportion to real merit, is especially strong in criminals. In the cell

occupied by La Gala, the following notice was found in his handwriting:

"March 24th. On this date La Gala learnt to knit." Another criminal,

Crocco, tried hard to save his brother, "Lest," he said, "my race should

die out." Lacenaire was less troubled by the death-sentence than by

adverse criticisms of his bad verse and the fear of public contempt. "I

do not fear being hated," he is reported to have said, "but I dread

being despised--the tempest leaves traces of its passage, but unobserved

the humble flower fades."

Thus thieves are loth to confess that they are guilty of only petty

larceny, and are sometimes prompted by vanity to commit more serious

robberies. The same false shame is common to fallen women, among whom

contempt is incurred, not by excess of depravity but by the failure to

command high prices. Grellinier, a petty thief, boasted in court of

imaginary offences, with the desire of appearing in the light of a great

criminal. The crimes in the haunted castle, attributed by Holmes to

himself, were certainly in part inventions. The female poisoner,

Buscemi, when writing to her accomplice, signed herself, "Your Lucrezia

Borgia."

One of the most frequent causes of modern crime is the desire to gratify

personal vanity and to become notorious.

_Impulsiveness._ This is another and almost pathognomonical

characteristic of born criminals, and also, as we shall see later on, of

epileptics and the morally insane. That which in ordinary individuals is

only an eccentric and fugitive suggestion vanishing as soon as it

arises, in the case of abnormal subjects is rapidly translated into

action, which, although unconscious, is not the less dangerous. A youth

of this impulsive type, returning home one evening flushed with wine,

met a peasant leading his ass and cried out, "As I have not come to

blows with anyone to-day, I must vent my rage on this beast," at the

same time drawing his knife and plunging it several times into the poor

animal's body (Ladelci, _Il Vino_, Rome, 1868). Pinel describes a

morally insane subject, who was in the habit of giving way to his

passions, killing any horses that did not please him and thrashing his

political opponents. He even went to the length of throwing a lady down

a well, because she ventured to contradict him.

"The most trifling causes [remarks Tamburini, speaking of Sbro...]

that stand in the way of his wishes, provoke a fit of rage in which

he appears to lose all self-control, like little children, who in

resenting any offence show no sense of proportion. The most trivial

reasons for disliking anyone awaken in him an irresistible desire

to kill the object of his aversion, and if any new blasphemy rises

to his lips, he feels constrained to repeat it."

A thief once said to my father: "It is in our very blood. It may be only

a pin, but I cannot help taking it, although I am quite ready to give it

back to its owner." The pickpocket Bor... confessed that at the age of

twelve he had begun to steal in the streets and at school, to the extent

of taking things from under his schoolfellows' pillows, and that it was

impossible for him to resist stealing, even when his pockets were full.

If he had not stolen some article before going to bed, he was unable to

sleep, and when midnight struck, he felt obliged to take the first thing

that came to his hand, destroying it frequently as soon as he had

appropriated it.

"To give up stealing," said Deham to Lauvergne, "would be like ceasing

to exist. Stealing is a passion that burns like love and when I feel the

blood seething in my brain and fingers, I think I should be capable of

robbing myself, if that were possible." When sentenced to the galleys,

he stole the bands from the masts, nails, and copper plates, and he

himself fixed the number of lashes he was to receive after each of these

exploits, which did not prevent his recommencing stealing directly

afterward (_Les Forcats_, p. 358).

Ponticelli once saw a thief, who was dying of consumption, steal an old

slipper from his neighbour and hide it under the bedclothes.

_Vindictiveness._ Closely allied to this impulsiveness and exaggerated

personal vanity, we find an extraordinary thirst for revenge. Lebuc

murdered a man who had stolen some matches from him. Baron R... caused

the death of a man, because he had failed to order a religious

procession to halt under the windows of his palace.

"To see expire the one you hate--

Such is the joy of the gods.

My sole desire is to hate and be avenged."

wrote Lacenaire.

After a slight dispute with Voit, whose hospitality he had enjoyed,

Renaud threw his friend down a well. He was arrested, and when Voit, who

had been rescued, pardoned him, he said, "I only regret not having

finished him, but when I come out of prison, I will do so." And he kept

his word.

The tattooing on the persons of criminals and their writings while in

prison are full of solemn oaths of vengeance. A female thief once said,

"If it were true that those who refuse to pardon will be damned

eternally, I should still withhold my forgiveness."

