imperfectly.
_Hearing._--On the right side says he cannot hear a watch in immediate
contact; on the left only at a short distance. In other ways his hearing
has been found to be defective.
_Smell._--Does not distinguish odours, of which in many cases he has no
knowledge. Ammonia alone, deeply inhaled for a few seconds, causes slight
lachrymation on the right side.
_Taste._--Perceives vinegar, but not salt, bitter or sweet substances. On
offering him half a glass of decoction of cinchona, and telling him that
it is wine, and then another of vinegar, he swallows it all eagerly
without any indication of disagreeable sensations. On giving him a bitter
substance, and telling him it is sweet, he repeats that it is sweet, and
_vice versâ_.
Appetite voracious; digestive functions normal. Circulation and
respiration weak.
PSYCHICAL EXAMINATION.
Ideas very limited. No imagination or æsthetic sense. Memory very weak,
limited to the most elementary and primitive cognitions. Will feeble, in
the absence of any morbid impulse.
Moral and affective sentiments almost entirely absent.
No disposition to occupy himself in any way; tendency to idleness and
vagabondage.
Unrestrained onanism, to which he formerly gave way four or five times a
day, now only about twice a day, because, as he says, he is no longer
strong enough. He confesses this without the least shame, with
complacency, almost with pleasure.
He is not without a certain shrewdness, which is, however, easily
discovered. He seems to have learnt from fellow-prisoners to pretend to
feel nothing, and to be ready for anything.
He is capable of dissimulation, and of simulating at certain moments a
state of feebleness beyond what he feels.
In his cell he usually walks up and down with short, bent head, and surly
look. He is only aroused in moments of anger and violent impulsion.
He is often discontented with his food, and throws it away, breaking out
into howls rather than cries, and destroying everything--table, stools,
etc. In this condition any opposition only renders him more savage. Gentle
methods often succeed better, especially when the stage of exhaustion sets
in.
At other times the cause is some limitation to his tendency to free
vagabondage. The animal-like howls are set up; then comes the destruction
of everything that surrounds him, and violences of all sorts.
When he is interrogated in his calmer moments as to the reason of this, he
replies that it is what they do in his country.
DIAGNOSIS.
_Advanced physical and psycho-physical degeneration. Phrenasthenia. Moral
idiocy. Instinctive criminality._
MEDICO-LEGAL AND SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS.
This is the case of an instinctive criminal, a person fatally and
immutably impelled to vagabondage, theft, and violence.
He bears the characters, physical and psycho-physical, of degeneration, of
aberration, of constitutional abnormality, sufficient for recognition.
Especially noteworthy are the lambdoidal depression, the marked
plagiocephalia and plagio-prosopia, the superior prognathism, and the
inferior dental irregularities, the thoracic asymmetry, the pallid
complexion, the hypoalgesia, the weakness and perversion of some of the
special senses, the unrestrained onanism, the predominant love of
vagabondage, the furious and animal-like anger, the destructive
tendencies.
It is clear that all the admonitions and punishments inflicted during
seven years, besides failing to produce any good effects, succeeded in
exercising, so to speak, the natural mechanism of his violent impulses,
and thus brutalised him still further. He is, therefore, incorrigible.
Of this the Military Tribunal of Naples were, as the result of this
examination, convinced, declared that our subject is irresponsible, and
acquitted him.
But does the duty of science end here? Is this verdict sufficient for
order and social security?
Surely not.
This individual, thus constituted, must be regarded as a perpetual source
of danger. It is therefore necessary to adopt a mode of treatment which,
instead of brutalising him, will endeavour to obtain from him the maximum
social utility of which he is capable, while at the same time it will
render it impossible for him to injure other persons who are unlike
himself.
For this purpose sequestration is necessary, the method of moral treatment
and the watchful care obtained within a criminal asylum.
VI.--The following report, by O. Hotzen (here abbreviated), appeared in
the _Vierteljahresschrift für gerichtliche Medicin_, and in the _Archivio
di Psichiatria_ for 1889, fasc. 2.
Maria Köster died at the age of 22 of tuberculosis; at the age of 18 she
had killed her mother with a hatchet; sixty wounds were found in the
mother’s body, some of them penetrating the skull.
As until then the girl had always been of good character, quiet and
hard-working, and on account of her youthful age, she was examined by
medical experts in order to ascertain if any morbid conditions had limited
her free will.
No mental alienation was recognised, especially at the time of the deed,
but certain preceding morbid phenomena and other subsequent circumstances
led the experts to an opinion which resulted in the commutation of the
death penalty to which she had been condemned.
Among her maternal ancestors, and in the mother herself, there had been
extreme avarice; they were most eager of money, and possessed by the fury
of gain; it was proved that this impulse had in some members of the family
paralysed the sentiments of equity and honesty.
The father was a drunkard.
The girl had a certain amount of education; she wrote, in an exact style,
a diary of her impressions. She had acted as a servant, as an assistant in
a printing-office, as a sempstress. She was thin, and slightly developed;
menstruated at 19; had a very high opinion of herself.
Apparently of tranquil disposition, she was declared by some to be
envious, a liar, and a thief.
Notwithstanding simulated indifference, she coveted the savings which her
mother had scraped together; she cherished hatred against her parents;
continual quarrels and unworthy calumnies revealed a heart apparently
good, in reality selfish and depraved.
There was slight asymmetry of the face, due to flattening on the right
side; there was no perceptible lack of cranial symmetry.
The right pupil was larger than the left; both movable and perfectly
sensitive.
She had hysterical attacks, which became rare before the deed, and were
interpreted as a sexual neurosis of puberty. These attacks began with
præcordial anxiety and oppression of breathing, and usually ended with a
strong desire for movement, to which she yielded with only partial
consciousness. She was sometimes for hours in a semi-conscious condition,
with extravagant movements, vociferations, senseless talk, etc. Sometimes
she exaggerated the attacks; at other times opposed them. From papers that
she wrote in prison, it appears that some of these attacks were entirely
simulated.
The sexual functions were very irregular; she pretended a want of
inclination towards the other sex; the hymen was found lacerated.
She wrote a romance of her life, leaving out everything that might cause
disgust, and expressing penitence for the attacks that she confessed to be
simulated.
On her death-bed she developed attacks which were certainly not simulated.
She was very excitable, and her life was overspread by nervous tempests
which, in spite of herself, she was not able to dominate.
She had little love for her mother, who was avaricious and hard-hearted,
and refused her the slightest help.
In one of her papers, dating from the time of her most severe hysterical
phenomena, there are religious expressions marked by undoubted sincerity;
but when religion did not afford the consolation she expected, her zeal
cooled and she went to the opposite extreme.
After a brief mental struggle, she quietly selected the necessary
instruments, and studied her criminal design to its smallest details,
taking care to avoid discovery. After having formed her plans, she passed
the night in quiet sleep, and on the following day committed the deed.
