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10580	----	THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 By Enrico Ferri Translated by Ernest Untermann Chicago Charles H. Kerr & Company 1908 THE POSITIVE SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY I. My Friends: When, in the turmoil of my daily occupation, I received an invitation, several months ago, from several hundred students of this famous university, to give them a brief summary, in short special lectures, of the principal and fundamental conclusions of criminal sociology, I gladly accepted, because this invitation fell in with two ideals of mine. These two ideals are stirring my heart and are the secret of my life. In the first place, this invitation chimed with the ideal of my personal life, namely, to diffuse and propagate among my brothers the scientific ideas, which my brain has accumulated, not through any merit of mine, but thanks to the lucky prize inherited from my mother in the lottery of life. And the second ideal which this invitation called up before my mind's vision was this: The ideal of young people of Italy, united in morals and intellectual pursuits, feeling in their social lives the glow of a great aim. It would matter little whether this aim would agree with my own ideas or be opposed to them, so long as it should be an ideal which would lift the aspirations of the young people out of the fatal grasp of egoistic interests. Of course, we positivists know very well, that the material requirements of life shape and determine also the moral and intellectual aims of human consciousness. But positive science declares the following to be the indispensable requirement for the regeneration of human ideals: Without an ideal, neither an individual nor a collectivity can live, without it humanity is dead or dying. For it is the fire of an ideal which renders the life of each one of us possible, useful and fertile. And only by its help can each one of us, in the more or less short course of his or her existence, leave behind traces for the benefit of fellow-beings. The invitation extended to me proves that the students of Naples believe in the inspiring existence of such an ideal of science, and are anxious to learn more about ideas, with which the entire world of the present day is occupied, and whose life-giving breath enters even through the windows of the dry courtrooms, when their doors are closed against it. * * * * * Let us now speak of this new science, which has become known in Italy by the name of the Positive School of Criminology. This science, the same as every other phenomenon of scientific evolution, cannot be shortsightedly or conceitedly attributed to the arbitrary initiative of this or that thinker, this or that scientist. We must rather regard it as a natural product, a necessary phenomenon, in the development of that sad and somber department of science which deals with the disease of crime. It is this plague of crime which forms such a gloomy and painful contrast with the splendor of present-day civilization. The 19th century has won a great victory over mortality and infectious diseases by means of the masterful progress of physiology and natural science. But while contagious diseases have gradually diminished, we see on the other hand that moral diseases are growing more numerous in our so-called civilization. While typhoid fever, smallpox, cholera and diphtheria retreated before the remedies which enlightened science applied by means of the experimental method, removing their concrete causes, we see on the other hand that insanity, suicide and crime, that painful trinity, are growing apace. And this makes it very evident that the science which is principally, if not exclusively, engaged in studying these phenomena of social disease, should feel the necessity of finding a more exact diagnosis of these moral diseases of society, in order to arrive at some effective and more humane remedy, which should more victoriously combat this somber trinity of insanity, suicide and crime. The science of positive criminology arose in the last quarter of the 19th century, as a result of this strange contrast, which would be inexplicable, if we could not discover historical and scientific reasons for its existence. And it is indeed a strange contrast that Italy should have arrived at a perfect theoretical development of a classical school of criminology, while there persists, on the other hand, the disgraceful condition that criminality assumes dimensions never before observed in this country, so that the science of criminology cannot stem the tide of crime in high and low circles. It is for this reason, that the positive school of criminology arises out of the very nature of things, the same as every other line of science. It is based on the conditions of our daily life. It would indeed be conceited on our part to claim that we, who are the originators of this new science and its new conclusions, deserve alone the credit for its existence. The brain of the scientist is rather a sort of electrical accumulator, which feels and assimilates the vibrations and heart-beats of life, its splendor and its shame, and derives therefrom the conviction that it must of necessity provide for definite social wants. And on the other hand, it would be an evidence of intellectual short-sightedness on the part of the positivist man of science, if he did not recognize the historical accomplishments, which his predecessors on the field of science have left behind as indelible traces of their struggle against the unknown in that brilliant and irksome domain. For this reason, the adherents of the positive school of criminology feel the most sincere reverence for the classic school of criminology. And I am glad today, in accepting the invitation of the students of Naples, to say, that this is another reason why their invitation was welcome to me. It is now 16 years since I gave in this same hall a lecture on positive criminology, which was then in its initial stages. It was in 1885, when I had the opportunity to outline the first principles of the positive school of criminology, at the invitation of other students, who preceded you on the periodic waves of the intellectual generations. And the renewal of this opportunity gave me so much moral satisfaction that, I could not under any circumstances decline your invitation. Then too, the Neapolitan Atheneum has maintained the reputation of the Italian mind in the 19th century, also in that science which even foreign scientists admit to be our specialty, namely the science of criminology. In fact, aside from the two terrible books of the Digest, and from the practical criminologists of the Middle Ages who continued the study of criminality, the modern world opened a glorious page in the progress of criminal science with the modest little book of Cesare Beccaria. This progress leads from Cesare Beccaria, by way of Francesco Carrara, to Enrico Pessina. Enrico Pessina alone remains of the two giants who concluded the cycle of classic school of criminology. In a lucid moment of his scientific consciousness, which soon reverted to the old abstract and metaphysical theories, he announced in an introductory statement in 1879, that criminal justice would have to rejuvenate itself in the pure bath of the natural sciences and substitute in place of abstraction the living and concrete study of facts. Naturally every scientist has his function and historical significance; and we cannot expect that a brain which has arrived at the end of its career should turn towards a new direction. At any rate, it is a significant fact that this most renowned representative of the classic school of criminology should have pointed out this need of his special science in this same university of Naples, one year after the inauguration of the positive school of criminology, that he should have looked forward to a time when the study of natural and positive facts would set to rights the old juridical abstractions. And there is still another precedent in the history of this university, which makes scientific propaganda at this place very agreeable for a positivist. It is that six years before that introductory statement by Pessina, Giovanni Bovio gave lectures at this university, which he published later on under the title of "A Critical Study of Criminal Law." Giovanni Bovio performed in this monograph the function of a critic, but the historical time of his thought, prevented him from taking part in the construction of a new science. However, he prepared the ground for new ideas, by pointing out all the rifts and weaknesses of the old building. Bovio maintained that which Gioberti, Ellero, Conforti, Tissol had already maintained, namely that it is impossible to solve the problem which is still the theoretical foundation of the classic school of criminology, the problem of the relation between punishment and crime. No man, no scientist, no legislator, no judge, has ever been able to indicate any absolute standard, which would enable us to say that equity demands a definite punishment for a definite crime. We can find some opportunistic expedient, but not a solution of the problem. Of course, if we could decide which is the gravest crime, then we could also decide on the heaviest sentence and formulate a descending scale which would establish the relative fitting proportions between crime and punishment. If it is agreed that patricide is the gravest crime, we meet out the heaviest sentence, death or imprisonment for life, and then we can agree on a descending scale of crime and on a parallel scale of punishments. But the problem begins right with the first stone of the structure, not with the succeeding steps. Which is the greatest penalty proportional to the crime of patricide? Neither science, nor legislation, nor moral consciousness, can offer an absolute standard. Some say: The greatest penalty is death. Others say: No, imprisonment for life. Still others say: Neither death, nor imprisonment for life, but only imprisonment for a time. And if imprisonment for a time is to be the highest penalty, how many years shall it last --thirty, or twenty-five, or ten? No man can set up any absolute standard in this matter. Giovanni Bovio thus arrived at the conclusion that this internal contradiction in the science of criminology was the inevitable fate of human justice, and that this justice, struggling in the grasp of this internal contradiction, must turn to the civil law and ask for help in its weakness. The same thought had already been illumined by a ray from the bright mind of Filangieri, who died all too soon. And we can derive from this fact the historical rule that the most barbarian conditions of humanity show a prevalence of a criminal code which punishes without healing; and that the gradual progress of civilization will give rise to the opposite conception of healing without punishing. Thus it happens that this university of Naples, in which the illustrious representative of the classic school of criminology realized the necessity of its regeneration, and in which Bovio foresaw its sterility, has younger teachers now who keep alive the fire of the positivist tendency in criminal science, such as Penta, Zuccarelli, and others, whom you know. Nevertheless I feel that this faculty of jurisprudence still lacks oxygen in the study of criminal law, because its thought is still influenced by the overwhelming authority of the name of Enrico Pessina. And it is easy to understand that there, where the majestic tree spreads out its branches towards the blue vault, the young plant feels deprived of light and air, while it might have grown strong and beautiful in another place. The positive school of criminology, then, was born in our own Italy through the singular attraction of the Italian mind toward the study of criminology; and its birth is also due to the peculiar condition our country with its great and strange contrast between the theoretical doctrines and the painful fact of an ever increasing criminality. The positive school of criminology was inaugurate by the work of Cesare Lombroso, in 1872. From 1872 to 1876 he opened a new way for the study of criminality by demonstrating in his own person that we must first understand the criminal who offends, before we can study and understand his crime. Lombroso studied the prisoners in the various penitentiaries of Italy from the point of view of anthropology. And he compiled his studies in the reports of the Lombardian Institute of Science and Literature, and published them later together in his work "Criminal Man." The first edition of this work (1876) remained almost unnoticed, either because its scientific material was meager, or because Cesare Lombroso had not yet drawn any general scientific conclusions, which could have attracted the attention of the world of science and law. But simultaneously with its second edition (1878) there appeared two monographs, which constituted the embryo of the new school, supplementing the anthropological studies of Lombroso with conclusions and systematizations from the point of view of sociology and law. Raffaele Garofalo published in the Neapolitan Journal of Philosophy and Literature an essay on criminality, in which he declared that the dangerousness of the criminal was the criterion by which society should measure the function of its defense against the disease of crime. And in the same year, 1878, I took occasion to publish a monograph on the denial of free will and personal responsibility, in which I declared frankly that from now on the science of crime and punishment must look for the fundamental facts of a science of social defense against crime in the human and social life itself. The simultaneous publication of these three monographs caused a stir. The teachers of classic criminology, who had taken kindly to the recommendations of Pessina and Ellero, urging them to study the natural sources of crime, met the new ideas with contempt, when the new methods made a determined and radical departure, and became not only the critics, but the zealous opponents of the new theories. And this is easy to understand. For the struggle for existence is an irresistible law of nature, as well for the thousands of germs scattered to the winds by the oak, as for the ideas which grow in the brain of man. But persecutions, calumnies, criticisms, and opposition are powerless against an idea, if it carries within itself the germ of truth. Moreover, we should look upon this phenomenon of a repugnance in the average intellect (whether of the ordinary man or the scientist) for all new ideas as a natural function. For when the brain of some man has felt the light of a new idea, a sneering criticism serves us a touchstone for it. If the idea is wrong, it will fall by the wayside; if it is right, then criticisms, opposition and persecution will cull the golden kernel from the unsightly shell, and the idea will march victoriously over everything and everybody. It is so in all walks of life--in art, in politics, in science. Every new idea will rouse against itself naturally and inevitably the opposition of the accustomed thoughts. This is so true, that when Cesare Beccaria opened the great historic cycle of the classic school of criminology, he was assaulted by the critics of his time with the same indictments which were brought against us a century later. When Cesare Beccaria printed his book on crime and penalties in 1774 under a false date and place of publication, reflecting the aspirations which gave rise to the impending hurricane of the French revolution; when he hurled himself against all that was barbarian in the mediaeval laws and set loose a storm of enthusiasm among the encyclopedists, and even some of the members of government, in France, he was met by a wave of opposition, calumny and accusation on the part of the majority of jurists, judges and lights of philosophy. The abbé Jachinci published four volumes against Beccaria, calling him the destroyer of justice and morality, simply because he had combatted the tortures and the death penalty. The tortures, which we incorrectly ascribe to the mental brutality of the judges of those times, were but a logical consequence of the contemporaneous theories. It was felt that in order to condemn a man, one must have the certainty of his guilty, and it was said that the best means of obtaining tins certainty, the queen of proofs, was the confession of the criminal. And if the criminal denied his guilt, it was necessary to have recourse to torture, in order to force him to a confession which he withheld from fear of the penalty. The torture soothed, so to say, the conscience of the judge, who was free to condemn as soon as he had obtained a confession. Cesare Beccaria rose with others against the torture. Thereupon the judges and jurists protested that penal justice would be impossible, because it could not get any information, since a man suspected of a crime would not confess his guilt voluntarily. Hence they accused Beccaria of being the protector of robbers and murderers, because he wanted to abolish the only means of compelling them to a confession, the torture. But Cesare Beccaria had on his side the magic power of truth. He was truly the electric accumulator of his time, who gathered from its atmosphere the presage of the coming revolution, the stirring of the human conscience. You can find a similar illustration in the works of Daquin in Savoy, of Pinel in France, and of Hach Take in England, who strove to bring about a revolution in the treatment of the insane. This episode interests us especially, because it is a perfect illustration of the way traveled by the positive school of criminology. The insane were likewise considered to blame for their insanity. At the dawn of the 19th century, the physician Hernroth still wrote that insanity was a moral sin of the insane, because "no one becomes insane, unless he forsakes the straight path of virtue and of the fear of the Lord." And on this assumption the insane were locked up in horrible dungeons, loaded down with chains, tortured and beaten, for lo! their insanity was their own fault. At that period, Pinel advanced the revolutionary idea that insanity was not a sin, but a disease like all other diseases. This idea is now a commonplace, but in his time it revolutionized the world. It seemed as though this innovation inaugurated by Pinel would overthrow the world and the foundations of society. Well, two years before the storming of the Bastile Pinel walked into the sanitarium of the Salpetriere and committed the brave act of freeing the insane of the chains that weighed them down. He demonstrated in practice that the insane, when freed of their chains, became quieter, instead of creating wild disorder and destruction. This great revolution of Pinel, Chiarugi, and others, changed the attitude of the public mind toward the insane. While formerly insanity had been regarded as a moral sin, the public conscience, thanks to the enlightening work of science, henceforth had to adapt itself to the truth that insanity is a disease like all others, that a man does not become insane because he wants to, but that he becomes insane through hereditary transmission and the influence of the environment in which he lives, being predisposed toward insanity and becoming insane under the pressure of circumstances. The positive school of criminology accomplished the same revolution in the views concerning the treatment of criminals that the above named men of science accomplished for the treatment of the insane. The general opinion of classic criminalists and of the people at large is that crime involves a moral guilt, because it is due to the free will of the individual who leaves the path of virtue and chooses the path of crime, and therefore it must be suppressed by meeting it with a proportionate quantity of punishment. This is to this day the current conception of crime. And the illusion of a free human will (the only miraculous factor in the eternal ocean of cause and effect) leads to the assumption that one can choose freely between virtue and vice. How can you still believe in the existence of a free will, when modern psychology armed with all the instruments of positive modern research, denies that there is any free will and demonstrates that every act of a human being is the result of an interaction between the personality and the environment of man? And how is it possible to cling to that obsolete idea of moral guilt, according to which every individual is supposed to have the free choice to abandon virtue and give himself up to crime? The positive school of criminology maintains, on the contrary, that it is not the criminal who wills; in order to be a criminal it is rather necessary that the individual should find himself permanently or transitorily in such personal, physical and moral conditions, and live in such an environment, which become for him a chain of cause and effect, externally and internally, that disposes him toward crime. This is our conclusion, which I anticipate, and it constitutes the vastly different and opposite method, which the positive school of criminology employs as compared to the leading principle of the classic school of criminal science. In this method, this essential principle of the positive school of criminology, you will find another reason for the seemingly slow advance of this school. That is very natural. If you consider the great reform carried by the ideas of Cesare Beccaria into the criminal justice of the Middle Age, you will see that the great classic school represents but a small step forward, because it leaves the penal justice on the same theoretical and practical basis which it had in the Middle Age and in classic antiquity, that is to say, based on the idea of a moral responsibility of the individual. For Beccaria, for Carrara, for their predecessors, this idea is no more nor less than that mentioned in books 47 and 48 of the Digest: "The criminal is liable to punishment to the extent that he is morally guilty of the crime he has committed." The entire classic school is, therefore, nothing but a series of reforms. Capital punishment has been abolished in some countries, likewise torture, confiscation, corporal punishment. But nevertheless the immense scientific movement of the classic school has remained a mere reform. It has continued in the 19th century to look upon crime in the same way that the Middle Age did: "Whoever commits murder or theft, is alone the absolute arbiter to decide whether he wants to commit the crime or not." This remains the foundation of the classic school of criminology. This explains why it could travel on its way more rapidly than the positive school of criminology. And yet, it took half a century from the time of Beccaria, before the penal codes showed signs of the reformatory influence of the classic school of criminology. So that it has also taken quite a long time to establish it so well that it became accepted by general consent, as it is today. The positive school of criminology was born in 1878, and although it does not stand for a mere reform of the methods of criminal justice, but for a complete and fundamental transformation of criminal justice itself, it has already gone quite a distance and made considerable conquests which begin to show in our country. It is a fact that the penal code now in force in this country represents a compromise, so far as the theory of personal responsibility is concerned, between the old theory of free will and the conclusions of the positive school which denies this free will. You can find an illustration of this in the eloquent contortions of phantastic logic in the essays on the criminal code written by a great advocate of the classic school of criminology, Mario Pagano, this admirable type of a scientist and patriot, who does not lock himself up in the quiet egoism of his study, but feels the ideal of his time stirring within him and gives up his life to it. He has written three lines of a simple nudity that reveals much, in which he says: "A man is responsible for the crimes which he commits; if, in committing a crime, his will is half free, he is responsible to the extent of one-half; if one-third, he is responsible one-third." There you have the uncompromising and absolute classic theorem. But in the penal code of 1890, you will find that the famous article 45 intends to base the responsibility for a crime on the simple will, to the exclusion of the free will. However, the Italian judge has continued to base the exercise of penal justice on the supposed existence of the free will, and pretends not to know that the number of scientists denying the free will is growing. Now, how is it possible that so terrible an office as that of sentencing criminals retains its stability or vacillates, according to whether the first who denies the existence of a free will deprives this function of its foundation? Truly, it is said that this question has been too difficult for the new Italian penal code. And, for this reason, it was thought best to base the responsibility for a crime on the idea that a man is guilty simply for the reason that he wanted to commit the crime; and that he is not responsible if he did not want to commit it. But this is an eclectic way out of the difficulty, which settles nothing, for in the same code we have the rule that involuntary criminals are also punished, so that involuntary killing and wounding are punished with imprisonment the same as voluntary deeds of this kind. We have heard it said in such cases that the result may not have been intended, but the action bringing it about was. If a hunter shoots through a hedge and kills or wounds a person, he did not intend to kill, and yet he is held responsible because his first act, the shooting, was voluntary. That statement applies to involuntary crimes, which are committed by some positive act. But what about involuntary crimes of omission? In a railway station, where the movements of trains represent the daily whirl of traffic in men, things, and ideas, every switch is a delicate instrument which may cause a derailment. The railway management places a switchman on duty at this delicate post. But in a moment of fatigue, or because he had to work inhumanly long hours of work, which exhausted all his nervous elasticity, or for other reasons, the switchman forgets to set the switch and causes a railroad accident, in which people are killed and wounded. Can it be said that he intended the first act? Assuredly not, for he did not intend anything and did not do anything. The hunter who fires a shot has at least had the intention of shooting. But the switchman did not want to forget (for in that case he would be indirectly to blame); he has simply forgotten from sheer fatigue to do his duty; he has had no intention whatever, and yet you hold him responsible in spite of all that! The fundamental logic of your reasoning in this case corresponds to the logic of the things. Does it not happen every day in the administration of justice that the judges forget about the neutral expedient of the legislator who devised this relative progress of the penal code, which pretends to base the responsibility of a man on the neutral and naive criterion of a will without freedom of will? Do they not follow their old mental habits in the administration of justice and apply the obsolete criterion of the free will, which the legislator thought fit to abandon? We see, then, as a result of this imperfect and insincere innovation in penal legislation this flagrant contradiction, that the magistrates assume the existence of a free will, while the legislator has decided that it shall not be assumed. Now, in science as well as in legislation, we should follow a direct and logical line, such as that of the classic school or the positive school of criminology. But whoever thinks he has solved a problem when he gives us a solution which is neither fish nor fowl, comes to the most absurd and iniquitous conclusions. You see what happens every day. If to-morrow some beastly and incomprehensible crime is committed, the conscience of the judge is troubled by this question: Was the person who committed this crime morally free to act or not? He may also invoke the help of legislation, and he may take refuge in article 46,[A] or in that compromise of article 47,[B] which admits a responsibility of one-half or one-third, and he would decide on a penalty of one-half or one-third. All this may take place in the case of a grave and strange crime. And on the other hand, go to the municipal courts or to the police courts, where the magic lantern of justice throws its rays upon the nameless human beings who have stolen a bundle of wood in a hard winter, or who have slapped some one in the face during a brawl in a saloon. And if they should find a defending lawyer who would demand the appointment of a medical expert, watch the reception he would get from the judge. When justice is surprised by a beastly and strange crime, it feels the entire foundation of its premises shaking, it halts for a moment, it calls in the help of legal medicine, and reflects before it sentences. But in the case of those poor nameless creatures, justice does not stop to consider whether that microbe in the criminal world who steals under the influence of hereditary or acquired degeneration, or in the delirium of chronic hunger, is not worthy of more pity. It rather replies with a mephistophelian grin when he begs for a humane understanding of his case. [A] Article 46: "A person is not subject to punishment, if at the moment of his deed he was in a mental condition which deprived him of consciousness or of the freedom of action. But if the judge considers it dangerous to acquit the prisoner, he has to transfer him to the care of the proper authorities, who will take the necessary precautions." [B] Article 47: "If the mental condition mentioned in the foregoing article was such as to considerably decrease the responsibility, without eliminating it entirely, the penalty fixed upon the crime committed is reduced according to the following rules: "I. In place of penitentiary, imprisonment for not less than six years. "II. In place of the permanent loss of civic rights, a loss of these rights for a stipulated time. "III. Whenever it is a question of a penalty of more than twelve years, it is reduced to from three to ten years; if of more than six years, but not more than twelve, it is reduced to from one to five years; in other cases, the reduction is to be one-half of the ordinary penalty. "IV. A fine is reduced to one-half. "V. If the penalty would be a restriction of personal liberty, the judge may order the prisoner to a workhouse, until the proper authorities object, when the remainder of the sentence is carried out in the usual manner." It is true that there is now and then in those halls of justice, which remain all too frequently closed to the living wave of public sentiment, some more intelligent and serene judge who is touched by this painful understanding of the actual human life. Then he may, under the illogical conditions of penal justice, with its compromise between the exactness of the classic and that of the positive school of criminology, seek for some expedient which may restore him to equanimity. In 1832, France introduced a penal innovation, which seemed to represent an advance on the field of justice, but which is in reality a denial of justice: The expedient of _extenuating circumstances_. The judge does not ask for the advice of the court physician in the case of some forlorn criminal, but condemns him without a word of rebuke to society for its complicity. But in order to assuage his own conscience he grants him extenuating circumstances, which seem a concession of justice, but are, in reality, a denial of justice. For you either believe that a man is responsible for his crime, and in that case the concession of extenuating circumstances is a hypocrisy; or you grant them in good faith, and then you admit that the man was in circumstances which reduced his moral responsibility, and thereby the extenuating circumstances become a denial of justice. For if your conviction concerning such circumstances were sincere, you would go to the bottom of them and examine with the light of your understanding all those innumerable conditions which contribute toward those extenuating circumstances. But what are those extenuating circumstances? Family conditions? Take it that a child is left alone by its parents, who are swallowed up in the whirl of modern industry, which overthrows the laws of nature and forbids the necessary rest, because steam engines do not get tired and day work must be followed by night work, so that the setting of the sun is no longer the signal for the laborer to rest, but to begin a new shift of work. Take it that this applies not alone to adults, but also to human beings in the growing stage, whose muscular power may yield some profit for the capitalists. Take it that even the mother, during the period of sacred maternity, becomes a cog in the machinery of industry. And you will understand that the child must grow up, left to its own resources, in the filth of life, and that its history will be inscribed in criminal statistics, which are the shame of our so-called civilization. Of course, in this first lecture I cannot give you even a glimpse of the positive results of that modern science which has studied the criminal and his environment instead of his crimes. And I must, therefore, limit myself to a few hints concerning the historical origin of the positive school of criminology. I ought to tell you something concerning the question of free will. But you will understand that such a momentous question, which is worthy of a deep study of the many-sided physical, moral, intellectual life, cannot be summed up in a few short words. I can only say that the tendency of modern natural sciences, in physiology as well as psychology, has overruled the illusions of those who would fain persist in watching psychological phenomena merely within themselves and think that they can understand them without any other means. On the contrary, positive science, backed by the testimony of anthropology and of the study of the environment, has arrived at the following conclusions: The admission of a free will is out of the question. For if the free will is but an illusion of our internal being, it is not a real faculty possessed by the human mind. Free will would imply that the human will, confronted by the choice of making voluntarily a certain determination, has the last decisive word under the pressure of circumstances contending for and against this decision; that it is free to decide for or against a certain course independently of internal and external circumstances, which play upon it, according to the laws of cause and effect. Take it that a man has insulted me. I leave the place in which I have been insulted, and with me goes the suggestion of forgiveness or of murder and vengeance. And then it is assumed that a man has his complete free will, unless he is influenced by circumstances explicitly enumerated by the law, such as minority, congenital deaf-muteness, insanity, habitual drunkenness and, to a certain extent, violent passion. If a man is not in a condition mentioned in this list, he is considered in possession of his free will, and if he murders he is held morally responsible and therefore punished. This illusion of a free will has its source in our inner consciousness, and is due solely to the ignorance in which we find ourselves concerning the various motives and different external and internal conditions which press upon our mind at the moment of decision. If a man knows the principal causes which determine a certain phenomenon, he says that this phenomenon is inevitable. If he does not know them, he considers it as an accident, and this corresponds in the physical field to the arbitrary phenomenon of the human will which does not know whether it shall decide this way or that. For instance, some of us were of the opinion, and many still are, that the coming and going of meteorological phenomena was accidental and could not he foreseen. But in the meantime, science has demonstrated that they are likewise subject to the law of causality, because it discovered the causes which enable us to foresee their course. Thus weather prognosis has made wonderful progress by the help of a network of telegraphically connected meteorological stations, which succeeded in demonstrating the connection between cause and effect in the case of hurricanes, as well as of any other physical phenomenon. It is evident that the idea of accident, applied to physical nature, is unscientific. Every physical phenomenon is the necessary effect of the causes that determined it beforehand. If those causes are known to us, we have the conviction that that phenomenon is necessary, is fate, and, if we do not know them, we think it is accidental. The same is true of human phenomena. But since we do not know the internal and external causes in the majority of cases, we pretend that they are free phenomena, that is to say, that they are not determined necessarily by their causes. Hence the spiritualistic conception of the free will implies that every human being, in spite of the fact that their internal and external conditions are necessarily predetermined, should be able to come to a deliberate decision by the mere fiat of his or her free will, so that, even though the sum of all the causes demands a no, he or she can decide in favor of yes, and vice versa. Now, who is there that thinks, when deliberating some action, what are the causes that determine his choice? We can justly say that the greater part of our actions are determined by habit, that we make up our minds almost from custom, without considering the reason for or against. When we get up in the morning we go about our customary business quite automatically, we perform it as a function in which we do not think of a free will. We think of that only in unusual and grave cases, when we are called upon to make some special choice, the so-called voluntary deliberation, and then we weigh the reasons for or against; we ponder, we hesitate what to do. Well, even in such cases, so little depends on our will in the deliberations which we are about to take that if any one were to ask us one minute before we have decided what we are going to do, we should not know what we were going to decide. So long as we are undecided, we cannot foresee what we are going to decide; for under the conditions in which we live that part of the psychic process takes place outside of our consciousness. And since we do not know its causes, we cannot tell what will be its effects. Only after we have come to a certain decision can we imagine that it was due to our voluntary action. But shortly before we could not tell, and that proves that it did not depend on us alone. Suppose, for instance, that you have decided to play a joke on a fellow-student, and that you carry it out. He takes it unkindly. You are surprised, because that is contrary to his habits and your expectations. But after a while you learn that your friend had received bad news from home on the preceding morning and was therefore not in a condition to feel like joking, and then you say: "If we had known that we should not have decided to spring the joke on him." That is equivalent to saying that, if the balance of your will had been inclined toward the deciding motive of no, you would have decided no; but not knowing that your friend was distressed and not in his habitual frame of mind, you decided in favor of yes. This sentence: "If I had known this I should not have done that" is an outcry of our internal consciousness, which denies the existence of a free will. On the other hand, nothing is created and nothing destroyed either in matter or in force, because both matter and force are eternal and indestructible. They transform themselves in the most diversified manner, but not an atom is added or taken away, not one vibration more or less takes place. And so if is the force of external and internal circumstances which determines the decision of our will at any given moment. The idea of a free will, however, is a denial of the law of cause and effect, both in the field of philosophy and theology. Saint Augustine and Martin Luther furnish irrefutable theological arguments for the denial of a free will. The omnipotence of God is irreconcilable with the idea of free will. If everything that happens does so because a superhuman and omnipotent power wants it _(Not a single leaf falls to the ground without the will of God)_, how can a son murder his father without the permission and will of God? For this reason Saint Augustine and Martin Luther have written _de servo arbitrio_. But since theological arguments serve only those who believe in the concept of a god, which is not given to us by science, we take recourse to the laws which we observe in force and matter, and to the law of causality. If modern science has discovered the universal link which connects all phenomena through cause and effect, which shows that every phenomenon is the result of causes which have preceded it; if this is the law of causality, which is at the very bottom of modern scientific thought, then it is evident that the admission of free thought is equivalent to an overthrow of this law, according to which every effect is proportionate to its cause. In that case, this law, which reigns supreme in the entire universe, would dissolve itself into naught at the feet of the human being, who would create effects with his free will not corresponding to their causes! It was all right to think so at a time when people had an entirely different idea of human beings. But the work of modern science, and its effect on practical life, has resulted in tracing the relations of each one of us with the world and with our fellow beings. And the influence of science may be seen in the elimination of great illusions which in former centuries swayed this or that part of civilized humanity. The scientific thought of Copernicus and Galilei did away with the illusions which led people to believe that the earth was the center of the universe and of creation. Take Cicero's book _de Officiís_, or the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante, and you will find that to them the earth is the center of creation, that the infinite stars circle around it, and that man is the king of animals: a geocentric and anthropocentric illusion inspired by immeasurable conceit. But Copernicus and Galilei came and demonstrated that the earth does not stand still, but that it is a grain of cosmic matter hurled into blue infinity and rotating since time unknown around its central body, the sun, which originated from an immense primitive nebula. Galilei was subjected to tortures by those who realized that this new theory struck down many a religious legend and many a moral creed. But Galilei had spoken the truth, and nowadays humanity no longer indulges in the illusion that the earth is the center of creation. But men live on illusions and give way but reluctantly to the progress of science, in order to devote themselves arduously to the ideal of the new truths which rise out of the essence of things of which mankind is a part. After the geocentric illusion had been destroyed, the anthropocentric illusion still remained. On earth, man was still supposed to be king of creation, the center of terrestrial life. All Species of animals, plants and minerals were supposed to be created expressly for him, and to have had from time immemorial the forms which we see now, so that the fauna and flora living on our planet have always been what they are today. And Cicero, for instance, said that the heavens were placed around the earth and man in order that he might admire the beauty of the starry firmament at night, and that animals and plants were created for his use and pleasure. But in 1856 Charles Darwin came and, summarizing the results of studies that had been carried on for a century, destroyed in the name of science the superb illusion that man is the king and center of creation. He demonstrated, amid the attacks and calumnies of the lovers of darkness, that man is not the king of creation, but merely the last link of the zoological chain, that nature is endowed with eternal energies by which animal and plant life, the same as mineral life (for even in crystals the laws of life are at work), are transformed from the invisible microbe to the highest form, man. The anthropocentric illusion rebelled against the word of Darwin, accusing him of lowering the human life to the level of the dirt or of the brute. But a disciple of Darwin gave the right answer, while propagating the Darwinian theory at the university of Jena. It was Haeckel, who concluded: "For my part, and so far as my human consciousness is concerned, I prefer to be an immensely perfected ape rather than to be a degenerated and debased Adam." Gradually the anthropocentric illusion has been compelled to give way before the results of science, and today the theories of Darwin have become established among our ideas. But another illusion still remains, and science, working in the name of reality, will gradually eliminate it, namely the illusion that the nineteenth century has established a permanent order of society. While the geocentric and anthropocentric illusions have been dispelled, the illusion of the immobility and eternity of classes still persists. But it is well to remember that in Holland in the sixteenth century, in England in the seventeenth, in Europe since the revolution of 1789, we have seen that freedom of thought in science, literature and art, for which the bourgeoisie fought, triumphed over the tyranny of the mediaeval dogma. And this condition, instead of being a glorious but transitory stage, is supposed to be the end of the development of humanity, which is henceforth condemned not to perfect itself any more by further changes. This is the illusion which serves as a fundamental argument against the positive school of criminology, since it is claimed that a penal justice enthroned on the foundations of Beccaria and Carrara would be a revolutionary heresy. It is also this illusion which serves as an argument against those who draw the logical consequences in regard to the socialistic future of humanity, for the science which takes its departure front the work of Copernicus, Galilei and Darwin arrives logically at socialism. Socialism is but the natural and physical transformation of the economic and social institutions. Of course, so long as the geocentric and anthropocentric illusions dominate, it is natural that the lore of stability should impress itself upon science and life. How could this living atom, which the human being is, undertake to change that order of creation, which makes of the earth the center of the universe and of man the center of life? Not until science had introduced the conception of a natural formation and transformation, of the solar system, as well as of the fauna and flora, did the human mind grasp the idea that thought and action can transform the world. For this reason we believe that the study of the criminal, and the logical consequences therefrom, will bring about the complete transformation of human justice, not only as a theory laid down in scientific books, but also as a practical function applied every day to that living and suffering portion of humanity which has fallen into crime. We have the undaunted faith that the work of scientific truth will transform penal justice into a simple function of preserving society from the disease of crime, divested of all relics of vengeance, hatred and punishment, which still survive in our day as living reminders of the barbarian stage. We still hear the "public vengeance" invoked against the criminal today, and justice has still for its symbol a sword, which it uses more than the scales. But a judge born of a woman cannot weigh the moral responsibility of one who has committed murder or theft. Not until the experimental and scientific method shall look for the causes of that dangerous malady, which we call crime, in the physical and psychic organism, and in the family and the environment, of the criminal, will justice guided by science discard the sword which now descends bloody upon those poor fellow-beings who have fallen victims to crime, and become a clinical function, whose prime object shall be to remove or lessen in society and individuals the causes which incite to crime. Then alone will justice refrain from wreaking vengeance, after a crime has been committed, with the shame of an execution or the absurdity of solitary confinement. On the one hand, human life depends on the word of a judge, who may err in the case of capital punishment; and society cannot end the life of a man, unless the necessity of legitimate self-defense demands it. On the other hand, solitary confinement came in with the second current of the classic school of criminology, when at the same time, in which Beccaria promulgated his ideas, John Howard traveled all over Europe describing the unmentionable horrors of mass imprisonment, which became a center of infection for society at large. Then the classic school went to the other extreme of solitary confinement, after the model of America, whence we adopted the systems of Philadelphia and Harrisburg in the first half of the nineteenth century. Isolation for the night is also our demand, but we object to continuous solitary confinement by day and night. Pasquale Mancini called solitary confinement "a living grave," in order to reassure the timorous, when in the name of the classic school, whose valiant champion he was, he demanded in 1876 the abolition of capital punishment. Yet in his swan song he recognized that the future would belong to the positive school of criminology. And it is this "living grave" against which we protest. It cannot possibly be an act of human justice to bury a human being in a narrow cell, within four walls, to prevent this being from having any contact with social life, and to say to him at the end of his term: Now that your lungs are no longer accustomed to breathing the open air, now that your legs are no longer used to the rough roads, go, but take care not, to have a relapse, or your sentence will be twice as hard. In reality, solitary confinement makes of a human being either a stupid creature, or a raving beast. And "s'io dico il vero, l'effeto nol nasconde"--if I speak the truth, the facts will also reveal it--for criminality increases and expands, honest people remain unprotected, and those who are struck by the law do not improve, but become ever more antisocial through the repeated relapses. And so we have that contrast which I mentioned in the beginning of my lecture, that the theoretical side of criminal science is so perfected, while criminal conditions are painfully in evidence. The inevitable conclusion is the necessity of a progressive transformation of the science of crime and punishment. OF CRIMINOLOGY. II. We saw yesterday in a short historical review that the classic cycle of the science of crime and punishment, originated by Cesare Beccaria more than a century ago, was followed in our country, some twenty years since, by the scientific movement of the positive school of criminology. Let us see today how this school studied the problem of criminality, reserving for tomorrow the discussion of the remedies proposal by this school for the disease of criminality. When a crime is committed in some place, attracting public attention either through the atrocity of the case or the strangeness of the criminal deed--for instance, one that is not connected with bloodshed, but with intellectual fraud--there are at once two tendencies that make themselves felt in the public conscience. One of them, pervading the overwhelming majority of individual consciences, asks: How is this? What for? Why did that man commit such a crime? This question is asked by everybody and occupies mostly the attention of those who do not look upon the case from the point of view of criminology. On the other hand, those who occupy themselves with criminal law represent the other tendency, which manifests itself when acquainted with the news of this crime. This is a limited portion of the public conscience, which tries to study the problem from the standpoint of the technical jurist. The lawyers, the judges, the officials of the police, ask themselves: What is the name of the crime committed by that man under such circumstances? Must it be classed us murder or patricide, attempted or incompleted manslaughter, and, if directed against property, is it theft, or illegal appropriation, or fraud? And the entire apparatus of practical criminal justice forgets at once the first problem, which occupies the majority of the public conscience, the question of the causes that led to this crime, in order to devote itself exclusively to the technical side of the problem which constitutes the juridical anatomy of the inhuman and antisocial deed perpetrated by the criminal. In these two tendencies you have a photographic reproduction of the two schools of criminology. The classic school, which looks upon the crime as a juridical problem, occupies itself with its name, its definition, its juridical analysis, leaves the personality of the criminal in the background and remembers it only so far as exceptional circumstances explicitly stated in the law books refer to it: whether he is a minor, a deaf-mute, whether it is a case of insanity, whether he was drunk at the time the crime was committed. Only in these strictly defined cases does the classic school occupy itself theoretically with the personality of the criminal. But ninety times in one hundred these exceptional circumstances do not exist or cannot be shown to exist, and penal justice limits itself to the technical definition of the fact. But when the case comes up in the criminal court, or before the jurors, practice demonstrates that there is seldom a discussion between the lawyers of the defense and the judges for the purpose of ascertaining the most exact definition of the fact, of determining whether it is a case of attempted or merely projected crime, of finding out whether there are any of the juridical elements defined in this or that article of the code. The judge is rather face to face with the problem of ascertaining why, under what conditions, for what reasons, the man has committed the crime. This is the supreme and simple human problem. But hitherto it has been left to a more or less perspicacious, more or less gifted, empiricism, and there have been no scientific standards, no methodical collection of facts, no observations and conclusions, save those of the positive school of criminology. This school alone makes an attempt to solve in every case of crime the problem of its natural origin, of the reasons and conditions that induced a man to commit such and such a crime. For instance, about 3,000 cases of manslaughter are registered every year in Italy. Now, open any work inspired by the classic school of criminology, and ask the author why 3,000 men are the victims of manslaughter every year in Italy, and how it is that there are not sometimes only as many as, say, 300 cases, the number committed in England, which has nearly the same number of inhabitants as Italy; and how it is that there are not sometimes 300,000 such cases in Italy instead of 3,000? It is useless to open any work of classical criminology for this purpose, for you will not find an answer to these questions in than. No one, from Beccaria to Carrara, has ever thought of this problem, and they could not have asked it, considering their point of departure and their method. In fact, the classic criminologists accept the phenomenon of criminality as an accomplished fact. They analyze it from the point of view of the technical jurist, without asking how this criminal fact may have been produced, and why it repeats itself in greater or smaller numbers from year to year, in every country. The theory of a free will, which is their foundation, excludes the possibility of this scientific question, for according to it the crime is the product of the fiat of the human will. And if that is admitted as a fact, there is nothing left to account for. The manslaughter was committed, because the criminal wanted to commit it; and that is all there is to it. Once the theory of a free will is accepted as a fact, the deed depends on the fiat, the voluntary determination, of the criminal, and all is said. But if, on the other hand, the positive school of criminology denies, on the ground of researches in scientific physiological psychology, that the human will is free and does not admit that one is a criminal because he wants to be, but declares that a man commits this or that crime only when he lives in definitely determined conditions of personality and environment which induce him necessarily to act in a certain way, then alone does the problem of the origin of criminality begin to be submitted to a preliminary analysis, and then alone does criminal law step out of the narrow and arid limits of technical jurisprudence and become a true social and human science in the highest and noblest meaning of the word. It is vain to insist with such stubbornness as that of the classic school of criminology on juristic formulas by which the distinction between illegal appropriation and theft, between fraud and other forms of crime against property, and so forth, is determined, when this method does not give to society one single word which would throw light upon the reasons that make a man a criminal and upon the efficacious remedy by which society could protect itself against criminality. It is true that the classic school of criminology has likewise its remedy against crime--namely, punishment. But this is the only remedy of that school, and in all the legislation inspired by the theories of that school in all the countries of the civilized world there is no other remedy against crime but repression. But Bentham has said: Every time that punishment is inflicted it proves its inefficacy, for it did not prevent the committal of that crime. Therefore, this remedy is worthless. And a deeper study of the cause of crime demonstrates that if a man does not commit a certain crime, this is due to entirely different reasons, than a fear of the penalty, very strong and fundamental reasons which are not to be found in the threats of legislators. These threats, if nevertheless carried out by police and prison keepers, run counter to those conditions. A man who intends to commit a crime, or who is carried away by a violent passion, by a psychological hurricane which drowns his moral sense, is not checked by threats of punishment, because the volcanic eruption of passion prevents him from reflecting. Or he may decide to commit a crime after due premeditation and preparation, and in that case the penalty is powerless to check him, because he hopes to escape with impunity. All criminals will tell you unanimously that the only thing which impelled them when they were deliberating a crime was the expectation that they would go scot free. If they had but the least suspicion that they might be detected and punished they would not have committed the crime. The only exception is the case in which a crime is the result of a mental explosion caused by a violent outburst of passion. And if you wish to have a very convincing illustration of the psychological inefficacy of legal threats, you have but to think of that curious crime which has now assumed a frequency never known to former centuries, namely the making of counterfeit money. For since paper money--from want or for reasons of expediency--has become a substitute of metal coin in the civilized countries, the making of counterfeit paper money has become very frequent in the nineteenth century. Now a counterfeiter, in committing his crime, must compel his mind to imitate closely the inscription of the bill, letter for letter, including that threatening passage, which says: _"The law punishes counterfeiting_ ..." etc. Can you see before your mind's eye a counterfeiter, in the act of engraving on the stone or the others may ignore the penalty that awaits them, but he cannot. This illustration is convincing, for in cases of other crimes one may always assume that the criminal acted without thinking of the future, even when he was not in a transport of passion. But in the case of the counterfeiter the very act of committing the crime reminds him of the threat of the law, and yet he is imperturbable while perpetrating it. Crime has its natural causes, which lie outside of that mathematical point called the free will of the criminal. Aside from being a juridical phenomenon, which it would be well to examine by itself, every crime is above all a natural and social phenomenon, and should be studied primarily as such. We need not go through so hard a course of study merely for the purpose of walking over the razor edge