_Cruelty_ depends on moral and physical insensibility, those incapable

of feeling pain being indifferent to the sufferings of others.

The post of executioner was eagerly competed for at the prison of

Rochefort. Mammon used to drink the blood of his victims and when this

was not to be had, he drank his own. The executioner Jean became so

maddened by the sight of blood flowing beneath his lash, that guards

were stationed to prevent undue prolongation of the punishment. Dippe

wrote: "My chief pleasure is beheading. When I was young, stabbing was

my sole pastime."

It has often been observed that the ferocity of women exceeds that of

men. Rulfi killed her own niece, whom she detested, by thrusting long

pins into her, and the female brigand Ciclope reproached her lover for

murdering his victims too quickly.

_Idleness._ Like savages, criminals are dominated by an incorrigible

laziness, which in certain cases leads them to prefer death from

starvation to regular work. This idleness alternates with periods of

ferocious impulsiveness, during which they display the greatest energy.

Like savages, too, they are passionately fond of alcohol, orgies, and

sensual pleasures, which alone rouse them to activity.

_Orgies._ Those who have observed children absorbed all day long by a

game that pleases them, can understand the meaning of these words,

spoken by a woman: "Criminals are grown-up children." The love of

habitual debauch is so intense that, as soon as thieves have made some

great haul or escaped from prison, they return to their haunts to

carouse and make merry, in spite of the evident danger of falling once

more into the hands of the police.

_Gambling._ The passion for gambling is so strong that the criminal is

always in a penniless condition, no matter how much treasure he has

appropriated, and cases of starvation in prison are not unknown,

prisoners having sold their rations in order to gratify this vice.

_Games._ Many primitive and cruel amusements, similar to the pastimes of

savages, have been preserved or reconstructed by criminals. Such are

the games known to Italian offenders as "La Patta," in which one of the

players tries to avoid being struck while passing his head between two

points brought together horizontally by another, who stands with his

arms outstretched; and "La Rota," in which the players run in a circle,

one behind the other, seeking to escape, by dodging, the blows from a

stout stick, aimed at them by one of their companions.

_Intelligence_ is feeble in some and exaggerated in others. Prudence and

forethought are generally lacking. A very common characteristic is

recklessness, which leads criminals to run the risk of arrest for the

sake of being witty, or to leave some blood-stained weapon on the very

spot where they have committed a crime, notwithstanding the fact that

they have taken a hundred precautions to avoid detection. This same

recklessness prompts them, when the danger is scarcely past, to make

verses or pictures of their exploits or to tattoo them upon their

persons, heedless of consequences.

Zino relates the story of a Sicilian schoolboy, who illustrated his

criminal relations with his schoolfellows by a series of sketches in his

album. A certain Cavaglia, called "Fusil" robbed and murdered an

accomplice and hid the body in a cupboard. He was arrested and in prison

decided to commit suicide a hundred days after the date of his crime,

but before doing so, he adorned his water-jug with an account of his

misdeed, partly in pictures and partly in writing, as though he desired

to raise a monument to himself (see Fig. 9). The clearest and strangest

instance of this recklessness was furnished by a photograph discovered

by the police, in which, at the risk of arrest and detection, three

criminals had had themselves photographed in the very act of committing

a murder.

INTELLECTUAL MANIFESTATIONS

_Slang._ This is a peculiar jargon used by criminals when speaking among

themselves. The syntax and grammatical construction of the language

remain unchanged, but the meanings of words are altered, many being

formed in the same way as in primitive languages; _i.e._, an object

frequently receives the name of one of its attributes. Thus a kid is

called "jumper," death "the lean or cruel one," the soul "the false or

shameful one," the body "the veil," the hour "the swift one," the moon

"the spy," a purse "the saint," alms "the rogue," a sermon "the tedious

one," etc. Many words are formed as among savages, by onomatopoeia, as

"tuff" (pistol), "tic" (watch), "guanguana" (sweetheart), "fric frac"

(lottery).

=FIG. 9

WATER-JUGS

(see page 42)=

The necessity of eluding police investigations is the reason usually

given for the origin of this slang. No doubt it was one of the chief

causes, but does not explain the continued use of a jargon which is too

well known now to serve this purpose; moreover, it is employed in poems,

the object of which is to invite public attention, not to avoid it, and

by criminals in their homes where there is no need for secrecy.