In appearance everything was the work of premeditation and clear
consciousness. After the deed she astutely made insinuations against her
father, who was entirely innocent of complicity; on her knees, by her
mother’s body, she declared her own innocence.
She carried simulation to a fine point of art, displaying during these
days an energy and resolution astonishing in a person so weak. It is clear
that her deed had for the time raised her above herself.
She had a strange avidity for her mother’s goods. Her great desire was
separation from the paternal house and an independent position.
After the deed she said that she was no longer in the hands of Satan.
In prison she lived for more than three years without giving any sign of
mental or of physical disease. She bore herself in an unchanging, composed
manner, depressed, free from all eccentricity; it was a consolation to her
to know that her father and her sister had forgiven her.
At the end of 1886 appeared signs of rapid tuberculosis, to which she
succumbed. She died penitent, feeling sure of reconciliation with God.
At the autopsy advanced tuberculosis was found in both lungs, also in the
kidneys; this was the cause of death.
The brain could not be examined immediately, and was therefore preserved.
The dura mater, adherent to the cranium externally, was white and lacking
in lustre; internally there were bright spots with red maculæ as distinct
as in hemorrhagic pachymeningitis.
The brain was soft, humid, and very anæmic. Its weight, after the serum in
the cavities had flowed away, was 1164 grammes. The occipital lobes did
not entirely cover the cerebellum.
The form of the brain was elliptic. The sulci appeared deep and large. The
parietal and temporal lobes were very large, with great development of the
convolutions and numerous atypic clefts. The frontal lobe was small
compared to the parietal, and its convolutions compressed. The frontal and
occipital convolutions were not atypic except by their slight development.
There was scanty development of the frontal and occipital lobes,
especially on the left side.
_Conclusions._--We have here a real atrophy of the cerebral cortex, which
has the characters of a congenital hereditary degeneration. This atrophy
is manifested in the insufficient development of the frontal and, still
more, the occipital convolutions, in the smallness of the convolutions, in
the incomplete covering of the cerebellum by the cerebrum, and by the
number of atypical segmentations in the cerebral cortex, representing (at
all events in the opinion of Benedikt) a true aplasia.
These sulci were not the result of superior development; in their
neighbourhood there was no increase in the cerebral substance; they are
connected with a true atrophy of the cerebral mass. It is impossible to
admit the idea of atavistic regression. The connections found between the
frontal and inter-parietal fissures cannot be considered as the
re-crystallisation of the primitive convolutions and the longitudinal
fissures which characterise especially the carnivorous type. All these
deviations are found separately in brains which have for the rest a normal
structure. That which gives the morbid character is the extraordinary
amount of irregularity.
It cannot be denied that the left hemisphere was the most irregular,
although there was no cranial asymmetry; facial asymmetry only being
recognisable.
This matricide suffered from a grave neurosis at puberty, which left
traces up to near the time of the homicide; her judgments of life were
affected by a permanent and powerful morbid influence.
We cannot put into exact causal relation the degenerative changes in Maria
Köster’s brain, and the perturbations of her psychical activity during
life, but we are justified in considering her not completely responsible
for all her actions.
APPENDIX E.
_Elmira._
In the Report for 1885 the Secretary of Schools writes:--
Like Practical Morality, English Literature was at the beginning voted a
nuisance by the selected members and greeted by them as a fresh infliction
for the purpose of making more difficult the earning of marks. Distaste
was varied by positive anger; here and there a man suffered his first
bewilderment to pass into sullen unwillingness to make an attempt to
understand the new study. Several on receiving a play or an essay, opened
the book and closed it, doggedly declaring they had not the remotest idea
of what was expected of them. Encouraging advice was given in every case
of this sort that came to light, and when the pressure of the approaching
examination began to act, nearly every man, willing or unwilling, attacked
his author and his outlines. This first examination was sufficiently
creditable and the historical part at least was well done; but expected
signs were not wanting of mental confusion, of indifference, of
ineffectual groping after an author’s very palpable meaning, signs which
revealed a likely material for mental discipline of the most valuable
kind. The only means of removing these difficulties seemed to lie in
repeated doses of the same medicine, a conclusion soon warranted by
experience. Whatever could be was now done in the way of artificial
illumination, and when it appeared that examinations could be and actually
were passed by many men in the new subject, confidence began to dawn, and
the authors were taken up for the next test with less ugliness and far
more of tolerance. In a little while the class gathered momentum and
became thoroughly a fact. The change was accompanied by phenomena which
are unique from an educational and psychological point of view.
Any one passing along our corridors and galleries might now have witnessed
a curious spectacle--that of a student of literature reading by gaslight,
not the accustomed novel or light history, but the _Prologue_ of the
Canterbury Tales, the tragedy of Hamlet, Emerson’s _May-Day_, or the story
of Evangeline; pondering over the weighted pages of Bacon, or keenly
trying to read between the lines of Browning’s _Paracelsus_; not rarely
with a note-book at hand filled with private comments wrought out against
the coming examination. At the examinations, be it remembered, the pupil
was required to answer historical questions and, more important than this,
to write out extemporaneously an essay or report dealing with some topic,
more or less extensive, growing out of the text of his author--which topic
was selected not by himself but by the Instructor on the day of the test.
If one could realise the mental process of a “tough” from the slums of the
metropolis, who, after passing up from class to class of our school, is
forced to apply his intellectual faculties for the first time to the
careful reading of an essay of Macaulay or a poem of Goldsmith, to enter
in short upon the _terra incognita_ of good literature; and if one could
then conceive of the state of this same “tough” when, after six months of
application with growing susceptibility, he reads up _for pure pleasure_
the history of the Renaissance, searches the pages of Dante for
illustrations of the text of Chaucer, ransacks our reference library for
specimens of early English;--if one could do this he would comprehend in
some measure what has been done by our class in English Literature. Our
students, of course, were not wholly without intellectual culture at the
start. A few possessed a large amount of it. All had been imbued with some
sense of the excellence of culture by the labours of our lecturers in
science, philosophy, and history. The discussions in the Practical
Morality class had awakened our argumentative powers and developed a sharp
relish for ethical questions. We had all had experience, too, in the
reading of standard works of fiction and even of books of utility; but the
formal study of an English, often of an old English, author, involving an
examination, was something wholly new. A direct movement towards pure
æsthetic culture was unprecedented for men who generally demanded that
books should be amusing, should help to kill time in prison. The first
effect was, as already remarked, discouraging. English literature did not
immediately “take.” But necessity made it take, and the inevitable love of
literature which quickly sprang up did the rest. The essays and poems were
conned over and over, and minds heretofore innocent of culture became
saturated with the drinkable gold of the classics. A change of feeling
came over us; distaste passed into satisfaction as the intrinsic beauty of
the masters leavened our minds; indifference gave way to zeal and the
study became delightful. An interest feeble at first had grown rapidly.
