termed criminal, epileptoid vertigo. But here again is a mistake of
fact arising from a velleity not content with knowledge. It is that the
novelist several times explains these bloodthirsty sexual instincts by
a peculiar kind of atavism: the tendency, namely, to avenge the evil
that women had done to his race; the spite accumulated from male to
male since the first deceit in the depths of caverns. This is an error
of fact. Primitive women have never done wrong to men. More feeble than
men, they have always been their victims. These bloodthirsty sexual
instincts are explained by a quite different atavism, which goes back
to inferior animals, to the conflict between the males for the conquest
of the female, who remained for the strongest; and by the blows
that were inflicted on the woman in order to reduce her to conjugal
slavery, conflicts of which traces still remain in Roman history (the
Rape of the Sabines), and in the nuptial rites of almost all European
countries, and in those of New Zealand, where the husband knocks down
his wife before carrying her off to the matrimonial bed.
Another technical defect is, that a man who has arrived at the degree
of degeneracy that Jacques has, ought to have still other vices: as
great violence of character, impulsiveness without cause, profound
immorality; while, as a matter of fact, except in moments of sexual
fury, he appears as a good and honorable man. However, even recognising
the force of his bloody sexual monomania, I find that instinctive
aversion, characteristic of the good man, to be proper which Jacques
feels at the thought of killing some one who is not a young and
beautiful woman; for instance, to killing his rival, notwithstanding
the favorable circumstances and the suggestions of Séverine.
"To kill that man, my God! Had he the right to do it? When a
fly troubled him he would crush it with a blow. One day when
a cat had got between his legs, he had broken its back with
a kick. But to kill this man, his fellow-creature! He must
reason with himself, he must prove his right to murder; the
right of the strong whom the weak are troublesome to.... But
afterwards that appeared to him monstrous, impracticable,
impossible. The civilised man revolted in him, the acquired
force of education, the slow and indestructible concretion of
inherited ideas. His cultivated brain, filled with scruples,
repelled murder with horror, as soon as he began to reason
about it. Yes, to kill in a case of necessity, in a transport
of rage! But to kill voluntarily by design, and from interest,
no never, never could he do it!"
All that is very true. Where the author has certainly copied after
nature is in the personality of Séverine. She is not a true criminal;
sensual, depraved though still young, experiencing love only in
adultery. Though deceitful, she is nevertheless a good wife and a good
housekeeper up to the day where chance had thrown her into evil doing.
She is united to her husband, and for that reason she becomes his
accomplice in crime, without horror or dread; but afterwards, seized
with love for Jacques, she experiences dislike for her husband and
wishes to turn the lover into his murderer.
"The need increased in her of having Jacques for herself,
all for herself, to live together, days and nights, without
ever more parting. Her hatred of her husband grew greater,
the mere presence of this man threw her into a morbid and
intolerable condition of excitement. Tractable, and with all
the amiability of a delicate woman, she became enraged at
everything in which he was concerned; she flew into a passion
at the least obstacle he put to her wishes.... The stupid
tranquillity in which she saw him, the indifferent glance
and manner with which he received her anger, his round back,
his enlarged stomach, all that greasy dullness which has the
appearance of happiness, made her exasperation complete. Oh!
to go far away from him.... One day when he returned, pale and
livid, to say that in passing before a locomotive he had felt
the buffer graze his elbow, she thought to herself that if
he were dead she would be free.... She would go with Jacques
to America.... She who at other times so rarely went out now
conceived a passion for going to see the steamships sail. She
would go to the pier, and would lean on her elbow watching
the smoke of the departing vessels.... [And at the decisive
moment] she threw herself passionately on Jacques's neck.
She fastened her burning lips to his. How she loved him and
how she hated the other! Oh! if she had dared, twenty times
already would she have done the deed ... but she felt herself
too gentle, it required the hand of a man. And this kiss which
would never come to an end, was all that she could communicate
to him of her courage, the full possession that she promised
him, the communion of her body. When she finally withdrew her
lips nothing more was left to her; she believed that she had
passed completely into him."
And is this, then, the woman criminal, the criminaloid, as I have
called her (Vol. II of my "Uomo Delinquente")? A criminal who, when
she is not urged onward by opportunities, (and these opportunities
always have love for their origin,) is not capable of any true crime,
and who when she commits it always makes use of the arm of another;
and this latter is always her lover, for she finds herself too feeble
to accomplish it herself. Her anatomical characters, as well as her
physiognomy, if not those of the born criminal, have at least some
features which those of other females have not, and which unite her
with the animal. "She had very black and very thick hair, which stood
like a helmet on her forehead, a long face, a strong mouth, and large
blue-green eyes."