_Pictography._ One of the strangest characteristics of criminals is the

tendency to express their ideas pictorially. While in prison, Troppmann

painted the scene of his misdeed, for the purpose of showing that it had

been committed by others. We have already mentioned the rude

illustrations engraved by the murderer Cavaglia on his pitcher,

representing his crime, imprisonment, and suicide. Books, crockery,

guns, all the utensils criminals have in constant use, serve as a canvas

on which to portray their exploits.

From pictography it is but an easy step to hieroglyphics like those used

by ancient peoples. The hieroglyphics of criminals are closely allied to

their slang, of which in fact they are only a pictorial representation,

and, although largely inspired by the necessity for secrecy, show, in

addition, evident atavistic tendencies.

=FIG. 10

Drawings in Script.

Discovered by De Blasio=

De Blasio has explained the meaning of the hieroglyphics used by the

"camorristi" (members of the _camorra_ at Naples), especially when they

are in prison. For instance, to indicate the President of the Tribunal,

they use a crown with three points; to indicate a judge, the judge's cap

(see Fig. 10). The following is a list of some of the hieroglyphics

mentioned by De Blasio:

_Police Inspector_--a hat like those worn by the Italian soldiers who

are called Alpini (a helmet with flat top and an upright feather on the

left side).

_Public Prosecutor_--an open-mouthed viper (see Fig. 10).

_Carabineer_--a bugle.

_Theft_--a skull and cross-bones.

_Commissary of the Police_--a dwarf with the three-cornered hat worn by

the _carabinieri_.

_Arts and Industries of the Criminal._ Although habitual criminals show

a strong aversion to any kind of useful labour, in prison and at large,

they, nevertheless, apply themselves with great diligence to certain

tasks, sometimes of an illegal nature, such as the manufacture of

implements to aid them in escaping, sometimes merely artistic, such as

modelling, with breadcrumbs, brickdust, or soap, the figures of persons.

Sometimes they make baskets, machines, dominoes, draughts,

playing-cards, etc., or form means of communication with their

fellow-prisoners and construct weapons for executing their schemes of

vengeance. They also devote themselves to eccentric and useless

occupations, like the training of animals, such as mice, marmosets,

birds, and even fleas (Lattes). This morbid and misguided activity,

which frequently shows gleams of talent, might well be utilised for

increasing the scope of prison industries.

TATTOOING

This personal decoration so often found on great criminals is one of the

strangest relics of a former state. It consists of designs,

hieroglyphics, and words punctured in the skin by a special and very

painful process.

=FIG. 11

Alphabet Discovered by De Blasio=

Among primitive peoples, who live in a more or less nude condition,

tattooing takes the place of decorations or ornamental garments, and

serves as a mark of distinction or rank. When an Eskimo slays an enemy,

he adorns his upper-lip with a couple of blue stripes, and the warriors

of Sumatra add a special sign to their decorations for every foe they

kill. In Wuhaiva, ladies of noble birth are more extensively tattooed

than women of humbler rank. Among the Maoris, tattooing is a species of

armorial bearings indicative of noble birth.

According to ancient writers, tattooing was practised by Thracians,

Picts, and Celts. Roman soldiers tattooed their arms with the names of

their generals, and artisans in the Middle Ages were marked with the

insignia of their crafts. In modern times this custom has fallen into

disuse among the higher classes and only exists among sailors, soldiers,

peasants, and workmen.

Although not exclusively confined to criminals, tattooing is practised

by them to a far larger extent than by normal persons: 9% of adult

criminals and 40% of minors are tattooed; whereas, in normal persons the

proportion is only 0.1%. Recidivists and born criminals, whether thieves

or murderers, show the highest percentage of tattooing. Forgers and

swindlers are rarely tattooed.

Sometimes tattooing consists of a motto symbolical of the career of the

criminal it adorns. Tardieu found on the arm of a sailor who had served

various terms of imprisonment, the words, "Pas de chance." The

notorious criminal Malassen was tattooed on the chest with the drawing

of a guillotine, under which was written the following prophecy: "J'ai

mal commence, je finirai mal. C'est la fin qui m'attend."

Tattooing frequently bears witness to indecency. Of 142 criminals

examined by my father, the tattooing on five showed obscenity of design

and position and furnished also a remarkable proof of the insensibility

to pain characteristic of criminals, the parts tattooed being the most

sensitive of the whole body, and therefore left untouched even by

savages.