Among the early favourable indications were the requests for information
as to the lives of authors and the eager reading of biographies and
literary notices. Then arose the desire to read other works of a given
author, or to be allowed to spend another month in more minute study of a
masterpiece already absorbed in the rough. Notes poured steadily in upon
me exhibiting in countless ways the growth of a sentiment which can be
termed nothing else than enthusiasm. It was a true _naissance_ or birth of
letters. Like the scholars of the Revival period in England, our students,
inspired by the simple love of learning, sought culture everywhere. Every
available source of enlightenment, every volume of classic English in our
reference library, was in its journey from hand to hand of our students a
testimony to their enthusiasm. Books which had long remained unused
suddenly became very popular, and the delight in reading expanded so as to
include not merely literature but other lines as well--ethics, economics,
sociology, history, the ancient classics, natural science. Thus on a very
small scale, but none the less truly, our revival followed an instinctive
development entirely similar to the great Renaissance. As we write the
interest is undiminished, but rather grows by its own great energy of
motion. The new spirit penetrates the whole life of the institution. In
their social intercourse our inmates make regular topics of books and
authors; informal debates diversify the Dining Hall exercises, and the
instructor is gratuitously made the arbiter of frequent discussions of the
“new learning.” Even with incorrigible and indifferent men, who remain
uninfected by enthusiasm, the simple strain of inexorable requirement has
proved and is proving valuable.
In the Report for 1888 Mr. Z. R. Brockway, the General Superintendent,
writes of the literary training of criminals:--
After many years’ experience in efforts to educate young criminals as a
means of their reformation I am more and more impressed with its
importance. To progress from illiteracy to a good common school education
involves such changes, and increase of mind-power, that the prisoner,
under similar circumstances to those of his crime, will be likely to
differently govern his conduct. Possessing more of intelligence, he
instinctively sees the consequences of misconduct more clearly than was
possible for him previously, and he will, even without consciously willing
to follow good moral conduct for the sake of morality, be more likely to
follow it as the path of wisdom. It is, as the rule, idle to expect a
change of character without a change of mind; and without new habitudes,
which are the result of educational training, there cannot be confidently
predicted any permanent change of mind. To advance a young man from the
habit of blind obedience to his instincts to habitual conduct, that is
self-regulated by more or less of reason, is to insure some change of
character, and usually a change for the better. The general library,
although of but moderate proportions, contributes not a little to such an
educational advancement. The small reference library has, the year past,
been well used under pressure of a demand occasioned by the lectures,
which are followed with examinations, affecting the date of the prisoner’s
release. The books in this library division are mainly of philosophical,
mechanical, historical, and biographical character, with a few poetical
works from standard authors. The librarian’s distribution receipt book
shows that, of these reference library books, there have been issued, by
request during the year, 7588 books besides the issue of the general
library books, and a weekly issue of 400 magazines and periodicals. The
taste for and habit of reading that many have acquired while here, have,
as we have reason to believe, followed and remained with them at home
after their release. Letters from parents and friends have been received
expressing their surprise and gratification that he who previous to his
course of training here was restless at home, hurrying to the street after
the day’s work and evening meal, now since his return from the
reformatory, hurries home from his work, finding for himself, and
imparting to others, happiness with his books and quiet domestic
enjoyments.
In the same Report Mr. Marvin, the instructor of the class in Practical
Ethics, writes:--
The nature of the lessons may be expressed roughly by saying that the
moral life has been taken up as the subject of study, just as wealth is
taken up in political economy, but no strictly theological questions have
been brought in. Such difficulties of thought regarding moral
distinctions, motives good and bad, conflicts of conscience, the justice
and expediency of laws and governments, as usually arise as people begin
to reflect seriously upon the ways of the better social life, have been
considered, besides many practical questions regarding self-control,
elevation of feeling and thought, and the part of wisdom in every-day
affairs. To provide a thread by which the lectures might be connected into
a systematic series, they have been thrown into the form of reviews of the
views in turn of the various master-minds in the department of ethical
knowledge, as to the leading purpose of the wise man. Many quotations from
these writers have been given, so that the instruction has afforded some
information to the man of a historical or semi-philosophical character
aside from its main purpose.
The aim has been not so much to impart a knowledge of stereotyped facts
and ideas as to stimulate the minds of the men to obtain for themselves a
true conception of the moral order of the world of which they are members,
and to form true convictions as to their relations to it. On this account
both sides of doubtful questions have been noticed and a decision called
for. The leading consideration in the selection of lecture topics from
week to week has been the needs and interest already shown. Free
discussion has always been allowed, and in some cases it has seemed
profitable to devote almost the whole lesson period to it. This method not
only holds the interest of the learners, even causing it at times to run
quite high, but enables the instructor to carry them along more readily to
desired conclusions.
The intelligence of the class is, I think, on the whole best compared to
that of an advanced class in a high school, some, of course, rising above
this standard, others falling below. In general, as compared with persons
of similar age in the better classes outside, they seem to be bright and
quick rather than deep or close students. Their remarks in the class
frequently bring forth applause or signs of disapproval from their
responsive fellows, and occasionally a vein of purer metal and greater
depth is touched. Without much liking for books, they seem to take
naturally and successfully to the study of human nature. As might be
expected, they do not evince much previous reflection upon ethical
matters--not as much, I think, comparing them again to those of similar
age outside, as upon economic topics.
In what degree the purpose of this course of instruction has been
accomplished cannot of course be determined. The examination papers as a
whole, taken with the conduct of the men in class and elsewhere in the
prison, seem to warrant the belief that considerable moral obscurity has
been removed. There is abundant evidence that cant and hypocrisy have less
to do with answers in examination than might be supposed, as the most
superficial and refractory views are there expressed with almost unbounded
confidence in their truth, and are marked the same as more approved views
when the question calls for opinions.
In the Report for 1889 Mr. Brockway writes as follows of military drill
and of physical training:--
The military drill of the inmates, which commenced a year ago, has been
continued until now, and a good degree of perfection has been reached. Ten
companies compose a regiment of 803 men. Every day the unemployed inmates
are drilled in the forenoon; and all are drilled on Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons; there is a dress parade every evening at 4 o’clock, and once a
month a competitive examination is held, when all the companies compete
for a set of badges to be worn for the month by the commissioned officers
of the successful company. Gradually the government of the whole place is
becoming a military government, largely by inmate military officers. The
military organisation was made possible, indeed made necessary, by the
cessation of labour in August 1888, in obedience to the Act of July of
that year; but it has been found to be most serviceable in every way. The
health and bearing of the men is better, their habitual mental tone is
improved, common disciplinary difficulties have been diminished or
well-nigh removed, and the military government of a reformatory seems now
almost indispensable to satisfactory management. Holding this view, I
have, by the authority of the managers, appointed a competent military
instructor, Mr. Claude F. Bryan, making thus what at first was but an
experiment of military drill and government in a prison a permanent
department of training and a distinguishing feature of its disciplinary
regime. The regiment is fully officered with line and company officers, a
good brass band with drum corps is provided, and is in daily attendance at
dress parade. Courts-martial and a weekly officers’ class for the study of
tactics are held under the guidance of Colonel Bryan, and, in all things,
Upton’s tactics are closely followed.