M. Héricourt justly finds that many features of this woman are to
be met with in Gabrielle Fenayron, the accomplice of her husband.
Gabrielle Fenayron is about thirty years of age: she is a tall dark
woman with a very pale complexion; her hair is very black, the oval
of her face elongated, and her eyes have a certain hardness that
accentuate the projecting and unsightly cheek-bones. Gabrielle
Fenayron, as we know, pretended to have been terrorised by the threats
which her husband had uttered against her, and to have been infatuated,
on the other hand, by the love that she felt for him; she had thus
submitted her will in order to repair her fault. In the appreciation
of this system of defence, the bill of indictment stated that the
energy and the coolness exhibited by this woman in the preparation of
assassination, the facilities that she had during the course of the
long premeditation which had preceded the murder to warn Aubert without
danger to herself, induced the belief that she had in the commission
of the crime yielded to a profound hatred against her old lover. But
this interpretation appears to me, psychologically, to be a clumsy and
a forced one. It is not necessary to have recourse to motives left
mysterious in order to explain the absolutely strange conduct of some
women.
Perhaps Zola would have completed his picture if he had known Gabrielle
Gompard; who allies and unites the passion of murder with prostitution
when she attaches herself to a wicked man, but who grows animated
for virtue and denounces herself an accomplice when she becomes the
mistress of a virtuous man. These women change their personality in
changing a lover, and then make a point of playing a role in the
miserable world where their fickle passions destroy them.
Less happy, perhaps, has Zola been in the case of Flora, "fair, strong,
with thick lips, and great greenish eyes, with low forehead set
beneath heavy hair." According to the plot of the novel, she should
be a criminal of passion. A good woman throughout her whole life, she
commits a crime through jealousy. But the method of the crime (the
derailment of a train with a view to striking her rival and her lover)
is not that which is chosen by criminals of passion, who are unable
to meditate long on their crimes, and who kill in day-light without
premeditation. It is true that it is natural to the mind of female
criminals to deal indirect and very complicated blows, and without
proportion to the end to be attained: but all this is only the effect
of their weakness. In a virago as strong as Flora is depicted, (a
bellicose maid with the strong and hard arms of a boy,) this reason
fails to satisfy us; and when she meditates her crime she is urged much
less by thoughts of revenge, than by a necessity to commit the wrong
in order to become cured of her own; she is then a born criminal, an
epileptic rather than a creature of passion; and in this sense the
attribute that he gives to Flora of a monstrous muscular force, that is
observed very frequently in born criminals, would be reasonable. Thus
the girl who always wore masculine clothes had a remarkable muscular
power. Her weapon was a hammer, and with it she struck down many men.
I knew at Turin a murderess, a courtesan, who when a model in Paris,
killed for money and love an artist, whose portrait she carried
tattooed on her arm. This unfortunate woman fought two or three times
with the five wardens of her prison. When liberated she was the head of
all the scoundrels of Turin, challenging them to contest. One day even
I found her in a red shirt, with epaulettes on. "It is my ensign," said
she to me, "I am the captain of the scoundrels of Turin." But all these
women are very different from Flora. Of course, a single and only love
is wanting in their case.
It will finally be said, that the propensity which casts the two
criminaloid women into the arms of the born criminal, the _bête
humaine_, is copied from nature. As a matter of fact, there does
exist a true elective affinity which unites the two sexes of these
unfortunates; a cause that gives rise to criminal families, which form
the nucleus of gangs. Nevertheless, the demonstration of it in this
instance is not evident, for in crowding a large number of criminals
into so narrow a space, great liberty of choice is excluded.
II.
CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY.
Secretions.—Dr. Ottolenghi[35] has made in my laboratory a number of
observations with 15 born criminals and 3 occasional criminals, for the
purpose of ascertaining the proportional quantities of urea, chlorides,
and phosphates eliminated under the same alimentary conditions. Here
are the average results:
GRAMMES.