of juristic definitions and to find out, for instance, that from the time Romagnosi made a distinction between incompleted and attempted crime rivers of ink have been spilled in the attempt to find the distinguishing elements of these two degrees of crime. And finally, when the German legislator concluded to make no distinction between incompleted and attempted crime and to recognize only the completed crime in his code of 1871, we witnessed the spectacle of Carrara praising that legislator for leaving that subtile distinction out of his code. A strange conclusion on the part of a science, which cudgels its brains for a century to find the marks of distinction between attempted and incompleted crime, and then praises the legislator for ignoring it. And another classic jurist, Buccellati, proposed to do away with the theory of attempted crime by simply defining it as a crime by itself, or as--a violation of police laws! A science which comes to such conclusions is a science which moves in metaphysical abstractions, and we shall see that all these finespun questions which abound in classical science lose all practical value before the necessity of saving society from the plague of crime. The method which we, on the other hand, have inaugurated is the following: Before we study crime from the point of view of a juristic phenomenon, we must study the causes to which the annual recurrence of crimes in all countries is due. These are natural causes, which I have classified under the three heads of anthropological, telluric and social. Every crime, from the smallest to the most atrocious, is the result of the interaction of these three causes, the anthropological condition of the criminal, the telluric environment in which he is living, and the social environment in which he is born, living and operating. It is a vain beginning to separate the meshes of this net of criminality. There are still those who would maintain the one-sided standpoint that the origin of crime may be traced to only one of these elements, for instance, to the social element alone. So far as I am concerned, I have combatted this opinion from the very inauguration of the positive school of criminology, and I combat it today. It is certainly easy enough to think that the entire origin of all crime is due to the unfavorable social conditions in which the criminal lives. But an objective, methodical, observation demonstrates that social conditions alone do not suffice to explain the origin of criminality, although it is true that the prevalence of the influence of social conditions is an incontestable fact in the case of the greater number of crimes, especially of the lesser ones. But there are crimes which cannot be explained by the influence of social conditions alone. If you regard the general condition of misery as the sole source of criminality, then you cannot get around the difficulty that out of one thousand individuals living in misery from the day of their birth to that of their death only one hundred or two hundred become criminals, while the other nine hundred or eight hundred either sink into biological weakness, or become harmless maniacs, or commit suicide without perpetrating any crime. If poverty were the sole determining cause, one thousand out of one thousand poor ought to become criminals. If only two hundred become criminals, while one hundred commit suicide, one hundred end as maniacs, and the other six hundred remain honest in their social condition, then poverty alone is not sufficient to explain criminality. We must add the anthropological and telluric factor. Only by means of these three elements of natural influence can criminality be explained. Of course, the influence of either the anthropological or telluric or social element varies from case to case. If you have a case of simple theft, you may have a far greater influence of the social factor than of the anthropological factor. On the other hand, if you have a case of murder, the anthropological element will have a far greater influence than the social. And so on in every case of crime, and every individual that you will have to judge on the bench of the criminal. The anthropological factor. It is precisely here that the genius of Cesare Lombroso established a new science, because in his search after the causes of crime he studied the anthropological condition of the criminal. This condition concerns not only the organic and anatomical constitution, but also the psychological, it represents the organic and psychological personality of the criminal. Every one of us inherits at birth, and personifies in life, a certain organic and psychological combination. This constitutes the individual factor of human activity, which either remains normal through life, or becomes criminal or insane. The anthropological factor, then, must not be restricted, as some laymen would restrict it, to the study of the form of the skull or the bones of the criminal. Lombroso had to begin his studies with the anatomical conditions of the criminal, because the skulls may be studied most easily in the museums. But he continued by also studying the brain and the other physiological conditions of the individual, the state of sensibility, and the circulation of matter. And this entire series of studies is but a necessary scientific introduction to the study of the psychology of the criminal, which is precisely the one problem that is of direct and immediate importance. It is this problem which the lawyer and the public prosecutor should solve before discussing the juridical aspect of any crime, for this reveals the causes which induced the criminal to commit a crime. At present there is no methodical standard for a psychological investigation, although such an investigation was introduced into the scope of classic penal law. But for this reason the results of the positive school penetrate into the lecture rooms of the universities of jurisprudence, whenever a law is required for the judicial arraignment of the criminal as a living and feeling human being. And even though the positive school is not mentioned, all profess to be studying the material furnished by it, for instance, its analyses of the sentiments of the criminal, his moral sense, his behavior before, during and after the criminal act, the presence of remorse which people, judging the criminal after their own feelings, always suppose the criminal to feel, while, in fact, it is seldom present. This is the anthropological factor, which may assume a pathological form, in which case articles 46 and 47 of the penal code remember that there is such a thing as the personality of the criminal. However, aside from insanity, there are thousands of other organic and psychological conditions of the personality of criminals, which a judge might perhaps lump together under the name of extenuating circumstances, but which science desires to have thoroughly investigated. This is not done today, and for this reason the idea of extenuating circumstances constitutes a denial of justice. This same anthropological factor also includes that which each one of us has: the race character. Nowadays the influence of race on the destinies of peoples and persons is much discussed in sociology, and there are one-sided schools that pretend to solve the problems of history and society by means of that racial influence alone, to which they attribute an absolute importance. But while there are some who maintain that the history of peoples is nothing but the exclusive product of racial character, there are others who insist that the social conditions of peoples and individuals are alone determining. The one is as much a one-sided and incomplete theory as the other. The study of collective society or of the single individual has resulted in the understanding that the life of society and of the individual is always the product of the inextricable net of the anthropological, telluric and social elements. Hence the influence of the race cannot be ignored in the study of nations and personalities, although it is not the exclusive factor which would suffice to explain the criminality of a nation or an individual. Study, for instance, manslaughter in Italy, and, although you will find it difficult to isolate one of the factors of criminality from the network of the other circumstances and conditions that produce it, yet there are such eloquent instances of the influence of racial character, that it would be like denying the existence of daylight if one tried to ignore the influence of the ethnical factor on criminality. In Italy there are two currents of criminality, two tendencies which are almost diametrically opposed to one another. The crimes due to hot blood and muscle grow in intensity from northern to southern Italy, while the crimes against property increase from south to north. In northern Italy, where movable property is more developed, the crime of theft assumes a greater intensity, while crimes due to conditions of the blood are decreasing on account of the lesser poverty and the resulting lesser degeneration of the people. In the south, on the other hand, crimes against property are less frequent and crimes of blood more frequent. Still there also are in southern Italy certain cases where criminality of the blood is less frequent, and you cannot explain this in any other way than by the influence of racial character. If you take a geographical map of manslaughter in Italy, you will see that from the minimum, from Lombardy, Piedmont, and Venice, the intensity increases until it reaches its maximum in the insular and peninsular extreme of the south. But even there you will find certain cases in which manslaughter shows a lesser intensity. For instance, the province of Benevent is surrounded by other provinces which show a maximum of crimes due to conditions of blood, while it registers a smaller number. Naples, again, shows a considerably smaller number of such cases than the provinces surrounding it, but it has a greater number of unpremeditated cases of manslaughter. Messina, Catania and Syracuse have a remarkably smaller number of blood crimes than Trapani, Girgenti and Palermo. It has been attempted to claim that this difference in criminality is due to social condition's, because the agricultural conditions in eastern Sicily are less degrading than those of Girgenti and Trapani, where the sulphur mines compel the miners to live miserably. But we should like to ask the following question in opposition to this idea: Why and in what respect are the agricultural conditions in some provinces better than in others? This condition is merely itself a result, not a cause of the first degree. Since the theory of historical materialism, which I prefer to call economic determinism, has demonstrated that political, moral and intellectual phenomena are reactions on the economic conditions of any time and place, the attempt has been made to interpret this theory very narrowly and to pretend that the economic condition of a nation is a primary cause and not determined by any other. For my part, ever since I have demonstrated the perfect accord between the Marxian and the Darwinian theories, I have said: Very well, the economic conditions of a nation explain its political, moral, intellectual conditions, but the economic condition is in its turn the result of other factors. For instance, how can the industrialism of England in the nineteenth century be explained? Take away the coal mines (the telluric environment), and you could not have the economic conditions of England as they are. For the economic conditions are a result of favorable or unfavorable telluric conditions which are acted upon by the intelligence and energy of a certain race. Catania, Messina, Syracuse, are in a better economic condition, because they have better geographical conditions and a different race (of Grecian blood) than the other Sicilian provinces. So it is in Apulia and Naples, which have likewise a considerable mixture of Grecian blood. The northern tourists are still attracted by our art and visit the ruins of Taormina or Pesto, which are the relics of the Grecian race. And it is the Grecian blood which explains the lesser frequency of bloody crimes in those provinces. This is therefore evidently the influence of the race. And I maintain that the same fact is due in the province of Benevent to the admixture of Langobardian blood. For the Duchy of Benevent has had an influx of Langobardian elements since the seventh century. And as we know that the German and Anglo-Saxon race has the smallest tendency towards bloody crimes, the beneficial influence of this racial character in Benevent explains itself. On the other hand, there is much Saracen blood in the western and southern provinces of Sicily, and this explains the greater number of bloody crimes there. It is evident that the organic character of the inhabitants of that island, where you may still see the brutal and barbarian features of the Saracen by the side of those of the blond, cool and quiet Norman, contains a transfusion of the blood of diverse races. But it is also true that wherever a certain race has been predominant, there its influence is left behind in the individual and collective life. Let this be enough so far as the anthropological factor of criminality is concerned. There are, furthermore, the telluric factors, that is to say, the physical environment in which we live and to which we pay no attention. It requires much philosophy, said Rousseau, to note the things with which we are in daily contact, because the habitual influence of a thing makes it more difficult to be aware of it. This applies also to the immediate influence of the physical conditions on human morality, notwithstanding the spiritualist prejudices which still weigh upon our daily lives. For instance, if it is claimed in the name of supernaturalism and psychism that a man is unhappy because he is vicious, it is equivalent to making a one-sided statement. For it is just as true to say that a man becomes vicious because he is unhappy. Want is the strongest poison for the human body and soul. It is the fountain head of all inhuman and antisocial feeling. Where want spreads out its wings, there the sentiments of love, of affection, of brotherhood, are impossible. Take a look at the figures of the peasant in the far-off arid Campagna, the little government employee, the laborer, the little shop-keeper. When work is assured, when living is certain, though poor, then want, cruel want, is in the distance, and every good sentiment can germinate and develop in the human heart. The family then lives in a favorable environment, the parents agree, the children are affectionate. And when the laborer, a bronzed statue of humanity, returns from, his smoky shop and meets his white-haired mother, the embodiment of half a century of immaculate virtue and heroic sacrifices, then he can, tired, but assured of his daily bread, give room to feelings of affection, and he will cordially invite his mother to share his frugal meal. But let the same man, in the same environment, be haunted by the spectre of want and lack of employment, and you will see the moral atmosphere in his family changing as from day into night. There is no work, and the laborer comes home without any wages. The wife, who does not know how to feed the children, reproaches her husband with the suffering of his family. The man, having been turned away from the doors of ten offices, feels his dignity as an honest laborer assailed in the very bosom of his own family, because he has vainly asked society for honest employment. And the bonds of affection and union are loosened in that family. Its members no longer agree. There are too many children, and when the poor old mother approaches her son, she reads in his dark and agitated mien the lack of tenderness and feels in her mother heart that her boy, poisoned by the spectre of want, is perhaps casting evil looks at her and harboring the unfilial thought: "Better an open grave in the cemetery than one mouth more to feed at home!" It is true, that want alone is not sufficient to prepare the soil in the environment of that suffering family for the roots of real crime and to develop it. Want will weaken the love and mutual respect among the members of that family, but it will not be strong enough alone to arm the hands of the man for a matricidal deed, unless he should get into a pathological mental condition, which is very exceptional and rare. But the conclusions of the positive school are confirmed in this case as in any other. In order that crime may develop, it is necessary that anthropological, social and telluric factors should act together. We generally forget the conditions of the physical environment in which we live, because supernatural prejudice tells us that the body is a beast which we must forget in order to elevate ourselves into a spiritual life. Manzoni could designate the Middle Ages by the term "dirty." because they neglected the demands of elementary hygiene, and thus of human morality. For where the requirements of our physical body are neglected or offended, there no flower can bloom. The telluric environment has a great influence on our physical activity, by way of our nervous system. We feel differently disposed, according to whether a south or a north wind blows. When Garibaldi was on the Pampas, he observed that his companions were irascible and prone to violent quarrels, when the Pampero blew, and that their behavior changed, when this wind ceased. The great founders of criminal statistics, Quetelet and Guerry, observed that the change of seasons carried with it a change in criminality. Sexual crimes are less frequent in winter than in spring and summer. And with reference to this point I have maintained, and still maintain, that it is due to the combined effects of temperature and social conditions, if crimes against property increase in winter. For lack of employment, the want of food and shelter, intensify the misery and lead to attacks on property. On the other hand, the cold by itself reduces sexual crimes and personal assaults. And those who claim that the longer intercourse between people in summer time has also a social influence, are also partly in the right. The most eloquent fact in this respect was mentioned by Murro, when he pointed out that this change in the frequency of bloody crimes, greater in the warm months than in winter, applied also to prisoners. Statistics show that breach of discipline is most frequent in hot seasons. The social factor does not enter there, because the social life is there the same in winter and in summer. This is, therefore, a practical proof of the influence of climate, and it is re-enforced by the fact that delirium and epilepsy in insane asylums are also more frequent in hot than in cold months. The influence of the telluric factors, then, cannot be denied, and the influence of the social factor intensifies it, as I have already shown by its most drastic and characteristic example, that of want. One can, therefore, understand that a man, whose morality has been shaken by the pressure of increasing want, may be led to commit a crime against property or persons. It is certainly quite evident, that economic misery has an undeniable influence on criminality. And if you consider, that about 300,000 criminals are sentenced in Italy every year, 180,000 of them for minor crimes, and 120,000 for crimes which belong to the gravest class, you can easily see that the greater part of them due mainly to social conditions, for which it should not be so very difficult to find a remedy. The work of the legislator may be slow, difficult, and inadequate, so far as the telluric and anthropological factors are concerned. But it could surely be rapid, efficacious and prompt, so far as the social factors influencing criminality are concerned. We have now demonstrated that crime has its natural source in the combined interaction of three classes of causes, the anthropological (organic and psychological) factor, the telluric factor, and the social factor. And by this last factor we must not only mean want, but any other condition of administrative instability in political, moral, and intellectual life. Every social condition which makes the life of man in society insincere and imperfect is a social factor contributing towards criminality. The economic factor is in evidence in our civilization wherever the law of free competition, which is but a form of disguised cannibalism, establishes the rule: _Your death is my life_. The competition of laborers for a limited number of places is equivalent to saying that those who secure a living do so at the expense of those who do not. And this is a disguised form of cannibalism. While it does not devour the competitor as primitive mankind did, it paralyzes him by calumnies, recommendations, protection, money, which, secure the place for the best bargainer and leave the most honest, talented, and self-respecting to the pangs of starvation. Moreover, the economic factor exerts its crime-breeding influence also under the form of a superabundance of wealth. Indeed, in our present society, which is in the downward stage of transition from glorious bourgeois civilization, which constituted a golden page of human history in the 19th century, wealth itself is a source of crime. For the rich, who do not enjoy the advantage of manual or intellectual work, suffer from the corruption of leisure and vice. Gambling throws them into an unhealthy fever; the struggle and race for money poison their daily lives. And although the rich may keep out of reach of the penal code, still they have condemned themselves to a life devoted to hypocritical ceremonies, which are devoid of moral sentiment. And this life leads them to a sportive form of criminality. To cheat at gambling is the inevitable fate of these parasites. In order to kill time they give themselves up to games of chance, and those who do not care for that devote themselves to the sport of adultery, which in that class is a pastime even among the best friends, on account of sheer mental poverty. And all because man's mind unoccupied is the devil's own forge, as the English poet says. We have now surveyed briefly the natural genesis of crime, as a natural social phenomenon, brought about by the interaction of anthropological, telluric, and social influences, which in any determined moment act upon a personality standing on the cross road of vice and virtue, crime and honesty. This scientific deduction gives rise to a series of investigations which satisfy the mind and supply it with a real understanding of things, far better than the theory that a man is a criminal because he wants to be. No, a man commits crime because he finds himself in certain physical and social conditions, from which the evil plant of crime takes life and strength. Thus we obtain the origin of that sad human figure which is the product of the interaction of those factors, an abnormal man, a man not adapted to the conditions of the social environment in which he is born, so that emigration becomes an ever more permanent phenomenon for the greater portion of men, for whom the accident of birth will less and less determine the course of their future life. And the abnormal man who is below the minimum of adaptability to social life and bears the marks of organic degeneration, develops either a passive or an aggressive form of abnormality and becomes a criminal. Among these abnormal human beings, two groups must be particularly distinguished. Limiting our observations to those who are true aggressively antisocial abnormals, that is to say, who are not adapted to a certain social order and attack it by crimes, we must distinguish those who for egoistic or ferocious reasons attack society by atavistic forms of the struggle for existence by committing socalled common crimes in the shape of fraud or violence, thereby opposing or abolishing conditions in which their fellow beings may live. This is the atavistic type of criminals which represents an involutionary, or retrogressive, form of abnormality, due to an arrested development or an atavistic reversion to a savage and primitive type. These constitute the majority in the world of criminals and must be distinguished from the minority, who are evolutionary, or progressive, abnormals, that may also commit crime in a violent form, but must not be confounded with the others, because they do not act from egoistic motives, but rebel from altruistic motives against the injustice of the present order. These altruistic criminals feel the sufferings and horrors due to the injustice surrounding them and may go so far as to commit murder, which must always be condemned, but which must not be confounded with atavistic or egoistic murder. Recourse to personal violence is always objectionable from the point of view of higher manhood, which desires that human life should always be held in respect. But the reasons for such a crime are different, being egoistic in the one, and altruistic in the other case. The evolutionary abnormal is often an instrument of human progress, not in the form of criminality, but in that of intellectual and moral rebellion against conditions which are sanctioned by laws that frequently punish such an evolutionary rebellion harder than atavistic crime, as they do in Russia, where capital punishment has been abolished for common crimes, but retained for political violations of the law! We are living in an epoch of transition from the old to the new, and contemporaneous humanity has an uneasy moral conscience in this critical time. The ruling classes are losing their clearness of vision, so that they promise monuments to those political murderers who promoted their own historical victories, but would condemn like any common criminal him who now devotes his soul to a revolutionary ideal, would throw into prison the pioneer of new human ideals, just as Russia is excommunicating the rebel Tolstoi. I mention Leo Tolstoi advisedly for the purpose of giving a precise illustration of my heterodox thought in reference to this question. We are opposed to any form of personal violence (with the sole exception of self-defense), we cannot approve of any form of personal assault, no matter what may be its motive. Therefore we cannot have words of praise or excuse for political murder, though it may be inspired by altruistic motives. We can demand that the legislator should distinguish between the psychological sources of these two forms of murder, the egoistic and the altruistic form. But we condemn them both, because they are inhuman forms of violence. Ideas do not make victorious headway by force of arms. Ideas must be combatted by ideas, and it is only by the propaganda of the idea that we can prepare humanity for its future. Violence is always a means of preventing the sincere and fruitful diffusion of an idea. We do not say this merely for the abnormals of the lower classes. We refer with scientific serenity also to the upper classes, who would suppress by violence every manifestation of revolt against the social iniquities, every affirmation of faith in a better future. This is the conception of our science, which thus succeeds in distinguishing traits of character even among the unlucky and forlorn people of the criminal world, while the classic school of criminology regards a criminal as a sort of abstract and normal man, with the exception of cases of minors, deaf mutes, inebriates, and maniacs. In fact, the classic school of criminology regards all thieves as THE thief, all murderers as THE murderer, and the human shape disappears in the mind of the legislator, while it re-appears before the judge. Before the essayist and legislator, the criminal is a sort of moving dummy, on whose hack the judge may paste an article of the penal code. If you leave out of consideration the established cases of exceptional and rare human psychology mentioned in the penal code, all other cases serve the judge merely as an excuse to select from the criminal code the number of that article which will fit the criminal dummy, and if he should paste 404 instead of 407 on its back, the court of appeals would resist, any change of numbers. And if this dummy came to life and said: "The question of my number may be very important for you, but if you would study all the conditions that compelled me to take other people's things, you would realize that this importance is very diagrammatic," the judge would answer: "That's all right for the justice of the future, but it isn't now. You are number 404 of the criminal code, and after leaving this court room with this number pasted legally on your back, you will receive another number, for you will enter prison as number 404 and will exchange it for entry number 1525, or some other, because your personality as a man disappears entirely before the enactment of social justice!" And then it is pretended that this man, whose personality is thus absurdly ignored, should leave prison cured of all degeneration, and if he falls back into the path of thorns of his misery and commits another crime, the judge simply pastes another article over the other, by adding number 80 or 81, which refer to cases of relapse, to number 404! In this way the classic school of criminology came to its unit of punishment, which it heralded as its great progress. In the Middle Ages, the diversity of punishment was greater. But in the 19th century the classic school of criminology combatted dishonoring punishment, corporeal punishment, confiscation, professional punishment, capital punishment, with its ideal of one sole penalty, the only panacea for crime and criminals, _prison_. We have, indeed, prohibitory measures and fines even today. But in substance the whole punitive armory is reduced to imprisonment, since fines are likewise convertible into so many days or months of imprisonment. Solitary confinement is the ideal of the classic school of criminology. But experience proves that this penalty has as much effect on the disease of criminality, as the remedy of a physician would have, who would sit in the door of a hospital and tell every patient seeking relief: "Whatever may be your disease, I have only one medicine and that is a decoction of rhubarb. You have heart trouble? Well, then, the problem for me is simply--how big a dose of rhubarb decoction shall I give you?" And measuring doses of penalty is the foundation of the criminal code. That is so true that this code is in its last analysis but a table of criminal logarithms for figuring out penalties. Woe to the judge who makes a mistake in sentencing a 19 year old offender who was drunk when he sinned, but had premeditated his deed. Woe to the judge, if he misses his calculation in adding or subtracting the third, or sixth, or one half, corresponding to the prescribed extenuating or aggravating circumstances! If he makes a miscalculation, the court of appeals is invoked by the defendant, and the inexorable court of appeals tells the judge: "Figure this over again. You have been unjust." The only question for the judge is this: Add your sums and subtract your deductions, and the prisoner is sentenced to one year, seven months, and thirteen days. Not one day more or less! But the human spectator asks: "If the criminal should happen to be reformed before the expiration of his term, should he be retained in prison?" The judge replies: "I don't care, he stays in one year, seven months, and thirteen days!" Then the human spectator says: "But suppose the criminal should not yet be fit for human society at the expiration of his term?" The judge replies: "At the expiration of his term he leaves prison, for when he has absolved his last day, he has paid his debt!" This is the same case as that of the imaginary physician who says: "You have heart trouble? Then take a quart of rhubarb decoction and stay twelve days in the hospital." Another patient says: "I have broken my leg." And the doctor: "All right, take a pint of rhubarb decoction and 17 days in the hospital." A third has inflammation of the lungs, and the doctor prescribes three quarts of rhubarb decoction and three months in the hospital. "But if my inflammation is cured before that time?" "No matter," says the doctor, "you stay in three months." "But if I am not cured of my lung trouble after three months?" "No matter," says the doctor, "you leave after three months." To such results have wise men been led by a system of penal justice, which is a denial of all elementary common sense. They have forgotten the personality of the criminal and occupied themselves exclusively with crime as an abstract juristic phenomenon. In the same manner, the old style medicine occupied itself with disease as such, as an abstract pathological phenomenon, without taking into account the personality of the patient. The ancient physicians did not consider whether a patient was well or ill nourished, young or old, strong or weak, nervous or fullblooded. They cured fever as fever, pleurisy as pleurisy. Modern medicine, on the other hand, declares that disease must be studied in the living person of the patient. And the same disease may require different treatment, if the condition of the patient is different. Criminal justice has taken the same historical course of development as medicine. The classic school of criminology is still in the same stage, in which medicine was before the middle of the 19th century. It deals with theft, murder, fraud, as such. But that which claims so much of the attention of society has been forgotten by the classic school. For that school has forgotten to study the murderer, the thief, the forger, and without that study their crimes cannot be understood. Crime is one of the conditions required for the study of the criminal. But, the same crime may require the application of different remedies to the personalities of different criminals, according to the different anthropological and social conditions of the various criminals. There is a fundamental distinction between the anthropological and social types of criminals, whom I have divided into five categories, which are today unanimously accepted by criminalist anthropologists, since the Geneva congress offered an opportunity to explain the misapprehension which led some foreign scientists to believe that the Italian school regarded one of these types (the born criminal) merely as an organic anomaly. Just a word concerning each one of these five types. The _born criminal_ is a victim of that which I will call (seeing that science has not yet solved this problem) criminal neurosis, which is very analogous to epileptic neurosis, but which is not in itself sufficient to make one a criminal. Our adversaries had the idea that the mere possession of a crooked nose or a slanting skull stamped a man as predisposed by birth to murder or theft. But a man may he a born criminal, that is to say, he may have some congenital degeneration which predisposes him toward crime, and yet he may die at the age of 80 without having committed any crime, because he was fortunate enough to live in an environment which did not offer him any temptation to commit crime. Again, are not many predisposed toward insanity without ever becoming insane? If the same individual were to live under unfavorable conditions, without any education, if he were to find himself in unhealthy telluric surroundings, in a mine, a rice field, or a miasmatic swamp, he would become insane. But if instead of living in conditions that condemn him to lunacy he were to be under no necessity to struggle for his daily bread, if he could live in affluence, he might exhibit some eccentricity of character, but would not cross the threshold of an insane asylum. The same happens in the case of criminality. One may have a congenital predisposition toward crime, but if he lives in favorable surroundings, he will live to the end of his natural life without violating any criminal or moral law. At any rate we must drop the prejudice that only those are criminals on whose backs the judge has pasted a number. For there are many scoundrels at large who commit crime with impunity, or who brush the edge of the criminal law in the most repulsive immorality without violating it. This misunderstanding was explained at the congress of Geneva by the statement that the interaction of the social and telluric environment is required also in the case of the born criminal. And now we may take it for granted that my classification of five types is everywhere accepted. These are the following: The _born criminal_ who has a congenital predisposition for crime; the _insane criminal_ suffering from some clinical form of mental alienation, and whom even our existing penal code had to recognize; the _habitual criminal_, that is to say one who has acquired the habit of crime mainly through the ineffective measures employed by society for the prevention and repression of crime. A common figure in our large industrial centers is that of the abandoned child which has to go begging from its earliest youth in order to collect an income for the enterprising boss or for its poor family, without an opportunity to educate its moral sense in the filth of the streets. It is punished for the first time by the law and sent to prison or to a reformatory, where it is inevitably corrupted. Then, when such an individual comes out of prison, he is stigmatized as a thief or forger, watched by the police, and if he secures work in some shop, the owner is indirectly induced to discharge him, so that he must inevitably fall back upon crime. Thus one acquires crime as a habit, a product of social rottenness, due to the ineffective measures for the prevention and repression of crime. There is furthermore the _occasional criminal_, who commits very insignificant criminal acts, more because he is led astray by his conditions of life than because the aggressive energy of a degenerate personality impels him. If he is not made worse by a prison life, he may find an opportunity to return to a normal life in society. Finally there is the _passionate criminal,_ who, like the insane criminal, has received attention from the positive school of criminology; which, however, did not come to any definite conclusions regarding him, such as may be gathered by means of the experimental method through study in prisons, insane asylums, or in freedom. The relations between passion and crime have so far been studied on a field in which no solution was possible. For the classic school considers such a crime according to the greater or smaller intensity and violence of passion and comes to the conclusion that the degree of responsibility decreases to the extent that the intensity of a passion increases, and vice versa. The problem cannot be solved in this way. There are passions which may rise to the highest degree of intensity without reducing the responsibility. For instance, is one who murders from motives of revenge a passionate criminal who must be excused? The classic school of criminology says "No," and for my part I agree with them. Francesco Carrara says: "There are blind passions, and others which are reasonable. Blind passions deprive one of free will, reasonable ones do not. Blind and excusable passions are fear, honor, love, reasonable and inexcusable ones are hatred and revenge." But how so? I have studied murderers who killed for revenge and who told me that the desire for revenge took hold of them like a fever, so that they "forgot even to eat." Hate and revenge can take possession of a man to such an extent that he becomes blind with passion. The truth is that passion must be considered not so far as its violence or quantity are concerned, but rather as to its quality. We must distinguish between social and anti-social passion, the one favoring the conditions of life for the species and collectivity, the other antagonistic to the development of the collectivity. In the first case, we have love, injured honor, etc, which are passions normally useful to society, and aberrations of which may be excused more or less according to individual cases. On the other hand, we have inexcusable passions, because their psychological tendency is to antagonize the development of society. They are antisocial, and cannot be excused, and hate and revenge are among them. The positive school therefore admits that a passion is excusable, when the moral sense of a man is normal, when his past record is clear, and when his crime is due to a social passion, which makes it excusable. We shall see tomorrow what remedies the positive school of criminology proposes for each one of these categories of criminals, in distinction from the measuring of doses of imprisonment advocated by the classic school. We have thus exhausted in a short and general review the subject of the natural origin of criminality.--To sum up, crime is a social phenomenon, due to the interaction of anthropological, telluric, and social factors. This law brings about what I have called criminal saturation, which means that every society has the criminality which it deserves, and which produces by means of its geographical and social conditions such quantities and qualities of crime as correspond to the development of each collective human group. Thus the old saying of Imetelet is confirmed: "There is an annual balance of crime, which must be paid and settled with greater regularity than the accounts of the national revenue." However, we positivists give to this statement a less fatalistic interpretation, since we have demonstrated that crime is not our immutable destiny, even though it is a vain beginning to attempt to attenuate or eliminate crime by mere schemes. The truth is that the balance of crime is determined by the physical and social environment. But by changing the condition of the social environment, which is most easily modified, the legislator may alter the influence of the telluric environment and the organic and psychic conditions of the population, control the greater portion of crimes, and reduce them considerably. It is our firm conviction that a truly civilized legislator can attenuate the plague of criminality, not so much by means of the criminal code, as by means of remedies which are latent in the remainder of the social life and of legislation. And the experience of the most advanced countries confirms this by the beneficent and preventive influence of criminal legislation resting on efficacious social reforms. We arrive, then, at this scientific conclusion: In the society of the future, the necessity for penal justice will be reduced to the extent that social justice grows intensively and extensively. III. In the preceding two lectures, I have given you a short review of the new current in scientific thought, which studies the painful and dangerous phenomena of criminality. We must now draw the logical conclusions, in theory and practice, from the teachings of experimented science, for the removal of the gangrenous plague of crime. Under the influence of the positive methods of research, the old formula "Science for science's sake" has given place to the new formula "Science for life's sake." For it would be useless for the human mind to retreat into the vault of philosophical concentration, if this intellectual mastery did not produce as a counter-effect a beneficent wave of real improvement in the destinies of the human race. What, then, has the civilized world to offer in the way of remedies against criminality? The classic school of criminology, being unable to locate in the course of its scientific and historical mission the natural causes of crime, as I have shown in the preceding lectures, was not in a position to deal in a comprehensive and far-seeing manner with this problem of the remedy against criminality. Some of the classic criminologists, such as Bentham, Romagnosi, or Ellero, with a more positive bent of mind than others, may have given a little of their scientific activity to the analysis of this problem, namely the prevention of crime. But Ellero himself had to admit that "the classic school of criminology has written volumes concerning the death penalty and torture, but has produced but a few pages on the prevention of criminality." The historical mission of that school consisted in a reduction of punishment. For being born on the eve of the French revolution in the name of individualism and natural rights, it was a protest against the barbarian penalties of the Middle Ages. And thus the practical and glorious result of the classic school was a propaganda for the abolition of the most brutal penalties of the Middle Ages, such as the death penalty, torture, mutilation. We in our turn now follow up the practical and scientific mission of the classic school of criminology with a still more noble and fruitful mission by adding to the problem of the _diminution of penalties_ the problem of the _diminution of crimes_. It is worth more to humanity to reduce the number of crimes than to reduce the dread sufferings of criminal punishments, although even this is a noble work, after the evil plant of crime has been permitted to grow in the realm of life. Take, for instance, the philanthropic awakening due to the Congress of Geneva in the matter of the Red Cross Society, for the care, treatment and cure of the wounded in war. However noble and praiseworthy this mission may be, it would be far nobler and better to prevent war than to heal the mutilated and wounded. If the same zeal and persistence, which have been expended in the work of the Red Cross Society, had been devoted to the realization of international brotherhood, the weary road of human progress would show far better results. It is a noble mission to oppose the ferocious penalties of the Middle Ages. But it is still nobler to forestall crime. The classic school of criminology directed its attention merely to penalties, to repressive measures after crime had been committed, with all its terrible moral and material consequences. For in the classic school, the remedies against criminality have not the social aim of improving human life, but merely the illusory mission of retributive justice, meeting a moral delinquency by a corresponding punishment in the shape of legal sentences. This is the spirit which is still pervading criminal legislation, although there is a sort of eclectic compromise between the old and the new. The classic school of criminology has substituted for the old absolutist conceptions of justice the eclectic theory that absolute justice has the right to punish, but a right modified by the interests of civilized life in present society. This is the point discussed in Italy in the celebrated controversy between Pasquale Stanislao Mancini and Terencio Mamiani, in 1847. This is in substance the theory followed by the classic criminologists who revised the penal code, which public opinion considers incapable of protecting society against the dangers of crime. And we have but to look about us in the realities of contemporaneous life in order to see that the criminal code is far from being a remedy against crime, that it remedies nothing, because either premeditation or passion in the person of the criminal deprive the criminal law of all prohibitory power. The deceptive faith in the efficacy of criminal law still lives in the public mind, because every normal man feels that the thought of imprisonment would stand in his way, if he contemplated tomorrow committing a theft, a rape, or a murder. He feels the bridle of the social sense. And the criminal code lends more strength to it and holds him back from criminal actions. But even if the criminal code did not exist, he would not commit a crime, so long as his physical and social environment would not urge him in that direction. The criminal code serves only to isolate temporarily from social intercourse those who are not considered worthy of it. And this punishment prevents the criminal for a while from repeating his criminal deed. But it is evident that the punishment is not imposed until after the deed has been done. It is a remedy directed against effects, but it does not touch the causes, the roots, of the evil. We may say that in social life penalties have the same relation to crime that medicine has to disease. After a disease has developed in an organism, we have recourse to a physician. But he cannot do anything else but to reach the effects in some single individual. On the other hand, if the individual and the collectivity had obeyed the rules of preventive hygiene, the disease would have been avoided 90 times in 100, and would have appeared only in extreme and exceptional cases, where a wound or an organic condition break through the laws of health. Lack of providence on the part of man, which is due to insufficient expression of the forces of the intellect and pervades so large a part of human life, is certainly to blame for the fact that mankind chooses to use belated remedies rather than to observe the laws of health, which demand a greater methodical control of one's actions and more foresight, because the remedy must be applied before the disease becomes apparent. I say occasionally that human society acts in the matter of criminality with the same lack of forethought that most people do in the matter of tooth-ache. How many individuals do not suffer from tooth-ache, especially in the great cities? And yet any one convinced of the miraculous power of hygiene could easily clean his teeth every day and prevent the microbes of tooth rot from thriving, thereby saving his teeth from harm and pain. But it is tedious to do this every day. It implies a control of one's self. It cannot be done without the scientific conviction that induces men to acquire this habit. Most people say: "Oh well, if that tooth rots, I'll bear the pain." But when the night comes in which they cannot sleep for toothache, they will swear at themselves for not having taken precautions and will run to the dentist, who in most cases cannot help them any more. The legislator should apply the rules of social hygiene in order to reach the roots of criminality. But this would require that he should bring his mind and will to bear daily on a legislative reform of individual and social life, in the field of economics and morals as well as in that of administration, politics, and intelligence. Instead of that, the legislators permit the microbes of criminality to develop their pathogenic powers in society. When crimes become manifest, the legislator knows no other remedy but imprisonment in order to punish an evil which he should have prevented. Unfortunately this scientific conviction is not yet rooted and potent in the minds of the legislators of most of the civilized countries, because they represent on an average the backward scientific convictions of one or two previous generations. The legislator who sits in parliament today was the university student of 30 years ago. With a few very rare exceptions he is supplied only with knowledge of outgrown scientific research. It is a historical law that the work of the legislator is always behind the science of his time. But nevertheless the scientist has the urgent duty to spread the conviction that hygiene is worth as much on the field of civilization as it is in medicine for the public health. This is the fundamental conviction at which the positive school arrives: That which has happened in medicine will happen in criminology. The great value of practical hygiene, especially of social hygiene, which is greater than that of individual hygiene, has been recognized after the marvelous scientific discoveries concerning the origin and primitive causes of the most dangerous diseases. So long as Pasteur and his disciples had not given to the world their discovery of the pathogenic microbes of all infectious diseases, such as typhoid fever, cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, etc, more or less absurd remedies were demanded of the science of medicine. I remember, for instance, that I was compelled in my youth, during an epidemic of cholera, to stay in a closed room, in which fumigation was carried on with substances irritating the bronchial tubes and lungs without killing the cholera microbes, as was proved later on. It was not until the real causes of those infectious diseases were discovered, that efficient remedies could be employed against them. An aqueduct given to a center of population like Naples is a better protection against cholera than drugs, even after the disease has taken root in the midst of the people of Naples. This is the modern lesson which we wish to teach in the field of criminology, a field which will always retain its repressive functions as an exceptional and ultimate refuge, because we do not believe that we shall succeed in eliminating all forms of criminality. Hence, if a crime manifests itself, repression may be employed as one of the remedies of criminology, but it should be the very last, not the exclusively dominating one, as it is today. It is this blind worship of punishment which is to blame for the spectacle which we witness in every modern country, the spectacle that the legislators neglect the rules of social hygiene and wake up with a start when some form of crime becomes acute, and that they know of no better remedy than an intensification of punishment meeted out by the penal code. If one year of imprisonment is not enough, we'll make it ten years, and if an aggravation of the ordinary penalty is not enough, we'll pass a law of exception. It is always the blind trust in punishment which remains the only remedy of the public conscience and which always works to the detriment of morality and material welfare, because it does not save the society of honest people and strikes without curing those who have fallen a prey to guilt and crime. The positive school of criminology, then, aside from the greater value attributed to daily and systematic measures of social hygiene for the prevention of criminality, comes to radically different conclusions also in the matter of repressive justice. The classic school has for a cardinal remedy against crime a preference for one kind of punishment, namely imprisonment, and gives fixed and prescribed doses of this remedy. It is the logical conclusion of retributive justice that it travels by way of an illusory purification from moral guilt to the legal responsibility of the criminal and thence on to a corresponding dose of punishment, which has been previously prescribed and fixed. We, on the other hand, hold that even the surviving form of repression, which will be inevitable in spite of the application of the rules of social prevention, should be widely different, on account of the different conception which we have of crime and of penal justice. In the majority of cases composed of minor crimes committed by people belonging to the most numerous and least dangerous class of occasional or passionate criminals, the only form of civil repression will be _the compensation of the victim for his loss_. According to us, this should he the only form of penalty imposed in the majority of minor crimes committed by people who are not dangerous. In the present practice of justice the compensation of the victim for his loss has become a laughing stock, because this victim is systematically forgotten. The whole attention of the classic school has been concentrated on the juridical entity of the crime. The victim of the crime has been forgotten, although this victim deserves philanthropic sympathy more than the criminal who has done the harm. It is true, every, judge adds to the sentence the formula that the criminal is responsible for the injury and the costs to another authority. But the process of law puts off this compensation to an indefinite time, and if the victim succeeds a few years after the passing of the sentence in getting any action on the matter, the criminal has in the meantime had a thousand legal subterfuges to get away with his spoils. And thus the law itself becomes the breeding ground of personal revenge, for Filangieri says aptly that an innocent man grasps the dagger of the murderer, when the sword of justice does not defend him. Let us say at this point that the rigid application of compensation for damages should never be displaced by imprisonment, because this would be equivalent to sanctioning a real class distinction, for the rich can laugh at damages, while the proletarian would have to make good a sentence of 1000 lire by 100 days in prison, and in the meantime the innocent family that tearfully waits for him outside, would be plunged into desperate straits. Compensation for damages should never take place in any other way than by means of the labor of the prisoner to an extent satisfactory to the family of the injured. It has been attempted to place this in an eclectic way on our law books, but this proposition remains a dead letter and is not applied in Italy, because a stroke of legislator's pen is not enough to change the fate of an entire nation. These practical and efficient measures would be taken in the case of lesser criminals. For the graver crimes committed by atavistic or congenital criminals, of by persons inclining toward crime from acquired habit or mental alienation, the positive school of criminology reserves segregation for an indefinite time, for it is absurd to fix the time beforehand in the case of a dangerous degenerate who has committed a grave crime. The question of indeterminate sentences has been recently discussed also by Pessina, who combats it, of course, because the essence of the classic school of criminology is retribution for a fault by means of corresponding punishment. We might reply that no human judge can use any other but the grossest scale by which to determine whether you are responsible to the extent of the whole, one half, or one third. And since there is no absolute or objective criterion by which the ratio of crime to punishment can be determined, penal justice becomes a game of chance. But we content ourselves by pointing out that segregation for an indefinite time has so much truth in it, that even the most orthodox of the classic school admit it, for instance in the case of criminals under age. Now, if an indeterminate sentence is a violation of the principles of the classic school, I cannot understand why it can be admitted in the case of minors, but not in the case of adults. This is evidently an expedient imposed by the exigencies of practical life, and only the positive school of criminology can meet them by a logical systematization. For the rest, indefinite segregation, such as we propose for the most dangerous atavistic criminals, is a measure which is already in use for ordinary lunatics as well us for criminal lunatics. But it may be said that this is an administrative measure, not a court sentence. Well, if any one is so fond of formulas as to make this objection, he may get all the fun out of them that he likes. But it is a fact that an insane person who has committed a crime is sent to a building with iron bars on its gates such as a prison has. You may call it an administrative building or a penal institute, the name is unessential, for the substance alone counts. We maintain that congenital or pathological criminals cannot be locked up for a definite term in any institution, but should remain there until they are adapted for the normal life of society. This radical reform of principles carries with it a radical transformation of details. Given an indeterminate segregation, there should be organs of guardianship for persons so secluded, for instance permanent committees for the periodical revision of sentences. In the future, the criminal judge will always secure ample evidence to prove whether a defendant is really guilty, for this is the fundamental point. If it is certain that he has committed the crime, he should either be excluded from social intercourse or sentenced to mate good the damage, provided the criminal is not dangerous and the crime not grave. It is absurd to sentence a man to five or six days imprisonment for some insignificant misdemeanor. You lower him in the eyes of the public, subject him to surveillance by the police, and send him to prison from whence he will go out more corrupted than he was on entering it. It is absurd to impose segregation in prison for small errors. Compensation for injuries is enough. For the segregation of the graver criminals, the management must be as scientific as it is now in insane asylums. It is absurd to place an old pensioned soldier or a hardened bureaucrat at the head of a penal institution. It is enough to visit one of those compulsory human beehives and to see how a military discipline carries a brutal hypocrisy into it. The management of such institutions must be scientific, and the care of their inmates must be scientific, since a grave crime is always a manifestation of the pathological condition of the individual. In America there are already institutions, such as the Elmira Reformatory, where the application of the methods of the positive school of criminology has been solemnly promised. The director of the institution is a