The building for the scientific physical renovating treatment of a
considerable class of the inmates is now nearly completed from funds
provided by the legislature of 1888. It is 80 × 140 feet, with an open
trussed roof over the whole space. The exercising hall is 80 × 100 feet,
and has suspended upon the walls a gallery for pedestrian exercise. A
space 40 × 80 feet of the eastern end is devoted to baths, hot, warm, and
plunge, and with rooms for massage treatment, etc., etc. Complete
scientific apparatus has been purchased, to be erected about the first of
December, when, with the enlarged opportunities and improved facilities,
as well as with the added experience and study of the physician and
instructor, a most interesting, and, it is believed, valuable experiment
will be made, intended to demonstrate what possible improvement may be
wrought with defectives and dullards, in their mental and moral habitudes,
by an improved physical tissue accomplished by wise and thorough physical
treatment.
INDEX.
Alcoholism in relation to crime, 97, 144, 281
Animals, crime among, 203
Animals among criminals, love of, 153
Anthropometric identification of criminals, 276
Aram, Eugene, 135, 153
Aristotle, 27
Art, criminal, 190
Aubrey, 250
Barré, 20
Beltrani-Scalia, 36, 252, 264
Benedikt, 1, 43, 50, 61, 113, 237
Bertillon, A., 276
Bielakoff, 45
Bischoff, 60
Blushing in criminals, 121
Booth, J. W., 141
Borrow, G., 139
Bramwell, 290
“Breakings out” among criminals, 148
Brinvilliers, 129, 141
Broca, 61
Brockway, Z. R., 270
Byrnes, Inspector, 22, 81, 154
Campi, 86
Capital punishment, 235
Carpenter, Miss, 149, 238
Casanova, 151
Cellini, 187
Cerebral characteristics of criminals, 60
Ceuta, 240
Children, crime among, 210
Chrétien family, the, 96
Clarke, Vans, 59
Colajanni, 23, 208, 248, 299
Colour blindness in criminals, 117
Contagion of crime, 177
Corre, 128, 286
Cranial characteristics of criminals, 49
Crime, the factors of, 24;
biological origins of, 203;
among children, 210;
the increase of, 295;
largely a social fact, 297
Criminals, political, 1;
by passion, 2;
instinctive, 17;
occasional, 17;
habitual, 19;
professional, 21;
cranial and cerebral characteristics of, 49;
physiognomy of, 63;
anomalies of hair among, 72;
of body and viscera, 88;
tattooing among, 102;
their motor activities, 108;
their physical sensibilities, 112;
their moral insensibility, 124;
their intelligence, 133;
their vanity, 139;
their emotional instability, 142;
their religion, 156;
their slang, 161;
their literature and art, 176;
their philosophy, 193;
the treatment of, 233;
the training of, 260;
at Elmira, 264;
anthropometric identification of, 276;
treatment of occasional, 278;
regarded as heroes, 283
Crothers, 99
Crozes, 182
Dalla Porta, 28
Dally, 32
Davitt, 125, 162, 170, 238
Death, criminals’ ways of meeting, 128, 158
Despine, 33, 126
Desprez, 143
Disvulnerability of criminals, 113
Dixon, Hepworth, 80
Dostoieffsky, 121, 124, 130, 147, 153, 155, 193, 214, 276
Down, Langdon, 66, 84, 93, 150
Drago, Luis del, 45
Drill, 45
Ear in criminals, the, 65
Elmira Reformatory, 92, 99, 183, 264
Epilepsy and crime, 228
Epileptics, 150
Eyesight in criminals, 116
Fallot, 62
Féré, 43, 68, 280
Ferri, E., 23, 40, 78, 203
Flesch, 43, 62
Flogging, 274
Frigerio, 67, 70
Frontal crests, 51
Galen, 27
Gall, 29, 61, 124
Galton, 109
Gambling among criminals, 144
Garofalo, 40, 78, 250, 259
Gautier, E., 81, 97, 143, 247
General paralysis and crime, 228
Giacomini, 61
Gradenigo, 118
Grohmann, 29
Guerra, 88
Hair among criminals, anomalies of, 72
Hearing of criminals, 117
Heredity in criminals, 90
Hervé, 62
Holmgren, 117
Horsley, 35, 159, 162, 170, 252
Idiocy and crime, 228
Idiots, 65, 68, 73, 93, 112, 117, 150, 228
Inebriates, treatment of, 281
Insanity and the criminal, 289
Insane, the, 89, 107, 150
Japan, a prison in, 272
Joly, 19, 82, 157, 176
Jury, the, 292
“Jukes” family, the, 100, 222
Kocher, 43
Korosi, 96
Krafft-Ebing, 43
Krapotkine, 144, 155, 240, 246, 256
Krauss, 43, 134
Lacassagne, 24, 42, 88, 103, 106, 288
Lacenaire, 22, 153, 196, 203, 285
Laurent, 191
Lauvergne, 31, 159
Lavater, 29
Lebiez, 21, 181
Left-handedness in criminals, 108
Lélut, 32, 60
Liszt, 49
Literature, criminal, 176
Lombroso, 1, 36, 64, 72, 79, 83, 102, 120, 122, 170
Manouvrier, 43, 64
Marro, 41, 83, 93, 133, 157, 217
Maternity and crime, 218
Maudsley, 33
Mayhew, 148, 215
Menesclou, 85
Meningitis among criminals, 63
Mingazzini, 52
Moral insanity, 17, 91, 211, 229
Moreau, Abbé, 142
Morel, 32
Motor activity of criminals, 108
Muscular anomalies in criminals, 88
Naples, criminality of, 156
Nicolson, 35, 113, 149
Nose in criminals, the, 70
Occipital fossa in criminals, median, 51
Orgy, criminals’ love of, 145
Ottolenghi, 42, 66, 70, 71, 75, 111, 116, 118
Oxycephaly in criminals, 50
Pallor in criminals, 71
Penta, 41
Philosophy, criminal, 193
Physiognomy of criminals, 78
Pike, L. O., 207
Polemon, 28
Prins, 44, 47, 249, 299
Prison, the, 239
Prison inscriptions, 169
Professional criminals, 21, 223
Prostitution and crime, 218
Proverbs about criminals, 26, 78
Quetelet, 24
Ramlot, 115
Recidivism among women, 215
Religion of criminals, 156
Remorse among criminals, 129
Restif de la Bretonne, 74
Richter, 3
Rossi, 41, 99, 113, 130
Ruscovitch, 200
Salillas, 44, 145, 150
Salsotto, 42, 73, 129, 219
Savages, crime among, 205
Schneider, Marie, 7
Seneca, 28
Sensibility in criminals, physical, 112
Sentiment among criminals, 152
Sergi, 83
Sexual anomalies in criminals, 89
Sexual differences in criminals, 59, 118-19, 129, 214-21
Sexual perversity among criminals, 144
Smell in criminals, sense of, 118
Socrates, 27
Sollier, Alice, 65
Songs, criminal, 180
Stephen, Justice, 290
_Summary, The_, 183
Sutherland, H., 74
Tarde, 42, 205, 224
Tarnowskaia, 45, 64, 221
Taste in criminals, 119
Tattooing among criminals, 102
Taverni, 300
Tenchini, 51
Thieves’ slang, 61
Thomson, Bruce, 84
Tobacco among criminals, use of, 121
Tommasi, 42
Topinard, 60, 226
Troizki, 45
Turner, Sir W., 209
Vagabondism and crime, 222
Vallès, 254
Van Hamel, 44, 47
Vaso-motor sensibility of criminals, 121
Verlaine, 187
Vice and crime, relations of, 221
Vidocq, 135, 140, 146
Villon, 135, 186
Virchow, 64, 202
Virgilio, 41
Voisin, 32
Wainewright, T. G., 12, 96, 127, 153, 178, 195
Warner, F., 301
Wey, H. D., 88, 121, 261, 264
Wild, Jonathan, 136
Willis, 29
Wilson, G., 34
Wines, F., 255-6
Women, crime among, 214
Zanardelli Code, 36
Zigoma in criminals, 84
Zuccarelli, 41
_Printed by_ WALTER SCOTT, _Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Sander and Richter, _Die Beziehungen zwischen Geistesstorung una
Verbrechen_. See also Lombroso, _L’Uomo Delinquente_, vol. ii., part 3,
ch. 1, for many facts and figures concerning criminal insanity.
