THE CRIMINAL IN BODY AND MIND.
Has the criminal any bodily and mental characteristics which
differentiate him from the ordinary man? Does he differ from his
fellows in height and weight? Does he possess a peculiar conformation
of skull and brain? Is he anomalous in face and feature, in intellect,
in will, in feeling? Is he, in short, an individual separated from the
rest of humanity by any set or combination of qualities which clearly
mark him off as an abnormal being? As these matters are at present
exciting considerable attention, let us now look at the criminal from
a purely biological point of view.
A good deal of diversity of opinion exists among competent authorities
respecting the stature of criminals. Lombroso says that Italian
criminals are above the average height; Knecht says German criminals
do not differ in this respect from other men; Marro says the stature
of criminals is variable; Thomson and Wilson say that criminals are
inferior in point of stature to the average man. Whatever may be the
case on the Continent, there can be little doubt that as far as the
United Kingdom is concerned, the height of the criminal class is lower
than that of the ordinary citizen. In Scotland the average height of
the ordinary population is (559) 67.30 inches; the average height of
the criminal population, as given by Dr. Bruce Thomson, is (324) 66.95
inches. According to Dr. Beddoe, the average height of the London
artizan population is (318) 66.72 inches; the average height of the
London criminal (300) 54.70 inches; the average height of Liverpool
criminals, according to Danson, is (1117) 66.39 inches. Danson's
figures point to the fact that there is hardly any difference in
height between the criminal classes of Liverpool and the artizan
population of London It has, however, to be borne in mind that the
population of the North of England, being largely of Scandinavian
descent, is taller than the population of the South of England. The
height of Liverpool criminals should be compared with the average
height of the Scotch, to whom they are more nearly allied by race. If
this is done, it will be seen that they fall considerably short of the
normal stature.
The difference between the height of the criminal population and that
of the most favoured classes is more remarkable still. According to
Dr. Roberts' tables, the average height of the latter is 69.06 inches;
the London criminal is only 64.70 inches. There is thus a difference
of from four to five inches between the most highly favoured classes
and the London criminal class. The difference between the criminal
class and the merely well-to-do is not quite so great. Selecting Mr.
Galton's Health Exhibition measurements as a test of the stature of
the well-to-do classes, the results come out as follows:--Health
Exhibition measurements, 67.9 inches; London criminals, 64.70 inches.
The criminal is thus between two and three inches inferior in height
to the well-to-do portion of the community. In fact, the height of the
London criminal is very nearly the same as that of the East-End Jew.
According to Mr. Jacobs, in a paper communicated to the Journal of the
Anthropological Institute, the average stature of the East-End Jew is
64.3 inches; his co-religionist in the West-End is 67.5 inches. We may
accordingly take it as the outcome of these measurements that the
criminal population of Great Britain is inferior in point of stature
to the ordinary population.
From stature we shall pass to weight. Lombroso and Marro say that the
weight of Italian criminals is superior to the weight of the average
Italian citizen. On the other hand, the weight of London criminals is
almost the same as that of London artizans, but inferior to the weight
of the artizan population in the large English towns taken as a whole.
Average weight of London criminals (300) 136 pounds; average weight of
London artizan (318) 137 pounds; average weight of artizans in large
towns generally, 138 pounds. The London criminal is considerably
inferior in weight to the well-to-do classes, as will be seen from Mr.
Galton's Health Exhibition statistics. Average weight, Health
Exhibition, 143 pounds; average weight, most favoured class (Roberts),
152 pounds. These figures show that the criminal class in London is
seven pounds lighter than the well-to-do, and sixteen pounds lighter
than the most favoured section of the population.
Hardly any investigations have been made in this country respecting
the skulls of criminals, and the inquiries of continental
investigators have so far led to very conflicting results. It is a
contention of Lombroso's that the skulls of criminals exhibit a larger
proportion of asymmetrical peculiarities than the skulls of other men.