Urea per 100 grammes of the weight {Born criminals 0·39
of the body {Occasional criminals 8·53
Phosphates do {Born criminals 0·024
{Occasional criminals 0·0195
Chlorides do {Born criminals 0·28
{Occasional criminals 0·29
[35] _Journal of the Medical Academy of Turin_, 1888, _Archiv.
di Psichiatria, Scienze penali ed Antropologia Criminale_,
Turin, 1888, x, Lombroso.
There is therefore amongst the born criminals a diminution in the
elimination of urea; and an augmentation in that of phosphates, while
the elimination of chlorides does not vary. He has obtained the same
results in the case of psychical epilepsy; while the occasional
criminal offers no anomaly.
In connection with this it may be stated, that, on the other hand, Mr.
Rivano[36] found amongst epileptics on the days of paroxysm a greater
quantity of urea and less phosphates.
[36] _Archiv. di Freniatria_, Turin, 1889.
Power of Smell.—Dr. Ottolenghi has also studied the power of
smell amongst criminals. He has contrived with this object in view
an osmometer, containing 12 aqueous solutions of the essence of
cloves varying from 1 part in 50,000 to 1 part in 100. He made his
observations in several series, one each day only; the conditions of
ventilation being about the same, and the solutions being renewed for
each observation, to avoid errors caused by evaporation. He looked
first for the lowest degree at which olfactory perception began.
In former experiments he proceeded differently. He disarranged the
different bottles, and requested the subject to replace the same in
the order of the intensity of their odor. He has divided the errors
of disposition which resulted into serious and less serious errors,
according as, in the order of the solutions, there occurred a distance
of several or only one degree. He examined 80 criminals (50 men, 30
women) and 50 normal persons (30 men, mostly chosen amongst the prison
warders, and 20 respectable women). Here are the results:
While amongst the normal males the average power of smell varied
between the third and fourth degree of the osmometer, amongst the
criminals it varied from the fifth to the sixth degree; 44 individuals
had no power of smell at all. While the honest men made an average of
three errors in the disposition of the bottles, the criminals made
five, of which three were so-called serious ones.
The normal women touched the fourth degree of the osmometer, the
criminal women the sixth degree; with two the power of smell was
wanting entirely. While the normal women made an average of four faults
in the disposition, the criminal women made five.
In eight cases of anosmia (loss of the sense of smell), presented in a
certain set of criminals, two cases were due to nasal deformities; the
others were a kind of smell-blindness; the subjects were susceptible to
odoriferous excitations, but were unable to specify them and still less
to classify them.
To verify what was really true in the assertion,[37] that criminal
offenders against morality and customs have a highly developed power of
smell, he examined this power in 30 ravishers and 40 prostitutes. In
the former he found olfactory blindness in the ratio of 33 to 100; the
remainder possessed an average power corresponding to the fifth degree
of the osmometer. Arranging, then, the different solutions according to
their intensity, he observed three so-called serious errors. In 19 per
cent. of the girls submitted, he found olfactory blindness; and for the
others an average acuteness corresponding to the fifth degree of the
osmometer. Comparing these results with those obtained for the normal
subjects and for regular criminals, the power of smell appears much
less developed in the class just considered.
[37] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopatia sexualis_, 4th ed., Stuttgart,
1889.—_Archiv. di Psichiatria_, 1889.
Taste.—Dr. Ottolenghi has also examined the sense of taste of 100
criminals (60 born criminals, 20 occasional criminals, and 20 criminal
women). He compared them with 20 men taken from the lower classes, 20
professors and students, 20 respectable women, and 40 prostitutes.
These series of experiments were made with 11 solutions of strychnine
(graduated 1/80000 to 1/50000) and of saccharine (from 1/100000 to
1/10000), and 10 of chloride of sodium (1/500 to 3/100). The criminals
showed remarkable obtuseness. The lowest degree of acuteness was
found in the proportion of 38 to 100 in born criminals, 30 to 100 in
occasional criminals, 20 to 100 in criminal women; while we found it
in 14 per cent. of the professors and the students, in 25 per cent. of
the men from the lower classes, in 30 per cent. of the prostitutes, and
finally in 10 per cent. of the respectable women.
Walk.—A study which I have made with Perachia,[38] shows us that,
contrary to the case of normal men, the step of the left foot of
criminals is generally longer than that of the right; besides they turn
off from the line of the axis more to the right than to the left; their
left foot, on being placed on the ground, forms with this line an angle
of deviation more pronounced than the angle formed by their right foot;
all these characteristics are very often found among epileptics.