[2] _Journal of Mental Science_, October 1889. This case may be compared
with that of Maria Köster, given in the Appendix D, vi.
[3] Dr. H. Sutherland, _West Riding Asylum Reports_, vol. vi.
[4] Quoted by Despine, _Psychologie Naturelle_.
[5] Appendix by Dr. Paul Lindau to German translation of Lombroso, _Der
Verbrecher_.
[6] See Introduction by W. C. Hazlitt to Wainewright’s _Essays and
Criticisms_, 1880.
[7] Lombroso and some other authorities prefer the term “born criminal,”
or “congenital criminal” (_reo-nato_). The term “instinctive criminal”
seems to be safer, as it is not always possible to estimate the congenital
element.
[8] _Scenes from a Silent World._ By a Prison Visitor. 1889.
[9] H. Joly, _Le Crime_, 1888, p. 269.
[10] Whoever wishes to study the modern professional criminal and his
methods should consult Inspector Byrnes’ _Professional Criminals of
America_. It is not a scientific work, and has no reference to
anthropologic methods, but it contains a very large and valuable series of
photographs of contemporary criminals of note, with a sketch of the career
of each.
[11] The classification of criminals adopted in this chapter corresponds
substantially with that of Professor Enrico Ferri, by him recognised as
provisional. It is also, I find, almost identical with Dr. Colajanni’s.
[12] Seneca also advocated, in a similar way, the removal without
vengeance of noxious members of the social body: “At corrigi nequeunt,
nihilque in illis lene aut spei bona capax est?--Tollantur e coetu
mortalium facturi pejora quæ contingunt et quo uno modo possunt, desinant
esse mali; sed hoc sine odio. Nam quis membra sua tunc odit cum abscidit?
Non est illa ira, sed misera curatio. Rabidos effigimus canes, et trucem
atque immansuetum bovem occidimus, et morbidibus pecoribus, ne gregem
polluant, ferrum dimittimus. Nec ira sed ratio est, a sanis inutilia
secernere.”--_De Ira_, lib. i., cap. 15.
[13] This is the term now generally used to signify the science of the
criminal. It is, however, open to objection. “Criminal Psychology” has
been suggested, but is somewhat narrow. Professor Liszt has proposed
“Criminal Biology,” and at the last International Congress of Criminal
Anthropology, Topinard suggested “Criminology.” “Criminal Anthropology,”
however, is so widely used that I have not ventured to introduce any
substitute. The reader must remember that criminal anthropology, although
related to general anthropology, is not merely a branch of that science.
[14] For a brief summary of its proceedings, see Appendix B.
[15] See Appendix C.
[16] It is worthy of note, as Lombroso remarks, that the first
investigator of the criminal in England on modern scientific lines should
be a clergyman--the Rev. W. D. Morrison. See his “Reflections on the
Theory of Criminality” in the _Journal of Mental Science_, April 1889.
[17] This, and most of the other opinions of Professor Benedikt quoted in
this section, are from _Kraniometrie und Kephalometrie_, Vienna, 1889.
[18] The evolutionary tendency of the skull among the higher vertebrates
seems to be from the asymmetrical to the symmetrical, while the tendency
of the brain is from the symmetrical to the asymmetrical. See M. O.
Fraenkel: “Etwas über Schädel-Asymmetrie und Stirnnaht,” _Neurologisches
Centralblatt_, August 1, 1888.
[19] _Archivio di Psichiatria._ 1888. Fasc. VI.
[20] For an admirable statement of the present condition of the question
see an article by Professor Fallot of Marseilles, “Le Cerveau des
Criminels,” in the _Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle_, 15th May
1889. Lombroso’s treatment of this question is extremely brief, and not
always accurate.
[21] “Lectures on Physiognomical Diagnosis of Disease.” _Medical Times_,
1862.
[22] “Contributions à l’Étude de quelques Variétés Morphologiques de
l’Oreille Humaine.” _Revue d’Anthropologie_, 15th April, 1886.
[23] Dr. F. Warner, “Form of Ear as a Sign of Defective Development.”
_Lancet_, 15th Feb. 1890.
[24] Schwalbe, who distinguishes five principal forms of the Darwinian
tubercle, regards it as normal, and believes that with a little practice
it might be discovered in nearly all ears. This may well be, but in its
distinctly marked form it can scarcely be called normal.
[25] See his paper, “Lo Scheletro e la forma del naso nei criminali, nei
pazzi, negli epilettici e nei cretini,” in the _Archivio di Psichiatria_
for 1888. Fasc. I.--Professor Héger, in a communication to the Société
d’Anthropologie of Brussels, remarks that he is able to confirm many of
Dr. Ottolenghi’s conclusions with reference to the nasal aperture in the
cranium, by examination of the skulls of Belgian murderers.
[26] Almost as well marked as this tendency to fair hair among Italian
sexual offenders--which possibly may be a question of race--is the
predominance of blue eyes. Ottolenghi, who considers it as one of the most
constant characters of the class, gives the following figures:--
Blue. Brown. Greenish.
Normal persons 29.04 per cent. 63.91 per cent. 7.05 per cent.
Criminals 35.80 " 59.50 " 4.70 "
Sexual offenders 49.60 " 45.76 " 4.64 "
Bichromatism (irregular colouring) of the iris is also found with unusual
frequency in this class of offenders.