On this point Lombroso is supported by Manouvrier. But Topinard, an
anthropologist of great eminence, is of the opposite opinion. He
carefully examined the same series of skulls as been examined by
Manouvrier--the skulls of murders--and he discovered no marked
difference between these and other skulls. Heger, a Belgian
anthropologist says that the skulls of delinquents do not differ from
the skulls of the race to which the delinquent belongs. In fact, till
more exactitude is introduced into the methods of skull measurement,
all deduction based upon an examination of the criminal skull must be
regarded as untrustworthy. A striking instance of this was witnessed
at the proceedings of the Paris Congress of Criminal Anthropology held
in 1889. When the skull of Charlotte Corday, who killed the
revolutionist Marat, was subjected to examination, Lombroso declared
that it was a truly criminal type of skull; Topinard, on the other
hand, gave it as his opinion that it was a typical female skull. On
this point Topinard was supported by Benedict.[34] As long as such
divergencies of view exist among anthropologists it is impossible to
place much stress upon inquiries relative to the conformation of the
criminal skull. Before a beginning can be made with inquiries of this
character, there must be some fundamental basis of agreement among
investigators as to what is to be accounted asymmetrical in skull
measurements and what is not. Even then it will have to be remembered,
before coming to conclusions, that no skull is perfectly
symmetrical--every one showing some variation from the ideal type.
When the extent of this variation has been absolutely demonstrated to
be greater in the case of criminals than among other sections of the
community, we shall then be approaching solid ground. At present we
must wait for further light before anything can be said with certainty
with respect to the criminal skull.
[34] See _Revista Internacional de Anthropologia Criminal y
Ciencias Medico-Legales, Marzo e April de 1890_.
Just as little is known at present about the brain of criminals as
about the skull. Some years ago Professor Benedict startled the world
by stating that he had discovered the seat of crime in the
convolutions of the brain. He found a certain number of anomalies in
the convolutions of the frontal lobes, and he came to the conclusion
that crime was connected with the existence of these anomalies. But he
had omitted to examine the frontal convolutions of honest people. When
this was done by other investigators, it was found that the brain
convolutions of normal men presented just as many anomalies, some
investigators (Dr. Giacomini) said even more than the brains of
criminals. According to Dr. Bardeleben, there is no such thing as a
normal type of brain. Weight of brain is a much simpler question than
brain type, but so far it is impossible to say whether the criminal
brain is heavier or lighter than the ordinary brain. The solution of
this comparatively simple point is beset by a certain number of
obstacles. It is not enough, Dr. Binswanger tells us, to weigh the
brains of criminals and the brains of ordinary persons and then strike
an average of the results. The height and weight of the persons whose
brains are averaged are essential to the formation of accurate
conclusions; till these important factors are taken into account, all
deductions based upon weight of brain only rest upon an unsure
foundation.
But supposing we had a trustworthy body of facts bearing upon the
weight and structure of the criminal brain, we should still require to
know much more of brain functions in general before satisfactory
conclusions could be drawn from these facts. We know something, it is
true, of the physiological functions at certain cerebral regions, but
as yet nothing is known of the localisation of any particular mental
faculty, whether criminal or otherwise. A conclusive proof that the
study of the brain, as an organ of thought, is still in its infancy,
is found in the fact that the fundamental question is still unsolved,
whether the whole brain is to be considered one in all its parts, so
far as the performance of psychic functions is concerned, or whether
these functions are localised in certain definite centres. Till these
fundamental difficulties are cleared away, the presence of anomalies
in certain convolutions of the brain will not prove very much one way
or the other.[35]
[35] A masterly article on the "Localisation of Brain Functions"
will be found in Wundt's _Philosophische Studien Sechster Band_,
1. _Heft Zur Frage der Localisation der Grosshirnfunctionen_,
Von W. Wundt. Compare also _The Croonian Lectures on Cerebral
Localisation_, by David Ferrier. London: 1890.
An examination of the criminal face has so far led to no definite and
assured results. In the imagination of artists the criminal is almost
always credited with the possession of a retreating forehead. As a
matter of fact, Dr. Marro, one of the most eminent representatives of
the anthropological school, assures us that this is not the case.
After comparing the foreheads of 539 delinquents with the foreheads of
100 ordinary men, he found that criminals had a smaller percentage of
retreating foreheads than the average man.[36] He also found that
projecting eyebrows, another trait which is supposed to be a criminal
peculiarity, were almost as common among ordinary people as among
offenders against the law. Projecting ears is another peculiarity
which is often associated with the idea of a criminal. But Dr. Lannois
states that after a careful examination of the ears of 43 young
offenders, he found them as free from anomalies as the ears of other
people.[37]
[36] Marro, _I Caratteri dei Delinquenti_, p. 157.
[37] _Archives d'anthropologie criminelle Livraison_, 10.