[38] _Sur la Marche suivant la Méthode de Gilles de la Tourette._
Gestures.—It is an ancient habit among criminals to communicate
their thoughts by gestures. Avé-Lallemant describes a set of gestures
used among German thieves,—a real language executed solely with the
fingers, like the language of the deaf. Vidocq says that pickpockets,
when they are watching a victim, give each other the signal of Saint
John, which consists in putting their hand to their cravat or even
in taking off their hat. But Pitré especially has published the most
important information on this point. In his "Usi e Costumi della
Sicilia" (Usages and Customs of Sicily,) he describes 48 special kinds
of gestures employed by delinquents. This phenomenon is explained by
the exaggerated mobility with which born criminals are endowed, as is
the case with children.
MORPHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES.
The Skeleton.—Mr. Tenchini, having made studies upon 63 skeletons
of criminals, has found in the proportion of 6 out of 100 cases, the
perforation of the olecranon (the bony prominence at the back of the
elbow) which one observes in 36 out of 100 Europeans, and in 34 out of
100 Polynesians; he likewise observed additional ribs and vertebræ in
10 cases out of 100 of them, and also too few, in the same proportion;
which reminds us of the great variableness of these bones in the lower
vertebrates. Lately he has even found in a criminal 4 sacral vertebræ
too few, made up by 4 supplementary cervical vertebræ.
Madame Tarnorosky in her study of prostitutes, female thieves, and
peasant women has demonstrated,[39] that the cranial capacity of
prostitutes is inferior to that of female thieves and peasant women
and particularly to that of women of good society;[40] _vice versa_,
the zygomas (bones of the upper jaw) and the mandibles (lower jaw)
were more developed among the prostitutes, who also exhibited a
greater number of anomalies, in the proportion of 87 to 100, while the
proportion of the female thieves showing anomalies was 79 to 100, and
the proportion of peasant women was 12 to 100. The prostitutes had 33
in 100 of their parents addicted to drink, while the female thieves had
41 in 100 and the peasant women 16 in 100. Mr. De Albertis has found
tattooing among 300 prostitutes of Genoa in the enormous proportion of
70 in 100.[41] He has also found the tactile sensibility of the women
very much diminished: 3·6 millimetres to the right and 4 millimetres to
the left.
[39]
50 100 100 50 50 50
PROSTITUTES. PROSTITUTES. FEMALE PEASANT PEASANT LADIES OF
MEASUREMENTS. THIEVES. WOMEN. WOMEN. GOOD
(NORTH.) (SOUTH.) SOCIETY.
Anteropost. diam. 17·7 17·8 17·9 18·3 18 18·3
Max. trans. diam. 13·9 14·4 14·9 14·5 14·5 14·5
Max. circumference 52·9 53·3 53·5 52·7 53·6 58·8
Zygomatic dist. 11·4 11·3 11·2 10·9 11·4 11·3
Mandib. biang.
distance 10·1 10·18 9·1 9·1 9·9 9·8
[40] _Archiv. di Psichiatria_, Mierjeivki, 1887.—Ibid., 1888,
p. 196.
[41] _Arch. di Psichiatria_, x, 1889.
Among criminal women, Saloalto has made studies altogether new; he
has recognised among 130 female thieves the degenerative character,
anomalies of the skull and of the physiognomy, in a less degree than
among the men; he has found brachycephaly in 7, oxycephaly in 29,
platycephaly in 7, the retreating forehead in 7, strabismus in 11,
protruding ears in 6; the sense of touch was normal in 2 out of 100,
the reflexions of the tendons decreasing in 4 out of 100, exaggerated
in 12 out of 100.
Marro and Marselli have explained by sexual selection this enormous
difference, which one also finds among epileptics and particularly
in insane people; the men in fact do not choose ugly women with
degenerative characters, while the women have no choice, and very often
an ugly man, criminal, but vigorous, for this reason triumphs over all
obstacles; sometimes he is even preferred. (Flaubert, "Correspondance,"
1889.) Let us add that the cares of maternity soften the character of
women, and augment in them the sentiment of pity.
Dr. Ottolenghi[42] has studied in my laboratory the wrinkles of 200
criminals and 200 normal persons (workingmen and peasants), and he
has found that they occur earlier and much more frequently among
the criminals; in fact, two to five times more so than among normal
persons, with predominance of the zygomatic wrinkle (situated in the
middle of each cheek), which wrinkle may well be called the wrinkle of
vice, and is the characteristic wrinkle of criminals.