psychologist, a physician. When a criminal under age is brought in, he is studied from the point of view of physiology and psychology. The treatment serves to regenerate the plants who, being young, may still be straightened up. Scientific therapeutics can do little for relapsed criminals. The present repression of crime robs the prisoner of his personality and reduces him to a number, either in mass imprisonment which corrupts him completely, or in solitary confinement, which will turn him into a stupid or raving beast. These methods are also gradually introduced in the insane asylums. I must tell you a little story to illustrate this. When I was a professor in Pisa, eight years ago, I took my students to the penitentiaries and the asylum for the criminal insane in Montelupo, as I always used to do. Dr. Algieri, the director of this asylum, showed us among others a very interesting case. This was a man of about 45, whose history was shortly the following: He was a bricklayer living in one of the cities of Toscana. He had been a normal and honest man, a very good father, until one unlucky day came, in which a brick falling from a factory broke a part of his skull. He fell down unconscious, was picked up, carried to the hospital, and cured of his external injury, but lost both his physical and moral health. He became an epileptic. And the lesion to which the loss of the normal function of his nervous system was due transformed him from the docile and even-tempered man that he had been into a quarrelsome and irritable individual, so that he was less regular in his work, less moral and honest in his family life, and was finally sentenced for a grave assault in a saloon brawl. He was condemned as a common criminal to I don't know how many years of imprisonment. But in prison, the exceptional conditions of seclusion brought on a deterioration of his physical and moral health, his epileptic fits became more frequent, his character grew worse. The director of the prison sent him to the asylum for the insane criminals at Montelupo, which shelters criminals suspected of insanity and insane criminals. Dr. Algieri studied the interesting case and came to the diagnosis that there was splinter of bone in the man's brain which had not been noticed in the treatment at the hospital, and that this was the cause of the epilepsy and demoralization of the prisoner. He trepanned a portion of the skull around the old wound and actually found a bone splinter lodged in the man's brain. He removed the splinter, and put a platinum plate over the trepanned place to protect the brain. The man improved, the epileptic fits ceased, his moral condition became as normal as before, and this bricklayer (how about the free will?) was dismissed from the asylum, for he had given proofs of normal behavior for about five or six months, thanks to the wisdom of the doctor who had relieved him of the lesion which had made him epileptic and immoral. If this asylum for insane criminals had not been in existence, he would have ended in a padded cell, the same as another man whom I and my students saw a few years ago in the Ancona penitentiary. The director, an old soldier, said to me: "Professor, I shall show you a type of human beast. He is a man who passes four fifths of the year in a padded cell." After calling six attendants, "because we must be careful," we went to the cell, and I said to that director: "Please, leave this man to me. I have little faith in the existence of human beasts. Keep the attendants at a distance." "No," replied the director, "my responsibility does not permit me to do that." But I insisted. The cell was opened, and the man came out of it really like a wild beast with bulging eyes and distorted face. But I met him with a smile and said to him kindly: "How are you?" This change of treatment immediately changed the attitude of the man. He first had a nervous fit and then broke into tears and told me his story with the eloquence of suffering. He said that he had some days in which he was not master of himself, but he recognized that he was good whenever the attacks of temper were over. Without saying so, he thus invoked the wisdom of human psychology for better treatment. There is indeed a physician in those prisons, but he treats generally only the ordinary diseases and is not familiar with special psychological knowledge. There may be exceptions, and in that case it is a lucky coincidence. But the prison doctor has also his practice outside and hurries through his prison work. "They simulate sickness in order to get out of prison," he says. And this will be so all the more that the physicians of our time have not sufficient training in psychology to enable them to do justice to the psychology of the criminal. You must, therefore, give a scientific management to these institutions, and you will then render humane even the treatment of those grave and dangerous criminals, whose condition cannot be met by a simple compensation of the injury they have done to others. This is the function of repression as we look upon it, an inevitable result of the positive data regarding the natural origin of crime. We believe, in other words, that repression will play but an unimportant role in the future. We believe that every branch of legislation will come to prefer the remedies of social hygiene to those symptomatic remedies and apply them from day to day. And thus we come to the theory of the prevention of crime. Some say: "it is better to repress than to prevent." Others say: "It is better to prevent than to repress." In order to solve this conflict we must remember that there are two widely different kinds of repression. There is the immediate, direct empirical repression, which does not investigate the cause of criminality, but waits until the crime is about to be committed. That is police prevention. There is on the other hand a social prevention which has an indirect and more remote function, which does not wait until crime is about to be committed, but locates the causes of crime in poverty, abandoned children, trampdom, etc, and seeks to prevent these conditions by remote and indirect means. In Italy, prevention is anonymous with arrest. That is to say, by repression is understood only police repression. Under these circumstances, it is well to take it for granted that some of the expected crimes will be carried out, for crimes are not committed at fixed periods after first informing the police. The damage done by criminality, and especially by political and social criminality, against which police repression is particularly directed, will be smaller than that done by the abuse inseparably connected with police power. In the case of atavistic criminality, prevention does not mean handcuffing of the man who is about to commit a crime, but devising such economic and educational measures in the family and administration as will eliminate the causes of crime or attenuate them, precisely because punishment is less effective than prevention. In other words, in order to prevent crime, we must have recourse to measures which I have called "substitutes for punishment," and which prevent, the development of crime, because they go to the source in order to do away with effects. Bentham narrates that the postal service in England, in the 18th century, was in the hands of stage drivers, but this service was not connected with the carrying of passengers, as became the custom later. And then it was impossible to get the drivers to arrive on time, because they stopped too often at the inns. Fines were imposed, imprisonment was resorted to, yet the drivers arrived late. The penalties did not accomplish any results so long as the causes remained. Then the idea was conceived to carry passengers on the postal stages, and that stopped the drivers from being late, because whenever they made a halt, the passengers, who had an interest in arriving on time, called the drivers and did not give them much time to linger. This is an illustration of a substitute for punishment. Another illustration. In the Middle Ages, up to the eve of our modern civilization, piracy was in vogue. Is there anything that was not tried to suppress piracy? The pirates were persecuted like wild beasts. Whenever they were caught they were condemned to the most terrible forms of death. Yet piracy continued. Then came the application of steam navigation, and piracy disappeared as by magic. And robbery and brigandage? They withstood the death penalty and extraordinary raids by soldiers. And we witness today the spectacle of a not very serious contest between the police who wants to catch a brigand, Musolino; and a brigand who does not wish to be caught. Wherever the woods are not traversed by railroads or tramways, brigandage carries on its criminal trade. But wherever railroads and tramways exist, brigandage is a form of crime which disappears. You may insist on death penalties and imprisonment, but assault and robbery will continue, because it is connected with geographical conditions. Use on the other hand the instrument of civilization, without sentencing any one, and brigandage and robbery will disappear before its light. And if human beings in large industrial centers are herded together in tenements and slum hotels, how can a humane judge aggravate the penalties against sexual crimes? How can the sense of shame develop among people, when young and old of both sexes are crowded together in the same bed, in the same corrupted and corrupting environment, which robs the human soul of every noble spark? I might stray pretty far, if I were to continue these illustrations of social hygiene which will be the true solution of the problem and the supreme systematic, daily humane, and bloodless remedy against the disease of criminality. However, we have not the simple faith that in the near or far future of humanity crimes can ever be wholly eradicated. Even Socialism, which looks forward to a fundamental transformation of future society on the basis of brotherhood and social justice, cannot elevate itself to the absolute and naive faith that criminality, insanity, and suicide can ever fully disappear from the earth. But it is our firm conviction that the endemic form of criminality, insanity, and suicide will disappear, and that nothing will remain of them but rare sporadic forms caused by lesion or telluric and other influences. Since we have made the great discovery that malaria, which weighs upon so many parts in Italy, is dependent for its transmission on a certain mosquito, we have acquired the control of malarial therapeutics and are enabled to protect individuals and families effectively against malaria. But aside from this function of protecting people, there must be a social prevention, and since those malarial insects can live only in swampy districts, it is necessary to bring to those unreclaimed lands the blessing of the hoe and plow, in order to remove the cause and do away with the effects. The same problem confronts us in criminology. In the society of the future we shall undertake this work of social hygiene, and thereby we shall remove the epidemic forms of criminality. And nine-tenths of the crimes will then disappear, so that nothing will remain of them but exceptional cases. There will remain, for instance, such cases as that of the bricklayer which I mentioned, because there may always be accidents, no matter what may be the form of social organization, and nervous disorders may thus appear in certain individuals. But you can see that these would be exceptional cases of criminality, which will be easily cured under the direction of science, that will be the supreme and beneficent manager of institutes for the segregation of those who will be unfit for social intercourse. The problem of criminality will thus be solved as far as possible, because the gradual transformation of society will eliminate the swamps in which the miasma of crime may form and breed. If we wish to apply these standards to an example which today attracts the attention of all Italy to this noble city, if we desire to carry our theories into the practice of contemporaneous life, if science is to respond to the call of life, let us throw a glance at that form of endemic criminality known as the Camorra in this city, which has taken root here just as stabbing affrays have in certain centers of Turin, and the Mafia in certain centers of Sicily. In the first place, we must not be wilfully blind to facts and refuse to see that the citizens will protect themselves, if social justice does not do so. And from that to crime there is but a shot step. But which is the swampy soil in which this social disease can spread and persist like leprosy in tin collective organism? It is the economic poverty of the masses, which lends to intellectual and moral poverty. You have lately had in Naples a very fortunate struggle, which seems to have overcome one of the representatives of the high Camorra. But can we believe that the courageous work of a few public writers has touched the roots of the Camorra in this city? It would be self-deception to think so. For we see that plants blossom out again, even after the most destructive hurricane has passed over them. The healing of society is not so easy, that a collective plague may be cured by the courageous acts of one or more individuals. The process is much slower and more complicated. Nevertheless these episodes are milestones of victory in the onward march of civilization, which will paralyze the historical manifestations of social criminality. Here, then, we have a city in which some hundred thousand people rise every morning and do not know how to get a living, who have no fixed occupation, because there is not enough industrial development to reach that methodical application of labor which lifted humanity out of the prehistoric forests. Truly, the human race progresses by two uplifting energies: War and labor. In primitive and savage society, when the human personality did not know the check of social discipline, a military discipline held the members of the tribe together. But war, while useful in primitive society, loses its usefulness more and more, because it carries within itself the cancer that paralyzes it. While war compels collective groups to submit to the co-ordinating discipline of human activity, it also decreases the respect for human life. The soldier who kills his fellow man of a neighboring nation by a stroke of his sword will easily lose the respect for the life of members of his own social group. Then the second educational energy interferes, the energy of labor, which makes itself felt at the decisive moment of prehistoric development, when the human race passes from a pastoral, hunting, and nomadic life Into an agriculture and settled life. This is the historic stage, in which the collective ownership of land and instruments of production is displaced by communal property, family property, and finally individual property. During these stages, humanity passes from individual and isolated labor in collective, associated, co-ordinated labor. The remains of the neolithic epoch show us the progress of the first workshops, in which our ancestors gathered and fashioned their primitive tools and arms. They give us an idea of associated and common labor, which then becomes the great uplifting energy, because, unlike war, it does not carry within itself a disdain or violation of the rights of others. Labor is the sole perennial energy of mankind which leads to social perfection. But if you have 100,000 persons in a city like Naples who do not enjoy the certainty and discipline of employment at methodical and common labor, you need not wonder that the uncertainty of daily life, an illfed stomach, and an anemic brain, result in the atrophy of all moral sentiment, and that the evil plant of the Camorra spreads out over everything. The processes in the law courts may attract the fleeting attention of public opinion, of legislation, of government, to the disease from which this portion of the social organism is suffering, but mere repression will not accomplish anything lasting. The teaching of science tells us plainly that in such a case of endemic criminality social remedies must be applied to social evils. Unless the remedy of social reforms accompanies the development and protection of labor; unless justice is assured to every member of the collectivity, the courage of this or that citizen is spent in vain, and the evil plant will continue to thrive in the jungle. Taught by the masterly and inflexible logic of facts, we come to the adoption of the scientific method in criminal research and conclude that a simple and uniform remedy like punishment is not adequate to cure such a natural and social phenomenon as crime, which has its own natural and social causes. The measures for the preservation of society against criminality must be manifold, complex and varied, and must be the outcome of persevering and systematic work on the part of legislators and citizens on the solid foundation of a systematic collective economy. Let me take leave of you with this practical conclusion, and give my heart freedom to send to my brain a wave of fervent blood, which shall express my enduring gratitude for the reception which you have given me. Old in years, but young in spirit and energetic aspiration to every high ideal, I tender you my sincere thanks. As a man and a citizen, I thank you, because these three lectures have been for me a fountain of youth, of faith, of enthusiasm. Thanks to them I return to the other fields of my daily occupation with a greater faith in the future of my country and of humanity. To you, young Italy, I address these words of thanks, glad and honored, if my words have aroused in your soul one breath which will make you stronger and more confident in the future of civilization and social justice. 
29895	----	public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital Libraries.) THE SCIENCE SERIES Edited by EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE, Ph.D., and F. E. BEDDARD, M.A., F.R.S. 1. +The Study of Man.+ By A. C. HADDON. 2. +The Groundwork of Science.+ By ST. GEORGE MIVART. 3. +Rivers of North America.+ By ISRAEL C. RUSSELL. 4. +Earth Sculpture, or; The Origin of Land Forms.+ By JAMES GEIKIE. 5. +Volcanoes; Their Structure and Significance.+ By T. G. BONNEY. 6. +Bacteria.+ By GEORGE NEWMAN. 7. +A Book of Whales.+ By F. E. BEDDARD. 8. +Comparative Physiology of the Brain,+ etc. By JACQUES LOEB. 9. +The Stars.+ By SIMON NEWCOMB. 10. +The Basis of Social Relations.+ By DANIEL G. BRINTON. 11. +Experiments on Animals.+ By STEPHEN PAGET. 12. +Infection and Immunity.+ By GEORGE M. STERNBERG. 13. +Fatigue.+ By A. MOSSO. 14. +Earthquakes.+ By CLARENCE E. DUTTON. 15. +The Nature of Man.+ By ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF. 16. +Nervous and Mental Hygiene in Health and Disease.+ By AUGUST FOREL. 17. +The Prolongation of Life.+ By ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF. 18. +The Solar System.+ By CHARLES LANE POOR. 19. +Heredity.+ By J. ARTHUR THOMPSON, M.A. 20. +Climate.+ By ROBERT DECOURCY WARD. 21. +Age, Growth, and Death.+ By CHARLES S. MINOT. 22. +The Interpretation of Nature.+ By C. LLOYD MORGAN. 23. +Mosquito Life.+ By EVELYN GROESBEECK MITCHELL. 24. +Thinking, Feeling, Doing.+ By E. W. SCRIPTURE. 25. +The World's Gold.+ By L. DE LAUNAY. 26. +The Interpretation of Radium.+ By F. SODDY. 27. +Criminal Man.+ By CESARE LOMBROSO. _For list of works in preparation see end of this volume_ The Science Series CRIMINAL MAN CRIMINAL MAN ACCORDING TO THE CLASSIFICATION OF CESARE LOMBROSO BRIEFLY SUMMARISED BY HIS DAUGHTER GINA LOMBROSO-FERRERO WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CESARE LOMBROSO _ILLUSTRATED_ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1911 COPYRIGHT, 1911 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS The Knickerbocker Press, New York CONTENTS _PART I.--THE CRIMINAL WORLD_ CHAPTER I PAGE THE BORN CRIMINAL 3 Classical and modern schools of penal jurisprudence--Physical anomalies of the born criminal--Senses and functions--Psychology--Intellectual manifestations--The criminal in proverbial sayings. CHAPTER II THE BORN CRIMINAL AND HIS RELATION TO MORAL INSANITY AND EPILEPSY 52 Identity of born criminals and the morally insane--Analogy of physical and psychic characters, origin and development--Epilepsy--Multiformity of disease--Equivalence of certain forms to criminality--Physical and psychic characters--Cases of moral insanity with latent epileptic phenomena. CHAPTER III THE INSANE CRIMINAL 74 General forms of criminal insanity, imbecility, melancholia, general paralysis, dementia, monomania--Physical and psychic characters of the mentally deranged--Special forms of criminal insanity--Inebriate lunatics from inebriation--Physical and psychic characters--Specific crimes--Epileptic lunatics--Manifestations--Hysterical lunatics-- Physical and functional characters--Psychology. CHAPTER IV CRIMINALOIDS 100 Psychology--Tardy adoption of criminal career--Repentance-- Confession--Moral sense and affections--Habitual criminals--Juridical criminals--Criminals of passion. _PART II.--CRIME, ITS ORIGIN, CAUSE, AND CURE_ CHAPTER I ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF CRIME 125 Atavistic origin of crime--Criminality in children--Pathological origin of crime--Direct and indirect heredity--Illnesses, intoxications, and traumatism--Alcoholism--Social causes of crime-- Education and environment--Atmospheric and climatic influences-- Density of population--Imitation--Immigration--Prison life--Economic conditions--Sex--Age. CHAPTER II THE PREVENTION OF CRIME 153 Preventive institutions for children and young people--Homes for orphans and destitute children--Colonies for unruly youths-- Institutions for assisting adults--Salvation Army. CHAPTER III METHODS FOR THE CURE AND REPRESSION OF CRIME 175 Juvenile offenders--Children's Courts--Institutions for female offenders--Minor offenders, criminals of passion, political offenders, and criminaloids--Probation system and indeterminate sentence-- Reformatories--Penitentiaries--Institutes for habitual criminals-- Penal colonies--Institutions for born criminals and the morally insane--Asylums for insane criminals--Capital punishment--Symbiosis. _PART III.--CHARACTERS AND TYPES OF CRIMINALS_ CHAPTER I EXAMINATION OF CRIMINALS 219 Antecedents and psychology--Methods of testing intelligence and emotions--Morbid phenomena--Speech, memory, and handwriting-- Clothing--Physical examination--Tests of sensibility and senses-- Excretions--Table of anthropological examination of criminals and the insane. CHAPTER II SUMMARY OF CHIEF FORMS OF CRIMINALITY TO AID IN DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN CRIMINALS AND LUNATICS AND IN DETECTING SIMULATIONS OF INSANITY 258 A few cases showing the practical application of criminal anthropology. APPENDIX WORKS OF CESARE LOMBROSO (BRIEFLY SUMMARISED) _I._ THE MAN OF GENIUS 283 _II._ CRIMINAL MAN 288 _III._ THE FEMALE OFFENDER. (In Collaboration with Guglielmo Ferrero.) 291 _IV._ POLITICAL CRIME. (In Collaboration with Rodolfo Laschi.) 294 _V._ TOO SOON: A Criticism of the New Italian Penal Code 298 _VI._ PRISON PALIMPSESTS: Studies in Prison Inscriptions 300 _VII._ ANCIENT AND MODERN CRIMES 302 _VIII._ DIAGNOSTIC METHODS OF LEGAL PSYCHIATRY 303 _IX._ ANARCHISTS 305 _X._ LECTURES ON LEGAL MEDICINE 307 _XI._ RECENT DISCOVERIES IN PSYCHIATRY AND CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THESE SCIENCES 309 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE CHIEF WORKS OF CESARE LOMBROSO 310 INDEX 315 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Fig. 1. FOSSETTE OCCIPITAL 6 Fig. 2. SKULL FORMATION 11 Fig. 3. SKULL FORMATION 11 Fig. 4. HEAD OF CRIMINAL 16 Fig. 5. HEAD OF CRIMINAL 16 Fig. 6. LAYERS OF THE FRONTAL REGION 23 Fig. 7. FIGURES MADE IN PRISON. MURDER OF A SLEEPING VICTIM 32 Fig. 8. CRUCIFIX POIGNARD 32 Fig. 9. WATER-JUGS 42 Fig. 10. DRAWINGS IN SCRIPT. DISCOVERED BY DE BLASIO 44 Fig. 11. ALPHABET. DISCOVERED BY DE BLASIO 45 Fig. 12. BOY MORALLY INSANE 56 Fig. 13. BOY MORALLY INSANE 56 Fig. 14. AN EPILEPTIC BOY 60 Fig. 15. FERNANDO. EPILEPTIC 60 Fig. 16. ITALIAN CRIMINAL. A CASE OF ALCOHOLISM 82 Fig. 17. SIGNATURES OF CRIMINALS 163 Fig. 18. CRIMINAL GIRL 114 Fig. 19. THE BRIGAND SALOMONE 114 Fig. 20. BRIGAND GASPARONE 166 Fig. 21. BRIGAND CASERIO 120 Fig. 22. TERRA-COTTA BOWLS. DESIGNED BY A CRIMINAL 134 Fig. 23. ART PRODUCTION FROM PRISON 136 Fig. 24. A COMBAT BETWEEN BRIGANDS AND GENDARMES. DESIGNED BY A CRIMINAL 136 Fig. 25. A VOLUMETRIC GLOVE 224 Fig. 26. HEAD OF A CRIMINAL. EPILEPTIC 224 Fig. 27. ANTON OTTO KRAUSER. APACHE 236 Fig. 28. A CRIMINAL'S EAR 224 Fig. 29. ANTHROPOMETER 237 Fig. 30. CRANIOGRAPH ANFOSSI 238 Fig. 31. PELVIMETER 239 Fig. 32. DIAGRAM OF SKULL 241 Fig. 33. DIAGRAM OF SKULL 241 Fig. 34. ESTHESIOMETER 245 Fig. 35. ALGOMETER 248 Fig. 36. CAMPIMETER OF LANDOLT (MODIFIED) 248 Fig. 37. DIAGRAM SHOWING NORMAL VISION 250 Fig. 38. DYNAMOMETER 253 Fig. 39. HEAD OF AN ITALIAN CRIMINAL 254 INTRODUCTION BY CESARE LOMBROSO [Professor Lombroso was able before his death to give his personal attention to the volume prepared by his daughter and collaborator, Gina Lombroso Ferrero (wife of the distinguished historian), in which is presented a summary of the conclusions reached in the great treatise by Lombroso on the causes of criminality and the treatment of criminals. The preparation of the introduction to this volume was the last literary work which the distinguished author found it possible to complete during his final illness.] It will, perhaps, be of interest to American readers of this book, in which the ideas of the Modern Penal School, set forth in my work, _Criminal Man_, have been so pithily summed up by my daughter, to learn how the first outlines of this science arose in my mind and gradually took shape in a definite work--how, that is, combated by some, the object of almost fanatical adherence on the part of others, especially in America, where tradition has little hold, the Modern Penal School came into being. On consulting my memory and the documents relating to my studies on this subject, I find that its two fundamental ideas--that, for instance, which claims as an essential point the study not of crime in the abstract, but of the criminal himself, in order adequately to deal with the evil effects of his wrong-doing, and that which classifies the congenital criminal as an anomaly, partly pathological and partly atavistic, a revival of the primitive savage--did not suggest themselves to me instantaneously under the spell of a single deep impression, but were the offspring of a series of impressions. The slow and almost unconscious association of these first vague ideas resulted in a new system which, influenced by its origin, has preserved in all its subsequent developments the traces of doubt and indecision, the marks of the travail which attended its birth. The first idea came to me in 1864, when, as an army doctor, I beguiled my ample leisure with a series of studies on the Italian soldier. From the very beginning I was struck by a characteristic that distinguished the honest soldier from his vicious comrade: the extent to which the latter was tattooed and the indecency of the designs that covered his body. This idea, however, bore no fruit. The second inspiration came to me when on one occasion, amid the laughter of my colleagues, I sought to base the study of psychiatry on experimental methods. When in '66, fresh from the atmosphere of clinical experiment, I had begun to study psychiatry, I realised how inadequate were the methods hitherto held in esteem, and how necessary it was, in studying the insane, to make the patient, not the disease, the object of attention. In homage to these ideas, I applied to the clinical examination of cases of mental alienation the study of the skull, with measurements and weights, by means of the esthesiometer and craniometer. Reassured by the result of these first steps, I sought to apply this method to the study of criminals--that is, to the differentiation of criminals and lunatics, following the example of a few investigators, such as Thomson and Wilson; but as at that time I had neither criminals nor moral imbeciles available for observation (a remarkable circumstance since I was to make the criminal my starting-point), and as I was skeptical as to the existence of those "moral lunatics" so much insisted on by both French and English authors, whose demonstrations, however, showed a lamentable lack of precision, I was anxious to apply the experimental method to the study of the diversity, rather than the analogy, between lunatics, criminals, and normal individuals. Like him, however, whose lantern lights the road for others, while he himself stumbles in the darkness, this method proved useless for determining the differences between criminals and lunatics, but served instead to indicate a new method for the study of penal jurisprudence, a matter to which I had never given serious thought. I began dimly to realise that the _a priori_ studies on crime in the abstract, hitherto pursued by jurists, especially in Italy, with singular acumen, should be superseded by the direct analytical study of the criminal, compared with normal individuals and the insane. I, therefore, began to study criminals in the Italian prisons, and, amongst others, I made the acquaintance of the famous brigand Vilella. This man possessed such extraordinary agility, that he had been known to scale steep mountain heights bearing a sheep on his shoulders. His cynical effrontery was such that he openly boasted of his crimes. On his death one cold grey November morning, I was deputed to make the _post-mortem_, and on laying open the skull I found on the occipital part, exactly on the spot where a spine is found in the normal skull, a distinct depression which I named _median occipital fossa_, because of its situation precisely in the middle of the occiput as in inferior animals, especially rodents. This depression, as in the case of animals, was correlated with the hypertrophy of the _vermis_, known in birds as the middle cerebellum. This was not merely an idea, but a revelation. At the sight of that skull, I seemed to see all of a sudden, lighted up as a vast plain under a flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the criminal--an atavistic being who reproduces in his person the ferocious instincts of primitive humanity and the inferior animals. Thus were explained anatomically the enormous jaws, high cheek-bones, prominent superciliary arches, solitary lines in the palms, extreme size of the orbits, handle-shaped or sessile ears found in criminals, savages, and apes, insensibility to pain, extremely acute sight, tattooing, excessive idleness, love of orgies, and the irresistible craving for evil for its own sake, the desire not only to extinguish life in the victim, but to mutilate the corpse, tear its flesh, and drink its blood. I was further encouraged in this bold hypothesis by the results of my studies on Verzeni, a criminal convicted of sadism and rape, who showed the cannibalistic instincts of primitive anthropophagists and the ferocity of beasts of prey. The various parts of the extremely complex problem of criminality were, however, not all solved hereby. The final key was given by another case, that of Misdea, a young soldier of about twenty-one, unintelligent but not vicious. Although subject to epileptic fits, he had served for some years in the army when suddenly, for some trivial cause, he attacked and killed eight of his superior officers and comrades. His horrible work accomplished, he fell into a deep slumber, which lasted twelve hours and on awaking appeared to have no recollection of what had happened. Misdea, while representing the most ferocious type of animal, manifested, in addition, all the phenomena of epilepsy, which appeared to be hereditary in all the members of his family. It flashed across my mind that many criminal characteristics not attributable to atavism, such as facial asymmetry, cerebral sclerosis, impulsiveness, instantaneousness, the periodicity of criminal acts, the desire of evil for evil's sake, were morbid characteristics common to epilepsy, mingled with others due to atavism. Thus were traced the first clinical outlines of my work which had hitherto been entirely anthropological. The clinical outlines confirmed the anthropological contours, and _vice versâ_; for the greatest criminals showed themselves to be epileptics, and, on the other hand, epileptics manifested the same anomalies as criminals. Finally, it was shown that epilepsy frequently reproduced atavistic characteristics, including even those common to lower animals. That synthesis which mighty geniuses have often succeeded in creating by one inspiration (but at the risk of errors, for a genius is only human and in many cases more fallacious than his fellow-men) was deduced by me gradually from various sources--the study of the normal individual, the lunatic, the criminal, the savage, and finally the child. Thus, by reducing the penal problem to its simplest expression, its solution was rendered easier, just as the study of embryology has in a great measure solved the apparently strange and mysterious riddle of teratology. But these attempts would have been sterile, had not a solid phalanx of jurists, Russian, German, Hungarian, Italian, and American, fertilised the germ by correcting hasty and one-sided conclusions, suggesting opportune reforms and applications, and, most important of all, applying my ideas on the offender to his individual and social prophylaxis and cure. Enrico Ferri was the first to perceive that the congenital epileptoid criminal did not form a single species, and that if this class was irretrievably doomed to perdition, crime in others was only a brief spell of insanity, determined by circumstances, passion, or illness. He established new types--the occasional criminal and the criminal by passion,--and transformed the basis of the penal code by asking if it were more just to make laws obey facts instead of altering facts to suit the laws, solely in order to avoid troubling the placidity of those who refused to consider this new element in the scientific field. Therefore, putting aside those abstract formulæ for which high talents have panted in vain, like the thirsty traveller at the sight of the desert mirage, the advocates of the Modern School came to the conclusion that sentences should show a decrease in infamy and ferocity proportionate to the increase in length and social safety. In lieu of infamy they substituted a longer period of segregation, and for cases in which alienists were unable to decide between criminality and insanity, they advocated an intermediate institution, in which merciful treatment and social security were alike considered. They also emphasised the importance of certain measures which hitherto had been universally regarded as a pure abstraction or an unattainable desideratum--measures for the prevention of crime by tracing it to its source, divorce laws to diminish adultery, legislation of an anti-alcoholistic tendency to prevent crimes of violence, associations for destitute children, and co-operative associations to check the tendency to theft. Above all, they insisted on those regulations--unfortunately fallen into disuse--which indemnify the victim at the expense of the aggressor, in order that society, having suffered once for the crime, should not be obliged to suffer pecuniarily for the detention of the offender, solely in homage to a theoretical principle that no one believes in, according to which prison is a kind of baptismal font in whose waters sin of all kinds is washed away. Thus the edifice of criminal anthropology, circumscribed at first, gradually extended its walls and embraced special studies on homicide, political crime, crimes connected with the banking world, crimes by women, etc. But the first stone had been scarcely laid when from all quarters of Europe arose those calumnies and misrepresentations which always follow in the train of audacious innovations. We were accused of wishing to proclaim the impunity of crime, of demanding the release of all criminals, of refusing to take into account climatic and racial influences and of asserting that the criminal is a slave eternally chained to his instincts; whereas the Modern School, on the contrary, gave a powerful impetus to the labors of statisticians and sociologists on these very matters. This is clearly shown in the third volume of _Criminal Man_, which contains a summary of the ideas of modern criminologists and my own. One nation, however--America,--gave a warm and sympathetic reception to the ideas of the Modern School which they speedily put into practice, with the brilliant results shown by the Reformatory at Elmira, the Probation System, Juvenile Courts, and the George Junior Republic. They also initiated the practice, now in general use, of anthropological co-operation in every criminal trial of importance. For this reason, and in view of the fact that America does not possess a complete translation of my works--_The Criminal, Male and Female_, and _Political Crime_ (translation and distribution being alike difficult on account of the length of these volumes)--I welcome with pleasure this summary, in which the principal points are explained with precision and loving care by my daughter Gina, who has worked with me from childhood, has seen the edifice of my science rise stone upon stone, and has shared in my anxieties, insults, and triumphs; without whose help I might, perhaps, never have witnessed the completion of that edifice, nor the application of its fundamental principles. PART I THE CRIMINAL WORLD CHAPTER I _THE BORN CRIMINAL_ A criminal is a man who violates the laws decreed by the State to regulate the relations between its citizens, but the voluminous codes which in past times set forth these laws treat only of crime, never of the criminal. That ignoble multitude whom Dante relegated to the Infernal Regions were consigned by magistrates and judges to the care of gaolers and executioners, who alone deigned to deal with them. The judge, immovable in his doctrine, unshaken by doubts, solemn in all his inviolability and convinced of his wisdom, which no one dared to question, passed sentence without remission according to his whim, and both judge and culprit were equally ignorant of the ultimate effect of the penalties inflicted. In 1764, the great Italian jurist and economist, Cesare Beccaria first called public attention to those wretched beings, whose confessions (if statements extorted by torture can thus be called) formed the sole foundation for the trial, the sole guide in the application of the punishment, which was bestowed blindly, without formality, without hearing the defence, exactly as though sentence were being passed on abstract symbols, not on human souls and bodies. The Classical School of Penal Jurisprudence, of which Beccaria was the founder and Francesco Carrara the greatest and most glorious disciple, aimed only at establishing sound judgments and fixed laws to guide capricious and often undiscerning judges in the application of penalties. In writing his great work, the founder of this School was inspired by the highest of all human sentiments--pity; but although the criminal incidentally receives notice, the writings of this School treat only of the application of the law, not of offenders themselves. This is the difference between the Classical and the Modern School of Penal Jurisprudence. The Classical School based its doctrines on the assumption that all criminals, except in a few extreme cases, are endowed with intelligence and feelings like normal individuals, and that they commit misdeeds consciously, being prompted thereto by their unrestrained desire for evil. The offence alone was considered, and on it the whole existing penal system has been founded, the severity of the sentence meted out to the offender being regulated by the gravity of his misdeed. The Modern, or Positive, School of Penal Jurisprudence, on the contrary, maintains that the anti-social tendencies of criminals are the result of their physical and psychic organisation, which differs essentially from that of normal individuals; and it aims at studying the morphology and various functional phenomena of the criminal with the object of curing, instead of punishing him. The Modern School is therefore founded on a new science, Criminal Anthropology, which may be defined as the Natural History of the Criminal, because it embraces his organic and psychic constitution and social life, just as anthropology does in the case of normal human beings and the different races. If we examine a number of criminals, we shall find that they exhibit numerous anomalies in the face, skeleton, and various psychic and sensitive functions, so that they strongly resemble primitive races. It was these anomalies that first drew my father's attention to the close relationship between the criminal and the savage and made him suspect that criminal tendencies are of atavistic origin. When a young doctor at the Asylum in Pavia, he was requested to make a post-mortem examination on a criminal named Vilella, an Italian Jack the Ripper, who by atrocious crimes had spread terror in the Province of Lombardy. Scarcely had he laid open the skull, when he perceived at the base, on the spot where the internal occipital crest or ridge is found in normal individuals, a small hollow, which he called _median occipital fossa_ (see Fig. 1). This abnormal character was correlated to a still greater anomaly in the cerebellum, the hypertrophy of the vermis, _i.e._, the spinal cord which separates the cerebellar lobes lying underneath the cerebral hemispheres. This vermis was so enlarged in the case of Vilella, that it almost formed a small, intermediate cerebellum like that found in the lower types of apes, rodents, and birds. This anomaly is very rare among inferior races, with the exception of the South American Indian tribe of the Aymaras of Bolivia and Peru, in whom it is not infrequently found (40%). It is seldom met with in the insane or other degenerates, but later investigations have shown it to be prevalent in criminals. This discovery was like a flash of light. "At the sight of that skull," says my father, "I seemed to see all at once, standing out clearly illumined as in a vast plain under a flaming sky, the problem of the nature of the criminal, who reproduces in civilised times characteristics, not only of primitive savages, but of still lower types as far back as the carnivora." =FIG. 1 FOSSETTE OCCIPITAL (see page 6)= Thus was explained the origin of the enormous jaws, strong canines, prominent zygomæ, and strongly developed orbital arches which he had so frequently remarked in criminals, for these peculiarities are common to carnivores and savages, who tear and devour raw flesh. Thus also it was easy to understand why the span of the arms in criminals so often exceeds the height, for this is a characteristic of apes, whose fore-limbs are used in walking and climbing. The other anomalies exhibited by criminals--the scanty beard as opposed to the general hairiness of the body, prehensile foot, diminished number of lines in the palm of the hand, cheek-pouches, enormous development of the middle incisors and frequent absence of the lateral ones, flattened nose and angular or sugar-loaf form of the skull, common to criminals and apes; the excessive size of the orbits, which, combined with the hooked nose, so often imparts to criminals the aspect of birds of prey, the projection of the lower part of the face and jaws (prognathism) found in negroes and animals, and supernumerary teeth (amounting in some cases to a double row as in snakes) and cranial bones (epactal bone as in the Peruvian Indians): all these characteristics pointed to one conclusion, the atavistic origin of the criminal, who reproduces physical, psychic, and functional qualities of remote ancestors. Subsequent research on the part of my father and his disciples showed that other factors besides atavism come into play in determining the criminal type. These are: disease and environment. Later on, the study of innumerable offenders led them to the conclusion that all law-breakers cannot be classed in a single species, for their ranks include very diversified types, who differ not only in their bent towards a particular form of crime, but also in the degree of tenacity and intensity displayed by them in their perverse propensities, so that, in reality, they form a graduated scale leading from the born criminal to the normal individual. Born criminals form about one third of the mass of offenders, but, though inferior in numbers, they constitute the most important part of the whole criminal army, partly because they are constantly appearing before the public and also because the crimes committed by them are of a peculiarly monstrous character; the other two thirds are composed of criminaloids (minor offenders), occasional and habitual criminals, etc., who do not show such a marked degree of diversity from normal persons. Let us commence with the born criminal, who as principal nucleus of the wretched army of law-breakers, naturally manifests the most numerous and salient anomalies. The median occipital fossa and other abnormal features just enumerated are not the only peculiarities exhibited by this aggravated type of offender. By careful research, my father and others of his School have brought to light many anomalies in bodily organs, and functions both physical and mental, all of which serve to indicate the atavistic and pathological origin of the instinctive criminal. It would be incompatible with the scope of this summary, were I to give a minute description of the innumerable anomalies discovered in criminals by the Modern School, to attempt to trace such abnormal traits back to their source, or to demonstrate their effect on the organism. This has been done in a very minute fashion in the three volumes of my father's work _Criminal Man_ and his subsequent writings on the same subject, _Modern Forms of Crime_, _Recent Research in Criminal Anthropology_, _Prison Palimpsests_, etc., etc., to which readers desirous of obtaining a more thorough knowledge of the subject should refer. The present volume will only touch briefly on the principal characteristics of criminals, with the object of presenting a general outline of the studies of criminologists. PHYSICAL ANOMALIES OF THE BORN CRIMINAL _The Head._ As the seat of all the greatest disturbances, this part naturally manifests the greatest number of anomalies, which extend from the external conformation of the brain-case to the composition of its contents. The criminal skull does not exhibit any marked characteristics of size and shape. Generally speaking, it tends to be larger or smaller than the average skull common to the region or country from which the criminal hails. It varies between 1200 and 1600 c.c.; _i.e._, between 73 and 100 cubic inches, the normal average being 92. This applies also to the cephalic index; that is, the ratio of the maximum width to the maximum length of the skull[1] multiplied by 100, which serves to give a concrete idea of the form of the skull, because the higher the index, the nearer the skull approaches a spherical form, and the lower the index, the more elongated it becomes. The skulls of criminals have no characteristic cephalic index, but tend to an exaggeration of the ethnical type prevalent in their native countries. In regions where dolichocephaly (index less than 80) abounds, the skulls of criminals show a very low index; if, on the contrary, they are natives of districts where brachycephaly (index 80 or more) prevails, they exhibit a very high index. =SKULL FORMATION FIG. 2 FIG. 3= In 15.5% we find trochocephalous or abnormally round heads (index 91). A very high percentage (nearly double that of normal individuals) have submicrocephalous or small skulls. In other cases the skull is excessively large (macrocephaly) or abnormally small and ill-shaped with a narrow, receding forehead (microcephaly, 0.2%). More rarely the skull is of normal size, but shaped like the keel of a boat (scaphocephaly, 0.1% and subscaphocephaly 6%). (See Fig. 2.) Sometimes the anomalies are still more serious and we find wholly asymmetrical skulls with protuberances on either side (plagiocephaly 10.9%, see Fig. 3), or terminating in a peak on the bregma or anterior fontanel (acrocephaly, see Fig. 4), or depressed in the middle (cymbocephaly, sphenocephaly). At times, there are crests or grooves along the sutures (11.9%) or the cranial bones are abnormally thick, a characteristic of savage peoples (36.6%) or abnormally thin (8.10%). Other anomalies of importance are the presence of Wormian bones in the sutures of the skull (21.22%), the bone of the Incas already alluded to (4%), and above all, the median occipital fossa. Of great importance also are the prominent frontal sinuses found in 25% (double that of normal individuals), the semicircular line of the temples, which is sometimes so exaggerated that it forms a ridge and is correlated to an excessive development of the temporal muscles, a common characteristic of primates and carnivores. Sometimes the forehead is receding, as in apes (19%), or low and narrow (10%). _The Face._ In striking contrast to the narrow forehead and low vault of the skull, the face of the criminal, like those of most animals, is of disproportionate size, a phenomenon intimately connected with the greater development of the senses as compared with that of the nervous centres. Prognathism, the projection of the lower portion of the face beyond the forehead, is found in 45.7% of criminals. Progeneismus, the projection of the lower teeth and jaw beyond the upper, is found in 38%, whereas among normal persons the proportion is barely 28%. As a natural consequence of this predominance of the lower portion of the face, the orbital arches and zygomæ show a corresponding development (35%) and the size of the jaws is naturally increased, the mean diameter being 103.9 mm. (4.09 inches) as against 93 mm. (3.66 inches) in normal persons. Among criminals 29% have voluminous jaws. The excessive dimensions of the jaws and cheek-bones admit of other explanations besides the atavistic one of a greater development of the masticatory system. They may have been influenced by the habit of certain gestures, the setting of the teeth or tension of the muscles of the mouth, which accompany violent muscular efforts and are natural to men who form energetic or violent resolves and meditate plans of revenge. Asymmetry is a common characteristic of the criminal physiognomy. The eyes and ears are frequently situated at different levels and are of unequal size, the nose slants towards one side, etc. This asymmetry, as we shall see later, is connected with marked irregularities in the senses and functions. _The Eye._ This window, through which the mind opens to the outer world, is naturally the centre of many anomalies of a psychic character, hard expression, shifty glance, which are difficult to describe but are, nevertheless, apparent to all observers (see Fig. 4). Side by side with peculiarities of expression, we find many physical anomalies--ptosis, a drooping of the upper eyelid, which gives the eye a half-closed appearance and is frequently unilateral; and strabismus, a want of parallelism between the visual axes, which is insignificant if it arises from errors of refraction, but is very serious if it betokens progressive or congenital diseases of the brain or its membranous coverings. Other anomalies are asymmetry of the iris, which frequently differs in colour from its fellow; oblique eyelids, a Mongolian characteristic, with the edge of the upper eyelid folding inward or a prolongation of the internal fold of the eyelid, which Metchnikoff regards as a persistence of embryonic characters. _The Ear._ The external ear is often of large size; occasionally also it is smaller than the ears of normal individuals. Twenty-eight per cent. of criminals have handle-shaped ears standing out from the face as in the chimpanzee: in other cases they are placed at different levels. Frequently too, we find misshapen, flattened ears, devoid of helix, tragus, and anti-tragus, and with a protuberance on the upper part of the posterior margin (Darwin's tubercle), a relic of the pointed ear characteristic of apes. Anomalies are also found in the lobe, which in some cases adheres too closely to the face, or is of huge size as in the ancient Egyptians; in other cases, the lobe is entirely absent, or is atrophied till the ear assumes a form like that common to apes. _The Nose._ This is frequently twisted, up-turned or of a flattened, negroid character in thieves; in murderers, on the contrary, it is often aquiline like the beak of a bird of prey. Not infrequently we meet with the trilobate nose, its tip rising like an isolated peak from the swollen nostrils, a form found among the Akkas, a tribe of pygmies of Central Africa. All these peculiarities have given rise to popular saws, of a character more or less prevalent everywhere. _The Mouth._ This part shows perhaps a greater number of anomalies than any other facial organ. We have already alluded to the excessive development of the jaws in criminals. They are sometimes the seat of other abnormal characters,--the lemurine apophysis, a bony elevation at the angle of the jaw, which may easily be recognised externally by passing the hand over the skin; and the canine fossa, a depression in the upper jaw for the attachment of the canine muscle. This muscle, which is strongly developed in the dog, serves when contracted to draw back the lip leaving the canines exposed. The lips of violators of women and murderers are fleshy, swollen and protruding, as in negroes. Swindlers have thin, straight lips. Hare-lip is more common in criminals than in normal persons. _The Cheek-pouches._ Folds in the flesh of the cheek which recall the pouches of certain species of mammals, are not uncommon in criminals. _The Palate._ A central ridge (_torus palatinus_), more easily felt than seen, may sometimes be found on the palate, or this part may exhibit other peculiarities, a series of cavities and protuberances corresponding to the palatal teeth of reptiles. Another frequent abnormality is cleft palate, a fissure in the palate, due to defective development. _The Teeth._ These are specially important, for criminals rarely have normal dentition. The incisors show the greatest number of anomalies. Sometimes both the lateral incisors are absent and the middle ones are of excessive size, a peculiarity which recalls the incisors of rodents. The teeth are frequently striated transversely or set very wide apart (diastema) with gaps on either side of the upper canines into which the lower ones fit, a simian characteristic. In some cases, these spaces occur between the middle incisors or between these and the lateral ones. =FIG. 4 HEAD OF CRIMINAL (see page 14)= =FIG. 5 HEAD OF CRIMINAL (see page 18)= Very often the teeth show a strange uniformity, which recalls the homodontism of the lower vertebrates. In some cases, however, this uniformity is limited to the premolars, which are furnished with tubercles like the molars, a peculiarity of gorillas and orang-outangs. In 4% the canines are very strongly developed, long, sharp, and curving inwardly as in carnivores. Premature caries is common. _The Chin._ Generally speaking, this part of the face projects moderately in Europeans. In criminals it is often small and receding, as in children, or else excessively long, short or flat, as in apes. _Wrinkles._ Although common to normal individuals, the abundance, variety, and precocity of wrinkles almost invariably manifested by criminals, cannot fail to strike the observer. The following are the most common: horizontal and vertical lines on the forehead, horizontal and circumflex lines at the root of the nose, the so-called crow's-feet on the temple at the outer corners of the eyes, naso-labial wrinkles around the region of the mouth and nose. _The Hair._ The hair of the scalp, cheeks and chin, eyebrows, and other parts of the body, shows a number of anomalies. In general it may be said that in the distribution of hair, criminals of both sexes tend to exhibit characteristics of the opposite sex. Dark hair prevails especially in murderers, and curly and woolly hair in swindlers. Both grey hair and baldness are rare and when found make their appearance later in life than in the case of normal individuals. The beard is scanty and frequently missing altogether. On the other hand, the forehead is often covered with down. The eyebrows are bushy and tend to meet across the nose. Sometimes they grow in a slanting direction and give the face a satyr-like expression (see Fig. 5). The blemishes peculiar to the delinquent are not only confined to the face and head, but are found in the trunk and limbs. _The Thorax._ An increase or decrease in the number of ribs is found in 12% of criminals. This is an atavistic character common to animals and lower or prehistoric human races and contrasts with the numerical uniformity characteristic of civilised mankind. Polymastia, or the presence of supernumerary nipples (which are generally placed symmetrically below the normal ones as in many mammals) is not an uncommon anomaly. Gynecomastia or hypertrophy of the mammæ is still more frequent in male criminals. In female criminals, on the contrary, we often find imperfect development or absence of the nipples, a characteristic of monotremata or lowest order of the mammals; or the breasts are flabby and pendent like those of Hottentot women. The chest is often covered with hair which gives the subject the appearance of an animal. _The Pelvis and Abdomen._ The abdomen, pelvis, and reproductive organs sometimes show an inversion of sex-characters. In 42% the sacral canal is uncovered, and in some cases there is a prolongation of the coccyx, which resembles the stump of a tail, sometimes tufted with hair. _The Upper Limbs._ One of the most striking and frequent anomalies exhibited by criminals is the excessive length of the arms as compared with the lower limbs, owing to which the span of the arms exceeds the total height, an ape-like character. Six per cent. exhibit an anomaly which is extremely rare among normal individuals--the olecranon foramen, a perforation in the head of the humerus where it articulates with the ulna. This is normal in the ape and dog and is frequently found in the bones of prehistoric man and in some of the existing inferior races of mankind. Several abnormal characters, which point to an atavistic origin, are found in the palm and fingers. Supernumerary fingers (polydactylism) or a reduction in the usual number are not uncommon. Sometimes we find syndactylism, or palmate fingers, a continuation of the interdigital skin to the second phalanx. The length of the fingers varies according to the type of crime to which the individual is addicted. Those guilty of crimes against the person have short, clumsy fingers and especially short thumbs. Long fingers are common to swindlers, thieves, sexual offenders, and pickpockets. The lines on the palmar surfaces of the finger-tips are often of a simple nature as in the anthropoids. The principal lines on the palm are of special significance. Normal persons possess three, two horizontal and one vertical, but in criminals these lines are often reduced to one or two of horizontal or transverse direction, as in apes. _The Lower Limbs._ Of a number of criminals examined, 16% showed an unusual development of the third trochanter, a protuberance on the head of the femur where it articulates with the pelvis. This distinctly atavistic character is connected with the position of the hind-limb in quadrupeds. _The Feet._ Spaces between the toes like the interdigital spaces of the hand are very common, and in conjunction with the greater mobility of the toes and greater length of the big-toe, produce the prehensile foot, of the quadrumana, which is used for grasping. The foot is often flat, as in negroes. In the feet, as in the hands, there is frequently a tendency to greater strength or dexterity on the left side, contrary to what happens in normal persons, and this tendency is manifested in many cases where there is no trace of functional and motorial left-handedness. _The Cerebrum and the Cerebellum._ The chief and most common anomaly is the prevalence of macroscopic anomalies in the left hemisphere, which are correlated to the sensory and functional left-handedness common to criminals and acquired through illness. The most notable anomaly of the cerebellum is the hypertrophy of the vermis, which represents the middle lobe found in the lower mammals. Anomalies in the cerebral convolutions consist principally of anastomotic folds, the doubling of the fissure of Rolando, the frequent existence of a fourth frontal convolution, the imperfect development of the precuneus (as in many types of apes), etc. Anomalies of a purely pathological character are still more common. These are: adhesions of the meninges, thickening of the pia mater, congestion of the meninges, partial atrophy, centres of softening, seaming of the optic thalami, atrophy of the corpus callosum, etc. Of great importance, too, are the histological anomalies discovered by Roncoroni in the brains of criminals and epileptics. In normal individuals the layers of the frontal region are disposed in the following manner: 1. Molecular layer. 