As it is the Italians who have studied these matters most exhaustively,
it is mainly to them we must go for information. In a little book on
the skeleton and the form of the nose, Dr. Salvator Ottolenghi comes to
the somewhat curious result that the bones of the criminal nose offer
many anomalies of a pre-human or bestial character; but the nose itself
is straight and long, or, in other words, just as highly developed as
the noses of ordinary men. Careful inquiries have been undertaken by
criminal anthropologists into the colour of the hair, the length of the
arms, the colour of the skin, tattooing, sensitiveness to pain among
the criminal population, but these laborious investigations have so
far led to few solid conclusions. According to Lombroso, insensibility
to pain is a marked characteristic of the typical criminal.[38]
"Individuals," he says, "who possess this quality consider themselves
as privileged, and they despise delicate and sensitive persons. It is a
pleasure to such hardened men to torment others whom they look upon as
inferior beings." On this point M. Joly is at variance with Lombroso.
"I asked," he says, "at the central hospital, the Santé, where all
persons who become seriously ill in the prisons of the Seine are looked
after, if this disvulnerability had ever been noticed. I was told that
far from that, prisoners were always found very sensitive to pain ...
Honest people, industrious workmen, the fathers of families treated at
the Charité or the Hôtel-Dieu (Paris hospitals), undergo operations
with much more fortitude than the sick prisoners of the Santé."[39] On
this point, therefore, as on so many others, we are still without a
sufficient body of evidence, and must, meanwhile, suspend our judgment.
[38] _L'Homme Criminel_, 324.
[39] _Le Crime_, 193.
Let us now consider the criminal's physiognomy. In this connection it
must be borne in mind that a prolonged period of imprisonment will
change the face of any man, whether he is a criminal or not. Political
offenders who have undergone a sentence of penal servitude, and who may
be men of the highest character, acquire the prison look and never
altogether get rid of it. If a man spends a certain number of years
sharing the life, the food, the occupations of five or six hundred
other men, if he mixes with them and with no one else, he will
inevitably come to resemble them in face and feature. A remarkable
illustration of this fact has recently been brought to light by the
Photographic Society of Geneva. "From photographs of seventy-eight old
couples, and of as many adult brothers and sisters, it was found that
twenty-four of the former resembled each other much more strongly than
as many of the latter who were thought most like one another."[40] It
would, therefore, seem that the action of unconscious imitation,
arising from constant contact, is capable of producing a remarkable
change in the features, the acquired expression frequently tending to
obliterate inherited family resemblances. According to Piderit,
physiognomy is to be considered as a mimetic expression which has
become habitual. The criminal type of face, so conspicuous in old
offenders, is in many cases merely a prison type; it is not congenital;
men who do not originally have it almost always acquire it after a
prolonged period of penal servitude.
[40] _Daily News_, June 12, 1890.
But apart from the prison type of countenance, it is highly probable
that a distinct criminal type also exists. Certain professions
generate distinctive castes of feature, as, for instance, the Army and
the Church. This distinctiveness is not confined to features alone, it
diffuses itself over the whole man; it is observable in manner, in
gesture, in bearing, in demeanour, and is constantly breaking out in a
variety of unexpected ways. In like manner the habitual criminal
acquires the habits of his class. Crime is his profession; it is also
the profession of all his associates. The constant practice of this
profession results in the acquisition of a certain demeanour, a
certain aspect, gait, and general appearance, in many instances too
subtle to define, but, at the same time, plain and palpable to an
expert.
The slang of criminals is also explicable on the same principle. Every
trade and calling has its technical terms. The meaning of these terms
is hidden from the rest of the world, but the origin of their
existence is not difficult to explain. The jargon of the criminal
arises from the same causes and is constructed on exactly the same
principles as the technical words and phrases of the man of science.
When a man of science is compelled to make frequent use of a phrase,
he generally gets rid of it by inventing some technical word; it is
precisely the same with criminals. With them technical words are used
instead of phrases, and short words instead of long ones in all
matters where criminal interests are intimately concerned, and on all
topics which are habitually the subjects of conversation among the
criminal classes. The language of the Stock Exchange with its Bulls,
Bears, Contangos, and other short and comprehensive expressions for
various kinds of stocks, is on all fours with the slang of criminals,
and it is not necessary to resort to atavism in order to explain it.
It arises to supply professional needs, and criminal argot springs up
from exactly the same cause.