[27] Ottolenghi, “La canizie, la calvizie e le rughe nei criminali.”
_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1889, Fasc. I.
[28] The surgeon of Leeds prison, in his answers to my Questions, records
his opinion that the red-haired are “relatively more prevalent” among
prisoners than among the ordinary population. This opinion stands alone,
nor is it supported by any figures.
[29] “Des Anomalies des organes génitaux chez les idiots et les
épileptiques.” _Progrès Medical_, No. 7, 1888.
[30] Ottolenghi, “Nuove Ricerche sui rei contro il buon costume.”
_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1888. Fasc. VI.
[31] Ottolenghi, “II Ricambio Materiale nei Delinquenti-nati.” _Archivio
di Psichiatria_, 1886. Fasc. IV.
[32] _American Medico-Legal Journal_, June 1888.
[33] _The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity._ By
R. L. Dugdale. Putnam’s, New York, 1877. It may be as well to mention that
when Continental writers refer to the “Yucke,” or “Yuke,” family, they
mean the “Jukes.”
[34] The cost being, at a very moderate estimate, 47,000 dollars for a
single family during 75 years. The total cost Dugdale estimates at a
million and a quarter dollars during this period, without taking into
consideration the entailment of pauperism and crime on succeeding
generations. The hereditary blindness of one man cost the town 23 years of
out-door relief for two people, and a town burial.
[35] For the sake of comparison with the non-criminal population, it may
be mentioned that among 2739 soldiers of the Italian infantry Baroffio
found only 41 tattooed--that is, 1.50 per cent.
[36] This cause doubtless plays the chief part in keeping up the practice
of tattooing among the wealthy and well-to-do. A London professor of the
art, when asked by a representative of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ to what
class of society his customers chiefly belonged, replied: “Mostly officers
in the army, but civilians too. I have tattooed many noblemen, and also
several ladies. The latter go in chiefly for ornamentation on the wrist or
calf, or have a garter worked on just below the knee.” “On what part of
the body are most of your clients tattooed?” “Mostly on the chest or arm;
but some are almost completely covered, patterns being worked on their
legs and back as well. They do not care to have patterns where they would
be seen in everyday life.”
[37] “Among savage women (with the exception of the Kabyles and the Arabs)
the custom,” remarks Lombroso, “is very infrequent. It scarcely ever goes
beyond the arms or cheeks. Still less can one say that it has been adopted
by the honest women of Europe, even of the poorest class, except in some
rare valleys of Venetia where the peasant women trace a cross on their
arms. Parent-Duchatelet found that prostitutes of the lowest order
tattooed their arms, shoulders, armpits, or pubis with the initials or
name of their lover, if young, or their tribade, if old, changing these
signs, even thirty times (with the aid of acetic acid), according as their
caprices changed. Among the prostitutes of Verona, as I have learnt from a
police official, some instances of tattooing have been noted (hearts,
initials, etc.), but only among those who had already been in prison.”
[38] “Il tatuaggio nel Manicomio d’ Ancona,” _Cronaca del Manicomio d’
Ancona_, Nov. 1888.
[39] _West Riding Asylum Reports_, vol. vi.
[40] “Il Mancinismo anatomico nei criminali,” _Archivio di Psichiatria_,
1889. Fasc. VI.
[41] At Tahiti and Viti the sexual organs were sometimes tattooed. Among
142 tattooed criminals, Lombroso found 5 with designs on the penis;
Lacassagne’s very extensive researches show a smaller proportion (11 out
of 1,333).
[42] The dependence of disvulnerability on insensibility is well shown in
Delboeuf’s experiment: he made two equal and symmetrical wounds on the
right and left shoulders of a hypnotised subject, and suggested
insensibility on the right side. That side healed much more rapidly.
[43] _Journal Anthropological Institute_, Nov. 1889.
[44] _Bulletin de la Société d’Anthropologie_ of Brussels, 1885.
[45] “L’occhio dei delinquenti,” _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1886. Fasc.
VI.
[46] Charles Oliver, “The Eye of the Adult Imbecile.” _Transactions of the
American Ophthalmological Society_, 1887.
[47] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, Fasc. III.-IV., 1889.
[48] For the sake of comparison, Gradenigo gives the result of examination
of 69 men and women belonging to the ordinary population, chiefly the
lower class. Of these 44.6 per cent. of the men, and 22 per cent. of the
women, showed diminished hearing.
[49] “L’Olfatto nei Criminali,” _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1888. Fasc. V.
[50] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1889, Fasc. III.-IV.
[51] _Studio sul tabacco nei pazzi e nei criminali._
[52] _Revue Scientifique_, 1889.
[53] See Mosso’s own account of the plethysmograph in his attractively
written monograph, _La Peur_, Ch. V.
[54] _Physical and Intellectual Training of Criminals_, p. 53.
[55] _Leaves from a Prison Diary_, p. 119.
[56] _Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1889, Fasc. III.-IV.
[57] Numerous examples of the moral insensibility of criminals may be
found in Dr. Corre’s book, _Les Criminels_ (1889), p. 157; _et seq._
[58] Kitts’ _Serious Crime in an Indian Province_, 1889, pp. 14, 15.
[59] “The Maoris of New Zealand.” _Journal Anthropological Institute_,
Nov. 1889.
[60] “Cesare Lombroso’s Werk in seinem Verhältniss für Gegenwart und
Zukunft der gerichtlichen Psychopathologie.” _Friedreich’s Blatter_,
Nürnberg, 1888.
[61] _History of Crime in England_, vol. ii. p. 255, _et seq._
[62] _The Bible in Spain_, Chap. xl.
[63] _In Russian and French Prisons_, pp. 335, 336. See also Mr. Davitt’s
book. Salillas gives a vivid picture of the fearful extent to which sexual
perversity rules in Spanish prisons, especially in the prisons for women.
The governor of one prison recently used all his influence to put an end
to this state of things. The women compelled him to resign.
[64] _Recollections of the Dead-House_, Chap. v.
[65] H. Mayhew, _Criminal Prisons of London_, 1862, p. 188.
[66] Report of British Special Commissioner, 1887.
[67] Kitts, _Serious Crime in an Indian Province_, p. 83.
[68] “La Criminalita nella provincia di Napoli.” _L’Anomalo_, Feb. 1889.
[69] _Jottings from Jail_, pp. 2-4.
[70] _Leaves from a Prison Diary_, p. 108.
[71] Lombroso, “Palimsesti del Carcere,” in _Archivio di Psichiatria_
during 1888-89; Horsley, _Jottings from Jail_, pp. 20-23; Davitt, _Leaves
from a Prison Diary_, pp. 104-115.
[72] See, for instance, Dr. Aubrey’s recent work, _La Contagion du
Meutre_, pp. 68-91, and some remarks by Mr. Davitt, _Prison Diary_, p. 85.