2. Superficial layer of small cells. 3. Layer of small pyramidal cells. 4. Deep layer of small nerve cells. 5. Layer of polymorphous cells (see Fig. 6). In certain animals, the dog, ape, rabbit, ox, and domestic fowl, the superficial layer is frequently non-existent and the deep one is found only to some extent in the ape. In born criminals and epileptics there is a prevalence of large, pyramidal, and polymorphous cells, whereas in normal individuals small, triangular, and star-shaped cells predominate. Also the transition from the small superficial to the large pyramidal cells is not so regular, and the number of nervous cells is noticeably below the average. Whereas, moreover, in the normally constituted brain, nervous cells are very scarce or entirely absent in the white substance, in the case of born criminals and epileptics they abound in this part of the brain. The abnormal morphological arrangement described by Roncoroni is probably the anatomical expression of hereditary alterations, and reveals disorders in nervous development which lead to moral insanity or epilepsy according to the gravity of the morbid conditions which give rise to them. =FIG. 6 _a_) Cortical strata of the circumvolutions of the parietal lobes of a normal person. _b_) Cortical strata of the circumvolutions of the parietal lobes of a criminal epileptic. 1. Molecular stratum. 2. External granular stratum. 3. Stratum of the small pyramidal cells. 4. Stratum of the large pyramidal cells. 5. Deep stratum of the small nervous cells or the deep granular stratum. 6. Stratum of polymorphic cells. S.B. White matter.= These anomalies in the limbs, trunk, skull and, above all, in the face, when numerous and marked, constitute what is known to criminal anthropologists as the criminal type, in exactly the same way as the sum of the characters peculiar to cretins form what is called the cretinous type. In neither case have the anomalies an intrinsic importance, since they are neither the cause of the anti-social tendencies of the criminal nor of the mental deficiencies of the cretin. They are the outward and visible signs of a mysterious and complicated process of degeneration, which in the case of the criminal evokes evil impulses that are largely of atavistic origin. SENSORY AND FUNCTIONAL PECULIARITIES OF THE BORN CRIMINAL The above-mentioned physiognomical and skeletal anomalies are further supplemented by functional peculiarities, and all these abnormal characteristics converge, as mountain streams to the hollow in the plain, towards a central idea--the atavistic nature of the born criminal. An examination of the senses and sensibility of criminals gives the following results: _General Sensibility._ Tested simply by touching with the finger, a certain degree of obtuseness is noted. By using an apparatus invented by Du Bois-Reymond and adopted by my father, the degree of sensibility obtained was 49.6 mm. in criminals as against 64.2 mm. in normal individuals. Criminals are more sensitive on the left side, contrary to normal persons, in whom greater sensibility prevails on the right. _Sensibility to Pain._ Compared with ordinary individuals, the criminal shows greater insensibility to pain as well as to touch. This obtuseness sometimes reaches complete analgesia or total absence of feeling (16%), a phenomenon never encountered in normal persons. The mean degree of dolorific sensibility in criminals is 34.1 mm. whereas it is rarely lower than 40 mm. in normal individuals. Here again the left-handedness of criminals becomes apparent, 39% showing greater sensibility on the left. _Tactile Sensibility._ The distance at which two points applied to the finger-tips are felt separately is more than 4 mm. in 30% of criminals, a degree of obtuseness only found in 4% of normal individuals. Criminals exhibit greater tactile sensibility on the left. Tactile obtuseness varies with the class of crime practised by the individual. While in burglars, swindlers, and assaulters, it is double that of normal persons, in murderers, violators, and incendiaries it is often four or five times as great. _Sensibility to the Magnet_, which scarcely exists in normal persons, is common to a marked degree in criminals (48%). _Meteoric Sensibility._ This is far more apparent in criminals and the insane than in normal individuals. With variations of temperature and atmospheric pressure, both criminals and lunatics become agitated and manifest changes of disposition and sensations of various kinds, which are rarely experienced by normal persons. _Sight_ is generally acute, perhaps more so than in ordinary individuals, and in this the criminal resembles the savage. Chromatic sensibility, on the contrary, is decidedly defective, the percentage of colour-blindness being twice that of normal persons. The field of vision is frequently limited by the white and exhibits much stranger anomalies, a special irregularity of outline with deep peripheral scotoma, which we shall see is a special characteristic of the epileptic. _Hearing_, _Smell_, _Taste_ are generally of less than average acuteness in criminals. Cases of complete anosmia and qualitative obtuseness are not uncommon.[2] _Agility._ Criminals are generally agile and preserve this quality even at an advanced age. When over seventy, Vilella sprang like a goat up the steep rocks of his native Calabria, and the celebrated thief "La Vecchia," when quite an old man, escaped from his captors by leaping from a high rampart at Pavia. _Strength._ Contrary to what might be expected, tests by means of the dynamometer show that criminals do not usually possess an extraordinary degree of strength. There is frequently a slight difference between the strength of the right and left limbs, but more often ambidexterity, as in children, and a greater degree of strength in the left limbs. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BORN CRIMINAL The physical type of the criminal is completed and intensified by his moral and intellectual physiognomy, which furnishes a further proof of his relationship to the savage and epileptic. _Natural Affections._ These play an important part in the life of a normally constituted individual and are in fact the _raison d'être_ of his existence, but the criminal rarely, if ever, experiences emotions of this kind and least of all regarding his own kin. On the other hand, he shows exaggerated and abnormal fondness for animals and strangers. La Sola, a female criminal, manifested about as much affection for her children as if they had been kittens and induced her accomplice to murder a former paramour, who was deeply attached to her; yet she tended the sick and dying with the utmost devotion. In the place of domestic and social affections, the criminal is dominated by a few absorbing passions: vanity, impulsiveness, desire for revenge, licentiousness. MORAL SENSE The ability to discriminate between right and wrong, which is the highest attribute of civilised humanity, is notably lacking in physically and psychically stunted organisms. Many criminals do not realise the immorality of their actions. In French criminal jargon conscience is called "la muette," the thief "l'ami," and "travailler" and "servir" signify to steal. A Milanese thief once remarked to my father: "I don't steal. I only relieve the rich of their superfluous wealth." Lacenaire, speaking of his accomplice Avril, remarked, "I realised at once that we should be able to work together." A thief asked by Ferri what he did when he found the purse stolen by him contained no money, replied, "I call them rogues." The notions of right and wrong appear to be completely inverted in such minds. They seem to think they have a right to rob and murder and that those who hinder them are acting unfairly. Murderers, especially when actuated by motives of revenge, consider their actions righteous in the extreme. _Repentance and Remorse._ We hear a great deal about the remorse of criminals, but those who come into contact with these degenerates realise that they are rarely, if ever, tormented by such feelings. Very few confess their crimes: the greater number deny all guilt in a most strenuous manner and are fond of protesting that they are victims of injustice, calumny, and jealousy. As Despine once remarked with much insight, nothing resembles the sleep of the just more closely than the slumbers of an assassin. Many criminals, indeed, allege repentance, but generally from hypocritical motives; either because they hope to gain some advantage by working on the feelings of philanthropists, or with a view to escaping, or, at any rate, improving their condition while in prison. Thus Lacenaire, when convicted for the first time, wrote in a moving strain to his friend Vigouroux in order to get money and help from him, "Repentance is the only course left open to me. You may well feel pleased at having turned a man from a path of crime for which he was not intended by nature." A few hours later he committed another theft, and before he died remarked cynically that he had never experienced remorse. When tried at the Assizes at Pavia, Rognoni pronounced a touching discourse on his repentance and refused the wine brought him in prison for some days because it reminded him of his murdered brother. But he obtained it surreptitiously from his fellow-prisoners, and when one of them grumbled at having to give up his own portion, Rognoni threatened him saying, "I have already murdered four, and shall make no bones about killing a fifth." Sometimes remorse is advanced by criminals as a palliation of their crimes. Michelieu justified the _coup de grace_ inflicted on his victim by saying, "When I saw her in that state, I felt such terrible remorse that I shot her dead in order not to meet her glance." Sometimes an appearance of remorse is produced by hallucinations due to alcoholism. Philippe and Lucke imagined they saw the spectres of the persons they had murdered a short time before, but in reality they were suffering from the effects of drink and so little true remorse did they feel that on being sentenced, Philippe remarked, "If they had not sent me to Cayenne, I should have done it again." Generally speaking, what seems to be repentance is only the fear of death or some superstitious dread, which assumes an appearance of remorse, but is devoid of real feeling. A typical instance of hypocrisy and cynicism is furnished by the Marquise de Brinvilliers, the notorious poisoner, who succeeded in deceiving the venerable prison-chaplain so completely that he regarded her as a model of penitence, yet in her last moments she wrote to her husband denying her guilt and exhibited lascivious and revengeful feelings. Many criminals, when in prison, model sculptural representations of their crimes with crumbs of bread (see Fig. 7). _Cynicism._ The strongest proof of the total lack of remorse in criminals and their inability to distinguish between good and evil is furnished by the callous way in which they boast of their depraved actions and feign pious sentiments which they do not feel. One criminal humbly entreated to be allowed to retain his own crucifix while in prison. It was subsequently discovered that the sacred image served as a sheath for his dagger (see Fig. 8). Philippe made the following statement to one of his female companions. "My way of loving women is a very strange one. After enjoying their caresses, I take the greatest delight in strangling them or cutting their throats. Soon you will hear everyone talking about me." Shortly before he murdered his father, Lachaud said to his friends, "This evening I shall dig a grave and lay my father there to rest eternally." Sometimes, indeed, a criminal realises dimly the depravity of his actions; he rarely judges them, however, as a normal person would, but seeks to explain and justify them after his own fashion. When asked by the magistrate if he denied having stolen a horse, Ansalone replied, "Surely you do not call that a theft; a leader of brigands could hardly be expected to go on foot!" Others consider that their actions are less criminal if their intentions were good; like Holland, who murdered to obtain food for his wife and children. Others, again, think themselves excused by the fact that many do worse things with impunity. Any circumstance, the lack or insufficiency of evidence against them or the fact that they are accused of an offence different from the one they have really committed, is seized upon as a mitigation of their guilt, and they always manifest much resentment against those who administer the law. "London thieves," observes Mayhew, "realise that they do wrong, but think that they are no worse than ordinary bankrupts." The constant perusal of newspaper reports leads criminals to believe that there are a great many rogues in higher circles, and by taking exceptions to be the rule, they flatter themselves that their own actions are not very reprehensible, because the wealthy are not censured for similar actions. =FIG. 7 Figures made in Prison MURDER OF A SLEEPING VICTIM Work of a Prisoner (see page 31)= =FIG. 8 CRUCIFIX POIGNARD (see page 31)= These instances show that criminals are not entirely unable to distinguish between right and wrong. Nevertheless, their moral sense is sterile because it is suffocated by passions and the deadening force of habit. In the cant of Spanish thieves, justice is called "la justa" (the just), and this name is given in French slang to the Assizes, but, as Mayor observes, it may be applied ironically. In alluding to the unknown author of the crimes committed in reality by himself, the murderer Prévost remarked, "Whoever it is, he is bound to end by the guillotine sooner or later." In such cases, although a sense of truth and justice exists, the desire to act according to it is lacking. "It is one thing [observes Harwick] to possess a theoretical notion of what is right and wrong, but quite another to act according to it. In order that the knowledge of good should be transformed into an ardent desire for its triumph, as food is converted into chyle and blood, it must be urged to action by elevated sentiments, and these are generally lacking in the criminal. If, on the contrary, good feelings really exist, the individual desires to do right and his convictions are translated into action with the same energy that he displayed in doing wrong." A philanthropist once invited a number of young London thieves to a friendly gathering, and it was noticed that the most hardened offenders were greeted with the greatest amount of applause from the company. Nevertheless, when the President requested one of them to change a gold coin outside, and he did not return, those present showed great indignation and anxiety, abusing and threatening their absent companion, whose ultimate return was hailed with genuine relief. In this case, no doubt, envy and vanity played as great a part as a sense of integrity, in the resentment shown at this fancied breach of faith. In the prisons at Moscow, offences against discipline are dealt with by the offenders' fellow-prisoners. The convict population on the island of San Stefano compiled spontaneously a Draconian code to quell internal discord arising from racial jealousies. _Treachery._ This species of morality and justice, which unexpectedly makes its appearance in the midst of a naturally unrighteous community, can only be forced and temporary. When, instead of reaping advantages, interests and passions are injured by acting rightly, these notions of justice, unsustained by innate integrity suddenly fail. Contrary to universal belief, criminals are very prone to betray their companions and accomplices, and are easily induced to act as informers in the hope of gaining some personal advantage or of injuring those they envy or suspect of treachery towards themselves. "Many thieves," says Vidocq, "consider it a stroke of luck to be consulted by the police." In fact, Bouscaut, one of a notorious band of malefactors in France, was chiefly instrumental in causing the arrest of the gang; and the brigand Caruso aided the authorities in capturing his former companions. _Vanity._ Pride, or rather vanity, and an exaggerated notion of their own importance, which we find in the masses, generally in inverse proportion to real merit, is especially strong in criminals. In the cell occupied by La Gala, the following notice was found in his handwriting: "March 24th. On this date La Gala learnt to knit." Another criminal, Crocco, tried hard to save his brother, "Lest," he said, "my race should die out." Lacenaire was less troubled by the death-sentence than by adverse criticisms of his bad verse and the fear of public contempt. "I do not fear being hated," he is reported to have said, "but I dread being despised--the tempest leaves traces of its passage, but unobserved the humble flower fades." Thus thieves are loth to confess that they are guilty of only petty larceny, and are sometimes prompted by vanity to commit more serious robberies. The same false shame is common to fallen women, among whom contempt is incurred, not by excess of depravity but by the failure to command high prices. Grellinier, a petty thief, boasted in court of imaginary offences, with the desire of appearing in the light of a great criminal. The crimes in the haunted castle, attributed by Holmes to himself, were certainly in part inventions. The female poisoner, Buscemi, when writing to her accomplice, signed herself, "Your Lucrezia Borgia." One of the most frequent causes of modern crime is the desire to gratify personal vanity and to become notorious. _Impulsiveness._ This is another and almost pathognomonical characteristic of born criminals, and also, as we shall see later on, of epileptics and the morally insane. That which in ordinary individuals is only an eccentric and fugitive suggestion vanishing as soon as it arises, in the case of abnormal subjects is rapidly translated into action, which, although unconscious, is not the less dangerous. A youth of this impulsive type, returning home one evening flushed with wine, met a peasant leading his ass and cried out, "As I have not come to blows with anyone to-day, I must vent my rage on this beast," at the same time drawing his knife and plunging it several times into the poor animal's body (Ladelci, _Il Vino_, Rome, 1868). Pinel describes a morally insane subject, who was in the habit of giving way to his passions, killing any horses that did not please him and thrashing his political opponents. He even went to the length of throwing a lady down a well, because she ventured to contradict him. "The most trifling causes [remarks Tamburini, speaking of Sbro...] that stand in the way of his wishes, provoke a fit of rage in which he appears to lose all self-control, like little children, who in resenting any offence show no sense of proportion. The most trivial reasons for disliking anyone awaken in him an irresistible desire to kill the object of his aversion, and if any new blasphemy rises to his lips, he feels constrained to repeat it." A thief once said to my father: "It is in our very blood. It may be only a pin, but I cannot help taking it, although I am quite ready to give it back to its owner." The pickpocket Bor... confessed that at the age of twelve he had begun to steal in the streets and at school, to the extent of taking things from under his schoolfellows' pillows, and that it was impossible for him to resist stealing, even when his pockets were full. If he had not stolen some article before going to bed, he was unable to sleep, and when midnight struck, he felt obliged to take the first thing that came to his hand, destroying it frequently as soon as he had appropriated it. "To give up stealing," said Deham to Lauvergne, "would be like ceasing to exist. Stealing is a passion that burns like love and when I feel the blood seething in my brain and fingers, I think I should be capable of robbing myself, if that were possible." When sentenced to the galleys, he stole the bands from the masts, nails, and copper plates, and he himself fixed the number of lashes he was to receive after each of these exploits, which did not prevent his recommencing stealing directly afterward (_Les Forçats_, p. 358). Ponticelli once saw a thief, who was dying of consumption, steal an old slipper from his neighbour and hide it under the bedclothes. _Vindictiveness._ Closely allied to this impulsiveness and exaggerated personal vanity, we find an extraordinary thirst for revenge. Lebuc murdered a man who had stolen some matches from him. Baron R... caused the death of a man, because he had failed to order a religious procession to halt under the windows of his palace. "To see expire the one you hate-- Such is the joy of the gods. My sole desire is to hate and be avenged." wrote Lacenaire. After a slight dispute with Voit, whose hospitality he had enjoyed, Renaud threw his friend down a well. He was arrested, and when Voit, who had been rescued, pardoned him, he said, "I only regret not having finished him, but when I come out of prison, I will do so." And he kept his word. The tattooing on the persons of criminals and their writings while in prison are full of solemn oaths of vengeance. A female thief once said, "If it were true that those who refuse to pardon will be damned eternally, I should still withhold my forgiveness." _Cruelty_ depends on moral and physical insensibility, those incapable of feeling pain being indifferent to the sufferings of others. The post of executioner was eagerly competed for at the prison of Rochefort. Mammon used to drink the blood of his victims and when this was not to be had, he drank his own. The executioner Jean became so maddened by the sight of blood flowing beneath his lash, that guards were stationed to prevent undue prolongation of the punishment. Dippe wrote: "My chief pleasure is beheading. When I was young, stabbing was my sole pastime." It has often been observed that the ferocity of women exceeds that of men. Rulfi killed her own niece, whom she detested, by thrusting long pins into her, and the female brigand Ciclope reproached her lover for murdering his victims too quickly. _Idleness._ Like savages, criminals are dominated by an incorrigible laziness, which in certain cases leads them to prefer death from starvation to regular work. This idleness alternates with periods of ferocious impulsiveness, during which they display the greatest energy. Like savages, too, they are passionately fond of alcohol, orgies, and sensual pleasures, which alone rouse them to activity. _Orgies._ Those who have observed children absorbed all day long by a game that pleases them, can understand the meaning of these words, spoken by a woman: "Criminals are grown-up children." The love of habitual debauch is so intense that, as soon as thieves have made some great haul or escaped from prison, they return to their haunts to carouse and make merry, in spite of the evident danger of falling once more into the hands of the police. _Gambling._ The passion for gambling is so strong that the criminal is always in a penniless condition, no matter how much treasure he has appropriated, and cases of starvation in prison are not unknown, prisoners having sold their rations in order to gratify this vice. _Games._ Many primitive and cruel amusements, similar to the pastimes of savages, have been preserved or reconstructed by criminals. Such are the games known to Italian offenders as "La Patta," in which one of the players tries to avoid being struck while passing his head between two points brought together horizontally by another, who stands with his arms outstretched; and "La Rota," in which the players run in a circle, one behind the other, seeking to escape, by dodging, the blows from a stout stick, aimed at them by one of their companions. _Intelligence_ is feeble in some and exaggerated in others. Prudence and forethought are generally lacking. A very common characteristic is recklessness, which leads criminals to run the risk of arrest for the sake of being witty, or to leave some blood-stained weapon on the very spot where they have committed a crime, notwithstanding the fact that they have taken a hundred precautions to avoid detection. This same recklessness prompts them, when the danger is scarcely past, to make verses or pictures of their exploits or to tattoo them upon their persons, heedless of consequences. Zino relates the story of a Sicilian schoolboy, who illustrated his criminal relations with his schoolfellows by a series of sketches in his album. A certain Cavaglia, called "Fusil" robbed and murdered an accomplice and hid the body in a cupboard. He was arrested and in prison decided to commit suicide a hundred days after the date of his crime, but before doing so, he adorned his water-jug with an account of his misdeed, partly in pictures and partly in writing, as though he desired to raise a monument to himself (see Fig. 9). The clearest and strangest instance of this recklessness was furnished by a photograph discovered by the police, in which, at the risk of arrest and detection, three criminals had had themselves photographed in the very act of committing a murder. INTELLECTUAL MANIFESTATIONS _Slang._ This is a peculiar jargon used by criminals when speaking among themselves. The syntax and grammatical construction of the language remain unchanged, but the meanings of words are altered, many being formed in the same way as in primitive languages; _i.e._, an object frequently receives the name of one of its attributes. Thus a kid is called "jumper," death "the lean or cruel one," the soul "the false or shameful one," the body "the veil," the hour "the swift one," the moon "the spy," a purse "the saint," alms "the rogue," a sermon "the tedious one," etc. Many words are formed as among savages, by onomatopoeia, as "tuff" (pistol), "tic" (watch), "guanguana" (sweetheart), "fric frac" (lottery). =FIG. 9 WATER-JUGS (see page 42)= The necessity of eluding police investigations is the reason usually given for the origin of this slang. No doubt it was one of the chief causes, but does not explain the continued use of a jargon which is too well known now to serve this purpose; moreover, it is employed in poems, the object of which is to invite public attention, not to avoid it, and by criminals in their homes where there is no need for secrecy. _Pictography._ One of the strangest characteristics of criminals is the tendency to express their ideas pictorially. While in prison, Troppmann painted the scene of his misdeed, for the purpose of showing that it had been committed by others. We have already mentioned the rude illustrations engraved by the murderer Cavaglia on his pitcher, representing his crime, imprisonment, and suicide. Books, crockery, guns, all the utensils criminals have in constant use, serve as a canvas on which to portray their exploits. From pictography it is but an easy step to hieroglyphics like those used by ancient peoples. The hieroglyphics of criminals are closely allied to their slang, of which in fact they are only a pictorial representation, and, although largely inspired by the necessity for secrecy, show, in addition, evident atavistic tendencies. =FIG. 10 Drawings in Script. Discovered by De Blasio= De Blasio has explained the meaning of the hieroglyphics used by the "camorristi" (members of the _camorra_ at Naples), especially when they are in prison. For instance, to indicate the President of the Tribunal, they use a crown with three points; to indicate a judge, the judge's cap (see Fig. 10). The following is a list of some of the hieroglyphics mentioned by De Blasio: _Police Inspector_--a hat like those worn by the Italian soldiers who are called Alpini (a helmet with flat top and an upright feather on the left side). _Public Prosecutor_--an open-mouthed viper (see Fig. 10). _Carabineer_--a bugle. _Theft_--a skull and cross-bones. _Commissary of the Police_--a dwarf with the three-cornered hat worn by the _carabinieri_. _Arts and Industries of the Criminal._ Although habitual criminals show a strong aversion to any kind of useful labour, in prison and at large, they, nevertheless, apply themselves with great diligence to certain tasks, sometimes of an illegal nature, such as the manufacture of implements to aid them in escaping, sometimes merely artistic, such as modelling, with breadcrumbs, brickdust, or soap, the figures of persons. Sometimes they make baskets, machines, dominoes, draughts, playing-cards, etc., or form means of communication with their fellow-prisoners and construct weapons for executing their schemes of vengeance. They also devote themselves to eccentric and useless occupations, like the training of animals, such as mice, marmosets, birds, and even fleas (Lattes). This morbid and misguided activity, which frequently shows gleams of talent, might well be utilised for increasing the scope of prison industries. TATTOOING This personal decoration so often found on great criminals is one of the strangest relics of a former state. It consists of designs, hieroglyphics, and words punctured in the skin by a special and very painful process. =FIG. 11 Alphabet Discovered by De Blasio= Among primitive peoples, who live in a more or less nude condition, tattooing takes the place of decorations or ornamental garments, and serves as a mark of distinction or rank. When an Eskimo slays an enemy, he adorns his upper-lip with a couple of blue stripes, and the warriors of Sumatra add a special sign to their decorations for every foe they kill. In Wuhaiva, ladies of noble birth are more extensively tattooed than women of humbler rank. Among the Maoris, tattooing is a species of armorial bearings indicative of noble birth. According to ancient writers, tattooing was practised by Thracians, Picts, and Celts. Roman soldiers tattooed their arms with the names of their generals, and artisans in the Middle Ages were marked with the insignia of their crafts. In modern times this custom has fallen into disuse among the higher classes and only exists among sailors, soldiers, peasants, and workmen. Although not exclusively confined to criminals, tattooing is practised by them to a far larger extent than by normal persons: 9% of adult criminals and 40% of minors are tattooed; whereas, in normal persons the proportion is only 0.1%. Recidivists and born criminals, whether thieves or murderers, show the highest percentage of tattooing. Forgers and swindlers are rarely tattooed. Sometimes tattooing consists of a motto symbolical of the career of the criminal it adorns. Tardieu found on the arm of a sailor who had served various terms of imprisonment, the words, "Pas de chance." The notorious criminal Malassen was tattooed on the chest with the drawing of a guillotine, under which was written the following prophecy: "J'ai mal commencé, je finirai mal. C'est la fin qui m'attend." Tattooing frequently bears witness to indecency. Of 142 criminals examined by my father, the tattooing on five showed obscenity of design and position and furnished also a remarkable proof of the insensibility to pain characteristic of criminals, the parts tattooed being the most sensitive of the whole body, and therefore left untouched even by savages. Another fact worthy of mention is the extent to which criminals are tattooed. Thirty-five out of 378 criminals examined by Lacassagne were decorated literally from head to foot. In a great many cases, the designs reveal violence of character and a desire for revenge. A Piedmontese sailor, who had perpetrated fraud and murder from motives of revenge, bore on his breast between two daggers, the words: "I swear to revenge myself." Another had written on his forehead, "Death to the middle classes," with the drawing of a dagger underneath. A young Ligurian, the leader of a mutiny in an Italian Reformatory, was tattooed with designs representing all the most important episodes of his life, and the idea of revenge was paramount. On his right forearm figured two crossed swords, underneath them the initials M. N. (of an intimate friend), and on the inner side, traced longitudinally, the motto: "Death to cowards. Long live our alliance." Tattooing, as practised by criminals, is a perfect substitute for writing with symbols and hieroglyphics, and they take a keen pleasure in this mode of adorning their skins. Of atavistic origin, also, is the practice, common to members of the _camorra_, of branding their sweethearts on the face, not from motives of revenge, but as a sign of proprietorship, like the chiefs of savage tribes, who mark their wives and other belongings; and the form of tattooing called "Paranza," which distinguishes the various bands of malefactors,--the band of the "banner," of the "three arrows," of the "bell-ringer," of the "Carmelites," etc. THE CRIMINAL TYPE All the physical and psychic peculiarities of which we have spoken are found singly in many normal individuals. Moreover, crime is not always the result of degeneration and atavism; and, on the other hand, many persons who are considered perfectly normal are not so in reality. However, in normal individuals, we never find that accumulation of physical, psychic, functional, and skeletal anomalies in one and the same person, that we do in the case of criminals, among whom also entire freedom from abnormal characteristics is more rare than among ordinary individuals. Just as a musical theme is the result of a sum of notes, and not of any single note, the criminal type results from the aggregate of these anomalies, which render him strange and terrible, not only to the scientific observer, but to ordinary persons who are capable of an impartial judgment. Painters and poets, unhampered by false doctrines, divined this type long before it became the subject of a special branch of study. The assassins, executioners, and devils painted by Mantegna, Titian, and Ribera the Spagnoletto embody with marvellous exactitude the characteristics of the born criminal; and the descriptions of great writers, Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, and Ibsen, are equally faithful representations, physically and psychically, of this morbid type. THE CRIMINAL IN PROVERBIAL SAYINGS The conclusions of instinctive observers have found expression in many proverbs, which warn the world against the very characteristics we have noted in criminals. A proverb common in Romagna, says: "Poca barba e niun colore, sotto il cielo non vi ha peggiore" (There is nothing worse under Heaven than a scanty beard and a colourless face), and in Piedmont there is a saying, "Faccia smorta, peggio che scabbia" (An ashen face is worse than the itch). The Venetians have a number of proverbs expressing distrust of the criminal type: "Uomo rosso e femina barbuta da lontan xe megio la saluta" (Greet from afar the red-haired man and the bearded woman); "Vàrdete da chi te parla e guarda in la, e vàrdete da chi tiene i oci bassi e da chi camina a corti passi" (Beware of him who looks away when he speaks to you, and of him who keeps his eyes cast down and takes mincing steps); "El guerzo xe maledetto per ogni verso" (The squint-eyed are on all sides accursed); "Megio vendere un campo e una cà che tor una dona dal naso levà" (Better sell a field and a house than take a wife with a turned-up nose); "Naso che guarda in testa è peggior che la tempesta" (A turned-up nose is worse than hail); etc. There are innumerable cases on record, in which persons quite ignorant of criminology have escaped robbery or murder, thanks to the timely distrust awakened in them by the appearance of individuals who had tried to win their confidence. My father once placed before forty children, twenty portraits of thieves and twenty representing great men, and 80% recognised in the first the portraits of bad and deceitful people. In conclusion, the born criminal possesses certain physical and mental characteristics, which mark him out as a special type, materially and morally diverse from the bulk of mankind. Like the little cage-bred bird which instinctively crouches and trembles at the sight of the hawk, although ignorant of its ferocity, an honest man feels instinctive repugnance at the sight of a miscreant and thus signalises the abnormality of the criminal type. CHAPTER II _THE BORN CRIMINAL AND HIS RELATION TO MORAL INSANITY AND EPILEPSY_ No one, before my father, had ever recognised in the criminal an abnormal being driven by an irresistible atavistic impulse to commit anti-social acts, but many had observed (cases of the kind were too frequent to escape notice) the existence of certain individuals, nearly always members of degenerate families, who seemed from their earliest infancy to be prompted by some fatal impulse to do evil to their fellow-men. They differed from ordinary people, because they hated the very persons who to normal beings are the nearest and dearest, parents, husbands, wives, and children, and because their inhuman deeds seemed to cause them no remorse. These individuals, who were sometimes treated as lunatics, sometimes as diseased persons, and sometimes as criminals, were said by the earliest observers to be afflicted with moral insanity. _Analogy._ Those who are familiar with all that Pinel, Morel, Richard Connon, and other great alienists have written on the morally insane cannot help remarking the analogy, nay identity, of the physical, intellectual, and moral characteristics of this type of lunatic and those of the born criminal. The same physical anomalies already observed in criminals, as described in the first chapter (cranial deformities, asymmetry, physical and functional left-handedness, anomalies in the teeth, hands, and feet), are described by these older writers as being characteristic of the morally insane, as are also those mental and moral qualities already noted in the born criminal--vanity, want of affection, cruelty, idleness, and love of orgies. Only the analogy of the origin and early manifestations was lacking to complete the proof of the identity of the two forms. It is true that moral insanity is more often found in the descendants of insane, neurotic, or dipsomaniac forebears than in those of criminals, and that the characteristics are manifested at an earlier age than is the case with born criminals, but these differences are not of fundamental importance. _Cases._ During many years of observation, my father was able to follow innumerable cases of moral insanity in which perversity was manifested literally from the cradle, and in which the victims of this disease grew up into delinquents in no wise distinguishable from born criminals. A typical instance is that of a certain Rizz... who was brought to him by the mother because, while still at the breast, he bit his nurse so viciously that bottle-feeding had to be substituted. At the age of two years, careful training and medical treatment notwithstanding, this child was separated from his brothers, because he stuck pins into their pillows and played dangerous tricks on them. Two years later, he broke open his father's cash-box and stole money to buy sweets; at six, although decidedly intelligent, he was expelled from every private school in the town, because he instigated the others to mischief or ill-treated them. At fourteen, he seduced a servant and ran away, and at twenty he killed his fiancée by throwing her out of a window. Thanks to the testimony of a great many doctors, Rizz... was declared to be morally insane, but if the family had been poor instead of well-to-do, and the mother had neglected to have her child examined in infancy by a medical man, thus obtaining ample proof of the pathological nature of his perversity, Rizz... would have been condemned as an ordinary criminal, because, like all morally insane persons, he was very intelligent and able to reason clearly, like a normal individual. Another typical case is that of a child named Rav... (see Fig. 12) a native of the Romagna, who was brought to my father at the age of eight, because his parents were convinced that his conduct was due to a morbid condition. Unlike the above-mentioned case, his evil acts were always carried out in an underhand way. He showed great spite towards his brothers and sisters, especially the smaller ones, whom he attempted to strangle on several occasions, and was expelled from school on account of the bad influence he exercised over his schoolfellows. He delighted above everything in robbing his parents, employers, and the neighbours and in falsely accusing others, and so cleverly did he manage this that he caused a great deal of mischief before his double-dealing was discovered. When only eight, on leaving home early every morning to go to work, he would secretly throw all the milk left at the neighbours' doors into the dust-bin, then he accused the janitor of stealing it and got him dismissed. A year later, he nearly succeeded in causing the arrest of a pawnbroker, whom he accused of having lent him money on a cloak, it being illegal in Italy to accept anything in pawn from a minor. The cloak, however, was discovered by his mother hidden in the cellar. At ten years of age, he alleged that his father had brutally ill-treated him, and as severe marks and bruises on his body gave colour to the accusation, the poor man was arrested. The marks, however, were self-inflicted. Another boy, a certain Man..., a peasant from the Val d'Aosta, an Alpine valley in Piedmont, where cretinism is indigenous, exhibited perverse tendencies from his earliest infancy. When twelve years old, he killed his companion in a squabble over an egg. (See Fig. 13.) In the above-mentioned cases, the subjects all belonged to well-to-do or honest families and the pathological heredity was therefore exclusively nervous, not criminal. For this reason, the parents were struck by the abnormal depravity of their sons and had them medically examined and treated, thus discovering that they were morally insane. If, on the other hand, the parents had been criminals and had, themselves, set a bad example, nobody would have supposed that these depraved tendencies were innate in the children or had developed precociously. The fact of the prevalence of moral insanity in neurotic families (with frequent cases of lunacy, alcoholism, etc.) rather than in those of criminal tendencies appears at first sight strange, but according to the new theory advanced by my father, the criminal is a mentally diseased person; and we shall see in a later chapter that the heredity of insane, neurotic, and dipsomaniac parents is completely equivalent to a criminal heredity. =FIG. 12 BOY MORALLY INSANE (see page 55)= =FIG. 13 BOY MORALLY INSANE (see page 56)= _Proofs of Analogy._ Thus the genesis and early manifestations, which might have been diverse, really constitute a counter-proof. Careful anamnesis shows that both born criminals and the morally insane begin at a very early age to exhibit symptoms of the morbid tendencies which make them such a danger to society, and if the general public and the police, when such cases are brought to their notice, usually fail to realise that they arise from precocious perversity, it is because atrocious actions are excused on the ground of extreme youth and attributed to this cause rather than to vicious propensities. In many cases, indeed, they are revealed only to the physician. A counter-proof is likewise furnished by investigations of the origin of these pathological cases, since the study of born criminals shows that they, as well as the morally insane, are as frequently the offspring of insane, epileptic, neurotic, and drunken parents as of criminals, but in the latter case, the morbid origin of their perversity is seldom brought to light owing to the criminality of the parents, who naturally view with indifference symptoms of vice in their children. EPILEPTICS, AND THEIR RELATION TO BORN CRIMINALS AND THE MORALLY INSANE We have already stated that the physical and psychic characteristics of born criminals coincide with those of the morally insane. Both are identical with those of another class of degenerates, known to the world as epileptics. The term epilepsy was applied to a malady frequently studied but little understood by the ancient medical world, the chief symptoms of which were repeated tonic and clonic fits, preceded by the so-called "epileptic aura" and followed by a deep sleep. It was called _morbus sacer_ and believed to be of divine origin. Careful examination of epileptics by clinical and mental experts, showed that in addition to the characteristic seizure, these unfortunate beings were subject to other phenomena, which sometimes took the place of the convulsive fit and in other cases preceded or followed it. These were _pavor nocturnus_, sudden sweats, heat, neuralgia, sialorrhea, periodical cephalalgia and, above all, vertigo; and these symptoms were not always accompanied by unconsciousness nor followed by coma. Sometimes the seizure was only manifested by paroxysms of rage or ferocious and brutal impulses (devouring animals alive), which, if consciously committed, would be considered criminal. This fact led doctors and mental experts to examine other patients, and they were able to advance positive proof that a certain number of epileptics never experience the typical seizure, the disease being manifested in this milder form with cephalalgia, sialorrhea, delirious ferocity, and above all, giddiness. The multiformity of epilepsy has been fully confirmed by the experiments of Luciani, Zehen, and others, who produced various forms of epilepsy by submitting different cerebral zones to varying degrees of irritation. By graduating the electric current, Rosenbach was able to provoke the whole series of epileptic phenomena described above, from the mildest to the most serious manifestations. A slight irritation of the motor areas gave rise to tetanic contractions and clonic convulsions in a given joint; an increase in the strength of the current produced more violent movements which spread over the whole limb, and by intensifying the current still further, to half the body. Finally, on the application of a very strong current, the typical fit was produced with clonic spasms in all the body, unconsciousness, nystagmus, and rigidity of the pupils. By irritating the frontal lobes of dogs, Richet and Bernard produced vertigo and certain physical phenomena (snuffing, barking, and biting). Taking these investigations as a basis, Jackson came to the conclusion that epileptic fits are due to a rapid and excessive explosion of the grey matter, which, instead of developing its force gradually, develops it all of a sudden because it is irritated. And as it has been shown conclusively that the disease can be manifested in such varied forms--vertigo, twitching of the muscles, sialorrhea, cephalalgia, fits of rage, and ferocious actions--which appear to be the equivalent of the typical seizure, individuals subject to these forms of neurosis should be classed as epileptics, even if they never experience the typical motor attack. It is in this category, which may be called attenuated epilepsy, that we should place criminals, who in addition to the psychic and physical characteristics of the epileptic, possess others peculiar to themselves. Physical anomalies (plagiocephaly, microcephaly, macrocephaly, strabismus, facial and cranial asymmetry, prominent frontal sinuses, median occipital fossa, receding forehead, projecting ears, progeneismus, and badly shaped teeth) are characteristic both of criminals and epileptics, as was demonstrated in certain epileptics treated by my father (Figs. 14 and 15), and the same holds good of functional and histological anomalies. The histological anomaly discovered by Roncoroni in the frontal lobe of born criminals, consisting of the atrophy of the deep granular layer, the inversion of the pyramidal layers and small cells with enlargement and rarefaction of the pyramidal cells, and the existence of nervous cells in the white substance, is found in about the same proportion in cases of non-criminal epileptics. We find also in the same proportion in the field of vision of epileptics, as of born criminals, the anomaly discovered by Ottolenghi, consisting of peripheral scotoma intersecting the nearly uniform line of varying size common to normal eyes. =FIG. 14 AN EPILEPTIC BOY (see page 60)= _Psychological Characteristics._ The complete identity of epileptics, born criminals and the morally insane becomes evident as soon as we study their psychology. Epilepsy, congenital criminality, and moral insanity alone are capable of comprising in one clinical form intellectual divergencies which range from genius to imbecility. In epileptics, this divergence is sometimes manifested in one and the same person in the space of twenty-four hours. An individual at one time afflicted with loss of will-power and amnesia, and incapable of formulating the simplest notion, will shortly afterwards give expression to original ideas and reason logically. Contradictions and exaggerations of sentiment are salient characteristics of epileptics as of born criminals and the morally insane. Quarrelsome, suspicious, and cynical individuals suddenly become gentle, respectful, and affectionate. The cynic expresses religious sentiments, and the man who has brutally ill-treated his first wife, kneels before the second. An epileptic observed by Tonnini fancied himself at times to be Napoleon; at others, he would lick the ground like the humblest slave. The extreme excitability manifested by born criminals is shared by epileptics. Distrustful, intolerant, and incapable of sincere attachment, a gesture or a look is sufficient to infuriate them and incite them to the most atrocious deeds. Epilepsy has a disastrous effect on the character. It destroys the moral sense, causes irritability, alters the sensations through constant hallucinations and delusions, deadens the natural feelings or leads them into morbid channels. _Affection for Animals._ The hatred frequently manifested by criminals and epileptics towards the members of their own families is in many cases accompanied by an extraordinary fondness for animals as is shown by the cases of Caligula, Commodus, Lacenaire, Rosas, Dr. Francia, and La Sola,--who preferred kittens to her own children. A morally insane individual known to my father would spend months in training dogs, horses, birds, geese, and other fowls. He was wont to remark that all animals were friendly to him as though they recognised in him one of their own kind. Dostoyevsky's fellow-convicts showed great fondness for a horse, an eagle, and a number of geese. They were so attached to a goat that they wanted to gild its horns. =FIG. 15 FERNANDO Epileptic (see page 60)= _Somnambulism._ This is a frequent characteristic of epileptics. Krafft-Ebing says: "The seizure is often followed by a condition approaching somnambulism. The patient appears to have recovered consciousness, talks coherently, behaves in an orderly manner, and resumes his ordinary occupations. Yet he is not really conscious as is shown by the fact that, later he is entirely ignorant of what he has been doing during this stage. This peculiar state of mental daze may last a long time, sometimes during the whole interval between two seizures." Many of the criminals observed by Dostoyevsky were given to gesticulating and talking agitatedly in their sleep. Obscenity is a common characteristic. Kowalewsky (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1885) notes the resemblance between the reproductive act and the epileptic seizure, the tonic tension of the muscles, loss of consciousness and mydriasis in both cases, and remarks also on the frequency with which epileptic attacks are accompanied by sexual propensities. The desire for sexual indulgence, like the taste for alcohol, is distinguished by the precocity peculiar to criminals and the morally insane. Precocious sexual instincts have been observed in children of four years, and in one case obscenity was manifested by an infant of one year. Marro (_Annali di Freniatria_, 1890) describes a child of three years and ten months, who had exhibited signs of epilepsy from birth and was of a jealous, irascible disposition. He was in the habit of scratching and biting his brothers and sisters, knocking over the furniture, hiding things, and tearing his clothes, and when unable to hurt or annoy others, would vent his rage upon himself. If punished, he would continue his misdeeds in an underhand way. Another child had been afflicted with convulsions from his earliest infancy, in consequence of which his character deteriorated, and while still a mere infant, he behaved with the utmost violence. He killed a cat, attempted to strangle his brother, and to set fire to the house. Invulnerability, another characteristic common to criminals, has been observed by Tonnini in epileptics, whose wounds and injuries heal with astonishing rapidity, and he is inclined to regard this peculiarity in the light of a reversion to a stage of evolution, at which animals like lizards and salamanders were able to replace severed joints by new growths. This invulnerability is shared by all degenerates: epileptics, imbeciles, and the morally insane. "One of these latter," says Tonnini, "tore out his moustache bodily and with it a large piece of skin. In a few days the wound was nearly healed." Very characteristic is the almost automatic tendency to destroy animate and inanimate objects, which results in frequent wounding, suicides, and homicides. This desire to destroy is also common to children. Fernando P. (Fig. 15), an epileptic treated by my father, when enraged was in the habit of smashing all the furniture within his reach and throwing the pieces over a wall some twenty-five feet high. Misdea, a regimental barber, to whom we shall refer later, roused to fury by dismissal from his post, broke four razors into small pieces with his teeth. Another epileptic, Piz... used to break all the crockery in his cell regularly every other day, "just to give vent to his feelings." This tendency to destroy everything in the cell is common also to ordinary criminals. _Cases of Moral Insanity with Latent Epileptic Phenomena._ The following cases, which were treated by my father and which were subject to careful observation and study, will serve to give a clear idea of the criminal form of epilepsy. Subject: Giuliano Celestino, age 16. Yellow skin abundantly tattooed, absence of hair on face or body. Cranium: plagiocephaly on the left frontal and right parietal regions, obliquely-placed eyes, narrow forehead, prominent orbital arches, line of the mouth horizontal as in apes, lateral incisors of upper jaw resembling the canines with rugged margins, excessive zygomatic and maxillary development, tactile sensibility very obtuse, dolorific sensibility non-existent on the right, very obtuse on the left, rotular reflex action exaggerated on the right, very feeble on the left. Devoid of natural feeling. When asked if he was fond of his mother, he replied: "When she brings me cigars and money." When questioned concerning his crimes he showed neither shame nor confusion. On the contrary, he confessed with a smile that when only ten he had tried to kill his youngest brother, who was then an infant in the cradle, and when hindered by his mother, had struck and bitten her. His father was a drunkard afflicted with syphilis, and Giuliano had suffered from epilepsy from the age of seven. At this age he began to indulge in alcohol and self-abuse, and stole from his parents in order to buy sweets. He appears to have been subject to an ambulatory mania, which caused him to wander aimlessly about the country, and if kept within doors he would let himself down from the windows, climb up the chimney, or, failing in these attempts to escape, would break the furniture and attract the attention of the neighbours by his terrific yells. From the age of eight, despite his parents' efforts to apprentice him, he was always immediately dismissed by his employers. He ran away with a strolling company of acrobats, and later apprenticed himself to a butcher in order to revel in the horrors of the slaughter-house. At fifteen he was confined in a reformatory, where he twice attempted to escape and to set fire to the building, and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. For the space of a few days, he appears to have suffered from epileptic attacks, although in a masked form, accompanied by various attempts at suicide. These were renewed every other month for a whole year. When asked what he would do for a living when released, he would reply laughingly that there was plenty of money in other people's pockets. L... a morally insane subject, age 16, native of Turin, the son of an aged, but extremely respectable man. Height 1.50 m., weight, 46.2 kg., with abundant hair, and down on the forehead, incisors crowded together, excessive development of the canines, and exaggerated orbital angle of the frontal bone. He was entirely devoid of affection for his family, remarking cynically that he was fond of his father when he gave him money and did not worry him. Sometimes he kicked the poor old man and otherwise abused him. When unable to obtain money, he would smash all the furniture in the house, until, for the sake of economy, his family gave him what he wanted. In order to get a five-pound note from money-lenders he would sign promissory notes for ten times that amount. He changed his ideas from one hour to another. Sometimes he wanted to enter the army, at others to emigrate to France, etc. When only fourteen he frequented houses of ill-fame, where he played the bully. Although this case may be regarded as a typical instance of moral insanity, there were apparently no symptoms of vertigo or convulsions. At the age of sixteen, however, while suffering from rheumatism, this subject tried to throw himself from the balcony of his bedroom at the same hour three nights running. After this he seems to have suffered from amnesia. These frenzied attempts at self-destruction, which seem to have taken the place of the epileptic seizure, were related to my father casually by the boy's mother; but in other cases, similar incidents, although of the utmost importance to the criminologist, often pass unnoticed. In the _Actes du Congrès d'Anthropologie_, Angelucci describes another typical case of epileptic moral insanity. E. G. (brother a criminal epileptic, father a sufferer from cancer) was sentenced several times for assaulting people often without motive. Tattooed with the figure of a naked woman, microcephalous (39.2 cubic inches = 589 c.c.), having cranial and facial asymmetry, he was vain, deceitful, and violent, and made great show of scepticism although he wore a great many medals of the Virgin. This subject was over twenty-five when the first epileptic seizure took place. The connection between epilepsy and crime is one of derivation rather than identity. Epilepsy represents the genus of which criminality and moral insanity are the species. The born criminal is an epileptic, inasmuch as he possesses the anatomical, skeletal, physiognomical, psychological, and moral characteristics peculiar to the recognised form of epilepsy, and sometimes also its motorial phenomena, although at rare intervals. More frequently he exhibits its substitutes (vertigo, twitching, sialorrhea, emotional attacks). But the criminal epileptic possesses other characteristics peculiar to himself; in particular, that desire of evil for its own sake, which is unknown to ordinary epileptics. In view of this fact this form of epilepsy must be considered apart from the purely nervous anomaly, both in the clinical diagnosis and the methods of cure and social prophylaxis. Moreover, the nervous anomaly, which in the case of criminals appears on the scene from time to time, accentuating the criminal tendency till it reaches the atavistic form and producing morbid complications which sometimes prove fatal, serves to point out the true nature of the disease and to emphasise the fact that while it is attenuated so far as motor attacks are concerned, it is aggravated on the other hand by criminal impulses, which render the patient semi-immune and permit him a longer and less troubled existence, but provoke a constant brain irritation, which clouds and disturbs his intellectual and moral nature. In order better to understand these two forms of epilepsy, we must recall two analogous forms of another and equally multiform disease, tuberculosis in its forms of quick consumption and scrofula. The etiology is identical and the symptoms frequently alike, but while the latter proceeds very slowly and allows the patient a long life, the former is rapid and severs life in its prime. In motory epilepsy, the irritation is manifested on a sudden, but