Summing up our inquiries respecting the criminal type we arrive, in
the first place, at the general conclusion, that so far as it has a
real existence it is not born with a man, but originates either in the
prison, and is then merely a prison type, or in criminal habits of
life, and is then a truly criminal type. As a matter of fact, the two
types are in most cases blended together, the prison type with its
hard, impassive rigidity of feature being superadded to the gait,
gesture and demeanour of the habitual criminal. In combination these
two types form a professional type and constitute what Dr. Bruce
Thomson[41] has called "a physique distinctly characteristic of the
criminal class." It is not, however, a type which admits of accurate
description, and its practical utility is impaired by the fact that
certain of its features are sometimes visible in men who have never
been convicted of crime. The position of the case, with respect to the
criminal type, may be best described by saying that an experienced
detective officer will be sure in nine cases out of ten that he has
got hold of a criminal by profession, but in the tenth case he will
probably make a mistake. In other words, face, manner and demeanor are
no infallible index of character or habits of life.
[41] _Journal of Mental Science_, vol. xvi.
When crime is not an inherited taint, but merely an acquired habit,
this fact has an important practical bearing upon the proper method of
dealing with it. Acquired habits, we are now being taught by Professor
Weismann, are incapable of being transmitted to posterity, and Mr.
Galton is of the same opinion.[42] This is not the place to elaborate
the theory of inheritance, as understood by those writers; its
essence, however, is that we only inherit the natural faculties of our
forebears, and not those faculties which they have acquired by
practice and experience. The son of a rope-dancer does not inherit his
father's faculties for rope-dancing, nor the son of an orator his
father's ready aptitude for public speech, nor the son of a designer
his father's acquired skill in the making of designs. All that the son
inherits is the natural faculties of the parent, but no more. Hence it
follows that the son of a thief, on the supposition that thieving
comes by habit and practice, does not by natural inheritance acquire
the parent's criminal propensity. As far as his natural faculties are
concerned he starts life free from the vicious habits of his parent,
and should he in turn become a thief, as sometimes happens, it is not
because he has inherited his father's thievish habits, but because he
has himself acquired them. It is imitation, not instinct, which
transforms him into a thief; and if he is removed from the influence
of evil example he will have almost as small a chance of falling into
a criminal life as any other member of the community. It will not be
quite so small, because no public institution, however well conducted,
can ever exercise so moralising an effect as a good home, but it will
be much smaller than if he grew up to maturity under the pernicious
surroundings of a criminal home.
[42] _Die Continuität des Keimplasma als Grundlage einer Theorie
der Vererbung_. A. Weismann. Jena, 1885. _Natural Inheritance_.
F. Galton.
If we do not inherit the acquired faculties and habits of our parents,
it is unfortunately too true that we inherit their diseases and the
connection between disease and crime is a fact which cannot be denied.
In many cases it is perfectly true that persons suffering from disease
or physical degeneracy do not become criminals, in most cases they do
not; at the same time a larger proportion of such persons fall into a
lawless life than is the case with people who are free from inherited
infirmities. The undoubted tendency of physical infirmity is to
disturb the temper, to weaken the will, and generally to disorganise
the mental equilibrium. Such a tendency, when it becomes very
pronounced, leads its unhappy possessor to perpetrate offenses against
his fellow-men, or, in other words, to commit crime. In a recent
communication to a German periodical, Herr Sichart, director of
prisons in the kingdom of Wurtemburg, has shown that a very high
percentage of criminals are the descendants of degenerate parents.
Herr Sichart's inquiries extended over several years and included
1,714 prisoners. Of this number 16 per cent. were descended from
drunken parents; 6 per cent. from families in which there was madness;
4 per cent. from families addicted to suicide; 1 per cent. from
families in which there was epilepsy. In all, 27 per cent. of the
offenders, examined by Herr Sichart were descended from families in
which there was degeneracy. According to these figures more than one
fourth of the German prison population have received a defective
organisation from their ancestry, which manifests itself in a life of
crime.
In France and Italy the same state of things prevails. Dr. Corre is of
opinion that a very large proportion of persons convicted of bad
conduct in the French military service are distinctly degenerate
either in body or mind. Dr. Virgilio says that in Italy 32 per cent.
of the criminal population have inherited criminal tendencies from
their parents. In England there is no direct means of testing the
amount of degeneracy among the criminal classes, but, in all
likelihood, it is quite as great as elsewhere. According to the report
of the Medical Inspector of convict prisons for 1888-9, the annual
number of deaths from natural causes, among the convict population, is
from 10 to 12 per 1000. Let us compare those figures with the death
rate of the general population as recorded in the Registrar-General's
report for 1888. The annual death rate from all causes of the general
population, between the ages of 15 and 45, is about 7 per 1000. I have
selected the period of life between 15 and 45 for the reason that it
corresponds most closely with the average age of criminals. If deaths
from accident are excluded from the mortality returns of the general
population, it will be found that the rate of mortality among
criminals, in convict prisons, is from one third to one half higher
than the rate of mortality among the rest of the community of a
similar age. If the rate of mortality of the criminal population is so
high inside convict prisons, where the health of the inmates is so
carefully attended to, what must it be among the criminal classes when
in a state of liberty? Independently of the premature deaths brought
on by irregularity of life, it is certain that a high proportion of
criminals bear within them the seeds of inherited disorders, and it is
these disorders which largely account for the high rate of mortality
amongst them when in prison.