Another fact worthy of mention is the extent to which criminals are

tattooed. Thirty-five out of 378 criminals examined by Lacassagne were

decorated literally from head to foot.

In a great many cases, the designs reveal violence of character and a

desire for revenge. A Piedmontese sailor, who had perpetrated fraud and

murder from motives of revenge, bore on his breast between two daggers,

the words: "I swear to revenge myself." Another had written on his

forehead, "Death to the middle classes," with the drawing of a dagger

underneath. A young Ligurian, the leader of a mutiny in an Italian

Reformatory, was tattooed with designs representing all the most

important episodes of his life, and the idea of revenge was paramount.

On his right forearm figured two crossed swords, underneath them the

initials M. N. (of an intimate friend), and on the inner side, traced

longitudinally, the motto: "Death to cowards. Long live our alliance."

Tattooing, as practised by criminals, is a perfect substitute for

writing with symbols and hieroglyphics, and they take a keen pleasure in

this mode of adorning their skins.

Of atavistic origin, also, is the practice, common to members of the

_camorra_, of branding their sweethearts on the face, not from motives

of revenge, but as a sign of proprietorship, like the chiefs of savage

tribes, who mark their wives and other belongings; and the form of

tattooing called "Paranza," which distinguishes the various bands of

malefactors,--the band of the "banner," of the "three arrows," of the

"bell-ringer," of the "Carmelites," etc.

THE CRIMINAL TYPE

All the physical and psychic peculiarities of which we have spoken are

found singly in many normal individuals. Moreover, crime is not always

the result of degeneration and atavism; and, on the other hand, many

persons who are considered perfectly normal are not so in reality.

However, in normal individuals, we never find that accumulation of

physical, psychic, functional, and skeletal anomalies in one and the

same person, that we do in the case of criminals, among whom also entire

freedom from abnormal characteristics is more rare than among ordinary

individuals.

Just as a musical theme is the result of a sum of notes, and not of any

single note, the criminal type results from the aggregate of these

anomalies, which render him strange and terrible, not only to the

scientific observer, but to ordinary persons who are capable of an

impartial judgment.

Painters and poets, unhampered by false doctrines, divined this type

long before it became the subject of a special branch of study. The

assassins, executioners, and devils painted by Mantegna, Titian, and

Ribera the Spagnoletto embody with marvellous exactitude the

characteristics of the born criminal; and the descriptions of great

writers, Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, and Ibsen, are equally

faithful representations, physically and psychically, of this morbid

type.

THE CRIMINAL IN PROVERBIAL SAYINGS

The conclusions of instinctive observers have found expression in many

proverbs, which warn the world against the very characteristics we have

noted in criminals.

A proverb common in Romagna, says: "Poca barba e niun colore, sotto il

cielo non vi ha peggiore" (There is nothing worse under Heaven than a

scanty beard and a colourless face), and in Piedmont there is a saying,

"Faccia smorta, peggio che scabbia" (An ashen face is worse than the

itch). The Venetians have a number of proverbs expressing distrust of

the criminal type: "Uomo rosso e femina barbuta da lontan xe megio la

saluta" (Greet from afar the red-haired man and the bearded woman);

"Vardete da chi te parla e guarda in la, e vardete da chi tiene i oci

bassi e da chi camina a corti passi" (Beware of him who looks away when

he speaks to you, and of him who keeps his eyes cast down and takes

mincing steps); "El guerzo xe maledetto per ogni verso" (The squint-eyed

are on all sides accursed); "Megio vendere un campo e una ca che tor una

dona dal naso leva" (Better sell a field and a house than take a wife

with a turned-up nose); "Naso che guarda in testa e peggior che la

tempesta" (A turned-up nose is worse than hail); etc.

There are innumerable cases on record, in which persons quite ignorant

of criminology have escaped robbery or murder, thanks to the timely

distrust awakened in them by the appearance of individuals who had tried

to win their confidence. My father once placed before forty children,

twenty portraits of thieves and twenty representing great men, and 80%

recognised in the first the portraits of bad and deceitful people.

In conclusion, the born criminal possesses certain physical and mental

characteristics, which mark him out as a special type, materially and

morally diverse from the bulk of mankind.

Like the little cage-bred bird which instinctively crouches and trembles

at the sight of the hawk, although ignorant of its ferocity, an honest

man feels instinctive repugnance at the sight of a miscreant and thus

signalises the abnormality of the criminal type.