leaves the mind healthy in the interval, although the attacks may lead to rapid dementia. In criminal epilepsy this irritation does not break out in violent seizures and is compatible with a long life, but it changes the whole physical and psychic complexion of the individual. The epileptic origin of criminality explains many characteristics of the criminal, the genesis of which was previously obscure. Many of the moral and physical peculiarities of born criminals and the morally insane may be classed as professional characteristics acquired through the habit of evil-doing, especially the naso-labial and zygomatic wrinkles, cynical expression, tapering fingers, etc. Many anomalies also in the bones, hair, ears, eyes, and the monstrous development of the jaws and teeth, must be explained by arrested development in the fifth or sixth month of ultra-uterine existence, corresponding to the characteristics of inferior races by the usual law of ontogeny which recapitulates phylogeny. But there is a final series of anomalies, the origin of which was formerly wrapped in mystery: plagiocephaly, sclerosis, the thickening of the meninges, cranial asymmetry, and other changes in the cerebral layers, which can be explained only by a disease altering precociously the whole cerebral conformation, as is exactly the case in epilepsy. The born criminal is an epileptic, not however afflicted with the common form of this disease, but with a special kind. The pathological basis, the etiology, and the anatomical and psychological characteristics are identical, but there are many differences. While in the ordinary form motor anomalies are very common, in the criminal form they are very rare, while in ordinary epilepsy the mental explosions are accompanied by unconsciousness, in the other form they are weakened and spread over the whole existence, and consciousness is, relatively speaking, preserved; and while, finally, the ordinary epileptic has not always the tendency to do evil for its own sake--nay, may even achieve holiness--in the hidden form the bent towards evil endures from birth to death. The perversity concentrated in one second in the motor attack, is attenuated in the second form, but spread over the whole existence. We have therefore an epilepsy _sui generis_, a variety of epilepsy which may be called criminal. Thus the primitive idea of crime has become organic and complete. The criminal is only a diseased person, an epileptic, in whom the cerebral malady, begun in some cases during prenatal existence, or later, in consequence of some infection or cerebral poisoning, produces, together with certain signs of physical degeneration in the skull, face, teeth, and brain, a return to the early brutal egotism natural to primitive races, which manifests itself in homicide, theft, and other crimes. CHAPTER III _THE INSANE CRIMINAL_ GENERAL FORMS OF CRIMINAL LUNACY Epileptic born criminals and the morally insane may be classed as lunatics under certain aspects, but only by the scientific observer and professional psychologist. Outside these two forms, there is an important series of offenders, who are not criminals from birth, but become such at a given moment of their lives, in consequence of an alteration of the brain, which completely upsets their moral nature and makes them unable to discriminate between right and wrong. They are really insane; that is, entirely without responsibility for their actions. Nearly every class of mental derangement contributes a special form of crime. _The Idiot_ is prompted by paroxysms of rage to commit murderous attacks on his fellow-creatures. His exaggerated sexual propensities incite him to rape, and his childish delight at the sight of flames, to arson. _The Imbecile_, or weak-minded individual, yields to his first impulse, or, dominated by the influence of others, becomes an accomplice in the hope of some trivial reward. The victims of _Melancholia_ are driven to suicide by suppressed grief, precordial agitation, or hallucinations. Sometimes the suicidal attempt is indirect and takes the form of the murder of some important personage or their own kin, in the hope that their own condemnation may follow, or it is to save those dear to them from the miseries of life. Persons afflicted with _General Paralysis_ frequently steal, in the belief that everything they see belongs to them, or because they are incapable of understanding the meaning of property. If accused of theft, they deny their guilt or assert that the stolen articles have been hidden on their persons by others. They are inclined to forgery and fraudulent bankruptcy, and when their misdeeds are brought home to them they show no shame. Unnatural sexual offences and crimes against the authorities are also common. While they are seldom guilty of murder, they frequently commit arson, through carelessness, or with the idea of destroying their homes because they think them too small, or wish to get rid of the vermin in them, such as rats. The sufferer from _Dementia_ forgets his promises, however serious they may be. Cerebral irritability often leads him to commit violent acts, homicide, etc. In some cases, mental alienation is manifested in a mania for litigation, which urges the sufferer to offend statesmen, state lawyers, and judges. A common symptom of _Pellagra_ is the tendency to unpremeditated murder or suicide, without the slightest cause. The sight of water suggests drowning, in the form of murder or suicide. Young persons at the approach of puberty and women subject to amenorrhea often exhibit a tendency to arson and crimes of an erotic nature. Similar tendencies are sometimes displayed during pregnancy, and an inclination to theft is not uncommon. Maniacs are prone to satyriasis and bacchanalian excesses. They commit rape and indecent acts in public and often appropriate strange objects, hair or wearing apparel, with the idea of obtaining means to satisfy their vices, either because they are unconscious of doing wrong or because, like true megalomaniacs, they believe the stolen goods to be their own property. Sometimes a feverish activity prompts them to steal; "I felt a kind of uneasiness, a demon in my fingers," said one, "which forced me to move them and carry off something." Monomaniacs, especially if subject to hallucinations, frequently manifest a tendency to homicide, either to escape imaginary persecutions or in obedience to equally imaginary injunctions. The same motives prompt them to commit special kinds of theft and arson. Na... (see Fig. 16) murdered his friend without any reason, after suffering from delusions for one year. The characteristics of insane criminals are so marked that it is not difficult to distinguish them from habitual delinquents. They seldom show any fear of the penalty incurred nor do they try to escape. They take little trouble to hide their misdeeds, or to get rid of any clue. If poisoners, they leave poison about in their victim's room; if forgers, they take no trouble to make their signatures appear genuine; if thieves, they exhibit stolen goods in public, or appropriate them in the presence of witnesses. They frequently manifest unbounded rage and assault those present, entirely forgetting the stolen objects. Once their crime is accomplished, not only do they give themselves no trouble to hide it, but are prone to confess it immediately, and are eager to talk about it, saying with satisfaction that they feel relieved at what they have done, that they have obeyed the order of superior beings and consider their actions praiseworthy. They deny that they are insane, or if they admit it in some cases, it is only because they are persuaded to do so by their lawyers or fellow-prisoners. And even then, they are ready at the first opportunity to contradict the idea, eulogising and exaggerating their criminal acts. A full confession in court is not uncommon, and in the case of impulsive monomaniacs, epileptics, and insane inebriates, the descriptions are full of characteristic expressions, showing what was the offender's state of mind when dominated by criminal frenzy. Rom..., an impulsive monomaniac, who stabbed an acquaintance, felt "the blood rushing to his head, which seemed to be in flames." Tixier narrates that, on seeing the old man he afterward murdered pass him on a country road, "something went to his head." Frequently such criminals are quick to give themselves up to justice. _Antecedents._ Unlike the ordinary offender, insane criminals are often perfectly law-abiding up to the moment of the crime. _Motive._ Perhaps the greatest difference between born criminals and insane criminals lies in the motive for the act, which in the case of the latter is not only entirely disproportionate to it, but nearly always absurd and depends far less on personal susceptibility. Here are a few typical cases: A father fancies he hears a voice bidding him kill his favourite child. He goes home, has the little victim dressed in its best clothes and cuts off its head with perfect calmness. A lady, ignorant of horticulture, plants some flowers on her husband's grave. A day or two later, noticing that they are drooping, she imagines that the gardener has watered them with boiling water, and after reproaching him bitterly, wounds him with a pair of scissors. These unfortunate beings frequently show perfect mental clearness before the crime and even in the act of striking the fatal blow; yet their action is purely instinctive and not prompted by passion or any other cause. Although such individuals appear to reason, can it be said that they are in full possession of their mental faculties? If they are, how shall we explain the wholesale destruction of those they hold most dear? A husband kills the wife to whom he is sincerely attached; a father, the son he loves most; or a mother, the infant at her breast. Such an extraordinary phenomenon can only be explained by a sudden suspension of the intellectual and moral faculties and of the powers of the will. SPECIAL FORMS OF CRIMINAL INSANITY ALCOHOLISM In addition to these casual forms of lunacy, in which the individual is led to commit crime by a momentary alteration of his moral nature, we find other forms which might be called specific, because the criminal act forms the culminating point of the malady. The sufferers from these forms are less easily distinguished from ordinary criminals and normal persons than are the lunatics of whom we have just spoken. These mental diseases, which should be studied separately, are alcoholism, hysteria, and epilepsy. It is well known that temporary drunkenness may transform an honest, peacable individual into a rowdy, a murderer, or a thief. Gall narrates the case of a certain Petri, who manifested homicidal tendencies when excited by alcohol. Locatelli mentions a workman of thirty, who, when under the influence of drink, would smash everything around him and stab the companions who sought to restrain his drunken fury. Ladelci and Carmignani cite the case of a miner, who was repeatedly arrested for drunken brawls, and when reproved replied: "I cannot help it. As soon as I drink, I must start fighting." Very characteristic is the case of a certain Papor... who was imprisoned for some time at Turin. His father was a drunkard and ill treated his wife. The son became a soldier, then an excise officer, fireman, and finally nurse in an infirmary, and was known as a respectable, temperate man. In 1876, he was transferred to the Island of Lipari, where malvoisie only costs 25 centimes a litre, and there he acquired a taste for wine, without, however, drinking to excess. But a year later, a change in the hospital regulations gave him longer hours of leisure, and he began to drink deeply. In 1881, while intoxicated, he accosted a sportsman and pretending to be a police officer, ordered him to give up his gun. At that moment he was arrested by a genuine constable and taken to the barracks, where he was sentenced, without any one's observing his drunken condition. After his release, he committed other offences of the same type, which were followed by confession and repentance. _Chronic Alcoholism._ The phenomena developed by chronic inebriety are, however, still more important from the point of view of the criminologist than the immediate effects of alcohol on certain constitutions. _Physical and Functional Characteristics of Chronic Inebriety._ The habitual drunkard rarely exhibits traces of congenital degeneracy, but frequently that of an acquired character, especially paresis, facial hemiparesis, slight exophthalmia (see Fig. 6), inequality of the pupils, insensibility to touch and pain, which is often unilateral, especially in the tongue, thermoanalgesia, hyperæsthesia, experienced at various points not corresponding to the nervous territories and modified spontaneously or by esthesiogenic agents (Grasset), alphalgesia (sensation of pain at contact with painless bodies), a deficiency of urea in the urine, out of proportion to the general state of nourishment, and a proneness of the symptoms to return after trauma, poisoning, agitation, or serious illness. The gravest phenomena, however, are atrophy or degeneration in the liver, heart, stomach, seminal canaliculi, and central nervous system, which give rise to serious functional disturbances; most of all, in the digestion--as manifested by the characteristic gastric catarrh, matutinal vomit and cramp--and in the reproductive system, with resulting impotence. _Psychic Disturbances--Hallucinations._ The most frequent and precocious symptoms are delusions and hallucinations, generally of a gloomy or even of a terrible nature, and extremely varied and fleeting, which, like dreams, in nearly every instance arise from recent and strong impressions. The most characteristic hallucinations are those which persuade the patient that he experiences the contact of disgusting vermin, corpses, or other horrible objects. He is gnawed by imaginary worms, burnt by matches, or persecuted by spies and the police. =FIG. 16 ITALIAN CRIMINAL A Case of Alcoholism (see page 82)= The strange pathological conditions resulting from chronic alcoholism give rise to other fearful hallucinations. Cutaneous anæsthesia and alcoholic anaphrodisia make the sufferers fancy they have lost the generative organs, nose, legs, etc.; dyspepsia, exhaustion, and paresis, that they have been poisoned or are being persecuted. The reaction following excessively prolonged stimuli causes furious lypemania and gloomy fancies. Sometimes chronic inebriates believe that they are accused of imaginary crimes and loaded with chains amid heaps of corpses. They implore mercy and try to kill themselves in order to escape from their shame; or they remain motionless, bewildered, and terrified. Not infrequently, because of the profound faith, which, unlike many other lunatics, they have in their hallucinations, they pass from melancholy broodings to a fit of mad energy, often of a homicidal or suicidal nature. They imagine they are struggling with thieves or wild beasts and hurl themselves from the window or rush naked through the streets, killing the first person that crosses their path. In some, this delirium of energy breaks out suddenly like an epileptic attack, which it resembles in its brevity and intensity. With hair standing on end, they rush about like savage beasts, grinding their teeth, biting, rending their clothes, or tearing up the sod, or hurling themselves from some height. These symptoms are preceded by vertigo, periodical cephalalgia, and flushing of the face, and are manifested more frequently by those who are already predisposed through trauma to the head, or through typhus or heredity, or after great agitation and prolonged fasting, and often bear no relation to the quantity of alcohol imbibed, which may be small, or to the general physical state; but depend on cerebral irritation caused by chronic alcoholism. The attacks may disappear in a few hours without leaving the slightest recollection in the mind of the patient (Krafft-Ebing, p. 182). They are, in short, a species of disguised epilepsy, and thus they may well be styled, since true alcoholic epilepsy is noted in many inebriates, specially in absinthe-drinkers. _Apathy._ Another characteristic almost invariably found in inebriates who have committed a crime, is a strange apathy and indifference, a total lack of concern regarding their state--a trait common also to ordinary criminals, but in a less marked degree. They make themselves at home in prison without showing the faintest interest in their trial or in the offence which has caused their arrest, and only when brought before the judge do they rouse themselves for a moment from their lethargy. A well-educated man, after a varied career as doctor, chemist, and clerk, during which time he had been constantly dismissed from his posts for drunkenness, met a policeman in the street and killed him, in the belief that the officer wanted to arrest him. When taken to prison, the first thing he did was to write to his mother begging her to send him some pomade. When interrogated, he informed the examining magistrate that the interrogatory was useless, since he had already chosen a fresh trade, that of photographer. It was only after several months of total abstinence in prison, that he began to come to his senses and to realise the gravity of his situation. (Tardieu, _De la Folie_, 1870.) _Contrast between Apathy and Impulsiveness._ This apathy alternates with strange impulses, which, although strongly at variance with the patient's former habits, he is unable to control, even when he is aware that they are criminal. _Crimes peculiar to Inebriates._ Since modification of the reproductive organs is a common cause of hallucinations, inebriate criminals frequently suffer from a species of erotic delirium, during which they murder those whom they believe guilty of offences against themselves--generally their wives or mistresses. This is partly owing to the sexual nature of their hallucinations and partly to the wretchedness of their homes, which are in such striking contrast to the rosy dreams inspired by alcohol and which tend to increase the melancholy natural to drunkards. They imagine they are being deceived and their impotence derided, the most innocent gestures being interpreted as deadly insults. In the prison at Turin, my father had under observation two of these unfortunate beings, one a man of sixty and the other quite young. Both had murdered their wives with the most revolting cruelty, because they believed them to be unfaithful, although in reality both the women led blameless lives. _Course of the Disease._ The continued abuse of alcohol ends at last in complete dementia or general pseudo-paralysis. The body is at first obese, but rapidly loses flesh, the skin becomes greasy and damp, owing to hypersecretion of the sebaceous and sudoriparous glands, and soils the garments. Memory becomes enfeebled, speech uncertain and defective (dysarthria), the association of ideas sluggish, sensibility blunted, perception confused, judgment erroneous, and every species of regular and continued application impossible. The earlier hallucinations reappear, but in a less vivid form and only at long intervals; then paralysis more or less rapidly becomes general and ends in death. EPILEPSY We have spoken of this disease in another chapter and have shown that the born criminal is in reality an epileptic, in whom the malady, instead of manifesting itself suddenly in strange muscular contortions or terrible spasms, develops slowly in continual brain irritation, which causes the individual thus affected to reproduce the ferocious egotism natural to primitive savages, irresistibly bent on harming others. But besides these epileptics, who are morally insane from their birth and pass their lives in prisons and lunatic asylums, without any one being able to mark the exact boundary between their perversity and their irresponsibility; besides these individuals, whom society has a right, nay a moral obligation, to remove from its midst because they are ever a source of danger there are those who are afflicted with other forms of epilepsy;--forms in which irritation is manifested in seizures exactly similar to the typical convulsive fit, which they resemble also with regard to variation in intensity and duration. Generally speaking, they are likewise accompanied by complete loss of memory and consciousness, but in some cases there may be partial or complete consciousness, and yet the sufferer is not responsible for his actions. This variety of epilepsy, termed by Samt psychic epilepsy (epilepsy with psychic seizures), manifests itself at long intervals, sometimes only once, but more frequently twice or thrice in the course of a lifetime, and during the attack the personality of the individual undergoes a complete change. The attack is described by Samt as follows: During the seizure, the individual behaves like a somnambulist. Sometimes he is dazed, mute, and immovable; at others, he talks incessantly; at still others, he goes on with his ordinary occupations, travelling, reading, and writing: but in every case his personality suffers a complete metamorphosis, his habits, actions, and even handwriting assume a different character. Sometimes he is seized by a mania for walking and tramps for miles; at others, he undertakes interminable railway journeys. Tissié (_Les aliénés voyageurs_, 1887) cites cases of epileptics who travelled from Paris to Bombay, who covered 71 kilometres on foot, and who wandered unconscious for 31 months. Sometimes epilepsy is manifested only by the tendency to undertake purposeless journeys, as in the case of Ferretti and a certain M... who visited the Mahdi in Africa and from thence travelled aimlessly to Australia. This ambulatory form of epilepsy is very common amongst lads of fourteen or fifteen. Scarcely a week passes without the police receiving information from parents that their son has disappeared from home with only a few pence in his pocket. The wanderer is discovered later, frequently in some small provincial town, which he has reached after tramping aimlessly for days, sleeping in barns, and living on charity. When questioned, the boy usually displays total ignorance regarding all that has happened to him during the interval. Dr. Maccabruni in his _Notes on Hidden Forms of Epilepsy_, 1886, narrates the case of an epileptic, who during childhood received an injury to his skull. Later, he started out on a series of wanderings to Venice, Padua, Rome, Milan, Monaco, and Mentone. His journeys, especially those to distant parts, were undertaken in a state of unconsciousness and generally a short time before the commencement of a fit. These attacks may last any length of time, from a few minutes to several months. In one of the cases observed by my father, the attack lasted a fortnight. The patient, a young officer with whom we were personally acquainted, was one of the quietest persons possible, but suddenly he was seized with a mania for writing innumerable letters, especially on stamped paper, in exaggeratedly large writing very different from his usual style. These letters, which were full of absurdities, were posted by the writer from the different towns he passed through on his aimless journeyings, which lasted a whole fortnight. During one of these seizures, he was arrested as a deserter and was unable to give any explanation of his conduct. In this particular patient, the disease assumed the mild form of absurd letters and still more absurd journeys, but other individuals in the same state may commit criminal acts like homicide, equally without reason or gain to themselves. Once the fit is passed, these unfortunate individuals have generally no recollection of their past actions, and since in their normal state they are quiet, law-abiding persons, it is extremely difficult to trace back the deed to the right source, or to discover the disease, because they show no other symptoms of epilepsy, apart from the particular criminal act. Samt describes a still more complicated form of this psychic seizure, in which the personality is altered without there being any loss of consciousness. In a case of this kind, a servant, after forty years of faithful service, murdered his old mistress during the night, having previously cut all the bell-wires to prevent communication with the other servants. He escaped with some valuables, but returned in a few days and gave himself up to the police, to whom he gave a detailed account of his crime without showing either horror or remorse. He was tried and condemned, and a few months later was again seized with epileptic fits during one of which he died. Samt, who saw him in this state, came to the conclusion that the murder had been committed during a similar seizure and he was able to prove that attacks of this kind are not necessarily accompanied by loss of consciousness. As in the above case, these psychic attacks are sometimes accompanied by an insatiable thirst for blood, destruction and violence of all kinds, as well as by an extraordinary development of muscular strength with apparent lucidity of mind. They may last from a few minutes to half an hour, after which the patient falls into a sound sleep and forgets everything that has happened, or else retains only a vague recollection. Such was the case of the epileptic Misdea, which first suggested to my father the idea of a link between crime and epilepsy. As this case has become famous in the annals of crime in Italy, it will perhaps be of interest to the reader. Misdea, the son of degenerate parents, manifested a series of typical epileptic anomalies--asymmetry, vaso-motor disturbances, impulsiveness, ferocity, etc. At the age of twenty, while serving in the army, for some trivial motive he suddenly attacked and killed his superior officer and eight or ten soldiers who tried to overpower him. Finally he was bound and placed in a cell, where he fell into a sound slumber and on awaking had entirely forgotten what he had done. He was condemned to death, but my father, who examined him medically, was able to prove conclusively that the crime had been committed during an attack of epilepsy. The physical and psychic characters of this class of epileptic are those common to all non-criminal epileptics, and indeed we are justified in considering them insane rather than criminal, because, with the exception of the attack, which assumes this terrible form, they do not manifest criminal tendencies. HYSTERIA Hysteria is a disease allied to epilepsy, of which it appears to be a milder form, and is much more common among women than men in the ratio of twenty to one. The disease may frequently be traced to hereditary influences, similar to those found in epilepsy, transmitted by epileptic, neurotic, or inebriate parents, frequently also, to some traumatic or toxic influence, such as typhus, meningitis, a blow, a fall, or fright. _Physical Characteristics._ These are fewer than in epileptics. The most common peculiarities are small, obliquely-placed eyes of timid glance, pale, elongated face, crowded or loosened teeth, nervous movements of the face and hands, facial asymmetry, and black hair. _Functional Characteristics._ These are of great importance. Hysterical subjects manifest special sensibility to the contact of certain metals such as magnetised iron, copper, and gold. Characteristic symptoms are the insensibility of the larynx or the sensation of a foreign body in it (_globus hystericus_), neuralgic pains, which disappear with extreme suddenness, reappearing often on the side opposite that where they were first felt, the prevalence of sensory and motor anomalies on one side (hemianæsthesia), the confusion of different colours (dyschromatopsia); greater sensibility in certain parts of the body, such as the ovary and the breasts, which when subjected to pressure give rise to neuropathic phenomena (hysterogenous points); a sense of pleasure in the presence of pain, the abolition of pharyngeal reflex action, the absence of the sensation of warmth in certain parts of the body and a tendency to the so-called attacks of "hysterics." These characteristics, which are closely allied, if not precisely similar to those of epilepsy, are preceded by a number of premonitory symptoms--hallucinations, sudden change of character, contractions, laryngeal spasms, strabismus, frequent spitting, inordinate laughter or yawning, cardiac palpitations, loss of strength, trembling, anæsthesia and (just before the attack,) pains in some fixed spot, generally in the head, ovary, or nape of the neck. _Psychology._ The psychological manifestations of hysterical subjects are of still greater interest and importance. They show, on the whole, a fair amount of intelligence, although little power of concentration. In disposition they are profoundly egotistical and so preoccupied with their own persons that they will do anything to arouse attention and obtain notoriety. They are exceedingly impressionable, therefore easily roused to anger and cruelty, and are prone to take sudden and unreasonable likes and dislikes. They are fickle and easily swayed. They take special delight in slandering others, and when unable to excite public notice by unfounded accusations, to which they resort as a means of revenge, they embitter the lives of those around them by continual quarrels and dissensions. _Susceptibility to Suggestion._ Of still greater importance for the criminologist is the facility with which hysterical women are dominated by hypnotic suggestion. Their wills become entirely subordinated to that of the hypnotiser, by whose influence they can be induced to believe that they have changed their sex so that they forthwith adopt habits of the opposite sex, or to entertain _idées fixes_--strange, impulsive, or even criminal ideas. They are, in fact, obedient automatons when under hypnotic influence, but they cannot be prevailed upon to perform acts contrary to their nature, to commit crimes or reveal secrets entrusted to them, if they are naturally upright. _Variability._ Mobility of mood is a still more salient characteristic of hysteria. The subject passes with extraordinary rapidity from laughter to tears "like children," says Richet, "who laugh immoderately before their tears are dry." "For one hour," says Sydenham, "they will be irascible and discontented; the next, they are cheerful and follow their friends about with all the signs of the old attachment." Their sensibility is affected by the most trifling causes. A word will grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on the pretext that speech or motion would injure her. But this is the only form of constancy they exhibit, otherwise they are indolent by nature. Sometimes they will show activity for a few days only to relapse again into idleness. _Erotomania._ This is almost a pathognomonical symptom and is shown in hallucinations and nightmares of an erotic character, preceded by epigastric aura. This erotomania is so impulsive that hysterical women frequently engage in a _liaison_, from a desire of adventure or of experiencing sudden emotions. The criminality of the hysterical is always connected with the sexual functions. Of twenty-one women found guilty of slander, nine made false accusations of rape, four accused their husbands of sexual violence, and one of sodomy. Such accusations, when made by minors, are generally full of disgusting details, which would be repugnant to any adult. _Mendacity._ Another peculiarity of hysterical women is the irresistible tendency to lie, which leads them to utter senseless falsehoods just for the pleasure of deceiving and making believe. They sham suicide and sickness or write anonymous letters full of inventions. Many, from motives of spite or vanity, accuse servants of dishonesty, in order to revel in their disgrace and imprisonment. The favourite calumny, however, is always an accusation of indecent behaviour, sometimes made against their fathers and brothers, but generally against a priest or medical man. The accusations, in most cases, are so strange and fantastic as to be quite unworthy of belief, but sometimes, unfortunately, they obtain credence. The commonest method adopted for spreading these calumnies is by means of anonymous letters. In one case, a young girl of twenty-five belonging to a distinguished family, pestered a respectable priest with love-letters and shortly afterwards accused him of seduction. Another girl of eighteen informed the Attorney for the State that she had frequently been the victim of immoral priests and accused one of her female cousins of complicity. According to her story, while praying at church, a certain Abbot R... took her into the sacristy and entreated her to elope with him to Spain. She refused indignantly, and hoping to soften her, he twice stabbed himself in her presence, whereat she fainted, and on recovering consciousness, found the priest at her feet, begging forgiveness. She further accused the same cousin of having taken her to a convent, where she was seduced by a priest, the nuns acting as accomplices. A subsequent medical examination proved that no seduction had taken place and that she was suffering from hysteria. In another case, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of an Italian general, complained to her father that a certain lieutenant, her neighbour at table, had used indecent language to her. Shortly afterwards, a shower of anonymous letters troubled the peace of the household--declarations of love addressed to the girl's mother and threats to the daughter. It was discovered that the girl herself was the writer of all these letters. Anonymous letter-writing is so common among hysterical persons, that it may be considered a pathognomonical characteristic. The handwriting is of a peculiar character, or rather it shows a peculiar tendency to vary from excessive size to extreme smallness, a characteristic we have noticed in epileptics. _Delirium._ Hysterical, like epileptic, subjects often suffer from melancholia or monomaniacal delirium. Indeed, according to Morel, this symptom is more frequent when the other morbid phenomena are absent. Psychic hysteria, like epilepsy, may exist unaccompanied by the characteristic hysterical attack, and then, as is the case with epilepsy, it is most dangerous to society. In conclusion, although up to the present, medical men have been disposed to consider hysteria as a disease distinct from epilepsy, careful study of this malady inclined my father to class it as a variation of epilepsy, prevalent among women, who in this disease, as in many others, manifest an attenuated form. CHAPTER IV _CRIMINALOIDS_ We have seen how, owing to disease, alcoholism and epilepsy, physically and psychically degenerate individuals make their appearance in a community of normal persons. But a large proportion of the crimes committed cannot be attributed to lunatics, epileptics, or the morally insane, nor do all criminals show that aggregate of atavistic and morbid characters,--the cruelty and bestial insensibility of the savage, the impulsiveness of the epileptic, the licentiousness, delusions, and impetuosity of the madman,--which we find united in the born criminal. According to statistics obtained by my father, the share contributed to the sum total of criminality by this latter type is only 33%, which appears to be a magic figure for the criminal, since it corresponds to the percentage of the histological anomaly discovered by Roncoroni and to that of all important anomalies, including those of the field of vision. But besides this percentage of born criminals, doomed even before birth to a career of crime, whom all educational efforts fail to redeem and who therefore should be segregated at once; besides the epileptic, hysterical, and inebriate lunatics and those insane from alcoholisation, of whom we have already spoken, there remain a number of criminals, amounting to a full half, in whom the virus is, so to speak, attenuated, who, although they are epileptoids, suffer from a milder form of the disease, so that without some adequate cause (_causa criminis_) criminality is not manifested. The inhibitory centres are somewhat obtuse, but not altogether absent, so that a healthy environment, careful training, habits of industry, the inculcation of moral and humane sentiments may prevent these individuals from yielding to dishonest impulses, provided always that no special temptation to sin comes in their path. We have said that education is not sufficient to convert a criminal into an honest man. Conversely, trials and difficulties and the want of education are powerless to make a criminal of an honest individual. Hypnotism, the most powerful means of suggestion possible, cannot induce a good man to commit a crime during the hypnotic sleep, but vicious training has an enormous influence on weak natures, who are candidates for good or evil according to circumstances. Such individuals were classified by my father as _criminaloids_. _Physical Characteristics._ Criminaloids have no special skeletal, anatomical, or functional peculiarities. As the criminaloid represents a milder type of the born criminal, he may possess the same physical defects in the skull, hair, beard, ears, eyes, teeth, lips, joints, hands, and feet, as well as all the sensory anomalies, lessened sensibility to touch and pain, hyper-sensibility to the magnet and barometrical variations, etc.; but all these anomalies are never found in the same proportion as in born criminals; that is, criminaloids never manifest the aggregate of physical and psychic peculiarities which distinguish born criminals and the morally insane. On the other hand, we find in criminaloids certain characteristics, such as premature greyness and baldness, etc., which are never exhibited by the born criminal. The real distinction between the criminaloid and the born criminal is psychological rather than physical. _Psychological Characteristics._ The difference between born criminals and criminaloids becomes apparent directly on considering the age at which the latter enter on their anti-social career and the motives which cause them to adopt it. While the born criminal begins to perpetrate crimes from the very cradle, so to speak, and always for very trivial motives, the criminaloid commits his initial offence later in life and always for some adequate reason. A criminal of this attenuated type, a certain Salvador, without cranial or facial anomalies, had led an honest life for many years, but on returning home after a prolonged absence on business, he found his house ransacked by his wife, who had deserted him. From that time he seems to have deliberately adopted a career of dishonesty, as the leader of a band of thieves. In another case, an engraver who showed no pathological anomalies, except excessive frontal sinuses, was ordered by a society to strike a medal for them. This happened to be exactly similar to a coin current in his country and the coincidence incited him to the making of counterfeit coin. But the most characteristic case, which aroused much interest in its time, is that of Olivo. He was a man of handsome appearance, with normal olfactory acuteness and sensibility to touch and pain. He had, however, inherited from neurotic and insane forebears secondary epileptic phenomena, which subsequently developed into convulsive epilepsy, and certain indications of degeneracy (facial and cranial asymmetry, abnormal capillary vortices and length of arm, scotoma in the field of vision and exaggerated tendinous reflex action). Up to the age of thirty he led an irreproachable life; in fact, he was scrupulous to excess, and this, coupled with pronounced conceit and stinginess, was his only fault. He married a woman of common origin, who was not really depraved, but she was coarse and unfaithful, and, worst of all in his eyes, unscrupulous and wasteful. These defects, and her habits of lying and trickery embittered the poor man's existence. One night, feeling very ill, probably owing to an approaching seizure, he appealed to his wife for assistance and received an unfeeling reply, whereupon he sprang out of bed, picked up a knife and stabbed her. Afterwards he fell into a deep sleep. In order to obliterate all traces of the crime, he cut the corpse into small pieces, packed it into a portmanteau and threw it into the sea. Two months later, when he was arrested, he immediately made a full confession, showing deep repentance and sincere attachment to his victim, whose merits he celebrated in a poem of his own composition. At the trial, he made no attempt to defend himself; during the hearing of evidence, which appeared greatly to agitate him, he was seized with an epileptic fit. He was absolved by the jury and returned to his former peaceful occupation of bookkeeper, nor did he again come into conflict with the law. _Reluctance to Commit Crimes._ Another trait characteristic of criminaloids is the hesitation they show before committing a crime, especially the first time, when it is not done, as in the above mentioned case, during an epileptic seizure. Feuerbach's fine collection contains a description of the brothers Kleinroth, whose father cruelly ill-treated and starved his wife and family while lavishing his money on low women and their bastards. The sons were unwilling to run away and leave the invalid mother to bear the brunt of her husband's fury, and while they were in this terrible situation, a certain individual offered to assassinate their tormentor. After great hesitation this offer was accepted; when arrested, the youths immediately confessed their complicity and manifested deep repentance. _Confession._ The criminaloid is easily induced to confess his misdeed. A certain C... on returning from abroad, found his former mistress married to his father. The pair resumed their liaison, but after a time, fearing a scandal, the woman threatened to drown herself unless her lover could find some means of adjusting matters on a satisfactory basis. C..., who disliked his father, poisoned him and disappeared with the widow taking with him a few valuables belonging to his father. A year later, the woman having died meanwhile, he returned home and made full confession, first to his sister and subsequently in court. _Moral Sense--Intelligence._ In the place of a weak, clouded, or unbalanced mind and that cynicism and absence of moral sense and natural feelings which distinguish born criminals of the most elevated type and even geniuses, criminaloids generally possess lucidity and balance of mind and may show themselves worthy of guiding the destinies of a nation. The men implicated in the French Panama Scandal and the case of the Banca Romana (Bank of Rome) are instances. When under a cloud of disgrace, instead of that insensibility, cynicism, or levity common to true criminals, they show deep sorrow, shame, and remorse, which not infrequently result in serious illness or death. Their natural affections and other sentiments are normal. It is notorious, too, that as soon as accusations were made against those implicated in the French Panama Scandal and the affair of the Bank of Rome, the greater number became ill and two died suddenly at the end of the trial. Unlike born criminals, criminaloids manifest deep repugnance towards common offenders. They demand solitary confinement and forego exercise, the only recreation prison life affords, in order to avoid all contact with their fellow-prisoners. _Social Position and Culture of the Criminaloid._ Criminaloids, as we have seen, are recruited from all ranks of society and strike every note in the scale of criminality, from petty larceny to complicated and premeditated murder, from minting spurious coins to compassing gigantic frauds, which inflict incalculable damage upon the community. The magnitude of a crime does not imply greater criminality on the part of its author, but rather that he is a man of brilliant endowments, whose culture and talents multiply his opportunities and means for evil. In all cases where opportunity plays an important part, the crime must necessarily be committed by individuals exposed to special temptations: cashiers who handle other people's money, which they may be tempted to spend with the illusory idea of being able later to replace what they have taken, officials and public men, who possess a certain amount of power and an apparent impunity, and bankers who are entrusted with wealth belonging to others, of which in that capacity they are accustomed to make use. Thus is explained why men of great talent and only slight criminal tendencies have taken part in gigantic frauds, such as the affairs of the Bank of Rome and the French Panama Canal. A characteristic case is that of Lord S----, First Lord of the Treasury, who committed forgeries to the extent of half a million sterling. "No torture," he writes, "would be an adequate punishment for my crime. Step by step, I have become the author of innumerable misdeeds and ruined more than ten thousand families. With less talent and greater uprightness, I might be now what I once was, an honest man. Now remorse is in vain." In Lord S---- we find united all the characteristics of the criminaloid: repentance, the desire to confess, irreproachable antecedents, a strong incentive to dishonesty, and great intelligence. Although the damage inflicted on society by this man was probably far greater than any evil wrought by a vulgar born criminal could have been, his criminality is nevertheless of an attenuated type. The mischief he wrought owed its gravity, not to the intensity of his criminal tendencies, but to his remarkable talents, which increased his power for evil as for good. In this category of criminals must be inscribed those clever swindlers, who set the whole world talking of their exploits: Madame Humbert, Lemoine, and the cobbler-captain of Köpenick. Sometimes, especially in political or commercial criminals, we find cases of an auto-illusion, of which the author of the crime is as much a victim as the public. Sometimes it is some device or mechanism which an inventor is convinced he has invented or is about to invent, an enterprise, in which the promoter imagines he will gain enormous wealth. Sometimes it is a trick in which the cupidity of the victims and their readiness to swallow promises of large and immediate profits play as important a part as the ability of the swindler. Sometimes it is a gigantic hoax, in which the deviser himself becomes keenly interested and for the carrying out of which he spends as much talent and energy as would suffice, if employed honestly, to acquire considerable wealth; but the swindler delights in his ingenious fraud as though he were taking part in some thrilling drama. A typical instance is that of a certain C... who was imprisoned about twenty years ago for defrauding a woman. My father undertook to cure him while in prison and was able to follow him in his subsequent career. This C... was a young man of good family, intelligent, honest, and a good linguist. His countenance was pleasing and bore no trace of precocious criminality. At the age of twenty he developed an unrestrained love of gambling and in order to indulge this vice, promised to marry a rich woman considerably older than himself, from whom he borrowed large sums, on the understanding that they should be paid back. However, shortly afterwards, he fell in love with a young girl and married her. His ex-fiancée brought legal action against him and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. During this time he shrank from seeing anybody and refused to exercise in order to avoid all contact with his fellow-prisoners. He showed great affection for his wife and declared his intention of turning over a new leaf. The offence he had committed, however seemed to cause him little or no regret, because, as he said, he would never have continued the deception had not his victim shown such willingness to be gulled. From prison he went to London, where lack of funds caused him to perpetrate another swindle, but this time he was able to escape to Naples. Here for twelve years, he worked honestly in a large hotel, but once again a pressing need of money made him engage in a third fraud of considerable importance, for which he is still undergoing imprisonment. HABITUAL CRIMINALS The degrading influence of prison life and contact with vulgar criminals, or the abuse of alcohol, to which better natures frequently have recourse in order to stifle the pangs of conscience, may cause criminaloids who have committed their initial offences with repugnance and hesitation, to develop later into habitual criminals,--that is, individuals who regard systematic violation of the law in the light of an ordinary trade or occupation and commit their offences with indifference. Physically, habitual criminals do not resemble born criminals, but they exhibit some of the characteristics of those offenders from whom their ranks are recruited, besides, in a more marked degree, certain acquired characters, like sinister wrinkles and a shifty and sneaking look. Psychologically, criminaloids tend to resemble born criminals, whose habits, tastes, slang, tattooing, orgies, idleness, etc., they gradually develop, in the same way as old couples, living isolated in the country, adopt identical habits, gestures, and tone of voice. The type of criminaloid, who develops into an habitual criminal is well illustrated by the case of Eyraud, who in conjunction with Gabrielle Bompard, murdered Gouffré and packed the corpse in a trunk. Through his marked weakness for women, Eyraud became successively a deserter, a thief, and a murderer. He certainly possessed a few of the characteristics peculiar to degenerates--long, projecting ears, excessive development, amounting to asymmetry, of the left frontal sinus, prognathism, exaggerated brachycephaly, and the span of the arms exceeding the total height, but he had not the general criminal type, his teeth were regular, beard abundant, and hair scanty. His psychology corresponds exactly to his physical individuality. During infancy and youth, he showed nothing abnormal, except an unusual predominance of the sexual instincts. He exhibited no signs of that love of evil for its own sake, so characteristic of criminals, above all, of murderers. According to all accounts, he was a jovial individual, fond of making merry, but at the same time, brusque and violent and easily roused to passionate fury. His extreme susceptibility to the attractions of the opposite sex made him regardless of all moral considerations. In order to gratify this weakness, he became a deserter, dissipated all the money he had earned in a distillery and as a dealer in skins, and finally committed murder. At his trial, it was shown that before his escape to America, he had attempted to kill a woman who refused to leave her husband for him. He became violently enamoured of his accomplice, Gabrielle Bompard, to whom, like many criminaloids, he was attracted by reason of her greater depravity. The extreme levity displayed by Eyraud seems to be the strongest link between him and the born criminal. He passed with extraordinary facility from gaiety to melancholy. His intellect was well developed, he spoke three or four languages, and was successful in most things he undertook, though he seems to have been incapable of remaining constant to anything for long. As a business man he wasted his capital, and even in the execution of his crimes he showed frivolity and incoherence. At Lyons, he hired a carriage, in which he placed the corpse of Gouffré and after driving about the streets with Gabrielle Bompard like a madman, left the body of his victim in a spot near which people were constantly passing. Eyraud appears to have been a dissolute criminaloid whose unbridled passions and connection with Gabrielle Bompard caused him to develop into an habitual criminal. This diagnosis is confirmed by the absence of morbid heredity. It would be futile to cite a long series of cases, in which, although the details may vary, we always find the same phenomenon, the gradual development of a criminaloid into a criminal. It will suffice to name a large class of criminals, in whom this phenomenon may often be observed--the brigands common to Spain and Italy. These outlaws, and particularly their leaders, notwithstanding the gravity of their offences, are seldom born criminals, nor do they (except in rare cases) begin their career at a very early age. They possess, moreover, good qualities[3] and are capable of affection, generosity, and chivalry, which explains why their memories are cherished by the common people long after good and law-abiding men have been forgotten. The brigand Mandrin, known as the "Smuggler General" is remembered with love and affection in Dauphiné and other regions of France, Switzerland, and Savoy; and this feeling is easy to understand, since he was the enemy of the "fermiers généraux," who, in the eighteenth century, leased from the French Government the right to levy excise duties, and sorely oppressed the people. Louis Mandrin, who in early life showed no signs of perversity nor possessed criminal traits, became a bandit, because he had been unjustly treated by these same "fermiers généraux" who refused him payment for work done. He became the chief of a small band of smugglers and spread terror among excise officers and gendarmes. He used to bring smuggled goods openly into the vicinity of villages and towns and invite the people to buy them, and the buying and selling went on without either gendarmes' or excise officers' daring to interfere. The Administration of the "fermiers généraux" promulgated a terrible edict against all purchasers of contraband goods; whereupon Mandrin, who was not without a sense of humour, declared he would force the Administration itself to buy the merchandise, and from time to time he would oblige the excise officers to buy smuggled wares at a fair price. =FIG. 18 CRIMINAL GIRL= =FIG. 19 THE BRIGAND SALOMONE= The brigand Gasparone (Fig. 20), whose memory is still held in great esteem by Sicilians, was an individual of much the same disposition. JURIDICAL CRIMINALS This category comprises individuals who break the law, not because of any natural depravity, nor owing to distressing circumstances, but by mere accident. They may be divided into two classes: First, the authors of accidental misdeeds, such as involuntary homicide or arson, who are not considered criminal by public opinion or by anthropologists, but who are obliged by the law to make compensation for the damage caused. Naturally, this class of law-breaker is in no way distinguishable, physically or psychically, from normal individuals, except that he is generally lacking in prudence, care, and forethought. Second, the authors of offences, which do not cause any damage socially, nor are they considered criminal by the general public, but have been deemed such by the law, in obedience to some dominating opinion or prejudice. Bad language, seditious writings, atheism, drunkenness, evasion of customs, and any violation of petty by-laws come under this head. Instances of such offences are too well known to need citation. They may best be summed up in the words of an American judge, who pointed out how easy it would be to sentence the most honest citizen of the Republic to imprisonment for a hundred years and fines exceeding a thousand dollars for breaking a number of petty local regulations against spitting, drinking, disrobing near a window, swearing, opening places of amusement on Sunday, or employing persons on certain days or under certain conditions prohibited by the law, etc. Although persons who commit these acts are often in no wise distinguishable from ordinary individuals, both criminals and criminaloids are more often guilty of such offences than are normal persons, who instinctively avoid coming into conflict with the law. The difficulty of judging these misdeeds lies in the necessity for careful weighing of the motive which gives rise to them, whether, that is, they have been unwittingly committed by an honest individual, or whether they are but an item in the long list of offences perpetrated by a criminal. This differential diagnosis should be based principally on the antecedents of the offender. To this group belong also the authors of more serious infractions of the law that are not generally considered such at the time, or in the district in which they take place. Misdeeds of this nature are: thefts of fuel in rural districts, poaching, the petty dishonesty current in commerce and in certain professions, and in countries where secret societies like the _camorra_ at Naples and the _mafia_ in Sicily, exist, a connection with such organisations, which to a certain extent is necessary in self-defence. Such, too, are theft and homicide during revolutions, insurrections, wars, and the conquest and exploitation of new territories and mines. Rochefort and Whitman have pointed out that during the gold-fever in Australia and California there was an enormous increase in crime. Individuals of good antecedents engaged in deadly struggles for the possession of the most valuable territories, and unbridled orgies followed these bloody affrays. During the expedition of Europeans to China in 1900, looting was carried on by soldiers of previously blameless career. CRIMINALS OF PASSION This type of criminal, if indeed such he may be called, represents the antithesis of the common offender, whose evil acts are the outcome of his ferocious and egotistical impulses, whereas criminals from passion are urged to violate the law by a pure spirit of altruism. In fact, they stand in no relation whatsoever to ordinary delinquents, and it is only by a legislative compromise that they are classed together. They represent the ultra-violet ray of the criminal spectrum, of which the vulgar criminal represents the ultra-red. Not only are they free from the egotism, insensibility, laziness, and lack of moral sense peculiar to the ordinary criminal, but their abnormality consists in the excessive development of noble qualities, sensibility, altruism, integrity, affection, which if carried to an extreme, may result in actions forbidden by law, or worse still, dangerous to society. _Physical Characteristics._ These, too, are in complete contrast to those of the born criminal. The countenance is frequently handsome, with lofty forehead, serene and gentle expression, and the beard is abundant. The sensibility is extremely acute; there is a high degree of excitability and exaggerated reflex action, all characteristics of the normal (or rather hypernormal) individual, from whom nothing distinguishes the criminal of passion except the anti-social effects of his action. _Psychology._ Here, as in all physical characteristics, criminals of passion are scarcely distinguishable from their fellow-men, except that we find in an excessive degree those qualities we consider peculiar to good and holy persons--love, honour, noble ambitions, patriotism. In fact, the motive of the crime is always adequate, frequently noble, and sometimes sublime. Love prompts certain natures to kill those who insult their beloved ones or are the cause of their dishonour and, in some cases, even the object of their affection who proves unfaithful. Crimes of this character are the murder by brothers of the man who dishonours their sister, the murder of an infant by its unmarried mother, the murder of an unfaithful wife by her husband. Sometimes the motive is a patriotic one, as in the cases of Charlotte Corday, Orsini Sand, and Caserio (Fig. 21) all of whom had been persons of gentle disposition and blameless conduct up to the moment of their crimes. This class of offender not infrequently commits suicide after his crime, or, if this is prevented, he seeks to expiate it by long years of remorse and self-inflicted martyrdom. The deed is almost always unpremeditated and committed publicly, without accomplices and with the simplest means at hand--be they nails, teeth, scissors, or a stick. The previous career is always blameless. Cumano, Verano, Guglielmotti, Harry, Curti, Milani, Brenner, Mari, Zucca, Bechis, Bouley, Tacco, Berruto and Sand, and Camicia, Vinci, and Leoni (these last three women), all attacked their victims single-handed and in public. In the case of Chalanton, the woman he had rescued by marriage from a low life, not content with betraying her benefactor, covered him in public with abuse and persecuted him with anonymous accusations. His demand for a separation was unsuccessful and at last, finding himself, in spite of his integrity, involved in a scandalous action, in which his wife figured as a go-between, and tormented by public curiosity and the implacable questionings of reporters, he murdered the cause of all his misfortunes. Another murderer, Del Prete, was prompted to kill his victim, an old woman with a reputation for witchcraft, because he believed she had caused the illness of his mother, to whom he was greatly attached. The motive for the crime is generally a serious one and in most cases immediately precedes it. Bouley committed his crime only a few hours after receiving the news which prompted it; Bounin, Bechis, and Verano, only a few minutes; Milani, twenty-four hours, Zucca eight hours; Curti, a few days. Thus the crime is seldom premeditated, or if so, for only a short space of time, never for months or years. =FIG. 21 BRIGAND CASERIO (see page 119)= Homicide forms 91% of the criminality of this group of offenders. There is a certain proportion also of infanticide, owing to the prevailing prejudice which condemns immorality more harshly when the results are evident. Arson and theft form only 2%. Such cases are however possible. A young girl, whom my father had under observation in prison, seeing her family in dire poverty, committed arson in order to get the insurance money. In another case a woman of refinement, education, and of gentle disposition, who had fallen from prosperity into extreme want, stole in order to pay her son's school-fees. When arrested, she refused to give her name so that the lad should not be dishonoured, and her identity might never have been discovered had she not been recognised by a lawyer in court. She died of a broken heart a few days after her trial. PART II CRIME, ITS ORIGIN, CAUSE, AND CURE CHAPTER I _ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF CRIME_ In order to determine the origin of actions which we call criminal, we shall be forced to hark back to a very remote period in the history of the human race. In all the epochs of which records exist, we find traces of criminal actions. In fact, if we study minutely the customs of savage peoples, past and present, we find that many acts that are now considered criminal by civilised nations were legitimate in former times, and are to-day reputed such among primitive races. According to Pictet the Latin word _crimen_ is derived from the Sanscrit _karman_, which signifies action corresponding to _kri_ to do. This is contradicted by Vanicek who derives it from _kru_, to hear, _croemen_ (accusation). At any rate, the Sanscrit word _apaz_, which means sin, corresponds to _apas_, work (_opus_), the Latin _facinus_ derives from _facere_, and _culpa_ according to Pictet and Pott, from the Sanscrit _kalp_, to do or execute. The Latin word _fur_ (thief) which Vanicek derives from _bahr_, to carry, the Hebrew _ganav_ and the Sanscrit _sten_ only signify to put aside, to hide, to cover (_gonav_). The Greek word _peirao_ from which pirate is derived, signifies to risk; the Greek _chleptein_ to hide or steal, is derived from the Sanscrit _harp-hlap_ to hide and steal (Vanicek). In India, from Ceylon to the Himalayas, infanticide is sanctified by religion, not only among the more barbarous races, but also among the Rajputs, the nobles, who think themselves dishonoured if one of their daughters remains unmarried. The inhabitants of the Island of Tikopia, kill more male children than female, a fact that accounts for their practice of polygamy. Marco Polo speaks of the infanticide practised in Japan and China, which was then, as it is now, a means of regulating the population. The same practice--common to Bushmen, Hottentots, Fijians, also existed among the natives of Hawaii and America. In the Island of Tahiti, according to the testimony of missionaries, two thirds of the children born are destroyed by their parents. "Amongst the Guaranys," says D'Azara, "mothers kill a large proportion of their female infants, in order that the survivors may be more highly valued." (_Travels in America_, 1835.) The Carthaginians had originally the custom of offering the noblest and most beautiful children to Kronos (Moloch), but later victims were always bought and bred for the purpose. After their defeat at the hand of Agathokles they sacrificed two hundred children belonging to the noblest Carthaginian families, in order to appease the Divine wrath. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cretans, Cypriotes, Rhodians, and Persians had similar practices. Among the Lydians, the sacred courtesans were so numerous and wealthy that their contributions to the Mausoleum of Alyattes exceeded those of the artists and merchants combined (Herodotus, Book I.); in Armenia (Strabo XII.) the priestesses alone were permitted to practise polyandry, and in Media, a woman boasting of five husbands was greatly honoured, which shows that polyandry was not only allowed, but esteemed. In Thibet, the eldest male of a family shares his wife with his brothers, the whole family live in the bride's house and the children inherit from her. Among the _Todas_, the wife espouses all her husband's younger brothers as they attain their majority, and they in their turn become the husbands of her younger sisters (Short). Among the _Nairs_, a noble negro caste of Malabar, it is customary for one woman to have five or six husbands, the maximum number allowed being ten. In Egypt, the business of thief was a recognised one. Those who wished to exercise this calling inscribed their names on a public tablet, collected all the stolen goods in one spot and restored them to their owners in exchange for a certain coin. The ancient Germans encouraged the youthful portion of the population to make raids on the property of neighbouring peoples, so that they should not develop habits of idleness. Thucydides states that the Greeks, as well as the barbarous peoples inhabiting the islands and along the coasts, were pirates, and the calling was a noble one. Amongst Spartans, as is well known, theft was allowed, but the unlucky marauder who was caught in the act, was punished, not for the deed itself, but for his want of skill. In East Africa, according to Burton (_First Footsteps in East Africa_, p. 176), robbery is considered honourable. In Caramanza (Portuguese Guinea) in Africa, side by side with the peaceful rice-cultivating Bagnous dwell the Balantes who subsist upon the chase and the spoils of their raids. While they kill the individual who presumes to steal in his native village, they encourage depredations upon the other tribes (_Revue d' Anthropologie_, 1874). The cleverest thieves are greatly esteemed, are paid for instructing boys in their profession, and are chosen to lead the expeditions. In India the tribe Zakka Khel is devoted to this dishonest calling, and at birth every male child is consecrated to thievish practices by a peculiar ceremony, in which the new-born infant is passed through a breach in the wall of his father's house, whilst the words "Become a thief" are chanted three times in chorus. Amongst the ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, thefts perpetrated outside the boundary of the tribe itself were by no means infamous. In the midst of a great assembly, the chief called upon those he wished to follow him; they showed their willingness by rising to their feet amid the applause of the crowd. Those who refused to take part were looked upon as deserters and traitors (Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, 1895). Among the Comanches (Mülhausen, _Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific_) no man was considered worthy of being numbered among the warriors of the tribe, unless he had taken part in some successful pillaging expedition. The cleverest thieves were the most respected members of the tribe. No Patagonian is deemed worthy of a wife unless he has graduated in the art of despoiling a stranger (Snow, _Two Years' Cruise round Tierra del Fuego_). Among the Kukis (Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_) skill in stealing is the most esteemed talent. In Mongolia (Gilmour, _Among the Mongols_), thieves are regarded as respectable members of the community, provided they steal cleverly and escape detection. CRIMINALITY IN CHILDREN The criminal instincts common to primitive savages would be found proportionally in nearly all children, if they were not influenced by moral training and example. This does not mean that without educative restraints, all children would develop into criminals. According to the observations made by Prof. Mario Carrara at Cagliari, the bands of neglected children who run wild in the streets of the Sardinian capital and are addicted to thievish practices and more serious vices, spontaneously correct themselves of these habits as soon as they have arrived at puberty. This fact, that the germs of moral insanity and criminality are found normally in mankind in the first stages of his existence, in the same way as forms considered monstrous when exhibited by adults, frequently exist in the foetus, is such a simple and common phenomenon that it eluded notice until it was demonstrated clearly by observers like Moreau, Perez, and Bain. The child, like certain adults, whose abnormality consists in a lack of moral sense, represents what is known to alienists as a morally insane being and to criminologists as a born criminal, and it certainly resembles these types in its impetuous violence. Perez (_Psychologie de l'enfant_, 2d ed., 1882) remarks on the frequency and precocity of anger in children: "During the first two months, it manifests by movements of the eyebrows and hands undoubted fits of temper when undergoing any distasteful process, such as washing or when deprived of any object it takes a fancy to. At the age of one, it goes to the length of striking those who incur its displeasure, of breaking plates or throwing them at persons it dislikes, exactly like savages." Moreau (_De l'Homicide chez les enfants_, 1882) cites numerous cases of children who fly into a passion if their wishes are not complied with immediately. In one instance observed by him a very intelligent child of eight, when reproved, even in the mildest manner by his parents or strangers, would give way to violent anger, snatching up the nearest weapon, or if he found himself unable to take revenge, would break anything he could lay his hands on. A baby girl showed an extremely violent temper, but became of gentle disposition after she had reached the age of two (Perez). Another, observed by the same author, when only eleven months old, flew into a towering rage, because she was unable to pull off her grandfather's nose. Yet another, at the age of two, tried to bite another child who had a doll like her own, and she was so much affected by her anger that she was ill for three days afterwards. Nino Bixio, when a boy of seven (_Vita_, Guerzoni, 1880) on seeing his teacher laugh because he had written his exercise on office letter-paper, threw the inkstand at the man's face. This boy was literally the terror of the school, on account of the violence he displayed at the slightest offence. Infants of seven or eight months have been known to scratch at any attempt to withdraw the breast from them, and to retaliate when slapped. A backward and slightly hydrocephalous boy whom my father had under observation, began at the age of six to show violent irritation at the slightest reproof or correction. If he was able to strike the person who had annoyed him, his rage cooled immediately; if not, he would scream incessantly and bite his hands with gestures similar to those often witnessed in caged bears who have been teased and cannot retaliate. The above cases show that the desire for revenge is extremely common and precocious in children. Anger is an elementary instinct innate in human beings. It should be guided and restrained, but can never be extirpated. Children are quite devoid of moral sense during the first months or first years of their existence. Good and evil in their estimation are what is allowed and what is forbidden by their elders, but they are incapable of judging independently of the moral value of an action. "Lying and disobedience are very wrong," said a boy to Perez, "because they displease mother." Everything he was accustomed to was right and necessary. A child does not grasp abstract ideas of justice, or the rights of property, until he has been deprived of some possession. He is prone to detest injustice, especially when he is the victim. Injustice, in his estimation, is the discord between a habitual mode of treatment and an accidental one. When subjected to altered conditions, he shows complete uncertainty. A child placed under Perez's care modified his ways according to each new arrival. He began ordering his companions about and refused to obey any one but Perez. Affection is very slightly developed in children. Their fancy is easily caught by a pleasing exterior or by anything that contributes to their amusement; like domestic animals that they enjoy teasing and pulling about, and they exhibit great antipathy to unfamiliar objects that inspire them with fear. Up to the age of seven or even after, they show very little real attachment to anybody. Even their mothers, whom they appear to love, are speedily forgotten after a short separation. In conclusion, children manifest a great many of the impulses we have observed in criminals; anger, a spirit of revenge, idleness, volubility and lack of affection. We have also pointed out that many actions considered criminal in civilised communities, are normal and legitimate practices among primitive races. It is evident, therefore, that such actions are natural to the early stages, both of social evolution and individual psychic development. In view of these facts, it is not strange that civilised communities should produce a certain percentage of adults who commit actions reputed injurious to society and punishable by law. It is only an atavistic phenomenon, the return to a former state. In the criminal, moreover, the phenomenon is accompanied by others also natural to a primitive stage of evolution. These have already been referred to in the first chapter, which contains a description of many strange practices common to delinquents, and evidently of primitive origin--tattooing, cruel games, love of orgies, a peculiar slang resembling in certain features the languages of primitive peoples, and the use of hieroglyphics and pictography. =FIG. 22 TERRA-COTTA BOWLS Designed by a Criminal (see page 135)= The artistic manifestations of the criminal show the same characteristics. In spite of the thousands of years which separate him from prehistoric savages, his art is a faithful reproduction of the first, crude artistic attempts of primitive races. The museum of criminal anthropology created by my father contains numerous specimens of criminal art, stones shaped to resemble human figures, like those found in Australia, rude pottery covered with designs that recall Egyptian decorations (Fig. 22) or scenes fashioned in terra-cotta (Fig. 23) that resemble the grotesque creations of children or savages. The criminal is an atavistic being, a relic of a vanished race. This is by no means an uncommon occurrence in nature. Atavism, the reversion to a former state, is the first feeble indication of the reaction opposed by nature to the perturbing causes which seek to alter her delicate mechanism. Under certain unfavourable conditions, cold or poor soil, the common oak will develop characteristics of the oak of the Quaternary period. The dog left to run wild in the forest will in a few generations revert to the type of his original wolf-like progenitor, and the cultivated garden roses when neglected show a tendency to reassume the form of the original dog-rose. Under special conditions produced by alcohol, chloroform, heat, or injuries, ants, dogs, and pigeons become irritable and savage like their wild ancestors. This tendency to alter under special conditions is common to human beings, in whom hunger, syphilis, trauma, and, still more frequently, morbid conditions inherited from insane, criminal, or diseased progenitors, or the abuse of nerve poisons, such as alcohol, tobacco, or morphine, cause various alterations, of which criminality--that is, a return to the characteristics peculiar to primitive savages--is in reality the least serious, because it represents a less advanced stage than other forms of cerebral alteration. The ætiology of crime, therefore, mingles with that of all kinds of degeneration: rickets, deafness, monstrosity, hairiness, and cretinism, of which crime is only a variation. It has, however, always been regarded as a thing apart, owing to a general instinctive repugnance to admit that a phenomenon, whose extrinsications are so extensive and penetrate every fibre of social life, derives, in fact, from the same causes as socially insignificant forms like rickets, sterility, etc. But this repugnance is really only a sensory illusion, like many others of widely diverse nature. =FIG. 23 ART PRODUCTION FROM PRISON (see page 135)= =FIG. 24 A COMBAT BETWEEN BRIGANDS AND GENDARMES Designed by a Criminal (see page 135)= _Pathological Origin of Crime._ The atavistic origin of crime is certainly one of the most important discoveries of criminal anthropology, but it is important only theoretically, since it merely explains the phenomenon. Anthropologists soon realised how necessary it was to supplement this discovery by that of the origin, or causes which call forth in certain individuals these atavistic or criminal instincts, for it is the immediate causes that constitute the practical nucleus of the problem and it is their removal that renders possible the cure of the disease. These causes are divided into organic and external factors of crime: the former remote and deeply rooted, the latter momentary but frequently determining the criminal act, and both closely related and fused together. Heredity is the principal organic cause of criminal tendencies. It may be divided into two classes: indirect heredity from a generically degenerate family with frequent cases of insanity, deafness, syphilis, epilepsy, and alcoholism among its members; direct heredity from criminal parentage. _Indirect Heredity._ Almost all forms of chronic, constitutional diseases, especially those of a nervous character: chorea, sciatica, hysteria, insanity, and above all, epilepsy, may give rise to criminality in the descendants. Of 559 soldiers convicted of offences, examined by Brancaleone Ribaudo, 10% had epileptic parents. According to Dejerine, this figure reaches 74.6% among criminal epileptics. Arthritis and gout have been known to generate criminality in the descendants. But the most serious, and at the same time most common, form of indirect heredity is alcoholism, which, contrary to general belief, wreaks destruction in all classes of society, amongst the rich and poor without distinction of sex, for alcohol may insinuate itself everywhere under the most refined and pleasant disguises, in liqueurs, sweets, and coffee. According to calculations made by my father, 20% of Italian criminals descend from inebriate families; according to Penta the percentage is 27 and in dangerous criminals, 33%. The Jukes family, of whom we shall speak later, descended from a drunkard. The first salient characteristic in hereditary alcoholism is the precocious taste for intoxicants; secondly, the susceptibility to alcohol, which is infinitely more injurious to the offspring of inebriates than to normal individuals; and thirdly, the growth of the craving for strong drinks, which inevitably undermine the constitution. _Direct Heredity._ The effects of direct heredity are still more serious, for they are aggravated by environment and education. Official statistics show that 20% of juvenile offenders belong to families of doubtful reputation and 26% to those whose reputation is thoroughly bad. The criminal Galletto, a native of Marseilles, was the nephew of the equally ferocious anthropophagous violator of women, Orsolano. Dumollar was the son of a murderer; Patetot's grandfather and great-grandfather were in prison, as were the grandfathers and fathers of Papa, Crocco, Serravalle and Cavallante, Comptois and Lempave; the parents of the celebrated female thief Sans Refus, were both thieves. The genealogical study of certain families has shown that there are whole generations, almost all the members of which belong to the ranks of crime, insanity, and prostitution (this last being amongst women the equivalent of criminality amongst men). A striking example is furnished by the notorious Jukes family, with 77 criminal descendants. Ancestor, Max Jukes: 77 criminals; 142 vagabonds; 120 prostitutes; 18 keepers of houses of ill-fame; 91 illegitimates; 141 idiots or afflicted with impotency or syphilis; 46 sterile females. A like criminal contingent may be found in the pedigrees of Chrêtien, the Lemaires, the Fieschi family, etc. _Race._ This is of great importance in view of the atavistic origin of crime. There exist whole tribes and races more or less given to crime, such as the tribe Zakka Khel in India. In all regions of Italy, whole villages constitute hot-beds of crime, owing, no doubt, to ethnical causes: Artena in the province of Rome, Carde and San Giorgio Canavese in Piedmont, Pergola in Tuscany, San Severo in Apulia, San Mauro and Nicosia in Sicily. The frequency of homicide in Calabria, Sicily, and Sardinia is fundamentally due to African and Oriental elements. In the gipsies we have an entire race of criminals with all the passions and vices common to delinquent types: idleness, ignorance, impetuous fury, vanity, love of orgies, and ferocity. Murder is often committed for some trifling gain. The women are skilled thieves and train their children in dishonest practices. On the contrary, the percentage of crimes among Jews is always lower than that of the surrounding population; although there is a prevalence of certain specific forms of offences, often hereditary, such as fraud, forgery, libel, and chief of all, traffic in prostitution; murder is extremely rare. ILLNESSES, INTOXICATIONS, TRAUMATISM These causes, although apparently as important as heredity, are in fact, decidedly less so. Both disease and trauma may intensify or call forth latent perversity, but they are less frequently the cause of it. There are, however, certain cases in which traumatism meningitis, typhus, or other diseases that affect the brain have undoubtedly evoked criminal tendencies in individuals hitherto normal. Twenty out of 290 criminals studied by my father with minute care had suffered from injury to the head in childhood; and recently a case came under his notice in which a youth of good family and excellent character received an injury to his head at the age of fourteen and became epileptic, developing subsequently into a gambler, thief, and murderer. Such cases, however, are not very common. There is one disease that without other causes--either inherited degeneracy or vices resulting from a bad education and environment--is capable of transforming a healthy individual into a vicious, hopelessly evil being. That disease is alcoholism, which has been discussed in a previous chapter, but to which I must refer briefly again, because it is such an important factor of criminality. Temporary drunkenness alone will give rise to crime, since it inflames the passions, obscures the mental and moral faculties, and destroys all sense of decency, causing men to commit offences in a state of automatism or a species of somnambulism. Sometimes drunkenness produces kleptomania. A slight excess in drinking will cause men of absolute honesty to appropriate any objects they can lay their hands upon. When the effects of drink have worn off, they feel shame and remorse and hasten to restore the stolen goods. Alcohol, however, more often causes violence. An officer known to my father, when drunk, twice attempted to run his sword through his friends and his own attendant. Among Oriental sects of murderers, as is well known, homicidal fury was excited and maintained by a drink brewed for the purpose from hemp-seed. Büchner shows that dishonest instincts can be developed in bees by a special food consisting of honey mixed with brandy. The insects acquire a taste for this drink in the same way as human beings do, and under its influence cease to work. Ants show similar symptoms after narcosis by means of chloroform. Their bodies remain motionless, with the exception of their heads, with which they snap at all who approach them. The above cited cases show that there exists a species of alcoholic psychic epilepsy, similar to congenital epilepsy, in which after alcoholic poisoning, the individual is incited to raise his hand against himself or others without any due cause. But besides the crimes of violence committed during a drunken fit, the prolonged abuse of alcohol, opium, morphia, coca, and other nervines may give rise to chronic perturbation of the mind, and without other causes, congenital or educative, will transform an honest, well-bred, and industrious man into an idle, violent, and apathetic fellow,--into an ignoble being, capable of any depraved action, even when he is not directly under the influence of the drug. When we were children, a frequent visitor at our house was a certain Belm... (see Fig. 16, Chap. III.), a very intelligent man and an accomplished linguist. He was a military officer, but later took to journalism, and his writings were distinguished by vivacious style and elevation of thought. He married and had several children, but at the age of thirty some trouble caused him to take to drink. His character soon underwent a complete change. Although formerly a proud man, he was not ashamed to pester all his friends for money and to let his family sink into the direst poverty. SOCIAL CAUSES OF CRIME _Education._ We now come to the second series of criminal factors, those which depend, not on the organism, but on external conditions. We have already stated that the best and most careful education, moral and intellectual, is powerless to effect an improvement in the morally insane, but that in other cases, education, environment, and example are extremely important, for which reason neglected and destitute children are easily initiated into evil practices. At Naples, "Esposito" (foundling) is a common name amongst prisoners, as is at Bologna and in Lombardy the name "Colombo," which signifies the same thing. In Prussia, illegitimate males form 6% of offenders, illegitimate females 1.8%; in Austria, 10 and 2% respectively. The percentage is considerably larger amongst juvenile criminals, prostitutes, and recidivists. In France, in 1864, 65% of the minors arrested were bastards or orphans, and at Hamburg 30% of the prostitutes are illegitimate. In Italy, 30% of recidivists are natural children and foundlings. This depends largely on hereditary influences, which are generally bad, but still more on the difficulty of finding a means of subsistence, owing to the state of neglect in which these wretched beings exist, even when herded together in charity schools and orphanages--both of which are even more anti-hygienic morally, than they are physically. A depraved environment, which counsels or even insists on wrong-doing, and the bad example of parents or relatives, exercise a still more sinister influence on children than desertion. The criminal family Cornu, finding one of their children, a little girl, strongly averse to their evil ways, forced her to carry the head of one of their victims in her pinafore for a couple of miles, after which she became one of the most ferocious of the band. _Meteoric Causes_ are frequently the determining factor of the ultimate impulsive act, which converts the latent criminal into an effective one. Excessively high temperature and rapid barometric changes, while predisposing epileptics to convulsive seizures and the insane to uneasiness, restlessness, and noisy outbreaks, encourage quarrels, brawls, and stabbing affrays. To the same reason may be ascribed the prevalence during the hot months, of rape, homicide, insurrections, and revolts. In comparing statistics of criminality in France with those of the variations in temperature, Ferri noted an increase in crimes of violence during the warmer years. An examination of European and American statistics shows that the number of homicides decreases as we pass from hot to cooler climates. Holzendorf calculates that the number of murders committed in the Southern States of North America is fifteen times greater than those committed in the Northern States. A low temperature, on the contrary, has the effect of increasing the number of crimes against property, due to increased need, and both in Italy and America the proportion of thefts increases the farther north we go. _Density of Population._ The agglomeration of persons in a large town is a certain incentive to crimes against property. Robbery, frauds, and criminal associations increase, while there is a decrease in crimes against the person, due to the restraints imposed by mutual supervision. "He who has studied mankind, or, better still, himself [writes my father], must have remarked how often an individual, who is respectable and self-controlled in the bosom of his family, becomes indecent and even immoral when he finds himself in the company of a number of his fellows, to whatever class they may belong. The primitive instincts of theft, homicide, and lust, the germs of which lie dormant in each individual as long as he is alone, particularly if kept in check by sound moral training, awaken and develop suddenly into gigantic proportions when he comes into contact with others, the increase being greater in those who already possess such criminal tendencies in a marked degree." In all large cities, low lodging-houses form the favourite haunts of crime. _Imitation._ The detailed accounts of crimes circulated in large towns by newspapers, have an extremely pernicious influence, because example is a powerful agent for evil as well as for good. At Marseilles in 1868 and 1872, the newspaper reports of a case of child desertion provoked a perfect epidemic of such cases, amounting in one instance to eight in one day. Before Corridori murdered the Head-master of his boarding-school, he is said to have declared: "There will be a repetition of what happened to the Head-master at Catanzaro" (who had been murdered in the same way). The anarchist Lucchesi killed Banti at Leghorn shortly after the murder of Carnot by Caserio, and in a similar manner. Certain forms of crime which become common at given periods, the throwing of bombs, the cutting up of the bodies of murdered persons, particularly those of women, and frauds of a peculiar type may certainly be attributed to imitation, as may also the violence committed by mobs, in whom cruelty takes the form of an epidemic affecting even individuals of mild disposition. _Immigration._ The agglomeration of population produced by immigration is a strong incentive to crime, especially that of an associated nature,--due to increased want, lessened supervision and the consequent ease with which offenders avoid detection. In New York the largest contingent of criminality is furnished by the immigrant population. The fact of agglomeration explains the greater frequency of homicide in France in thickly populated districts. The criminality of immigrant populations increases in direct ratio to its instability. This applies to the migratory population in the interior of a country, specially that which has no fixed destination, as peddlers, etc. Even those immigrants whom we should naturally assume to be of good disposition--religious pilgrims--commit a remarkable number of associated crimes. The Italian word _mariuolo_ which signifies "rogue" owes its origin to the behaviour of certain pilgrims to the shrines of Loreto and Assisi, who, while crying _Viva Maria!_ ("Hail to the Virgin Mary!") committed the most atrocious crimes, confident that the pilgrimage itself would serve as a means of expiation. In his _Reminiscences_ Massimo d' Azeglio notes that places boasting of celebrated shrines always enjoy a bad reputation. _Prison Life._ The density of population in the most criminal of cities has not such a bad influence as has detention in prisons, which may well be called "Criminal Universities." Nearly all the leaders of malefactors: Maino, Lombardo, La Gala, Lacenaire, Soufflard, and Hardouin were escaped convicts, who chose their accomplices among those of their fellow-prisoners who had shown audacity and ferocity. In fact, in prison, criminals have an opportunity of becoming acquainted with each other, of instructing those less skilled in infamy, and of banding together for evil purposes. Even the expensive cellular system, from which so many advantages were expected, has not attained its object and does not prevent communication between prisoners. Moreover, in prison, mere children of seven or eight, imprisoned for stealing a bunch of grapes or a fowl, come into close contact with adults and become initiated into evil practices, of which these poor little victims of stupid laws were previously quite ignorant. _Education._ Contrary to general belief, the influence of education on crime is very slight. The number of illiterates arrested in Europe is less, proportionally, than that of educated individuals. Nevertheless, although a certain degree of instruction is often an aid to crime, its extension acts as a corrective, or at least tends to mitigate the nature of crimes committed, rendering them less ferocious, and to decrease crimes of violence, while increasing fraudulent and sexual offences. _Professions._ The trades and professions which encourage inebriety in those who follow them (cooks, confectioners, and inn-keepers), those which bring the poor (servants of all kinds, especially footmen, coachmen, and chauffeurs) into contact with wealth, or which provide means for committing crimes (bricklayers, blacksmiths, etc.) furnish a remarkable share of criminality. Still more so is this the case with the professions of notary, usher of the courts, attorneys, and military men. It should be observed, however, that the characteristic idleness of criminals makes them disinclined to adopt any profession, and when they do, their extreme fickleness prompts them to change continually. _Economic Conditions._ Poverty is often a direct incentive to theft, when the miserable victims of economic conditions find themselves and their families face to face with starvation, and it acts further indirectly through certain diseases: pellagra, alcoholism, scrofula, and scurvy, which are the outcome of misery and produce criminal degeneration; its influence has nevertheless often been exaggerated. If thieves are generally penniless, it is because of their extreme idleness and astonishing extravagance, which makes them run through huge sums with the greatest ease, not because poverty has driven them to theft. On the other hand the possession of wealth is frequently an incentive to crime, because it creates an ever-increasing appetite for riches, besides furnishing those occupying high public offices or important positions in the banking and commercial world with numerous opportunities for dishonesty and persuading them that money will cover any evil deed. _Sex._ Statistics of every country show that women contribute a very small share of criminality compared with that furnished by the opposite sex. This share becomes still smaller when we eliminate infanticide, in view of the fact that the guilty parties in nearly all such cases should be classed as criminals from passion. In Austria, crimes committed by females barely constitute 15% of the total criminality; in Spain 11%; and in Italy 8.2%. However, this applies only to serious crimes. For those of lesser gravity, statistics are at variance with the results obtained by the Modern School, which classes prostitutes as criminals. According to this mode of calculation, the difference between the criminality of the two sexes shows a considerable diminution, resulting perhaps in a slight prevalence of crime in women. In any case, female criminality tends to increase proportionally with the increase of civilisation and to equal that of men. _Age._ The greater number of crimes are committed between the ages of 15 and 30, whereas, outbreaks of insanity between these ages are extremely rare, the maximum number occurring between 40 and 50. On the whole, criminality is far more precocious than mental alienation, and its precocity, which is greater among thieves than among murderers, swindlers, and those guilty of violence and assault is another proof of the congenital nature of crime and its atavistic origin, since precocity is a characteristic of savage races. Seldom do we find among born criminals any indication of that so-called criminal scale, leading by degrees from petty offences to crimes of the most serious nature. As a general rule, they commence their career with just those crimes which distinguish it throughout, even when these are of the gravest kind, like robbery and murder. Rather may it be said that every age has its specific criminality, and this is the case especially with criminaloids. On the borderland between childhood and adolescence, there seems to be a kind of instinctive tendency to law-breaking, which by immature minds is often held to be a sign of virility. The Italian novelist and poet Manzoni describes this idea very well in his _Promessi Sposi_, when speaking of the half-witted lad Gervaso, who "because he had taken part in a plot savouring of crime, felt that he had suddenly become a man." This idea lurks in the slang word _omerta_ used by Italian criminals, which signifies not only to be a man but a man daring enough to break the law. CHAPTER II _THE PREVENTION OF CRIME_ The curability of crime is an entirely novel idea, due to the Modern Penal School. As long as, in the eyes of the world, the criminal was a normal individual, who voluntarily and consciously violated the laws, there could be no thought of a cure, but rather of a punishment sufficiently severe to prevent his recidivation and to inspire others with a salutary fear of offending the law. The penalties excogitated in past centuries were varied: flogging, hard labour, imprisonment, and exile. During the last century they have been crystallised in the form of imprisonment, as being the most humane, although in reality it is the most illogical form, since it serves neither to intimidate the offender nor to reform him. In fact, although prison with its forced separation from home and family is a terrible penalty for those honest persons, who sometimes suffer with the guilty, it is a haven of rest for ordinary criminals, or at the worst, in no wise inferior to their usual haunts. There is a certain amount of privation of air, light, and food, but these disadvantages are fully counterbalanced by the enjoyment of complete leisure and the company of men of their own stamp. If imprisonment does not serve to intimidate instinctive criminals, still less is it a means of rehabilitation. In virtue of what law, should any man, even if he be normal, become reformed after a varying period of detention in a gloomy cell, where he is isolated from the better elements of society and deprived of every elevating influence--art, science, and high ideals; where he loses regular habits of work, the disciplining struggle with circumstances, and the sense of responsibility natural to free citizens and is tainted by constant contact with the worst types of humanity? The autobiographies of criminals show us that far from reforming evil-doers, prison is in reality a criminal university which houses all grades of offenders during varying periods; that far from being a means of redemption, it is a hot-bed of depravity, where are prepared and developed the germs which are later to infect society, yet it is to this incubator of crime that society looks for defence against those very elements of lawlessness which it is actively fostering. In his book _Prison Palimpsests_ my father has made a collection of all the inscriptions, drawings, and allegories scratched or written by criminals while in prison, on walls, utensils, and books. Of lamentations, despair, and repentance, scarcely a trace, but innumerable imprecations, plans of revenge against enemies without, project of future burglaries and murders, and advice for the sound instruction of criminals. Although the Modern School has demonstrated the uselessness, nay the injuriousness of prison, it has no desire to leave society suddenly unprotected and the criminal at large. Nature does not proceed by leaps, and the Modern School aims at effecting a revolution, not a revolt, in Penal Jurisprudence. It proposes, therefore, the gradual transformation of the present system, which is to be rendered as little injurious and as beneficial as possible. Such has been the course pursued by the modern science of medicine, which from the original absurd remedies and equally absurd empirical operations, has now succeeded in placing the cure of diseases on the more solid basis of experience. The Modern School aims at preventing the formation of criminals, not punishing them, or, failing prevention, at effecting their cure; and, failing cure, at segregating such hopeless cases for life in suitable institutes, which shall protect society better than the present system of imprisonment, but be entirely free from the infamy attaching to the prison. The Modern School proposes the cure of criminals by preventive and legislative measures. PREVENTIVE INSTITUTIONS FOR DESTITUTE CHILDREN The cure of crime, as of any other disease, has the greater chance of success, the earlier it is taken in hand. Attention, therefore, should be specially concentrated on the childhood of those likely to become criminals: orphans and destitute children, who as adults contribute the largest contingent of criminality. A community seriously resolved to protect itself from evil should, above all, provide a sound education for those unfortunate waifs who have been deprived of their natural protectors by death or vice. The greatest care must be exercised in placing them, whenever it is possible, in respectable private families where they will have careful supervision, or in suitable institutes where no pains are spared to give them a good education and, more important still, sound moral training. In order to attain this end, the State cannot do better than follow in the footsteps of philanthropists of rare talent like Don Bosco, Dr. Barnardo, General Booth, Brockway, and many others, who have been so successful in rescuing destitute children. Don Bosco, the Black Pope, as he was familiarly styled at Turin, where he lived during the latter half of the last century, was a Roman Catholic priest who founded numerous institutes for orphans in all parts of Italy and many parts of both Americas, especially South America. The psychological basis on which he founded the training of children in these schools, was mainly derived from experience, and proved so successful in practice that it is worthy of quotation: "Most neglected and abandoned children [he said], are of ordinary character and disposition, but inclined to changeableness and indifference. Brief, but frequent exhortations, good advice, small rewards, and encouragements to persevere are very efficacious, but above all the teacher must show perfect trust in his charges, while being careful never to relax his vigilance. The greatest solicitude should, however, be reserved for the unruly characters, who generally form about one fifth of the whole number. The teacher should make a special effort to become thoroughly acquainted with their dispositions and past life and to convince them that he is their friend. They should be encouraged to chatter freely, while the conversation of the master should be brief and abound in examples, maxims, and anecdotes. Above all, while showing perfect confidence in his pupils, he should never lose sight of them. "Occasional treats of a wholesome and attractive nature, picnics and walks, will keep the boys happy and contented. Lasciviousness is the only vice that need be feared; any lad persisting in immoral practices should be expelled. "Harsh punishments should never be resorted to. The repressive system may check unruliness, but can never influence for good. It involves little trouble on the part of those who make use of it and may be efficacious in the army, which is composed of responsible adults, but it has a harmful effect on the young, who err more from thoughtlessness than from evil disposition. Far more suitable in their case is the preventive system, which consists in making them thoroughly acquainted with the regulations they have to obey and in watching over them. In this way they are always conscious of the vigilance of the Head-master or his assistants, who are ready to guide and advise them in every difficulty and to anticipate their wants. The pupils should never be left to their own devices, yet they should have complete freedom to run, jump, and enjoy themselves in their own noisy fashion. Gymnastics, vocal and instrumental music, and plenty of outdoor exercise are the most efficacious means of maintaining discipline and improving the boys, bodily and mentally." Only children over seven were admitted to the Institutes founded by Don Bosco. Dr. Barnardo, on the other hand, who rescued thousands of orphans and destitute children in London and was able to witness a decided decrease in the criminality of that capital, concentrated his beneficent efforts on destitute children from their earliest years, with the idea of removing them as soon as possible from the bad environment in which they were born. He was, moreover, desirous that they should share with more fortunate children the boon of happy childhood, and resolved that up to the age of seven they should be brought up without educational or other restraints, save the affection of those appointed to watch over them during the first years, so that they might imbibe sufficient love and joy for the rest of their lives. Such is the rule followed in the buildings set apart for the infants, Bird Castle, Tiny House, and Jersey House, which are perfect nests of happy birds. In spite of the seeming impossibility of obtaining individual education in a school, thanks to a system devised by Dr. Barnardo, the older children actually enjoy this advantage. New-comers are placed in a special department until facts relative to their past life are ascertained and an idea formed of their individuality. The results of these preliminary inquiries determine in which school the boy shall be placed and what trade he shall follow. Moreover, any boy desiring to change his occupation is encouraged to do so. Every year a re-distribution is made according to the aptitudes shown by the lads in study and manual work and their physical and intellectual development, special care being taken that the younger children should not be put with those who have arrived at a more advanced stage of physical and mental evolution. Free development of the various individual aptitudes is thus secured, while avoiding that common defect of schools, the turning out of numerous lads all made after one regulation pattern. Having come to the conclusion that life in an institute, in spite of all these precautions, is unsuited to girls, Dr. Barnardo founded a village at a short distance from London with cottage homes for children of both sexes. Each cottage contains from fifteen to twenty children and forms a family, the domestic duties of the homes being discharged by the girls. Dr. Barnardo realised, however, that the placing of children in private families is the best means of effecting their salvation, and he made great efforts in private and public to induce benevolent persons to adopt his protégés. Finally, he organised a regular emigration of lads to Canada, where a special agent provides them with situations on farms or in factories. America certainly does not lag behind Europe in the number and excellence of its organisations for rescuing the little derelicts of its cities. In every town of the United States visited by me, I had the pleasure of inspecting such institutions, all of which are kept with extraordinary care, and in some cases, with elegance. Amongst others, I may mention the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society in New York City and the George Junior Republic at Freeville, near Ithaca, both of which seemed to me the most original of their kind. The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is an orphanage for the Jews, managed with rare insight and intelligence by Mr. Lewisohn. The Institute being founded for orphans only, there is no limit as to age or condition. Infants and young people, diseased and healthy, intelligent and mentally deficient, normal and abnormal, good and bad, are all welcome. In order to prevent the overcrowding of the institution and to provide homes for as many children as possible, a committee has been organised for the purpose of finding homes in private families for all children under six years of age and for those who are sickly and delicate. A certain proportion are adopted, and others are boarded out, but the sum paid for their keep is always less than it would cost to place them in a school; and there is, moreover, always a chance of their being adopted later. At the age of six, all healthy and robust children enter the Institute, which becomes their home, providing them with board, lodging, clothing, moral and religious instruction, and training in some kind of work, but in order that they shall mix with other children, they are educated at the public schools, and the consequent saving in money and space enables the Institute to receive a larger number of children than it otherwise could. Instead of the uniform customary in such institutions which serves to accentuate in a humiliating way the contrast between the inmates and more fortunate children who possess parents and homes, the clothing worn by the orphans of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society is varied in colour and style. Girls skilled in the use of their needle alter their dresses to suit their individual tastes, and are allowed to sew, either gratis or for payment, for the boys and other girls of the Institute, who are unable or unwilling to make these alterations themselves. When school-tasks are finished, boys and girls of over twelve are allowed to engage in light occupations--needlework, writing, etc., supplied by the Institute to enable them to earn a little pocket-money and learn to spend it properly. When the boys and girls have passed all the standards of the elementary schools, they enter trade schools, where they remain until they are proficient in some craft which will enable them to earn a living. Those who show decided intellectual or business aptitudes are sent to colleges or commercial schools. The children are encouraged to take an interest in social and political life by the foundation of a miniature republic, or rather two separate republics, one for the boys and the other for the girls, each with its president, a boy or a girl according to the case. In reality, however, they are under the management of a lady, who devises various amusements for the children, reading, games, etc., teaches them music and drawing, and helps the little President to organise entertainments to which outsiders, relatives, and schoolfellows are invited. =FIG. 17 Signatures of Criminals= The George Junior Republic (America) is a very different institution, having been founded for unruly and turbulent boys, who are beyond their parents' control. It is a species of Reformatory, not a Home for Waifs. Mr. George, the founder of the Republic, a man of original and intelligent cast of mind, if I may judge of his individuality from hearsay, decided on its establishment after many attempts of a similar nature. Being anxiously concerned for the future of so many unruly youths who, left to their own devices during the summer vacations, degenerate into rowdies, he invited about a hundred of these lads to spend the summer months on his estate at Freeville, near Ithaca, and tried to influence them for good. The attempt did not meet with much success at first. Mr. George soon realised that however easy it is to exercise a beneficial influence on one or two boys by adopting gentle methods, it is extremely difficult to manage hundreds in this way. He had, however, observed how fair and rigidly honest boys generally are in their games and how ready they are to condemn any meanness, and he conceived the idea of making his charges look after each other. Thus each one would feel himself a responsible judge of his companions' actions. At the end of the summer holidays in 1895, when the time came for the boys to return home, five remained behind at Freeville in a cottage standing on three acres of land; the next year the number of lads remaining was doubled or trebled. A miniature Republic was founded, of which the lads were the citizens, and in this capacity, were obliged to make laws and to insist on their being respected. The Republic proved to be a great success, the temporary colony became a permanent one capable of reforming wild, unruly boys, who if allowed to wander about in the streets and to mix with older and more vicious lads, would possibly have been ruined. A recent census of the Republic showed that it possessed 150 citizens, 82 boys and 68 girls, three hundred acres of land, twenty-four buildings, a chapel, prison, school, and court of justice. =FIG. 20 Brigand Gasparone= In order that the colonists should not completely lose touch with the outside world, but should in some measure be prepared for the social exigencies of their future lives, the colony is organised like a miniature town. The children, boys and girls, are divided into so many families, each consisting of ten or twelve members presided over by two adults, who take the place of parents and look after the household. The greater part of the population is engaged in agriculture, in cultivating the land belonging to the Republic, but a certain proportion adopt the arts and crafts necessary to every community: joinery, book-binding, printing, shoemaking, or shop-keeping. The colony coins its own money and possesses a bank run by the boys themselves, where the colonists can deposit their savings. All labour and produce are paid for separately. The colony has its own laws sanctioned by its Parliament, its Tribunal, the members of which, chosen from amongst the citizens, are charged with enforcing the laws. The Parliament, composed without distinction of sex, of boys and girls, decrees the holidays, organises the games and entertainments, and establishes the public expenditure, revenue, and taxes, etc. (see Figs. 19 and 20). The results of this system appear to be excellent; most of the ex-colonists have turned out well, and in view of this fact, republics on similar lines are being organised in various parts of the United States. This Republic admits only children over twelve, who remain in the colony about three years. PREVENTIVE INSTITUTIONS FOR DESTITUTE ADULTS Besides institutions for the careful training of the young, methods for preventing crime also include all attempts to help young or adult persons at any crisis in their lives when they are friendless and out of work, for it is precisely then that they are most exposed to temptation. People's hotels, shelters for emigrants or strangers, reading-rooms, inexpensive but wholesome entertainments, evening classes for instruction in manual work, labour bureaus, organisations for assisting emigrants, etc., are the most efficacious institutions of this kind. And in this connection, I must refer to the work done by the Salvation Army, which from what I was able to observe in America, seems to me the best organised of all existing benevolent associations, since by means of a thousand arms it reaches every form of poverty and misery and seeks to make all its institutions self-supporting. It fights drunkenness by lectures, recreation rooms, and temperance hotels; it fights poverty by investigating each individual case of destitution, visiting poor families, dispensing sympathy and help, providing shelter for the night at a minimum price and industrial homes for those who are out of work. Sometimes the rooms are turned into recreation halls for drunkards or industrial schools for the girls of poor mothers who are obliged to go out to work, or temporary hospitals for some urgent case which, owing to bureaucratic formalities, the hospitals are unable to attend to immediately, or rooms with moving pictures for friendly gatherings on holidays, thus grafting one benevolent work on to another so as to obtain the best results at the smallest cost. That interesting book _Where the Shadows Lengthen_ gives an account of the different institutions founded by the Salvation Army in the United States. There are sixty-five Industrial Homes, where unemployed of all classes can apply for work. In these Homes refuse and worn-out articles collected from individual homes of their respective towns are disinfected and transformed into useful articles, which are sold at low prices to the neighbouring poor, thus benefiting purchasers, work-people, and society in general. During one year these Homes gave employment to 8696 men, distributed 1,318,044 meals (work-people who are temporarily employed in these Homes have a right only to board and lodging), and gave a night's shelter to 463,550 persons. In addition, the Army has seventy-seven Hotels where the working-classes find a night's lodging at a low price (just sufficient to cover the maintenance of the Shelter), and 7990 Accommodations which in one year supplied a night's rest to 2,114,037 persons. It has, besides, three colonies with 420 inhabitants, two boarding-houses for servants and shop-girls out of employment, where for a few pence they may have a bed, cook their own meals, wash and mend their clothes, and are assisted to find work. The Salvation Army has also 22 Rescue Homes, where young girls condemned by the Juvenile Court and generally more neglected than vicious, are reformed with a little care and affection, and 3599 Accommodations to which during one year 1701 girls were admitted. To ensure careful supervision of all the poor quarters, the Salvation Army has divided them into twenty slums, in each of which they have established their Headquarters and send out their soldiers to investigate and assist cases of poverty and misery of every kind. Each slum Headquarters is provided with halls for meetings, rooms for the officials, a Kindergarten, and Dormitories which also serve as shelters or hospitals for urgent cases. In one year 26,290 families were visited by the Army and 38,290 received assistance. Employment, temporary and permanent, was found for 66,621 persons. All poor of whatever condition, nationality, or religion, whether honest or criminal, on applying to the nearest of these Headquarters may be sure of finding sympathy and help. Five Homes have been founded by the Army for waifs and children whose mothers are obliged to go out to work, and 225 Accommodations where children may find a temporary or permanent home. A special squad of soldiers has recently undertaken work amongst prisoners with great success. In two months they visited 43 prisons, wrote 1732 letters to prisoners, and distributed 10,000 pamphlets. 