The high percentage of disease and degeneracy among the English
criminal population may be seen in other ways. The population in the
local gaols in 1888-9, between the ages of 21 and 40, constituted 54
per cent. of the total prison population, whilst the same class between
the ages of 40 and CO formed only 20 per cent. of the prison
population. One half of this drop in the percentage of prisoners
between 40 and 60 may be accounted for by the decreased percentage of
persons between these two ages in the general population. The other
half can only be accounted for by the extent to which premature decay
and death rage among criminals who have passed their fortieth year. In
other words, the number of criminals alive after forty is much smaller
than the number of normal men alive after that age.
A direct proof of the extent of degeneracy in the shape of insanity
among persons convicted of murder can be found in the Judicial
Statistics. The number of persons convicted of wilful murder, not
including manslaughter or non-capital homicides, from 1879 to 1888
amounted to 441. Out of this total 143 or 32 per cent. were found
insane. Of the 299 condemned to death, no less than 145, or nearly one
half, had their sentences commuted, many of them on the ground of
mental infirmity. The whole of these figures decisively prove that
between 40 and 50 per cent. of the convictions for wilful murder are
cases in which the murderers were either insane or mentally infirm.
Murder cases are almost the only ones respecting which the antecedents
of the offender are seriously inquired into. But when this inquiry
does take place the vast amount of degeneracy among criminals at once
becomes apparent.
Passing from the mental condition of murderers, let us now take into
consideration the mental state of criminals generally. Beginning with
the senses, it may be said that very little stress can be laid on the
experiments conducted by the Anthropological School as to
peculiarities in the sense of smell, taste, sight, and so on,
discovered among criminals. In all these inquiries it is so easy for
the subject to deceive the investigator, and he has often so direct an
interest in doing it that all results in this department must be
accepted with the utmost caution. Wherever investigations necessitate
the acceptance upon trust of statements made by criminals, their
scientific value descends to the lowest level. As this must be largely
the case with respect to the senses of hearing, taste, smell, etc., it
is almost impossible to reach assured conclusions.
It is different in inquiries respecting the intellect. Here the
investigator is able to judge for himself. According to Dr. Ogle, 86.5
per cent. of the general population were able to read and write in the
years 1881-4, and as this represents an increase of 10 per cent. since
the passing of the Elementary Education Act, it is probably not far
from the mark to say that at the present time almost 90 per cent. of
the English population can read and write. In other words, only 10
per cent. of the population is wholly ignorant. In the local prisons
on the other hand, no less than 25 per cent. of the prisoners can
neither read nor write, and 72 per cent. can only read or read and
write imperfectly. The vast difference in the proportion of
uninstructed among the prison, as compared with the general
population, is not to be explained by the defective early training of
the former. This explanation only covers a portion of the ground: the
other portion is covered by the fact that a certain number of
criminals are almost incapable of acquiring instruction. The memory
and the reasoning powers of such persons are so utterly feeble that
attempts to school them is a waste of time.[43] Deficiencies in
memory, imagination, reason, are three undoubted characteristics of
the ordinary criminal intellect. Of course, there are very many
criminals in which all these qualities are present, and whose defects
lie in another direction, but taken as a whole the criminal is
unquestionably less gifted intellectually than the rest of the
community.
Respecting the emotions of criminals, it is much more difficult to
speak, and much more easy to fall into error. The only thing that can
be said of them for certain, is, that they do not, as a rule, possess
the same keenness of feeling as the ordinary man. Some Italian writers
make much of the religiosity of delinquents; such a sentiment may be
common among offenders in Italy; it is certainly rare among the same
class in Great Britain. The cellular system puts an effective stop to
any thing like active hostility to religion; but it is a mistake to
argue from this that the criminal is addicted to the exercise of
religious sentiments. The family sentiment is also feebly developed;
the exceptions to this rule form a small fraction of the criminal
population.
[43] In Christiania the number of children who cannot learn
amounts in the elementary schools to 4 per 1000. See _Reformatory
and Refuge Journal_ for August, 1890.