[73] _Essays and Criticisms._ By J. G. Wainewright. Now first collected,
with some account of the author, by W. C. Hazlitt. London: Reeves &
Turner, 1880.
[74]
“Je suis Francoys, dont ce me poise,
Nommé Corbueil en mon surnom,
Natif d’Auvers emprès Pontoise,
Et du commun nommé Villon.
Or d’une corde d’une toise
Sauroit mon col que mon cul poise,
Se ne fut un joli appel.
Le jeu ne me sembloit point bel.”
[75] _Parallèlement_, 1889.
[76] _History of Crime in England_, 1876, 2nd series, p. 509.
[77] _La Criminalité Comparée_, 1886, p. 27.
[78] Thus, for example, the squamoso-frontal articulation is found in less
than 2 per cent. of European skulls, whilst it is found in 20 per cent.
negroes (Ecker) and 16.9 per cent. Australian skulls (Virchow). Again, the
spheno-pterygoid foramen is found in 4.8 per cent. European skulls and in
20 per cent. American Indians, 30 per cent. Africans, 32 per cent.
Asiatics, and 50 per cent. Australians. So also wormian bones are more
common among the lower races.
[79] A remarkable instance of this simulated atavism is the uniformity
with which (according to Lacassagne, _Archives de l’Anthropologie
Criminelle_, 1886) rapes are effected by methods common among lower races,
and even animals. This is not atavism, but the criminal, being a man of
primitive organisation, will naturally exercise the brutality and lack of
consideration which belong to a lower race.
[80] It may be noted that Rossi found the same precocity in the abuse of
alcohol, in the form of wine--_i.e._, 11 when children, without knowing
the precise age; 2 at five years, 3 at eight, 1 at nine, 6 at ten; and so
on. And sexual precocity was even more notable.
[81] E. J. Kitts, _Serious Crime in an Indian Province_, 1889, pp. 8, 85.
[82] Mr. Horsley has compiled from the Judicial Statistics the following
table of individuals committed more than ten times, with proportion to
total of recommittals:--
+-------------------------------------------+
| Year. | Male. | Female. | Male. | Female. |
|-------|-------|---------|-------|---------|
| 1879 | 3706 | 5673 | 8.3 | 22.4 |
| 1880 | 3691 | 5800 | 8.3 | 23.6 |
| 1881 | 3618 | 6773 | 8.2 | 27.3 |
| 1882 | 4148 | 7496 | 8.8 | 27.4 |
| 1883 | 4391 | 8946 | 8.9 | 29.3 |
| 1884 | 4734 | 9316 | 9.4 | 30.2 |
| 1885 | 5188 | 9451 | 10.0 | 31.6 |
| 1886 | 5074 | 8981 | 10.1 | 33.2 |
| 1887 | 5686 | 9764 | 11.1 | 34.2 |
+-------------------------------------------+
[83] While maternity has this beneficial influence, precocious and random
sexual relationships have an equally grave influence in the opposite
direction. This is clearly shown in the valuable details given by Marro.
[84] _La Criminalité Comparée_, 1886, pp. 51-53.
[85] “Criminologie,” _Revue d’Anthropologie_, Sept. 1888.
[86] “L’Anthropologie Criminelle,” _Revue d’Anthropologie_, 1887.
[87] _Loc. cit._, p. 686.
[88] All the evidence which has so far been accumulated with regard to the
connection between criminality and epilepsy will be found in considerable
detail in the second volume of Lombroso’s great work, _L’Uomo Delinquente_
(1889). To announce any definite conclusions would still be premature.
[89] See Ireland’s _Idiocy_, and Langdon Down’s _Mental Affections of
Childhood and Youth_. The latter contains many valuable facts and
suggestions in this connection.
[90] _In Russian and French Prisons_, p. 359.
[91] _Leaves from a Prison Diary._ Lecture I.
[92] Here and in the following lines I am quoting from Mr. Charles Cook of
Hyde Park Hall, London, whom Mr. Spurgeon has called “the Howard of the
present day.” Mr. Cook deserves all honour for his visits (primarily with
a religious object) to some of the worst prisons of the world--visits for
which he has paid the old penalty of “gaol fever.” With reference to
Ceuta, I should add that Mr. Cook’s impressions are not altogether
confirmed by competent Spanish prison reformers. Ceuta, which dates from
the seventeenth century, is a kind of criminal Gheel, its chief
peculiarity being the close relationship between the free and the convict
population. It is, as Salillas, from whose _Vida penal en España_ I take
the following remarks concerning it, observes, a convict city. There is
not strictly any isolation as in the other prisons of the Peninsula or the
Balearic Isles; nor is it an extraneous focus of moral infection, as at
Saragossa or Valladolid; nor a merely economic supplement, like that of
Alcala and some others; nor, in short, a centre of inaction or of
artificial life. The convicts are an integral part of the population,
sharing in the economic, social, urban, military, administrative,
industrial, and agricultural order of its life, and fulfilling a great
variety of functions. They obtain and carry the materials for constructing
the fortifications and buildings, make and repair the roads, erect forts
and houses, work in timber and in iron, cultivate the field. They are
painters, photographers, shoemakers, tailors, servants fulfilling
confidential domestic duties; they are clerks, even professors lecturing
on arts, sciences, and philosophy. Between the free and the convict
population, Salillas says, there is more than affinity; there is a kind of
organic dependence. Convicts enter the houses without hindrance; no one
regards them with dread, or fears to meet them. Who is the coachman who is
driving? A convict. Who is the lad serving at table? A convict. And the
cook who prepared the meal? A convict. And who takes care of the children?
A convict. And all the chief families, having servants belonging to the
prison, do they not fear robbery, rape, murder, poisoning? No. This
custom, founded in necessity, has its credit in experience. An eyewitness,
Juan Relosillas (_Catorca Meses en Ceuta_, 1886), says--“Everyone calls
them ‘good prisoners’; they are so, faithful, sober, hard-working,
respectful, and intelligent.”
[93] The impartial Moorish method of administering justice may be gathered
from the following example mentioned by Mr. Cook. One Mogador Jew recently
brought another before their Governor to recover a sum equal to about 6¼d.
Both were thrown into prison, from which they were released on paying the
following little bill:--
s. d.
To the Governor, plaintiff, one loaf of sugar 2 0
" " defendant, " " 2 0
" two policemen who took them to gaol 0 9½
" " " them out of gaol 0 9½
" gaoler 0 4¼
" " for use of prison lavatory 0 4¼
-----
6 3½
It frequently happens that the prisoner is unable to settle his bill, and
is compelled, therefore, to remain a prisoner.
[94] _Jottings from Jail_ (1887), pp. 186, 190. Judge Willert (_Das
Postulat der Abschaffung des Straffmasses mit der dagegen Erhobenen
Einwendung_), as quoted by Garofalo, uses the same simile to show the
absurdity of this system.
[95] _Leaves from a Prison Diary_, pp. 173, 174.