19,882 prisoners attended meetings held in the prisons, 194 articles of clothing were distributed, 128 persons provided with work on their release and 300 with sleeping accommodation. In South America the Army has founded similar institutions, which embrace others, such as hospitals, etc., suited to the needs of each place. Other benevolent organisations which seem to me admirable, are the Sisterhoods founded twenty years ago by the Rabbi Gottheil. These Sisterhoods, as may be assumed from the name, are entirely directed by women. They consist of premises, sometimes annexed to the synagogue; at others, situated independently, which form a species of Headquarters for the philanthropical work done in the surrounding districts. The Sisterhood is open day and night to all the poor who are in need of help of any kind. There is a resident Directress, under whose orders a number of ladies take turns in helping applicants. The Sisterhoods were founded on the principle that human beings are capable of doing the maximum amount of good to others when they follow their own particular tendencies and try to utilise their individual talents in satisfying the intellectual, moral, or recreative needs of the poor. Some of the ladies devote themselves to simple legal questions, tracing an absent husband or wife, registering births, taking unruly children to the Juvenile Courts, or looking after them, etc. Others take charge of medical matters, arrange for the admission of children or adults to the hospitals, etc.; others organise entertainments, teach singing, drawing, needlework, and cooking classes. The premises are used in turn by working-girls learning sewing, or others rehearsing some play or opera chorus. Almost all the Sisterhoods possess a permanent Kindergarten for the children of women who are obliged to work outside their homes, and an employment bureau. All the ladies, except the Directress, give their services gratis. For all help given by the Sisterhood, except in the case of the very poor, a small fee is demanded, and this enables the Sisterhood to pay its way without depending much on donations and subscriptions from private persons, and to spread and increase its work without difficulty. "The Educational Alliance" of New York, founded to give assistance to Jewish emigrants arriving at that city from all parts of the world, is another institution deserving of mention. This "Alliance" has a large building in the Jewish quarter near the docks, where emigrants can obtain instruction in gymnastics, cookery, domestic economy, English, needlework, etc. There are also recreation rooms, baths, a library, and rooms where school children can prepare their lessons. Men and women are assisted in obtaining employment and receive medical and legal aid. There is also a species of tribunal for settling petty disputes in cases where the parties interested object to applying to the ordinary courts. It was crowded when I saw it, and I was not surprised to learn that it is of great service to the emigrants. For public holidays, the Alliance organises concerts, excursions, and lectures, and during the summer vacations it opens a number of boarding-houses in the country. All these benevolent institutions, schools, rescue homes, orphanages, and shelters, organised with so much care for the prevention of crime and adopted in America by all communities of whatever religion, regardless of cost, have given excellent results. Bosco and Rice (_Les Homicides aux Etats-Unis_) and my father (_Crimes, Ancient and Modern_) have demonstrated statistically that in States like Massachusetts, where there is no great influx of immigration nor a large coloured population, the diminution in the number of crimes has been very rapid, the percentage of homicides being about equal to those of England, that is, lower than the majority of European States. It must be confessed in honour to the people of the United States, that they are very ready to admit their own short-comings and constantly regret the large proportion of crimes in their country. But when they reflect that the constant stream of immigration contains many lawless elements, that the different laws in force in the different States make evasions of justice in many cases easy, that the construction of houses with the fire-escape communicating directly with the public thoroughfare provides an easy means of ingress and egress, and that an enormous proportion of the dense population of their cities is composed of people from all parts of the world, accustomed to varying moral codes, they may realise with pride that the percentage of crime in the United States is certainly lower than it would be in any Continental State under similar conditions. CHAPTER III _METHODS FOR THE CURE AND REPRESSION OF CRIME_ Preventive methods, the careful training of children, and assistance rendered to adults in critical moments of their lives, may diminish crime, but cannot suppress it entirely. Such methods should be supplemented by institutions which undertake to cure criminals, while protecting society from their attacks, and by others for the segregation of incurable offenders, who should be rendered as useful as possible in order to minimise in every way the injury they inflict on the community. Although unjustly accused of desiring to revolutionise penal jurisprudence, criminal anthropologists realised from the very beginning that laws cannot be changed before there is a corresponding change in public opinion, and that even equitable modifications in the laws, if too sudden, are always fraught with dangerous consequences. Therefore, instead of a radical change in the penal code, their aim was to effect a few slight alterations in the graduation of penalties, in accordance with age, sex, and the degree of depravity manifested by culprits in their offences. They also counselled certain modifications in the application of the laws, the reformation according to modern ideas, of prisons, asylums, penal colonies, and all institutions for the punishment and redemption of offenders, and an extensive application of those penalties devised in past ages as substitutes for imprisonment, which have the advantage of corrupting the culprit less, and costing the community very little. _Juvenile Offenders._ Young people, and, above all, children, should be dealt with separately by special legislative methods. With the exception of England, where quite recently a children's court has been opened at Westminster, special tribunals for the young are unknown in Europe. However, in modern times, the penal codes of nearly every European State make marked allowance for the age of offenders, and where there is no differentiation in the laws, the magistrate uses his own discretion and refuses in many cases to convict juvenile offenders, even when they are guilty of serious offences. These instinctive methods of dealing with the young have many drawbacks: 1. Without special courts, children guilty of simple acts of insubordination or petty offences (thefts of fruit or riding in trams and trains without paying the fare) which cannot be separated by a hard and fast line from ordinary childish pranks, come into contact with criminal types in court or in prison, and this is greatly detrimental to them morally. If naturally inclined to dishonesty, they run the risk of developing into occasional criminals and of losing all sense of shame: or if really honest, contact with bad characters cannot fail to shock and perturb them, even though their stay in prison be only a short one. 2. The magistrate has no legal powers to supervise juvenile offenders, nor when their actions show grave depravity, to segregate and cure them to prevent their developing into criminals. It has already been shown that born criminals begin their career at a very early age. In one case cited in a previous chapter, a morally insane child of twelve killed one of his companions for a trifling motive--a dispute about an egg; in another, a child of ten caused the arrest of his father by a false accusation; he had previously attempted to strangle a little brother. Children of this type, notwithstanding their tender age, are a social danger, and the moral disease from which they suffer should be taken in hand at once. In any case they should be carefully segregated until a cure appears to be effected. Minors require a special code, which takes into consideration the fact that certain offences are incidental to childhood and that children who have committed these offences may still develop into honest men. It should also contain provisions for dealing with born criminals, epileptics, and the morally insane at an early age, by segregation in special reformatories where they cannot corrupt juvenile offenders of a non-criminal type, and where a thorough-going attempt to cure them may be made. An excellent reform of this character has been effected in many of the United States of America with the adoption of the probation system and juvenile courts which protect children from the corruption of prison life and contact with habitual offenders. The juvenile court, this tribunal exclusively instituted for minors, has been brought to great perfection in many of the United States. In some, special buildings have been erected for the hearing of cases against children, by which means all contact with adult criminals is avoided: in others, where this is not practicable, a part of the ordinary court is set aside for them with a separate entrance. Nor are juvenile offenders judged according to the common law; their offences are tried by special magistrates, who deal with them in a paternal, rather than in a strictly judicial spirit, and the penalties are slight, varied, and suited to children. The magistrates are assisted by officers, who obtain information from teachers, parents, and neighbours as to the character, conduct, faults, and good qualities of the culprit, and with these indications the magistrate is able to essay the correction, not of the particular offence which has brought the child within his jurisdiction, but his general organic defects. The punishments do not include imprisonment, and are drawn from practical experience and common-sense, not from any article of the penal code. I was present at the hearing of a case against a lad, who was accused of having travelled on a subway without paying. He was sentenced to copy out the by-laws twenty times, to learn them by heart and repeat them a month later at the same court. In the case of more serious offences, children may be sent to some public or private reformatory, according to the circumstances of the parents. However, none of these punishments are infamous, and parents themselves, when unable to control their children, have recourse to the juvenile court. It is supplemented in a very efficacious manner by the probation system, the organisation of a number of men and women who undertake the supervision of children when the court decides that they require it. These protectors use every means at their disposal to prevent their charges falling into bad ways and assist them in every possible way to correct their defects. This system has proved to be so efficacious, and at the same time so devoid of any drawbacks, that its unconditional adoption by all the States of Europe and America would be of great social advantage. INSTITUTIONS FOR FEMALE OFFENDERS The weighty reasons which call for separate courts and reformatories for juvenile offenders are equally valid in the case of female law-breakers, for whom special tribunals and legislation should be provided. The percentage of criminality among women is considerably lower than that of men, and in nearly all cases offenders belong to the category of criminaloids. My father's work _The Female Offender_ demonstrates that prostitution is the true equivalent of criminality. When we except this class of unfortunates, there remain only hysterical and occasional offenders, guilty generally of petty larceny (particularly of a domestic nature) or of harbouring criminals and acting as more or less passive accomplices; and criminals from passion, who commit infanticide or kill faithless husbands and lovers. In all these cases, imprisonment should not be resorted to; in fact, the greater number might be dealt with by a magisterial reprimand or the granting of conditional liberty. In view also, of the important part played by dress, ornaments, etc., in the feminine world, penalties inflicted on vanity--the cutting off of the hair, the obligation to wear a certain costume, etc., might with advantage be substituted for imprisonment. The milder nature of feminine criminality, the usefulness of women in the home, and the serious injury inflicted on the family and society in general by the segregation of the wife and mother (if only for a short period), are reasons for advocating the institution of special tribunals for dealing with the offences of women and special legislation which would take into consideration their position in the family and the fact that they are rarely a violent social danger. At present, in Europe at least, no such differential treatment exists. The reduction of penalties is left entirely to the discretion and humanity of judges, who in many cases, it is true, are instinctively disposed to be more indulgent towards women and to take these conditions into account. But it would be a far more satisfactory state of things if legislation paid due regard to such circumstances, just as in Italy in enrolling recruits for compulsory military service, allowance is made for social and family relations, the only sons of widowed mothers, men of delicate constitution, etc., being exempted. In spite of the low percentage and, generally speaking, trifling importance of the crimes committed by women, there are a small number of female delinquents, some of whom show an extraordinary degree of depravity, as though all the perversity lacking in the others were concentrated in these few. They are true born criminals, epileptics, and morally insane subjects. These serious anti-social elements, murderers, poisoners, and swindlers, might be secluded in a small reformatory with compulsory labour and silence as additional penalties. Separate cells, however, are not necessary. All reformatories for women should be provided with a nursery where children born in prison could be nursed by their mothers, thereby diminishing the social injury which must result from the imprisonment of any mother, and fostering the growth of the sublime and sacred maternal sentiment, which is unfortunately so often lacking in criminals. The Reformatory Prison for Women at South Framingham, near Boston, under the management of Mrs. Morton, is an excellent example of an institution conducted on the lines laid down by criminologists. The Reformatory is situated at about an hour's journey by rail from Boston, in the midst of fields which are cultivated by a part of the convict population. No high walls surround the building and separate it from the outer world, nor is it watched by guards. A broad avenue leads to the entrance, where, in answer to my ring, I was welcomed by neat white-clad attendants and shown into a charming room looking out upon a lovely garden. I passed through corridors, unmolested by the sound of keys grating in locks, from this room to the dining-rooms, dormitories, recreation and work rooms. As soon as prisoners enter the Reformatory, they are carefully examined by an intelligent and pleasant woman physician, who is in charge of the infirmary where the anthropological examination takes place. When the prisoner has been declared able-bodied, she is placed in one of the work-rooms to learn and follow the trade indicated by the medical officer as the best adapted to her constitution and aptitude. At night, she is conducted to a second-class cell situated in a large, well-lighted corridor. The cell is furnished with a table, bed, chair, pegs to hang clothes on, a calendar, a picture, and a book or two. Work is compulsory and done by the piece, and when each prisoner has finished her allotted task, she is at liberty to work for herself or to read books supplied from the library. If unskilled, she receives instruction in some manual work, and the payment for her labour is put aside and handed over to her on her release, with the small outfit she has prepared and sewed during detention. Women with children under a year, or those who give birth to a child in the Reformatory, are allowed to have their little ones with them during the night and part of the day. When they go to work every morning, the babies are left in the nursery, which adjoins the infirmary, and is under the direct supervision of the doctor. The nursery, a large, well-lighted room, spotlessly clean and bright with flowers, is a veritable paradise for the little ones. At noon, the prisoner is permitted to fetch her baby, feed, and keep it near her during dinner-hour. At two o'clock she resumes work until five, when she again takes charge of her baby till next morning. A cradle is placed in her cell for the infant, and she is provided with a small bath. A series of trifling rewards encourage moral improvement. Those who show good conduct during the first two months are transferred to the first class with its accompanying privileges, a better and more spacious cell, a smart collar, the right to correspond with friends and to receive visitors more frequently, to have an hour's recreation in company with other good-conduct prisoners and to receive relatives in a pretty sitting-room instead of in the common visitors' room. The final reward for uninterrupted improvement and untiring industry on the part of the prisoner is her ultimate release, which since the sentence is unlimited, may take place as soon as the Directress considers her competent to earn an honest living. But released prisoners are not left to their own devices with the risk of speedily succumbing to temptation. A commission of ladies interested in the Reformatory (one of whom, Mrs. Russell, was my guide on the occasion of my visit there) are consulted before the release of each prisoner and undertake to furnish her with suitable employment, and to guide and watch over her during the first few months so that she may be sure of advice and assistance in any difficulties. INSTITUTIONS FOR MINOR OFFENDERS Punishments should vary according to the type of criminal, distinction being made between criminals of passion, criminaloids, and born criminals. _Criminals of Passion._ The true criminal of passion suffers more from remorse than from any penalty the law can inflict. Additional punishments should be: exile of the offender from his native town or from that in which the person offended resides; indemnity for the injury caused, in money, or in compulsory labour if the offender is not possessed of sufficient means. Recourse should never be had to imprisonment, which has an injurious effect even upon the better types of law-breakers; and criminals from passion do not constitute a menace to society. On the contrary, they are not infrequently superior to average humanity and are only prompted to crime by an exaggerated altruism which with care might be turned into good channels. This applies equally to political offenders, for whom exile is the oldest, most dreaded, and most efficacious punishment, and the disuse into which it has fallen does not appear to be justified, since it admits of graduation, is temporary, and an adequate check on any attempt at insurrection. _Criminaloids._ Repeated short terms of detention in prison should be avoided and other penalties substituted for petty offences against police regulations, cheating the Customs, etc., when committed by criminaloids who are not recidivists and have no accomplices. A short term of imprisonment, which brings this type of offender into contact with habitual criminals, not only does not serve as a deterrent, but generally has an injurious effect, because it tends to lessen respect for the law, and, in the case of recidivists, to rob punishment of all its terrors; and because criminaloids, when once branded with the infamy of prison and corrupted by association with worse types, are liable to commit more serious crimes. For all minor offences, fines are more efficacious than imprisonment and, in the case of the poor, should be replaced by compulsory labour at the discretion of the magistrate. Binding over under a guarantee to make good the injury done, corporal punishment, confinement to the house, judicial reprimands and cautions are applicable to offenders of this type, as is also the system of remitting first offences used in France with great success by Magnaud. Under this system, the offender is sentenced to an adequate penalty, which, however, is only inflicted in the case of recidivation. An efficacious, and at the same time, more serious method of dealing with criminaloids, is by means of the probation system and indeterminate sentence. The offender is sentenced to the maximum penalty applicable to his particular offence, but it may be diminished after a certain time if he shows signs of improvement. During this interval he is on probation, that is, under supervision, much in the same way as juvenile offenders. The probation system is extensively and successfully adopted in America, either singly or in conjunction with other penalties, as shown above. THE PROBATION SYSTEM This is an ideal manner of dealing with offenders of a less serious type, minors and criminaloids, who have fallen into bad ways, since, instead of punishing them, it seeks to encourage in them habits of integrity and to check the growth of vices by means of a benevolent but strict supervision. The offender is placed under the guidance of a respectable person, who tries in every way to smooth the path of reform by providing his charge with employment if he has none, or putting him in the way of learning some trade if he is unskilled, by isolating him from bad company, by rewarding any improvement, and reporting progress to the central office, which has to decide whether the period of probation is sufficient, or, in cases where it has not been efficacious, to have recourse to sterner measures. The only drawback to this system is the difficulty of applying it, because it is not always possible to find in every town a number of persons of high moral standing, who are able and willing to exercise vigilance over offenders. However, to the honour of the United States it must be said that in many States this supervision is organised in a truly admirable manner. At Boston I visited the Probation Office organised and managed by Miss Mary Dewson, which undertakes the supervision of girls and is a model worthy of imitation from the general arrangement down to the smallest details. The relations between the officers and their charges are in most cases very cordial. The little girls write most affectionate letters, in which they narrate their joys and sorrows, express penitence for their shortcomings and ask advice and help as of guardian spirits. The officers in their turn show themselves to be affectionate protectors and are scrupulous in the fulfilment of their duties towards the central office. Upwards of one hundred lockers were opened at my request, and I was able to examine the documents relating to each of the children with their antecedents, improvement, or the reverse, methodically entered up to a few days previous to my visit. The splendid results obtained everywhere by this system are leading to its gradual adoption in nearly all the States of the Union and in many parts of Australia and England, in dealing with young people, adults, and all first offenders convicted of petty infractions of the law, drunkenness, disturbance of the peace, and disorderly conduct, and also for prisoners released on ticket-of-leave. The probationer is obliged to report himself every fortnight, or at any time the probation officer may desire. The officer is empowered to supervise the conduct of the probationer at home and in his place of employment, and to threaten him with legal proceedings should his conduct be unsatisfactory. The supervision of adults, as may be supposed, is a far more delicate and complicated matter than that of children, and however discreetly the officer proceeds in order to keep the matter hidden from neighbours and employers, the position is such a humiliating one for adults that many prefer imprisonment to supervision. I was told that special reformatories have been established at Boston for the detention of those who prefer prison to vigilance. Perhaps this aversion of adult offenders in America to the probation system is due to the fact that the probation officer is vested with powers almost exceeding those of any magistrate. If he thinks fit, he may extend the period of supervision almost indefinitely or convert it into imprisonment. Moreover, the feeling that every movement and action, however innocent, is being watched is very galling to a grown-up person. However, these drawbacks could no doubt be remedied. In England, supervision is replaced by a pledge of good behaviour guaranteed by the culprit or a surety, who is induced to exercise vigilance by the knowledge that he will lose the sum deposited in the case of recidivation. The magistrate is obliged by English law to fix the period of probation, which cannot be extended without another sentence. In France, Belgium, and Australia, the probation system appears to have given good results. _Corporal Punishment._ Although repugnant to civilised ideas, the various forms of corporal punishment, fasting, cold shower-bath, or even the rod, are very suitable substitutes for imprisonment in the case of children guilty of petty offences, because not only are these punishments inexpensive and have the advantage of creating a deeper and more immediate impression, but they do not corrupt minor offenders nor do they interrupt their regular occupations, whether work or study. Fines should always be inflicted for slight infractions of the law and in all cases of petty larceny, frauds, and forgeries committed by minors. The fines should be proportioned to the means of the individual and the gravity of the offence, and replaced by compulsory labour in the case of those who refuse to pay. _Indemnity._ The obligation to make adequate compensation for the injury caused would be an ideal punishment, but is extremely difficult to put into practice. The magistrate, however, should do his utmost to make suitable use of this penalty, and the victim should be legally entitled to receive a part of the proceeds from work done by the culprit during detention. REFORMATORIES Minors convicted for the first time of such serious offences that supervision becomes an insufficient guarantee against recidivation, should be relegated to reformatories or other institutions which undertake to punish offences and to segregate and correct offenders. For the truly magnificent scale on which such reclaiming institutions are conducted in North and South America, both continents merit special mention. The oldest and most celebrated of these reformatories, that founded at Elmira by Brockway, owed its inspiration to my father's book _Criminal Man_ and is the first reformatory that has been instituted on similar principles. The convicts admitted to Elmira are young men between the ages of sixteen and thirty, convicted for the first time of any offence, except those of the most serious kind. The Administrative Council is invested with unlimited powers for determining the period of detention and may release prisoners long before the expiration of their sentence. Each newcomer has a bath, dons the uniform of the Institute, is photographed, registered, medically examined, and finally shut up in a cell to meditate upon his offence. During this time the superintendent obtains all the available information concerning his character, environment, and the probable causes that have led to his crime, and this information serves as a basis for the cure. According to the aptitude and culture of the prisoner, he is placed in a technical or industrial class, where he learns some trade which will enable him to become honestly self-supporting on his release. He is immediately acquainted with his duties and rights and the conditions under which he may regain his liberty. Education in the Reformatory consists of instruction in general knowledge and special training in some trade. Moral and intellectual progress is stimulated by the publication of a weekly review, _The Summary_, which gives a report on political matters and the news of the Reformatory. The convicts are divided into three categories: good, middling, and bad. The transference from the second to the first class entails certain privileges, especially those respecting communication with the outer world, the right to receive visitors, to have books, and to eat at a common table instead of partaking of a solitary meal in a cell. Those who obtain the highest marks for good conduct are at liberty to walk about the grounds and are entrusted with confidential missions, such as the supervision of the other convicts. Bad conduct marks cause prisoners to be transferred from a higher to the lowest division, where they are obliged to perform the rudest labour. First-class convicts are purposely exposed to temptations of various kinds, and when they have passed through this ordeal triumphantly, they obtain a conditional release. This cannot take place, however, until the prisoner is provided with regular employment of some kind, procured by his own exertions, through friends, or by the director of the Reformatory. For six months after his release he is obliged to give an account of himself regularly in the manner prescribed by the Director; after one year absolute liberty is regained. In order to reduce the working expenses of the Reformatory as much as possible, all posts, even that of superintendent or teacher in the technical schools, are filled by the convicts. PENITENTIARIES Although born criminals, habitual criminals, and recidivists should be carefully isolated from minor offenders, they nevertheless require institutes conducted on nearly similar principles. A prison, which is to punish, but at the same time to correct and redeem, demands strict discipline: in fact, milder punishments have very little effect and their constant repetition is harmful, although any exaggeration of brute force is more injurious than useful. Harshness may cow criminals, but does not improve them: on the contrary, it only serves to irritate them or to convert them into hypocrites. Even the adult offender should be looked upon in the light of a child or a moral invalid, who must be cured by a mixture of gentleness and severity, but gentleness should predominate, since criminals are naturally prone to vindictiveness and are apt to regard even slight punishments as unjust tortures. Even a too rigid adherence to the rule of silence may have a detrimental effect on the character of the prisoners. An old convict once said to Despine: "When you winked at slight offences against the rules, we used to talk more, but there was no harm in what we said. Now we talk less, but when we do, we blaspheme and plot evil." In Danish prisons under rigorous discipline, infractions of prison regulations amounted to 30%; more recently under milder rule such infractions only amount to 6%. In order to strengthen the sense of justice which, as we have said, is little developed in criminals, if indeed it is not altogether suffocated by ignoble passions, it is often advisable to appeal to their vanity and self-esteem to aid in maintaining discipline and increasing industry, by constituting them judges of each other's conduct. Obermayer used to divide the convicts into small groups and ask them to elect their own superintendents and teachers, thus establishing a spirit of good-comradeship and rendering possible a system of detailed and individual instruction, the sole kind that is really efficacious. The 385 convicts at Detroit showed the highest percentage of efficiency, because they were divided into 21 classes with 28 teachers, all of whom, with the exception of one, were prisoners. It was noticed that the worst convicts were the best teachers (Pears, _Prisons and Reform_, 1872), which proves that even the most perverse elements may often be utilised for the improvement of others. Equally good was Despine's method of letting a certain time elapse before inflicting punishment, so that it should not be attributed to mere anger on his part. As soon as the infraction was noted, the prisoner was left to reflect on his conduct, and an hour later the teacher and Director came to show him the penalty prescribed by the regulations. Sometimes it was found efficacious to administer a rebuke and punishment to the whole group to which the offender belonged. Obermayer considered this method to be advantageous. Work should be the motive force, aim, and recreation of every institute of this kind, in order to stimulate flagging energies, to accustom prisoners to useful pursuits after release, to reinforce prison discipline and to compensate the State for the expense incurred. This latter object should, however, always be subordinated to the others, and lucrative trades must occasionally be avoided. Occupations which might pave the way for other crimes: lockmaking, brasswork, engraving, photography, and calligraphy should not be adopted, but choice made, instead, of those agricultural employments which show the lowest mortality and are much in demand. The manufacture of articles in straw, esparto, and string, printing, tailoring, the making of pottery, and building are all suitable trades, but those which require dangerous tools--shoemaking, cabinet-making, and carpentering--should be resorted to last of all. The rush baskets made by the convicts at Noto (Sicily) obtained several medals. The tasks allotted to prisoners should always be proportioned to their strength and tastes. Unskilled or physically weaker individuals who conscientiously do their best, should be rewarded in some way, if not pecuniarily, at least by a reduction of their sentences. In this way work becomes profitable and a spirit of comradeship and friendly emulation develops among the prisoners. INSTITUTES FOR HABITUAL CRIMINALS To protect society against the repeated misdeeds of these offenders and those of born criminals, segregation is essential. However, the institutions set apart to receive these classes should still regard the redemption of the inmates as their chief aim, and only when all attempts have proved futile should they be replaced by almost perpetual isolation in a penal colony. The Penitenciario Nacional of Buenos Ayres is a splendid instance of an institute founded for the redemption of adult offenders as well as for the punishment of their offences. The inmates of this penitentiary comprise offenders of all types--criminaloids, habitual and born criminals--belonging to the Province of Buenos Ayres. It was established a few years after the Reformatory at Elmira, the fundamental principles of which it has imitated with certain wise modifications to suit diverse circumstances. Externally, it has nothing in common with the gloomy European prisons. It is a large, white edifice with a broad flight of steps leading to the street and is devoid of all signs of force, soldiers, sentry-boxes, etc. After passing through a wide vestibule, I reached a large, shady court-yard with low walls almost hidden beneath a wealth of flowers and foliage. A corridor opening on to the court-yard was flanked on each side by a row of open, white cells, each well lighted by a fair-sized window during the day, and by electricity at night. Each cell is furnished with book-shelves, a table with paper, pen and inkstand, and a chair. All the corridors, which are gay with plants, converge towards a central glass-room, whence the sub-inspector surveys all the radiating corridors under his jurisdiction. Each corridor ends in a workshop, where printing, lithography, shoemaking, metal and steel work are carried on, and between the corridors are garden plots in which fruit, vegetables, and flowers are cultivated. The workshops are reckoned among the best the Republic contains. The printing-office turns out many weekly papers, illustrated magazines, and scientific and literary reviews. Footgear of the finest and most elegant quality is manufactured in the shoe-factory, and the foundry and workshop produce lathes, boilers, industrial and agricultural machines and implements. All the cooking in the Penitentiary is done by steam, and the plant is installed in a large building erected by the prisoners themselves. Work in the Penitentiary is compulsory. On arrival, each convict receives instruction in some handicraft, chosen by himself or one of the foremen. Of course swindlers and forgers are not admitted to trades like lithography, for reasons easy to understand. The convicts receive regular wages which vary according to their abilities and are about equal to the standard wages in each particular trade. All earnings are put aside and handed to the convict on his release when he is also provided with suitable employment. Work is finished at five o'clock in the evening and after a substantial supper the prisoners are divided into nine classes, six elementary and three secondary, according to their culture and intelligence. If illiterate, they are taught reading and writing and later, arithmetic, geography, history, languages, and drawing,--this latter being adapted to the particular trade of each individual. When school is finished, prisoners are allowed to go to the library to return the books they have read and take others for the night. Instead of a weekly newspaper like that published at Elmira, intellectual development is stimulated by means of lectures delivered each week by the prisoners or their teachers and attended by the Director, Vice-Director, and all the convicts. In addition to the care lavished by the Director, Señor Ballvé, on the work and education of his charges, he spares no pains to encourage moral progress by rewarding good conduct. As each convict enters the Penitentiary, his name, trial, sentence, and antecedents are entered in a book with his photograph and particulars of his physical and psychic individuality, and these data are supplemented by remarks on his conduct and good actions, if any, so that on his release a clear idea is obtained of the moral progress he has made while in prison. PENAL COLONIES When after unsparing efforts for the redemption of a criminal, repeated convictions prove him to be a hopeless recidivist, the community should decline to allow him to perfect his anti-social abilities at their expense in prisons or at large, and should segregate him permanently, unless, indeed, there is any hope of reform, or circumstances render him harmless. Perpetual confinement in a prison, even of an improved type is, however, both cruel and expensive, but an excellent substitute may be found in the Penal Colony. Here the chief object should be, not to educate, elevate, or redeem the criminal, but to render him as useful as possible, so that he does not prove too great a burden on the community. Penal colonies should be situated on islands or in remote territories, that is, completely isolated from populous districts. The agricultural colony at Meseplas founded by the Belgian Government is a model worthy of imitation. In this colony the convict population is divided into four categories: 1. Turbulent and dangerous individuals, who exercise an injurious influence over the other inmates of reformatories and prisons; 2. Recidivists, ticket-of-leave men, escaped and mutinous convicts; 3. Persons of bad reputation, who have hitherto avoided conviction; 4. The better types, who have been convicted three or four times only and although not depraved, lack moral stamina and are constantly yielding to temptation when at large. All the common necessities of life are supplied by the colonists themselves, beginning with the dwellings which are erected as they are required and according to the resources available. In this way, extensive building operations are carried out at a very slight cost to the State. Cattle and crops are raised on the land, which is cultivated by a number of the convicts, while others manufacture articles which find a ready market in the vicinity and for which they possess suitable tools. Any convict refusing to work is imprisoned on bread and water. All work is paid for in special coin current only in the colony itself, but which, on the release of the owner, is exchanged for the coin of the country. The "Open Door," an institution on similar lines, was founded by Professor Cabred for the insane of the Province of Buenos Ayres, and judging from what I was able to observe during my short visit, it fulfils its purpose admirably. It consists of a large village populated by some ten or twelve thousand lunatics. With the exception of the price of the land and the cost of erecting the first buildings, this colony does not cost the community anything; on the contrary, the colonists are able to make large profits. The ultimate plan of the village with streets and edifices has already been mapped out, and the patients are continually occupied in erecting new buildings, etc. There is a brick-kiln, a carpenter shop, and a smithy, which produce all the materials used in building and furnishing the dwellings. Only the less dangerous patients are employed in these operations: those of weaker mind make brushes and wicker articles. The colony is situated in the midst of a vast stretch of land in the Province of Buenos Ayres, on which fruit and vegetables are grown by a number of the patients. Others are occupied in raising fowls and pigs, which supply the colony with eggs and meat and yield a large profit when sold outside. Professor Cabred wisely prefers agriculture of this kind to the raising of large crops of wheat or maize, because it simplifies the task of supervision necessary in any colony, and gives the colonists, whose toil is compulsory, a continual and regular occupation of an almost unvarying character. (This applies equally to the case of a penal colony.) Workmen, foremen, engineers, builders, mechanics, gardeners,--all are patients, with the exception of the Director, the doctor, and about a hundred mounted warders, who pass rapidly from one part to another and are able to intervene in suicidal or homicidal outbreaks. A colony on these lines would be suitable for the large mass of habitual criminals, who, although unable to resist the temptations of ordinary life, are capable of useful work under supervision, and under such conditions may prove beneficial to themselves and to the community. INSTITUTIONS FOR BORN CRIMINALS AND THE MORALLY INSANE _Asylums for Criminal Insane._ We have still to consider born criminals, epileptics, and the morally insane, whose crimes spring from inherited perverse instincts. These unfortunate beings cannot be consigned to ordinary prisons, since, owing to their state of mental alienation, they do not possess even the modesty of the vicious--hypocrisy--and they never fail to pervert those criminaloids with whom they come in contact. Malcontents by nature, they distrust everybody and everything, and as they see an enemy in every warder and official, they are the centres of constant mutinies. To confine them in common asylums would be still more injurious, for they preach sodomy, flight, and revolt and incite the others to robbery, and their indecent and savage ways, as well as the terrible reputation which often precedes them, make them objects of terror and repulsion to the quieter patients and their relatives, who dread to see their kin in such company. Ordinary asylums are equally unsuited to those victims of mental derangement who, although devoid of the depraved instincts of the morally insane and generally of blameless career up to the moment in which they are led to commit a crime by some isolated evil impulse, have a bad influence on the other inmates. Unlike other lunatics, they do not shrink from the company of others, whom they torment with their violence and contaminate with that spirit of restlessness and discontent which distinguished them even before they became insane or criminals. Firm in the belief that they are always being ill treated and insulted, they instil these ideas into their companions and suggest thoughts of flight and revolt, which would never occur to ordinary lunatics, absorbed as they are by their own world of fancies. The condition of the inmates is thereby aggravated, and it becomes impossible to accord them that large measure of freedom advocated by all modern alienists. To leave these madmen at large would be more dangerous still. Beneath an appearance of perfect calm and mental lucidity are hidden morbid impulses, which may give terrible results at some unexpected moment. All these offenders--insane criminals and the morally insane whose irresistible tendencies are detrimental to the community--should be confined in special institutes to be cured, or at any rate segregated for life. No infamy would attach to their names, because their irresponsibility would be clearly recognised, and society would be secure from their attacks. England was the first country to provide asylums for the criminal insane. In 1840 a portion of Bedlam was set aside for this purpose. Fisherton House, a special private asylum of this kind, was opened in 1844, and later others were instituted at Dundrum (Ireland) in 1850, at Broadmoor in 1863, and at Perth (Scotland) in 1858, to receive criminals who commit crimes in a state of insanity, or become insane during their trial, and all prisoners whose state of lunacy or imbecility renders them unable to conform to the discipline of a prison. Of course sanguinary and violent scenes often occur in these asylums, where the pernicious influence this type of lunatic exercises over his surroundings in ordinary asylums or prisons is multiplied and intensified a hundred-fold. Conspiracies, almost unknown in common asylums, and the murder of warders or officials are very common. Despairing of release and conscious of their irresponsibility, these wretched beings attack the warders, destroy the walls which confine them, murder and wound others and themselves; but at any rate the injury is limited to a small circle, and both harmless lunatics and common criminals are not contaminated. Moreover, even in criminal asylums, long experience with these strange pathological types and the adoption of subdivisions like those recently introduced into Broadmoor by Orange have done much towards improving the general condition and eliminating many drawbacks. According to this classification insane criminals are divided into two classes, _unconvicted_ and _convicted_, the former class being subdivided into _untried_ and _tried_. Untried offenders, those who are considered to have been insane before committing the crime, are sent to a common county asylum, where are also confined persons convicted of minor offences and declared insane (the percentage of cures in this class is considerable) and others suspected of shamming insanity. In this way, the better elements are eliminated and the inmates of the criminal insane asylum reduced to the worst and most dangerous types only. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT When, notwithstanding prisons, deportation, and criminal asylums, individuals of ineradicable anti-social instincts make repeated attempts on the lives of others, whether honest men or their own companions in evil-doing, the only remedy is the application of the extreme penalty--death. Amongst barbarous peoples, on whom prison makes but slight impression, or in primitive communities that do not possess criminal asylums, penitentiaries, and other means of social defence and redemption, the death penalty has always been considered the most certain and at the same time the most economical means of common protection. But criminal anthropologists realise that the desire to abolish this penalty, which so often finds expression in civilised countries, arises from a noble sentiment and one they have no wish to destroy. Capital punishment, according to the opinion of my father, should only be applied in extreme cases, but the fear of it, suspended like a sword of Damocles above their heads, would serve as a check to the murderous proclivities displayed by some criminals when they are condemned to perpetual imprisonment. We have, it is true, no right to take the lives of others but if we refuse to recognise the legitimacy of self-defence, exile and imprisonment are equally unjustifiable. When we realise that there exist beings, born criminals, who are organised for evil, who reproduce the instincts common to the wildest savages and even those of ferocious carnivora, and are destined by nature to injure others, our resentment becomes softened; but notwithstanding our sense of pity, we feel justified in demanding their extermination when they prove to be dangerous and absolutely irredeemable. PENALTIES PROPOSED BY THE MODERN SCHOOL The following tables, compiled by Senator Garofalo, a celebrated jurist of the Modern School and inserted in _Criminal Man_, vol. iii, show the distribution of penalties systematically arranged. I. Born Criminals who are utterly devoid of the sentiment of pity. _Offender_ _Crime_ _Penalty_ Murderers exhibiting Murder for lucre or Prison, penal colony, moral insensibility some other egotistical criminal insane and instinctive object asylum, or cruelty, capital punishment convicted of Murder without if recidivists. provocation on the part of the victim Murder with ferocious execution II. Violent and Impulsive Criminals, Criminaloids, and those guilty through insufficiency of pity, of decency, of inhibitory power, and through prejudiced notions of honor. _Offender_ _Crime_ _Penalty_ Adults convicted of Cruelty, assault Criminal insane and battery, rape, asylum for epileptics, kidnapping or Indefinite seclusion for a period equal to one of the natural divisions of a man's life, with period of supervision. Minors convicted of Murder, cruelty Special reformatories, and other offences criminal insane against the person asylum if there are without provocation congenital tendencies. Offences against Penal colony and decency deportation in cases of recidivation. Adults convicted of Homicide provoked by Exile from native injury or place and from the genuine grievances town in which the victim's family live. Adults convicted of Homicide in Exile, segregation self-defence for an indefinite period in some Homicide to avenge remote town or some wrong or settlement. personal dishonour Adults convicted of Assault in quarrels, Compensation for or ill-treatment injury caused, fines, when intoxicated, reprimand, security, blows, insults, or conditional liberty. slander Adults convicted of Mutiny and revolt Reprimand, security, imprisonment for a definite period. III. Criminals Devoid of a Sense of Honesty _Offender_ _Crime_ _Penalty_ Adults (habitual Theft, fraud, arson, Criminal lunatic offenders) convicted forgery, blackmail asylums (if insane of or epileptic), deportation (for sane offenders). Adults (occasional Theft fraud, forgery, Reformatories, offenders) convicted blackmail, arson conditional liberty, of exclusion from particular profession. Adults convicted of Peculation, concussion Loss of office, exclusion from all public offices, fines, compensation for damage done. Adults convicted of Arson, malicious Compensation, or damage to property as a substitute, imprisonment. Criminal lunatic asylums (if insane). Penal colonies (for recidivists). Adults convicted of Fraudulent Compensation for bankruptcy damage caused, exclusion from business and public offices. Adults convicted of Counterfeiting, Reformatories, forging cheques, fines, compensation public title-deeds, for damage, exclusion etc. from office. Adults convicted of Bigamy, substitution Seclusion for an or suppression indefinite period. of child Minors convicted of Theft, fraud, and Magisterial picking pockets reprimand, probation, reformatory, or agricultural colony. IV. Offenders Lacking in Industry _Offender_ _Penalty_ Beggars, vagabonds, Agricultural colony loafers for country offenders, workshop for city offenders. V. Offenders Deficient in Misoneism (Hatred of Change) _Offender_ _Penalty_ Political, social, and Temporary exile. religious rebels SYMBIOSIS The punishment of offenders and the protection of society from the insane are the two chief objects of criminal jurisprudence, but criminal anthropologists aim at something higher, the utilisation of anti-social elements, thus redeeming them completely and justifying their existence in the eyes of mankind and in the scheme of nature. We find, in fact, in nature numerous instances of a partnership for mutual benefit between animals and plants of very diverse species and tendencies. Lichens are a living symbiosis of algæ and fungi: the pagurus allows the actiniæ to settle on his dwelling, where they attract his prey and in return are housed and conveyed from place to place. In imitation of this principle, criminal anthropologists seek to devise a means of making offenders serviceable to civilisation by carefully analysing their tendencies and psychology, and fitting them into some suitable groove in the social scheme, where they may be useful to themselves and to others. Side by side with depraved instincts, criminals frequently possess invaluable gifts: an abnormal degree of intelligence, great audacity, and love of innovation. The wonderful galleries and fortifications cut out in the rocks at Gibraltar and Malta by English convicts and the complete transformation of parts of Sardinia have led criminologists to the conclusion that the ancient penalty of enforced labour was more logical, useful, and advantageous both for the culprit and the community than all modern punishments. The Mormons of America and the religious sects persecuted in Russia by an omnipotent bureaucracy, have by their energy transformed uninhabitable regions into lands of extraordinary fertility. Still greater results might be obtained, if the abnormal tendencies of certain individuals were turned into useful channels, instead of being pent up until they manifest themselves in anti-social acts, and this beneficent and lofty task should devolve on teachers and protectors of such of the young as show physical and psychic anomalies at an early age. The colonisation of wild regions and all professions (motoring, cycling, acrobatic and circus feats) which demand audacity, activity, love of adventure, and intense efforts followed by long periods of repose are eminently suited to criminals. There are cases on record in which young men have actually become thieves and even murderers in order to gain sufficient means to become comedians or professional cyclists, and there is every reason to suppose that these crimes would never have been committed had the youths been able to obtain the required sums honestly. On the other hand, men of bad character, ready to develop into criminals, often undergo a complete transformation when they find some outlet for their intelligence and aptitudes, in becoming pioneers in virgin regions or soldiers. War, the original, perpetual and exclusive occupation of our ancestors, is eminently suited to the tendencies of criminals. All the characteristics of the criminal, impulsiveness, cynicism, physical and moral insensibility, and invulnerability are valuable qualities in the soldier in times of war, especially when waged against savage and barbarous nations, when cunning and ability have to be employed against primitive races who laugh at the rules and ethics of civilised warfare. Amongst brigands, we find a few badly-armed individuals performing marvels of valour, and the leaders, although ignorant men, manifesting an intelligence and tactical skill that puts trained armies to shame. Could not the tendencies of criminals be used for the good of their country? The qualities developed in primitive races by constant warfare against the forces of nature are characteristic also of criminals. Let those whom nature has destined to reproduce impulsive and brutal instincts in a civil and industrial age be permitted to employ them in defending civilisation with true primitive valour against external and internal enemies, against barbarous peoples who would restrict its boundaries, or reactionary elements who seek to hinder its progress. The Great Redeemer, who in pardoning the adulteress, said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," and the Prophet who foretold the day when the wolf and the lamb should dwell together and the lion should eat straw like the ox and should "not hurt nor destroy," divined perhaps this noble aim. If criminal anthropology is destined to lead mankind to this goal, it may well be pardoned all the harsh measures it has seen fit to suggest in order to realise the supreme end--social safety. PART III CHARACTERS AND TYPES OF CRIMINALS CHAPTER I _EXAMINATION OF CRIMINALS_ Criminal anthropologists are unanimous in insisting on the importance of the results to be gained from a careful examination of the physical and psychic individuality of the offender, with a view to establishing the extent of his responsibility, the probabilities of recidivation on his part, the cure to be prescribed or the punishment to be meted out to him; but besides furnishing the magistrate with a sound basis for his decisions, the anthropological examination will prove of great assistance to probation officers, superintendents of orphanages and rescue homes and all those who are entrusted with the destinies of actual offenders or candidates for crime. I have therefore decided to devote this part of my summary to a minute demonstration of the methods to be employed in these examinations, which should be conducted on the one hand with the scientific precision that distinguishes clinical diagnoses of diseases and on the other with special rules deduced from the long experience of criminologists in dealing with criminals and the insane, between whom there is so much affinity. ANTECEDENTS AND PSYCHIC INDIVIDUALITY The examination of a criminal or person of criminal tendencies should, if possible, be preceded by a careful investigation of his antecedents. Questions put to relatives and friends often bring to light facts relating to his past life, and give an idea of the surroundings in which he has grown up and the illnesses suffered by him during childhood (meningitis, typhus, convulsions, hemicrania, giddiness, _pavor nocturnus_, trauma). The prevalence of disease in the family (parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc.) should be elicited and note taken not only of nervous maladies, but of arthritic, tuberculous, pellagrous, and inebriate forms, including a tendency to morphiomania. Even goitre should not escape notice, since it may indicate cretinism or any other form of degeneration. The existence of criminality in the family is of still greater importance, but it is extremely difficult to obtain any information on this head, either from the patient himself or his relatives. A certain amount of strategy must be used in eliciting facts of this kind, by suddenly asking, for instance, whether a certain individual of the same name, already deceased or confined in such-and-such an asylum or prison, is any relation of the patient. Next should be ascertained whether he is single or married, and in the latter case, whether his wife is still living; also what profession or professions he has exercised. In this connection it should be observed that although criminals are generally successful in everything they undertake, they are incapable of remaining constant to one thing for any length of time. Many persons, cooks, tavern-keepers, confectioners, etc., exercise callings that have a deleterious effect on the nervous centres and encourage an abuse of alcohol; others like bakers, have night work, which is equally harmful. Professions which bring poor men, servants, secretaries, cashiers, etc., into close contact with wealth, are sometimes the cause of dishonesty in those who in the absence of special temptations, would have remained upright; others provide criminaloids with opportunities or instruments for accomplishing some crime, as in the case of locksmiths, blacksmiths, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, etc. The time of the year and other circumstances under which the crime takes place should be elicited, and it should be borne in mind that the vintage season in countries of Southern Europe and extremes of heat and cold are favourable to seizures of an epileptic nature. When the subject under examination is a recidivist, care should be taken to ascertain at what age and under what circumstances the initial offence was committed. Precocity in crime is a characteristic of born criminals, and puberty and senility have their peculiar offences, as have the extremes of poverty and wealth. _Intelligence._ As we are not dealing with an ordinary patient, who is generally only too ready to talk about his troubles, but with an individual who has been put on his guard by constant cross-examination, his suspicions should first of all be allayed by a series of general questions on his native place or the town in which he is now living, his trade, etc. "Why did you leave your native town? Why do you not return? Are you married? How many children have you?" etc. Then an attempt should be made to gain an idea of his intellectual powers by asking easy questions: "How many shillings are there in a pound? How many hours are there in a day? In what year were you married?" etc. _Affection._ The affections should be tested in an indirect way. "Is your father a bad man?" or "Are your neighbours worthless people? Do they treat you with due respect? Has any one a spite against you? Are you fond of your parents? Are you aware that your brother (or mother) is seriously ill?" Questions concerning relatives and friends are of special interest, because they enable the examiner to ascertain whether they cause the patient emotion of any kind, whether he has any real affection for those beings to whom normal persons are attached, but towards whom born criminals and the insane in general do not manifest love. In the absence of instruments, we must judge of the feelings of patients by their answers and the facial changes caused by emotion, but medico-legal experts naturally prefer a scientific test by means of accurate instruments, by which the exact degree of emotion is registered. These instruments are the plethysmograph and the hydrosphygmograph. =FIG. 28 Criminal's Ear= It is well known that any emotion which causes the heart-beats to quicken or become slower makes us blush or turn pale, and these vaso-motor phenomena are entirely beyond our control. If we plunge one of our hands into the volumetric tank invented by Francis Frank, the level of the liquid registered on the tube above will rise and fall at every pulsation, and besides these regular fluctuations, variations may be observed which correspond to every stimulation of the senses, every thought and above all, every emotion. The volumetric