The will in criminals, when it is not impaired by disease, is, in the
main, dominated by a boundless egoism. Let us first consider those
whose wills are impaired by disease. Among drunkards and the
degenerate generally the power of sustained volition is often as good
as gone. Nothing can be more pitiful or hopeless than the position of
wretched beings in a condition such as this. Often animated by good
resolutions, often anxious to do what is right, often possessing a
sense of moral responsibility, these unhappy creatures plunge again
and again into vice and crime. In some cases of this description the
will is practically annihilated; in others it is under the dominion of
momentary caprice; in others again it has no power of concentration,
or it is the victim of sudden hurricanes of feeling which drive
everything before them. Persons afflicted in this way, when not
drunkards, are generally convicted for crimes of violence, such as
assault, manslaughter, murder. They experience real sentiments of
remorse, but neither remorse nor penitence enables them to grapple
with their evil star. The will is stricken with disease, and the man
is dashed hither and thither, a helpless wreck on the sea of life.[44]
[44] Cf. Ribot, _Les Maladies de la Volonté_, 1887.
Let us now consider the class of criminals whose wills are not
diseased, but are, on the other hand, dominated by a boundless egoism.
Of such criminals it may be said that there is no essential difference
between them and immoral men. Egoism, selfishness, a lack of
consideration for the rights and feelings of others, are the dominant
principles in the life of both. The dividing line between the two
types consists in this, that the egoism of the immoral man is bounded
by the criminal law; but the egoism of the criminal is bounded by no
law either without him or within. It does not follow from this that
the criminal is without a sense of duty or a dread of legal
punishment. In most cases he possesses both in a more or less
developed form. But his immense egoism so completely overpowers both
his sense of duty and his fear of punishment that it demands
gratification at whatever cost. He sees what he ought to do; he knows
how he ought to act; he is perfectly alive to the consequences of
transgression, but these motives are not strong enough to induce him
to alter his ways of life.
On summing up the results of this inquiry into criminal biology we
arrive at the following conclusions. In the first place, it cannot be
proved that the criminal has any distinct physical conformation,
whether anatomical or morphological; and, in the second place, it
cannot be proved that there is any inevitable alliance between
anomalies of physical structure and a criminal mode of life. But it
can be shown that criminals, taken as a whole, exhibit a higher
proportion of physical anomalies, and a higher percentage of physical
degeneracy than the rest of the community. With respect to the mental
condition of criminals, it cannot be established that it is, on the
whole, a condition of insanity, or even verging on insanity. But it
can be established that the bulk of the criminal classes are of a
humbly developed mental organisation. Whether we call this low state
of mental development, atavism, or degeneracy is, to a large extent, a
matter of words; the fact of its wide-spread existence among criminals
is the important point.
The results of this inquiry also show that degeneracy among criminals
is sometimes inherited and sometimes acquired. It is inherited when
the criminal is descended from insane, drunken, epileptic, scrofulous
parents; it is often acquired when the criminal adopts and
deliberately persists in a life of crime. The closeness of the
connection between degeneracy and crime is, to a considerable extent,
determined by social conditions. A degenerate person, who has to earn
his own livelihood, is much more likely to become a criminal than
another degenerate person who has not. Almost all forms of degeneracy
render a man more or less unsuited for the common work of life; it is
not easy for such a man to obtain employment; in certain forms of
degeneracy it becomes almost impossible. A person in this unfortunate
position often becomes a criminal, not because he has strong
anti-social instincts, but because he cannot get work. Physically, he
is unfit for work, and he takes to crime as an alternative.
Another important result is the close connection between madness and
crimes of blood. We have seen that almost one third of the cases of
conviction for wilful murder are cases in which the murderer is found
to be insane. And this does not represent the full proportion of
murderers afflicted mentally; a considerable percentage of those
sentenced to death have this sentence commuted on mental grounds. In
Germany, from 26 to 28 per cent. of criminals suffering from mental
weakness escape the observation of the court in this important
particular, and the same state of things unquestionably exists in the
United Kingdom. The actual percentage of criminals who suffer from
mental disorders in the prisons of Europe is probably much greater
than is generally supposed. At the present time a knowledge of
insanity is no part of the ordinary medical curriculum. "With respect
to this malady the great majority of medical men are themselves in the
position of laymen. They have not studied it. It was not included in
their examinations."[45] Till this state of things is altered we shall
never exactly know the intimacy of the connection between nervous
disorders and crime.
[45] _Sanity and Insanity_. C. Mercier, p. XII.