[42]
UNDER 25 YEARS. BETWEEN 25 AND 50 YEARS.
NORMAL. CRIMINAL. NORMAL. CRIMINAL.
LOCATION. p. 100. p. 100. p. 100. p. 100.
Wrinkles of the forehead 7·1 34 62 86
Nasolabial wrinkles 22 69 62 78
Zygomatic wrinkles 0 16 18 33
In criminal women (80) also, wrinkles have been found more frequent
than in normal women, although here the difference is not so marked.
One calls to mind at once the wrinkle of the sorcerers. It is enough
to look at the bust of the celebrated Sicilian woman poisoner,
preserved in the National Museum of Palermo, and whose face is one heap
of wrinkles.
Dr. Ottolenghi, studying with me the frequency of canities (turning
grey) and baldness in people, has demonstrated either absence or
lateness of the same among criminals,[43] as also among epileptics
and among cretins. Among the first, swindlers only tend to approach
more the normal type.[44] On the other hand, among 280 criminal women
canities was found more frequently, and baldness less frequently, than
in the case of 200 honest workingmen.
[43] _La Calvizie, la Canizie e le Rughe nei normali,
nei criminali negli epiletis e nei cretini_. _Archiv. di
Psichiatria_, 1889, x.
[44]
CLASSES. WITH CANITIES. WITH BALDNESS.
p. 100. p. 100.
400 Normal people 62·5 19
80 Epileptics 31·5 12·7
40 Cretins 11·7 13·5
490 Criminals 25·9 48
Thieves 24·4 2·6
Swindlers 47 13·1
Maimers 23·7 5·3
80 Criminal women 45 9·7
200 Honest women 60 13
We shall not terminate this part of our discussion without making
mention of the beautiful discovery that we owe—it pleases us to
state—to a lawyer, Mr. Anfosso. The tachyanthropometer which he has
constructed is a real automatic measurer. (Archiv. di Psych., Art.
IX. p. 173.) We might name it,—if the word did not possess a little
too much local color,—an anthropometric guillotine; so quickly and
with the precision of a machine, does it give the most important
measurements of the body, which makes the practice of anthropometry
very easy, even to people who are entire strangers to the science;
and it facilitates, moreover, the examination of the description of
individual criminals, the perfection of which will always remain one of
the most glorious distinctions of M. Bertillon. And at the same time
that this instrument renders services to the administration of justice,
it permits on a grand scale observations which hitherto were only
obtainable by the learned.
Experiments were made a short time ago by Mr. Rossi, who studied the
result of these measurements in 100 criminals (nearly all thieves). He
found the breadth of the span of the arms to be greater than the height
of body in 88; and in 11 to be less. In 30 he found the right foot
larger; in 58 he found the left foot larger; in 12 both feet equal.
The right arms of 43 per cent. were longer than the left, and the left
in 54 per cent. longer than the right. Which confirms to a marvellous
degree the _gaucherie_, mancinism, or structural misproportion, that
had before been indicated by dynamometry and the study of the walk of
criminals.[45]
[45] _Archiv. di Psichiatria_, 1889, Vol. x. p. 191.
The very frequent recurrence of anatomical misproportion and
_gaucherie_ could not be better confirmed; and there are in this
atavistic symptoms, for Rollet has observed in 42 anthropoids the
left humerus to be longer than the right, in the proportion of 60 to
100, while among men the proportion is only 7 out of 100. (_Revue
Scientifique_, 1889.)
This anatomical misproportion I have very recently verified with Mr.
Ottolenghi by measurements of the two hands, the middle fingers,
and the feet, right and left, in 90 normal persons and in 100 born
criminals.[46] (Archiv. di Psichiatria, X. 8.)
[46]
HAND LONGER. MIDDLE FINGER. FOOT.
TYPES. RIGHT. LEFT. RIGHT. LEFT. RIGHT. LEFT.
PER CENTUM. PER CENTUM. PER CENTUM.
Normal persons 14·4 11 16·6 15·5 38·5 15·6
Criminals 5 25 10 27 27 35
Swindlers 4·3 13 13 21·7 21·7 26
Ravishers 7 14·2 14·2 28·4 35·7 35·7
Maimers 15 25 5 25 20 55
Thieves 0 34·8 13 30·4 26 26·6
Pickpockets 0 35 5 30 35 25