[96] _In Russian and French Prisons_ (1887), pp. 263-283.
[97] “Le Monde des Prisons,” _Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle_,
1888.
[98] _Sketches from Shady Places_, by Thor. Fredur (1879), pp. 206-7.
[99] _Enquête Parlementaire_, tome v., pp. 345, 381, 542, quoted by Joly.
[100] Adolphe Prins, _Criminalité et Répression_, 1885.
[101] _Le Criminologie_ (1888), p. 220.
[102]
“Cu dici male di la Vicaria
Cei farrissi la faccia feddi-feddi.
Cu dici cà la carcere castia
Comu v’ ingannati, puvireddi!”
[103]
“Qua sol trovi i fratelli e qua gli amici,
Danari, ben mangiare e allegra pace;
Fuori sei sempre in mezzo ai tuoi nemici;
Se non puoi lavorai muori di fame.”
[104] _American Prisons_, by the Rev. F. H. Wines, the able secretary of
the National Prison Association. A great amount of valuable information is
compressed into this little pamphlet. Mr. Wines has endeavoured to
ascertain if the variation in usual length of sentence in different states
has any relation with amount of crime in that state. He was not able to
find any connection. “Apparently, the length of jail sentences pronounced
by the court has no effect either to increase or to diminish crime.” If
this is so, there arises, as he remarks, the question, “What useful
purpose do our jails subserve?”
[105] “Remarks on Crime and Criminals,” _Journal of Mental Science_, July
1888.
[106] It is unnecessary to consider here the relation of solitary
confinement to insanity. This is still somewhat of a vexed question. The
difficulty lies in the fact that the prisoner is frequently already
predisposed to insanity. Everything depends on how the isolation is
carried out. There is no question that cellular confinement, if
sufficiently prolonged, leads to insanity. There is a very extensive
literature dealing with this subject.
[107] H. D. Wey, _Physical and Industrial Training of Criminals_, p. 55,
New York, 1888.
[108] See Dr. Wey’s _Physical and Industrial Training of Criminals_, a
valuable little work, in which all the details of this and similar
experiences are given with care and fulness.
[109] Sufficient attention does not appear to have been given to music in
prisons. It is a civilising influence to which the criminal is often very
sensitive. An able administrator at the convict prison at Toulon long
since recognised this with happy results.
[110] For some further information concerning Elmira, see Appendix E.
[111] It is perhaps worth noting that the highly intelligent and eclectic
administration of Japan have adopted a very similar system, described in
an interesting letter by Mr. H. Norman, the travelling commissioner of the
_Pall Mall Gazette_, under the title of “An Ideal Prison” (_Pall Mall
Gazette_, 18th October 1888):--“Two days previously I had visited the
house of the most famous maker in Japan of the exquisite _cloisonné_
ware--the enamel in inlaid metal work upon copper--who rivals in
everlasting materials the brush of Turner with his pigments and the pencil
of Alma Tadema with his strips of metal. And I had stood for an hour
behind him and his pupils, marvelling that the human eye could become so
accurate and the human hand so steady and the human heart so patient. Yet
I give my word that here in the prison at Ishikawa sat not six but sixty
men, common thieves and burglars and peacebreakers, who knew no more about
_cloisonné_ before they were sentenced than a Hindoo knows about skates,
doing just the same thing--cutting by eye-measurement only the tiny strips
of copper to make the outline of a bird’s beak or the shading of his wing
or the articulations of his toe, sticking these upon the rounded surface
of the copper vase, filling up the interstices with pigment, coat upon
coat, and firing and filing and polishing it until the finished work was
so true and so delicate and so beautiful that nothing except an occasional
greater dignity and breadth of design marked the art of the freeman from
that of the convict. _C’etait à ne pas y croire_--one simply stood and
refused to believe one’s eyes. Fancy the attempt to teach such a thing at
Pentonville or Dartmoor or Sing-Sing! When our criminal reaches his prison
home in Tōkyō he is taught to do that at which the limit of his natural
faculties is reached. If he can make _cloisonné_, well and good; if not,
perhaps he can carve wood or make pottery; if not these, then he can make
fans or umbrellas or basket work; if he is not up to any of these, then he
can make paper or set type or cast brass or do carpentering; if the limit
is still too high for him, down he goes to the rice-mill, and see-saws all
day long upon a balanced beam, first raising the stone-weighted end and
then letting it down with a great flop into a mortar of rice. But if he
cannot even accomplish this poor task regularly, he is given a hammer and
left to break stones under a shed with the twenty-nine other men out of
2000 who could not learn anything else.” And in regard to punishment Mr.
Norman observes:--“On leaving the dormitories we passed a small, isolated
square erection, beaked and gabled like a little temple. The door was
solemnly unlocked and flung back, and I was motioned to enter. It was the
punishment cell, another spotless wooden box, well ventilated, but
perfectly dark, and with walls so thick as to render it practically
silent. ‘How many prisoners have been in it during the last month?’ I
asked. The director summoned the chief warder and repeated my question to
him. ‘_H’tori mo gozaimasan_--none whatever,’ was the reply. ‘What other
punishments have you?’ ‘None whatever.’ ‘No flogging?’ When this question
was translated the director and the little group of officials all laughed
together at the bare idea. I could not help wondering whether there was
another prison in the world with no method of punishment for 2000
criminals except one dark cell, and that not used for a month. And the
recollection of the filthy and suffocating sty used as a punishment cell
in the city prison of San Francisco came upon me like a nausea.”
[112] Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart_, § 188 ff.; and
Ulrich Jahn, “Ueber den Zauber mit Menschenblut und anderen Theilen des
Menschlichen Körpers,” in _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1888, Heft ii., p.
130.
[113] The popular excitement over “Jack the Ripper,” and the Crown Prince
Rudolph of Austria, may be specially mentioned as having produced a large
number of crimes. They are, however, by no means isolated examples.
[114] It does not appear to be quite the same abroad. Some of those who
are most convinced in their efforts to magnify the scientific and
medico-legal elements in scientific procedure are lawyers; while medical
men show no wish to encroach unduly on the legal aspects. This came out
very clearly at the last International Congress of Criminal Anthropology.
[115] “Responsibility and Disease,” _Lancet_, 28th July 1888.
[116] In New South Wales, Tasmania, and Western Australia, the colonies to
which criminals were transported, there is more criminality than in the
other Australian colonies. This hereditary criminality would have swelled
the sum of British crime.
[117] Thus Dr. Carriel, in a recent Report of the Central Hospital for the
Insane of the State of Illinois, shows that whereas only 19 per cent. of
the population are foreigners, 41 per cent. of the insanity was among
foreigners.
[118] _Pall Mall Gazette_, 4th Nov. 1889.
[119] Macé, _La Service de la Sûreté à Paris_.
[120] In Bavaria, for instance, it has been shown that every increase of
six kreutzer in the price of corn meant one theft more per 100,000
inhabitants.
[121] _Criminalité et Repression_, p. 17.