glove invented by Patrizi (see Fig. 25), an improvement on the above-mentioned instrument, is a still more practical and convenient apparatus. It consists of a large gutta-percha glove, which is put on the hand and hermetically sealed at the wrist by a mixture of mastic and vaseline. The glove is filled with air as the tank was with water. The greater or smaller pressure exercised on the air by the pulsations of blood in the veins of the hands reacts on the aerial column of an india-rubber tube, and this in its turn on Marey's tympanum (a small chamber half metal and half gutta-percha). This chamber supports a lever carrying an indicator, which rises and falls with the greater or slighter flow of blood in the hand. This lever registers the oscillations on a moving cylinder covered with smoked paper. If after talking to the patient on indifferent subjects, the examiner suddenly mentions persons, friends, or relatives, who interest him and cause him a certain amount of emotion, the curve registered on the revolving cylinder suddenly drops and rises rapidly, thus proving that he possesses natural affections. If, on the other hand, when alluding to relatives and their illnesses, or vice-versa, no corresponding movement is registered on the cylinder, it may be assumed that the patient does not possess much affection. =FIG. 25 A VOLUMETRIC GLOVE (see page 224)= =FIG. 26 HEAD OF A CRIMINAL Epileptic= Thus when Bianchi and Patrizi spoke to the notorious brigand Musolino about life in his native woods, his mother, and his sweetheart, there was an immediate alteration in the pulse, and the line registered by the plethysmograph suddenly changed, nor did it return to its previous level until some time afterward. My father sometimes made successful use of the plethysmograph to discover whether an accused person was guilty of the crime imputed to him, by mentioning it suddenly while his hands were in the plethysmograph or placing the photograph of the victim unexpectedly before his eyes. _Morbid Phenomena._ When examining a criminal or even a suspected person, who is nearly always more or less abnormal, it is advisable to investigate the more common morbid phenomena he may be subject to, on which he is not likely to give information spontaneously because he is ignorant of their importance. He should be questioned about his sleep, whether he has dreams, etc. Mental sufferers nearly always sleep badly and are frequently tormented by insomnia and hallucinations. The inebriate imagines he is being pursued by disgusting, misshapen creatures, from which he cannot escape. Epileptics, and frequently also hysterical persons have peculiar obsessions. They fancy they cannot perform certain actions unless they are preceded by certain words and gestures. The susceptibility of the patient to suggestion should also be tested, to determine what value can be attached to his assertions. Sufferers from hysteria and general paralysis are like children, highly susceptible to suggestion, not necessarily of an hypnotic nature. If you tell an hysterical person with conviction that he suffers pain in a certain part of his body, is feverish or pale or something of the sort, he will inform you spontaneously after a few minutes that he feels pain or fever, etc. After a crime of a startling nature has been committed by some unknown person, it not unfrequently happens that some hysterical subject, generally a youth, who imagines he has been accused of the crime by the neighbours or his acquaintances, becomes convinced that he is really guilty and gives himself up to the police. _Speech._ Special attention should be directed during the examination to the way in which the patient replies to questions and his mode of pronunciation. There may be peculiarities of pronunciation and stammering, characteristic of certain forms of mental alienation, or at any rate of some nervous anomaly; or articulation may be tremulous and forced, as in precocious dementia and chronic inebriety. In other cases the words are jumbled and confused, especially if long and difficult. In the first stages of progressive paralysis the letter _r_ is not pronounced. To test this anomaly, which is of great importance in the diagnosis, the patient should be requested to pronounce difficult words, such as, corroborate, reread, rewrite, etc. In order not to lose such valuable indications, in cases where personal examination is impossible, phonograph impressions of conversations between the patient and some third person will serve as a substitute. The inquiry may reveal still more serious anomalies in the ideas, intelligence, and mental condition of the patient. Sometimes the answers given are sensible but are followed by nonsense. Other patients, especially when afflicted with melancholia, speak unwillingly, as if the words were forced from them, one by one. Idiots, cretins, and demented persons are sometimes incapable of expressing themselves. Some patients who have had apoplectic strokes substitute one word for another, "bread" for "wine," etc., or elide one part of the sentence and only repeat the last word. _Memory._ To form an idea of the memory of the subject, questions should be put to him concerning recent and remote personal facts and circumstances, the year in which he or his children were born, what he had for his supper on the previous evening, etc., etc. _Visual memory_ may be tested by giving the patient a sheet of paper, on which are drawn various common objects, letters, or easy words. He should be allowed to look at these for five or ten seconds and requested to enumerate them after the paper has been withdrawn. In order to test the memory of sounds, the examiner should utter five or six easy words and ask the patient to repeat them immediately afterwards. To test sense of colour, a picture on which various colours are painted is placed before the patient, as well as a skein of wool of the same shade as one of the colours in the picture, which he is requested to point out. _Handwriting_ is very important, particularly in distinguishing a born criminal from a lunatic, and between the various kinds of mental alienation. Monomaniacs and mattoids (cranks) who give the police the most trouble often speak in a perfectly sane manner, but pour out all their insanity on paper, without an examination of which it is not easy to detect mental derangement. They write with rapidity and at great length. Their pockets, bags, etc., are always full of sheets of paper covered with small handwriting, sometimes scribbled in all directions. The matter is generally absurd or simply stupid, consisting of endless repetitions. Individuals in the first stage of paralysis make orthographical errors, which coincide with their mistakes in pronunciation, like _Garigaldi_, instead of _Garibaldi_. Care must be taken to test this defect thoroughly. If the patient is fairly well-educated, his signature, which is the last to alter, is not sufficient; nor are a few lines a satisfactory test, since he can easily concentrate his attention on them, but he should be requested to write a page or two and be exhorted to make haste. Alcoholism and paralysis generally give rise to tremulous handwriting with unsteady strokes, as in old people. After epileptic seizures and attacks of hysteria the writing is shaky. The slightest trembling of the hand is detected if Edison's electric pen be used. In progressive general paralysis and some forms of dementia shakiness is so excessive that it becomes dysgraphy, with zigzag letters. The handwriting of persons subject to apoplectic strokes has often the appearance of copper-plate. Monomaniacs intersperse their writings with illustrations and symbols. They write very closely in imitation of print, as do mattoids, hysterical persons, and megalomaniacs, and use many notes of exclamation and capital letters. Their writings are full of badly-spelled words, scrolls, and flourishes. Criminals guilty of sanguinary offences generally have a clumsy but energetic handwriting and cross their _t's_ with dashing strokes. The handwriting of thieves can scarcely be distinguished from that of ordinary persons, but the handwriting of swindlers is easier to recognise, as it generally lacks clearness although it preserves a certain uniformity. The signature is usually indecipherable and enveloped in an infinite number of arabesques. _Clothing._ The manner in which a patient is dressed often gives an exact indication of his individuality. Members of those secret organizations of Naples and Sicily, the Camorra and Mafia, are fond of dressing in a loud manner with an abundance of jewelry. Murderers, epileptics, and the morally insane, who lead isolated lives, attach no importance to dress and are frequently dirty and shabby. (See Fig. 26, A. D., a morally insane epileptic, the perpetrator of three murders.) Swindlers are always dressed in faultless style, the cinædus is fond of giving his costume a feminine air, and monomaniacs trick themselves out with ribbons, decorations, and medals: their clothes are generally of a strange cut. The cretin and the idiot go about with their clothes torn and in disorder and not infrequently emit a strong odour of ammonia. PHYSICAL EXAMINATION Having carefully investigated the past history of the subject and made a minute study of his abnormal psychic phenomena, the expert should proceed to the examination of his physical characters. Chapter I of Part I contains a detailed description of the principal physiognomical anomalies of the criminal that may be discerned by the naked eye. They will now be briefly recapitulated. _Skin._ The skin frequently shows scars and (in the epileptic subject to seizures) lesions on the elbows and temples. Marks of wounds inflicted in quarrels and attempted suicide are frequent in habitual criminals. The forehead and nose must be examined for traces of acne rosacea frequent in drunkards, and for erythema on the back of the hands, characteristic of pellagra. Ichthyosis, psoriasis, or other skin diseases are very common in cases of mental alienation, and scurvy often indicates long seclusion in prison. _Tattooing._ Great care must be taken to ascertain whether the subject is tattooed, and if so, on what parts of his body. Tattooing often reveals obscenity, vindictiveness, cupidity, and other characteristics of the patient, besides furnishing his name or initials, that of his native town or village, and the symbol of the trade he refuses to reveal (sometimes such indications have been blurred or effaced). (See Fig. 27.) One of the chief proofs showing the untruthfulness of the statements made by the Tichborne claimant was the fact that his person was devoid of tattooing, whereas it was well known that Roger Tichborne had been tattooed. Tattooing often reveals the psychology, habits, and vices of the individual. The tattooing on pederasts usually consists of portraits of those with whom they have unnatural commerce, or phrases of an affectionate nature addressed to them. A pederast and forger examined by Professor Filippi was tattooed on his forearm with a sentimental declaration addressed to the object of his unnatural desires; a criminal convicted of rape was covered with pictorial representations of his obscene adventures. From these few instances, it is apparent that these personal decorations are of the utmost value as evidence of hidden vices and crimes. _Wrinkles._ We have already spoken of the abundance and precocity of wrinkles in born criminals. They are also a characteristic of the insane. The following are of special importance: the vertical and horizontal lines on the forehead, the oblique and triangular lines of the brows, the horizontal or circumflex lines at the root of the nose and the vertical and horizontal lines on the neck. (The ferocious leader of a band of criminals at twenty-five, and a savage murderer under thirty years of age.) _Beard._ The beard is scanty in born criminals and often altogether absent in epileptics. On the other hand, it is common in insane females and in normal women after the menopause. Degenerates of both sexes frequently manifest characteristics of the opposite sex in the distribution of hair on the body. A tuft of hair in the sacro-lumbar region, suggestive of the tail of the mythological faun, is frequently found in epileptics and idiots, and in some cases the back and breast are covered with thick down which makes them resemble animals. The hair covering the head is generally thick and dark, the growth is often abnormal with square or triangular zones growing in a different direction from the rest, or in small tufts like those inserted in a brush. Still more frequently do we find anomalies in the position of the vortex, or that point whence the hair-growth diverges circularly, which in normal persons is nearly always situated on the crown. In degenerates it is frequently on one side of the head and in cretins on the forehead. Precocious greyness and baldness are common in the insane criminals, and cretins, on the contrary, show these initial signs of senility at a much later period than normal persons. _Teeth._ The greatest percentage of anomalies is found in the incisors; next come the premolars, the molars, and lastly the canines. In criminals, especially if epileptics, the middle incisors of the upper jaw are sometimes missing and their absence is compensated by the excessive development of the lateral incisors. In other cases the lateral incisors are of the same size as the middle ones, and sometimes the teeth are so nearly uniform that it is difficult to distinguish between incisors, canines, and molars, a circumstance which recalls the homodontism of the lower vertebrates. After the incisors, the premolars show the greatest number of anomalies. While in normal persons they are smaller than the molars, in degenerates they are frequently of the same size or even larger. Supernumerary teeth, amounting sometimes to a double row, are not uncommon. In other cases there is extraordinary development of the canines. Inherited degeneracy from inebriate, syphilitic, or tuberculous parents frequently manifests itself in rickety teeth with longitudinal and transverse _striæ_ or serration of the edges, due to irregularities in the formation of the enamel. In idiots and epileptics, dentition is often backward and stunted; the milk-teeth are not replaced by others, or are almond-shaped and otherwise of abnormal aspect. _Ears._ The ears of criminals and epileptics exhibit a number of anomalies. They are sometimes of abnormal size or stand out from the face. Darwin's tubercle, which is like a point turned forward when the helix folds over, and turned backward when the helix is flat, is frequently encountered in the ears of degenerates. The lobe is subject to a great many anomalies, sometimes it is absent altogether, in some cases it adheres to the face or is of huge dimensions and square in shape. Sometimes the helix is prolonged so as to divide the concha in two. Idiots often show excessive development of the anti-helix, while the helix itself is reduced to a flattened strip. _Eyes._ The eyebrows are generally bushy in murderers and violators of women. Ptosis, a species of paralysis of the upper lid, which gives the eye a half-closed appearance, is common in all criminals; but more frequently we find strabismus, a want of parallelism in the visual axes, bichromatism of the iris, and rigidity of the pupils. _Nose._ In thieves the base of the nose often slants upwards, and this characteristic of rogues is so common in Italy that it has given rise to a number of proverbs. The nose is often twisted in epileptics, flattened and trilobate in cretins. _Jaws._ Enormous maxillary development is one of the most frequent anomalies in criminals and is related to the greater size of the zygomæ and teeth. (See Fig. 27.) The lemurian apophysis already alluded to is not uncommon. _Chin._ This part of the face, which in Europeans is generally prominent, round and proportioned to the size of the face, in degenerates as in apes is frequently receding, flat, too long or too short. These anomalies may be studied rapidly with the naked eye, but height, weight, the proportions of the various parts of the body, shape of the skull, etc., should be measured with the aid of special instruments. _Height._ Criminals are rarely tall. Like all degenerates, they are under medium height. Imbeciles and idiots are remarkably undersized. The span of the arms, which in normal persons about equals the height, is often disproportionately wide in criminals. The hands are either exaggeratedly large or exaggeratedly small. =FIG. 27 ANTON OTTO KRAUSER Apache (see page 236)= The height of a patient must be compared with the mean height of his fellow-countrymen, or, to be more exact, of those inhabitants of his native province or district who are, needless to say, of the same age and social condition. The average height of a male Italian of twenty is 5 feet 4 inches (1.624 m.), that of a female of the same age, 5 feet (1.525 m.). The distances from the sole of the foot to the navel and from the navel to the top of the head are in ratio of 60 to 40, if the total height be taken as 100. =FIG. 29 Anthropometer= These measurements may be effected very rapidly by using the tachyanthropometer invented by Anfossi (see Fig. 29). It consists of a vertical column against which the subject under examination places his shoulders, a horizontal bar adjustable vertically until it rests on the shoulders, and can be used at the same time for ascertaining the length of the arms and middle finger: a graduated sliding scale in the vertical column for rapid measurements of the other parts of the body and a couple of scales at the base for measuring the feet. _Weight._ In proportion to their height, criminals generally weigh less than normal individuals, whose weight in kilogrammes is given by the decimal figures of his height as expressed in metres and centimetres. =FIG. 30 Craniograph Anfossi= _Head._ The head, or rather the skull, the shape of which is influenced by the cerebral mass it contains, is rarely free from anomalies, and for this reason the careful examination of this part is of the utmost importance. We have no means of studying subtle cranial alterations in the living subject, but we can ascertain the form and capacity of his skull. This is rendered easy and rapid by means of a very convenient craniograph invented by Anfossi (see Fig. 30), which traces the cranial profile on a piece of specially prepared cardboard. =FIG. 31 Pelvimeter= In the absence of a craniometer, measurements may be taken with calipers, the arms of which are curved like the ordinary pelvimeters used in obstetrics (see Fig. 31), and a graduated steel tape. The following are the principal measurements: 1. Maximum antero-posterior diameter, which is obtained by applying one arm of the instrument above the root of the nose just between the eyebrows and sliding the other arm over the vault of the skull till it reaches the occiput. The distance between the two arms furnishes the maximum longitudinal diameter. 2. The maximum transverse diameter or breadth of the skull is measured by placing the arms of the calipers, one on each side of the head on the most prominent spot. 3. The antero-posterior curve is obtained by fixing the graduated tape at zero on the root of the nose (on the fronto-nasal suture) and passing it over the middle of the forehead, vertex, and occiput to the external occipital protuberance. 4. The transverse, or biauricular curve is obtained by applying the steel tape at zero to a point just above the ear, and carrying it over the head in a vertical direction till it reaches the corresponding point on the other side. 5. The maximum circumference is obtained by encircling the head with the steel tape, touching the forehead immediately above the eyebrows, the occiput at the most prominent point, and the sides of the head more or less at the level, where the external ear joins the head, according to whether the position of the occipital protuberance is more or less elevated. (See Figs. 32, 33.) 6. The cranial capacity is obtained by adding together these five measurements, the antero-posterior diameter, maximum transverse diameter, antero-posterior curve, transverse curve, and maximum circumference. For a normal male the capacity is generally 92 inches (1500 c.c). =FIG. 32 FIG. 33 Diagram of Skull= 7. The cephalic index is obtained by multiplying the maximum width by 100 and dividing the product by the maximum length, according to the following formula: W × 100 ------- = X (cephalic index). L If the longitudinal diameter is 200 and the transverse diameter 100, the cephalic index is 10,000 divided by 200 = 50. The cephalic indices of degenerates, like their height, have only a relative importance; that is, when they are compared with the mean cephalic index prevalent in the regions of which the subject is a native. The cephalic index of Italians varies between 77.5 (Sardinians) and 85.9 (Piedmontese). Skulls are classified according to the cephalic index, in the following manner: Hyperdolichocephalic under 66 Dolichocephalic 66-75 Subdolichocephalic 75-77 Mesaticephalic 77-80 Subbrachycephalic 80-83 Brachycephalic 83-90 Hyperbrachycephalic above 90 We shall find among criminals frequent instances of microcephaly, macrocephaly, and asymmetry, one side of the head being larger than the other. Sometimes the skull is pointed in the bregmatic region (hypsicephaly), sometimes it is narrow in the frontal region in correlation to the insertion of the temporal muscles and the excessive development of the zygomatic arches (stenocrotaphy, see Fig. 5, Part I., Chapter I.), or depression of the bregmatic region (cymbocephaly). _Face._ We have already remarked on the excessive size of the face compared with the brain-case, owing chiefly to the high cheek-bones, which are one of the most salient characteristics of criminals, and to the enormous development of the jaws, which gives them the appearance of ferocious animals (see Fig. 5). To these peculiarities may be added progeneismus, the projection of the lower jaw beyond the upper, a characteristic found only in 10% of normal persons, receding forehead as in apes, and the lemurian apophysis already mentioned. _Arms and Hands._ With the exception of the excessive length as compared with the stature, anomalies in the arms are rare, but the hands show some interesting characteristics, which have already been described in the first chapter of Part I, an increase or decrease in the number of fingers and syndactylism or palmate fingers. Also the lines in the palm and those on the palmar surfaces of the finger-tips show deviations from the normal type resembling characteristics of apes. _Feet._ Degenerates and more especially epileptics, frequently have flat or prehensile feet and an elongated big-toe with which, like the Japanese, they are able to grasp objects. All these anomalies vary in number and degree according to whether the subject examined is a born criminal or a criminaloid, and according, also, to the special type of crime to which he is addicted. Thieves commonly show great mobility of the face and hands. Their eyes are small, shifty and obliquely placed, and glance rapidly from one object to another. The eyebrows are bushy and close together, the nose twisted or flattened, beard scanty, hair not particularly abundant, forehead small and receding, and the ears standing out from the head. Projecting ears are common also to sexual offenders, who have glittering eyes, delicate physiognomy excepting the jaws, which are strongly developed, thick lips, swollen eyelids, abundant hair, and hoarse voices. They are often slight in build and hump-backed, sometimes half impotent and half insane, with malformation of the nose and reproductive organs. They frequently suffer from hernia and goitre and commit their first offences at an advanced age. The cinædus is distinguished by his feminine air. He wears his hair long and plaited, and even in prison his clothing seems to retain its feminine aspect. The genitals are frequently atrophied, the skin glabrous, and gynecomastia not uncommon. The eyes of murderers are cold, glassy, immovable, and bloodshot, the nose aquiline, and always voluminous, the hair curly, abundant, and black. Strong jaws, long ears, broad cheek-bones, scanty beard, strongly developed canines, thin lips, frequent nystagmus and contractions on one side of the face, which bare the canines in a kind of menacing grin, are other characteristics of the assassin. Forgers and swindlers wear a singular, stereotyped expression of amiability on their pale faces, which appear incapable of blushing and assume only a more pallid hue under the stress of any emotion. They have small eyes, twisted and large noses, become bald and grey-haired at an early age, and often possess faces of a feminine cast. SENSIBILITY This external inspection of the criminal should be followed by a minute examination of his senses and sensibility. =FIG. 34 Esthesiometer= _General Sensibility and Sensibility to Touch and Pain._ Tactile sensibility should be measured by Weber's esthesiometer, which consists of two pointed legs, one of which is fixed at the end of a scale graduated in millimetres, along which the other slides (see Fig. 34). After separating the two points three or four millimetres, they are placed on the finger-tips of the patient, who closes his eyes and is asked to state whether he feels two points or one. Normal individuals feel the points as two when they are only 2 mm. or 2.5 mm. apart; when, however, tactile sensibility is obtuse (as in most criminals) the points must be separated from 3 to 4.5 mm. or even more, before they are felt as two. Obtuseness varies with the type of crime committed habitually by the subject; in burglars, swindlers, and assaulters, being approximately double, while in violators, murderers, and incendiaries it stands in the ratio of 5 to 1 compared with normal persons. In the absence of an esthesiometer, a rough calculation may be made by using an ordinary drawing compass or even a hairpin, separating the two points and measuring with the eye the distance at which they are felt to be separate. _General Sensibility and Sensibility to Pain_ are measured by a common electric apparatus (Du Bois-Reymond), adapted by Lombroso for use as an algometer. (See Fig. 35.) It consists of an induction coil, put into action by a bichromate battery. The poles of the secondary coil are placed in contact with the back of the patient's hand and brought slowly up behind the index finger, when the strength of the induced current is increased until the patient feels a prickling sensation in the skin (general sensibility) and subsequently a sharp pain (sensibility to pain). The general sensibility of normal individuals is 40 and the sensibility to pain, 10-25: the sensibility of the criminal is much less acute and sometimes non-existent. _Sensibility to Pressure._ Various metal cubes of equal size but different weight, are placed two by two, one on each side, on different parts of the back of the hand. The patient is then asked to state which of any two weights is the lighter or heavier. This sense is fairly acute in criminals. _Sensibility to Heat._ Experiments are made by placing on the skin of the patient various receptacles filled with water at different temperatures. If great exactitude is desirable, Nothnagel's thermo-esthesiometer should be used. This is an instrument very similar to Weber's esthesiometer, but the points are replaced by receptacles filled with water of varying heat and furnished with thermometers. The patient must state which is the colder, and which the hotter spot. Sensibility to heat is less acute in criminals than in normal individuals. _Localisation of Sensibility._ After the patient has been requested to close his eyes, various parts of his body are touched with the finger and he is asked to point out the exact spot touched. Should he not be able to reach it with his finger, a statuette should be placed before him on which he should mark with a pencil the part touched. Normal persons are always able to localise the sensation exactly: inability to do so signifies disease of the brain or some kind of anomaly. _Sensibility to Metals_ is tested by placing discs of different metals, copper, zinc, lead, and gold, or the poles of a magnet, on the frontal and occipital parts of the patient's head. Sometimes he feels pricking or heat, giddiness, somnolence, or a sense of bodily well-being. In general, criminals show great sensibility to metals; in hysterical persons this sensibility reaches an extraordinary degree of acuteness. By applying a magnet to the nape of the neck, the sensations of such individuals become polarised, that is, what appeared white to them before becomes black; bitter, what was formerly sweet, or vice versa. This is an excellent way of distinguishing between bona-fide cases of hysteria and sham ones. My father once detected simulation in a _soi-disant_ hysterical patient by means of a piece of wood shaped and coloured to represent a magnet. On application of either magnet, the real or sham one, the patient's sensations were identical, whereas hysterical persons experience very diverse sensations and are able to distinguish very sharply between the contact, not only of wood and metal, but of the different kinds of metal, and are particularly sensitive to the magnet. =FIG. 35 ALGOMETER (see page 246)= =FIG. 36 CAMPIMETER OF LANDOLT (Modified) (see page 249)= _Sight--Acuteness of Vision--Chromatic Sensibility--Field of Vision._ Visual acuteness is tested by holding letters of a specified size at a certain distance. Sight is generally more acute in criminals than in normal persons; not so, chromatic sensibility, which is tested by giving the patient a number of skeins of different coloured silks, and requesting him to arrange them in series. Persons afflicted with dyschromatopsia confuse the different colours and the different shades of the same colour. Colour-blind people confuse black and red. Especially important is the examination of the field of vision, as the seat of one of the most serious anomalies discovered by the Modern School, the presence of peripheral scotoma, frequently found in epileptics and born criminals. To test this anomaly, use should be made of Landolt's apparatus (Fig. 36). This consists of a semicircular band, which can revolve around a column. The patient rests his chin on a support placed in front of the semicircle in such a manner that the eye under examination is exactly in the centre, and looks directly at the middle point of the semicircle, corresponding to 0 in the scale: the testing object, a small ball, is passed backwards or forwards along the semicircle. A graduated scale, placed on the semicircle, marks the point limiting the field of vision, and the result is registered on a diagram. The average limit of the normal field of vision is 90 mm. on the temporal side, 55 mm. on the nasal side, 55 mm. above and 60 mm. below (see Fig. 42). If a suitable instrument is not available, a series of concentric circles may be traced on a slate and the patient placed at a certain distance with one eye covered. The examiner then touches the different points of the circles with his hand and asks the patient whether he can see it when his eye is fixed on the central point. In this way the various points limiting the field of vision are noted and furnish, when united, the boundary line. =FIG. 37 Diagram Showing Normal Vision= _Hearing_ is generally less acute in the criminal than in the normal individual, but does not show special anomalies. It may be tested by speaking in a low voice at a certain distance from the patient, or by holding an ordinary watch a little way from his ear. _Smell._ Olfactory acuteness is tested by solutions of essences of varying strength, which the patient should be requested to place in order, indicating the one in which he first detects an odour. Ottolenghi has invented a graduated osmometer which is easy to use. The criminal generally shows olfactory obtuseness. _Taste_ is tested in the same way as smell, by varying solutions of saccharine or strychnine dropped on to the patient's tongue by means of a special medicine dropper. The mouth should be rinsed out each time. Normal persons taste the bitterness of sulphate of strychnine in a solution 1:600,000; the sweetness of saccharine in a solution 1:100,000. The sense of taste is less acute in criminaloids than in normal persons, and is specially obtuse in born criminals, 33% of whom show complete obtuseness. _Movements._ Normal individuals in a state of repose remain almost motionless, and their gestures are always appropriate. Lunatics and imbeciles have a habit of speaking and gesticulating even when they are not interrogated. Nervous diseases manifest themselves in facial contortions or slight spasmodic contractions. In melancholia and all forms of depression, the patient does not gesticulate but remains immovable like a statue with his eyes cast down. Degenerates manifest a fairly varied series of involuntary motions,--twitchings of the muscles, as in chorea, tonic and clonic convulsions and tremors. In senility, chorea, and Parkinson's disease, the tremors are incessant and continue even when the body is in a state of repose; in sclerosis, goitre, and chronic inebriety they accompany voluntary movements, and in this case they are easily detected by making the patient lift the tip of his finger to his nose or a filled glass to his lips. The nearer the hand approaches its goal, the more intense the oscillations become. Above all, the examiner should not fail to ask the patient to put out his tongue. If it protrudes on one side, it is a sign of a serious nervous alteration and nearly always denotes the beginning or remains of paralysis, or partial apoplectic strokes. _Muscular Strength_ is measured by a common dynamometer (Fig. 38), which the patient is requested to grasp with all his might. Compressive strength is tested by compressing the oval. In order to test tractive strength, the dynamometer is fastened to a nail at the point C, and the patient pulls with all his strength at D. The effort is registered on a graduated scale and is of importance for detecting left-handedness and measuring the extraordinary force that is displayed in certain states of excitement. =Fig. 38 Dynamometer= _Reflex Action_ consists of movements and contractions produced by an impression exciting the nerves of the cutis (cutaneous reflex) or tendons (tendinous reflex). _Cutaneous Reflex Movements_ may be tested by placing the patient in a recumbent position and stroking methodically certain parts of the body, the sole of the foot (plantar reflex), the under side of the knee-joint (popliteal reflex), the abdominal wall (abdominal reflex). Certain reflex movements are of special importance: the cremasteric reflex, on the inner side of the thigh (obtuse in old people and individuals addicted to onanism), the reflex action of the mucous membrane covering the cornea (suspended during stupor, coma, and epileptic convulsions), and the pharyngeal reflex along the isthmus of the fauces (absent in hysterical persons). The dilatation and contraction of the pupil in accommodation to the distance of the object viewed or in response to light stimuli is undoubtedly the most important cutaneous reflex movement. It may be tested by requesting the patient to look at a distant object and immediately afterwards at the examiner's finger, placed close to his eye, or bringing him suddenly from semi-darkness into the light. If the pupil reacts very slightly to the light, it is called torpid: if it does not react at all, it is called rigid. Rigidity of the pupil always denotes some serious nervous disturbance. In certain diseases, especially tabes, the pupils do not respond to light stimuli, but accommodate themselves to objects. _Tendinous Reflex Action_ may be tested in every part of the body, but the rotular reflex movement is generally sufficient. The patient is asked to sit on the edge of the bed or on a chair with his legs crossed. If he is healthy, the reflex movement is fairly strong, but in some illnesses spastic movements may be provoked and extend to the abdomen (exaggerated reflex action); in others no reflex is forthcoming. This is one of the first symptoms of tabes. =FIG. 39 HEAD OF AN ITALIAN CRIMINAL= _Urine_ and _Feces_. As the functions are anomalous, the chemical changes must also be anomalous, owing to the correlation of organs. In born criminals there is a diminished excretion of nitrogen, whereas that of chlorides is normal. The elimination of phosphoric acid is increased, especially when compared with the nitrogen excreted. Pepton is sometimes found in the excretions of paralytic persons in whom there is always an increased elimination of phosphates and calcium carbonate. The temperature is generally higher than in normal persons, and, more important still, varies less in febrile illnesses. * * * * * For the reader's convenience, I have drawn up a list of the different points that should be noted in a careful examination. _Table showing the Anthropological Examination of Insane and Criminal Patients_ (_drawn up by Tamburini, Strassmann, Benelli, and Mario Carrara_). A--_Anamnesis._ Name--surname--nationality--domicile--profession-- age--education. Economic and hygienic conditions of native place. Family circumstances--pre-natal conditions--infancy--puberty. Causes to which decease of parents may be attributed. Cases of insanity--neurosis--imbecility--perversity--suicide--crime--or eccentricity in the family. Progressive diseases or trauma in the subject. Offence and causes thereof. B--_Physique._ Skeletal development--height--span of the arms. C--_Physical Examination._ Muscular development. Colour of hair and eyes. Quantity and distribution of hair. Tattooing. Craniometry: Antero-posterior diameter--transverse diameter-- antero-posterior curve--transverse curve--cephalic index--type and anomalies of the skull--circumference--probable capacity-- semi-circumference (anterior, posterior)--forehead--face, length, diameter (bizygomatic and bigoniac)--facial type--facial index-- anomalies of conformation and development in the skull, in the face, in the ears, in the teeth, in other parts. D--_Functions._ E--_Animal Life._ Sensibility: meteoric--tactile--thermal--dolorific and muscular--visual--auditory--of the other senses. Motivity: Sensory left-handedness--motory left-handedness--voluntary and involuntary movements--reflex action (tendinous or muscular, abnormal, chorea). F--_Vegetative Life._ Muscular strength. Circulation. Respiration. Thermo-genesis. Digestion: Rumination--bulimy--vomiting--dyspepsia--constipation-- diarrhoea. Secretions: Milk--saliva--perspiration--urine--menstruation. Dyscrasia: poisoning. G--_Psychic Examination._ Language--writing--slang. Attention--perception. Memory (textual)--reason. Dreams--excitability--passions. Sentiments: Affection--morality--religion. Instincts and tendencies. Moral character--industry. Physiognomical expression. Education--aptitudes. H--_Morbid Phenomena._ Illusions--hallucinations--delusions-- susceptibility to suggestion. I--_Offences._ Cause of first offence: Environment--occasion--spontaneous or premeditated--drunkenness. Conduct after the offence: Repentance--recidivation. CHAPTER II _SUMMARY OF THE CHIEF FORMS OF CRIMINALITY TO AID IN DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN CRIMINALS AND LUNATICS AND IN DETECTING SIMULATIONS OF INSANITY. A FEW CASES SHOWING THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY_ The cases described in this chapter show the necessity of being able to estimate correctly accusations made against insane persons by criminals or normal individuals. Since, moreover, criminals are prone to sham insanity in order to avoid punishment, I sum up the characteristics that distinguish the various types of criminals. With regard to insane criminals, it must be remembered that every form of mental alienation assumes a specific criminality. The idiot is addicted to bursts of rage, savage assaults, and homicide. His unbridled sexual appetite prompts him to commit rape. He is sometimes guilty of arson in order to gratify a childish pleasure at the sight of the flames. The imbecile or weak-minded egotist is a frequent though unnecessary accomplice in nearly every crime, owing to his susceptibility to suggestion and incapability of understanding the gravity of his actions. Melancholia is often the cause of suicide or homicide (as a species of indirect suicide). The sufferer generally confesses and gives himself up to the police. Delusions that he is being poisoned or insulted are often the cause of the murders committed by this type of lunatic. Maniacs commit robbery, rape, homicide, and arson, and behave indecently in public. Stealing is common among those afflicted with general paralysis, who believe everything they see belongs to them, or do not understand the meaning of property. Dementia causes general cerebral irritation, which frequently results in murder and violence. Hysterical persons invent slanders, especially of an erotic nature. They are given to sexual aberrations and delight in fraud and extravagant actions to make themselves notorious. Persons subject to a mania for litigation offend statesmen and others. Epileptics, of whom born criminals and the morally insane are the most dangerous variety, are familiar with the whole scale of criminality. Their special offences are assault and battery, rape, theft, and forgery. The first offences are committed intermittingly at the prompting of attacks of cortical irritation, the last two almost continuously owing to a state of constant irritation. To distinguish between genuine insanity and simulation, it must be remembered that exaggeration of the symptoms is one of the chief characteristics of shamming. The simulator exaggerates the morbid phenomena and manifests a greater inco-ordination of ideas than does the genuine lunatic who gives sensible replies to simple questions, whereas the simulator talks nonsense. For instance, if a simulator is asked his name, his answer will show no connection with the question. He will say, perhaps: "Did you bring the bill?" or if asked how old he is, will answer: "I am not hungry." Above all, in order to distinguish between dementia, idiocy, cretinism, and an imitation of these forms, a minute somatic examination is necessary. It should be remarked that in idiots, imbeciles, and cretins we generally find hypertrophy of the connective tissues, earthen hue, scanty beard, _stenocrotaphy_, malformations of the skull, ears, teeth, face, and especially jaws, and there are invariably anomalies in the field of vision, lessened sensibility to touch and pain (which cannot be simulated since pain invariably produces dilatation of the pupils), meteoric sensibility, attacks of hemicrania, neuralgia, hallucinations, and even convulsions, epileptic fits, tremors disposing to propulsive forms, and, psychologically, absence of natural feeling, sadism, and the inability to adopt a regular occupation. When dealing with a simulation of epilepsy, it must be borne in mind that the epileptic always manifests salient degenerate characteristics, especially asymmetry of the face, skull, and thorax; and a careful investigation reveals neurosis of some kind in the family and trauma or serious illness in childhood. During the seizure, the pupil does not react (this cannot be simulated) or there is excessive mydriasis. The sudden pallor, and the exhaustion which follows the fit, are absent in the simulator, nor does he bite his tongue or injure himself in other ways. Furthermore, he reacts at the application of ammonia, and as he is not in that state of asphyxia in which the epileptic lies during the fit, the closing of his mouth and nostrils likewise produces a reaction. _Hysteria._ Here the detection of shamming is more difficult, since deceit is a characteristic of this disease. Tests with metals, to which hysterical persons are extremely sensitive, suggestion and hypnotism should be resorted to. The character of the crime should be specially considered, because, as we stated, the foundation of hysteria is an erotic one, and offences committed by the hysterical are nearly always of this nature in the means or the end. An examination of sensibility with suitable instruments, and of reflex action, is to be recommended in all cases. PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY The minute study of the criminal admits of infinite applications. It is generally used in deciding to which category of crime a particular offender belongs, whether he is a born criminal, a morally insane subject, an occasional criminal, or a criminaloid; but in certain cases the examination may be of value in establishing the innocence of an accused person, or in recognising in an accuser an insane individual whose accusation originates in some delusion and not in a knowledge of the facts. AN ACCUSED MAN PROVED INNOCENT BY THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION On the 12th of January, 1902, a little girl of six, living at Turin, suddenly disappeared. Two months later, the corpse was discovered hidden in a case in a cellar of the very house the little victim had inhabited. It bore traces of criminal violence and the clothing was in disorder. Various persons were arrested, among them a coachman named Tosetti, who had been seen joking and playing with the child on several occasions. Tosetti was of honest extraction, his grandparents and parents having died at an advanced age (between sixty and ninety) without having manifested nervous anomalies, vices, or crimes. Tosetti himself, although fond of drinking, was rarely, if ever, intoxicated, and was an individual of quiet, peaceful aspect with a benevolent smile and serenity of look and countenance. His hair had become grey at an early age, and he was devoid of any degenerate characteristics except excessive maxillary development. [Height 5 feet, 7 inches (1.70 m.); weight, 158 lbs. (72 kilogrammes); cranial capacity, 93 inches (1531 c.c.); cephalic index, 84 (brachycephaly; characteristic of the Piedmontese); tactile sensibility, 3 mm. left, 2.5 mm. right; general sensibility, 83 right, 78 left; sensibility to pain, 55 right, 45 left. The sensibility was, therefore, almost normal without any trace of left-handedness. Analysis of urine--absence of earthy phosphates common to born criminals. Tendinous reflex action feeble, few cutaneous reflexes, no tremors. The field of vision was not much reduced but manifested a few peculiarities, due no doubt to the abuse of alcohol.] Psychologically, Tosetti appeared to be a man of average or perhaps slightly less than average intelligence. He was quiet, very respectful, not to say servile, entirely devoid of impulsiveness of any form, and averse to quarrels, on which account he was rather despised by his companions. His natural affections were normal, and he was a good son and brother; he was excessively timid and disconcerted by the slightest reproof from his employer. He was rather fond of wine, though not of liquors. His sexual instincts he had lost very early, a fact which caused his companions to indulge in many jokes at his expense. His stinginess bordered on avarice, and he had never changed his trade. During his trial he showed no resentment against anyone, not even the police and warders, of whom he said on one occasion, "They have treated me like a son." The examination proved beyond a doubt that Tosetti was not a born criminal, and was incapable of committing the action of which he was suspected--the murder of a child for purely bestial pleasure. To obtain stronger proof, my father adopted the plethysmograph and found a slight diminution of the pulse when Tosetti was set to do a sum; when, however, skulls and portraits of children covered with wounds were placed before him, the line registered showed no sudden variation, not even at the sight of the little victim's photograph. The results of the foregoing examination proved conclusively that Tosetti was innocent of a crime which can only be committed by sadists, idiots, and the most degenerate types of madmen, like Vacher and Verzeni and all bestial criminals, who have reached the summit of criminality and unite in their persons the greatest number of morbid physical and psychic characteristics. A few months after my father had diagnosed this case, an assault of the same nature was committed on another little girl living in the same house. In this case, however, the victim survived and was able to point out the criminal--an imbecile, afflicted with goitre, stammering, strabismus, hydrocephaly, trochocephaly, and plagiocephaly, with arms of disproportionate length, the son and grandson of drunkards, who confessed the double crime and entreated pardon for the "trifling offence" since he had always done his duty and swept the staircase, even on the day he committed the crime. Other cases of this kind might be cited, but one instance will suffice. I may, however, mention a case in which my father demonstrated the innocence of an unfortunate individual who had been sentenced to ten years' penal servitude and released at the expiration of his sentence. By means of a thorough examination, which showed a complete absence of criminal characteristics, my father declared the man to be innocent of the crime for which he had been imprisoned; and subsequent investigations resulted in his rehabilitation and the discovery of the actual culprit. ACCUSATION PROVED TO BE FALSE BY THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION An individual named Ferreri suddenly disappeared, and ten days later his corpse was found down a well. The evidence of several persons led to the arrest of the owner of the well, a certain Fissore, a man of very bad reputation, with whom Ferreri had been seen on the day of his disappearance. On being arrested, Fissore admitted having committed the crime, but not alone, and named as his accomplices three others, Martinengo, Boulan, and a prostitute, named Ada. All three strenuously denied their guilt. They all appeared perfectly normal. But after a month of investigations, Martinengo, a tipsy porter of thirty-five, the son and grandson of drunkards, who at first had advanced an alibi, after being confronted several times with Fissore, admitted his complicity, and in the latter's absence added various details to his (Fissore's) version. The four accused persons were examined anthropologically with the following results: Boulan had the appearance of an honest country notary with broad forehead, precocious grey hairs and baldness, small jaws and a well-shaped mouth. He was a quiet man and had only once come into conflict with the law, but for an action which is not a crime in the eyes of an anthropologist (striking a carabinier who had ill-treated his father). He worked hard at his trade, which was that of a journeyman baker, and showed his kindly nature by substituting for sick comrades. He showed great attachment to all his companions, relatives, and family, and was generally beloved. In short, he was an honest, hard-working man. His alibi was corroborated by several persons who had been playing cards with him on the evening of the crime. The second prisoner, Ada, although a prostitute, had never shown other criminal tendencies; she had adopted her calling in order to maintain her father and children, of whom she was very fond. Martinengo, who had admitted his complicity, had no previous convictions. He was, however, an individual of earthy hue, with precocious wrinkles. Height, 5 feet, 3 inches (1.60 m.); span of the arms, 5 feet, 7 inches (1.70 m.); flattened, nanocephalous head, normal urine (phosphates 3.1), but anomalous reflex action and senses. Rigid, unequal pupils, tongue and lips inclined towards the right, shaky hand, astasia, aphasia, strong rotular reflex action, absence of cutaneous and cremasteric reflexes, illegible handwriting--a defect of long standing, since it was also found in writing dating back nine months before his arrest, uncertainty and errors of pronunciation (bradyphasia and dysarthria), complete insensibility to touch and the electric current, which gave him no sensation of pain. On the other hand, he was subject to unbearable pains in various parts of the body. He was in the habit of laughing continually, even when reprimanded, or when sad subjects were mentioned. In spite of sharp pains in the epigastric region, he appeared to be in a strange state of euphoria or morbid bodily well-being, which prevented him from realising that he was in prison. He manifested regret when taken from his cell, where he said he had enjoyed himself so much in passing the hours in reading. Occasionally he had hallucinations of ghosts, lizards, mice, etc. At night, he seemed to suffer from acute mental confusion, which caused him to spring out of bed. Sometimes he was seized by a fit of chorea, followed by deep sleep. These phenomena led my father to the conclusion that Martinengo was an inebriate in the first stage of paralytical dementia. The demented paralytic and the imbecile, like children, are easily influenced by the suggestions of others or their own fancies. Mere reading may produce a strong impression on such minds, as in the case of the little girl who accused the Mayor of Gratz of assault, because she had listened to the account of a similar case; and the impression is intensified when, as in the case of Martinengo, it is preceded by arrest, seclusion in a cell, the remarks of magistrates, warders, etc. In order to test Martinengo's susceptibility to suggestion, my father told him that his cell was a room in the "Albergo del Sole," the name of a hotel in his native town. At first the idea amused him, but after a few days he began to mention it to other persons and at last he firmly believed in it. A few months later, he was transferred in a state of paralysis to the asylum, and there he was fond of boasting of the "Albergo del Sole" where he had been staying a few months before, and where they had treated him to choice dishes, etc. We now come to Fissore, the accuser of the other three. Investigation of his origin showed that a male cousin had died raving mad, a female cousin had died in an asylum, a great-uncle on the maternal side had been crazy and had committed suicide; another cousin was weak-minded and subject to fits; another, a deaf-mute, had died in an asylum; another great-uncle was a drunkard and a loafer; one sister was an idiot, the other had run away from home, and a brother had been convicted several times. Giuseppe Fissore had suffered from somnambulism and _pavor nocturnus_ (fear of darkness) when quite a child; when a little older, he used to get up in the night, walk about and try to throw himself out of the window. At school he shunned the company of other boys and grew violently angry when called by his name. When ten years old, he was bitten by a mad dog and while being tended in Turin by the wife of an inn-keeper, had an epileptic seizure. At thirteen, he was seized by another fit, and in falling broke his arm. His restless and capricious character led him to change his occupation a great many times; he became, in turn, baker, carpenter, forester, and farm-labourer. He appeared to have little affection for his mother and still less for his father, with whom he had come to blows on one occasion. At the age of twenty, in a quarrel with some companions, one of them struck him with a sickle and fractured his skull. He had been convicted several times of theft, assault, etc. He manifested only a few physical anomalies,--exaggerated facial asymmetry, due to the disproportionate development of the left side of his skull, Carrara's lines in the palm of his hands, and a scar resulting from the fracture of his skull; but the convulsions, the _pavor nocturnus_, the two fits, and other characteristics showed him to be an epileptic and an abnormal individual, and explained how he could have accomplished a murder single-handed, which was moreover rendered more easy by the fact that the victim had been drinking heavily. Nor was the crime without a motive, since the murdered man had been robbed of a large sum of money. The total lack of moral sense that distinguished Fissore explains why he should have sought to implicate three persons who had never wronged him for the pleasure of harming and enjoying the sufferings of others. In fact, during his trial he made many false accusations against the police merely for the sake of lying, which is characteristic of degenerates. Irrefutable alibis and a mass of evidence in favour of the three others corroborated the anthropological diagnoses and led to their acquittal, while Fissore was convicted of the crime. SIMULATION OF DEMENTIA AND APHASIA BY MORALLY INSANE SUBJECT In August, 1899, a certain E. M. (see Fig. 44) was removed from prison to an asylum. Although only eighteen, he had been convicted several times of theft and robbery. As a child he had always shown a strong dislike to school and was given to inventing strange falsehoods. In one instance, he asserted that he had killed and robbed a man, although it was known that he had not left the house during the time. After six months in prison, he began to show signs of mental alienation, with insomnia, loss of speech, and coprophagy. Whenever the cells were opened, he made wild attempts to escape by climbing up the grating. He was often seized with epileptic convulsions. On the 30th of August, 1899, he was examined medically with the following results: Stature, 5 ft., 1 in. (1.55 m.); weight, 130 lbs. (59 kilogrammes). Other measurements could not be obtained, owing to the subject's obstinate resistance. His skeletal constitution appeared to be regular and his body well nourished. His skull was brachycephalic, with strongly developed frontal sinuses, and fine, long, dark-brown hair. In the parieto-occipital region were a scar and lesion of the bone, the marks of a wound received during one of his dishonest adventures. He had a normal type of face with frequent contractions of the mimic muscles; the hair-growth on the face scanty for his age. Extremely mobile eyes of vivacious expression, slight strabismus. An examination of the mouth showed a slight obliqueness of the palate, and the mucous membrane was rather pale. The colourless skin was inclined to sallowness. The functions showed an extraordinary degree of cutaneous anæsthesia and analgesia. In winter and summer the patient wore only a pair of trousers and a thin jersey covering his chest and leaving the arms bare; these he was fond of adorning with ribbons and medals. He was in the habit of slipping pieces of ice between his clothing and skin, and pricking himself on the chin with a needle for the purpose of inserting hairs in the holes. On one occasion, one of the doctors came quietly behind him and thrust a needle rather deeply into the nape of his neck, apparently without producing any sensation. Various tests were made by pricking him with a needle when asleep, but without causing the slightest reflex movement on his part. _Psychology._ He was subject to strange impulses, which appeared to be irresistible. On one occasion he was caught cutting off the head of a cat, and at times he would devour mice, spiders, nails, excrements, and the sputum of the other patients. He committed acts of self-abuse publicly, with ostentatious indecency; was in the habit of snatching at bright objects and frequently tore his clothes. His obstinate mutism procured him the nickname of "the mute," but he talked in his sleep and replied to questions by signs. At first, medical men judged him to be in the first stages of dementia, but the course of the symptoms and certain biological and psychic data obtained from the examination led them to the conclusion that the case was one of simulation by a morally insane individual. In the first place, the patient's look expressed a certain amount of confusion and constant distrust; furthermore, it was noticed that the filthy, indecent, and cruel acts practised by him were committed only when he knew he was being observed. The warders often saw him retire to a quiet spot and vomit all the nauseous substances he had swallowed publicly. As soon as he believed himself to be secure from observation, the usual apathetic look on his face was replaced by one of vivacity and intelligence. In November of the same year, although he had not discarded his air of imbecility, he gave abundant proofs of intelligence. He helped the asylum barber, and showed skill and neatness in the way he soaped the other patients' faces, but if a doctor appeared on the scene, he would daub the soap clumsily in their eyes and mouths. In playing cards he showed no lack of skill and never missed an opportunity of cheating. All these facts pointed to shamming, and the suspicions of medical men were amply confirmed by his escape on the 26th of November. The manner in which he had prepared and executed this plan showed great astuteness on his part. Some time before, he had completely changed his clothes and dressed with a certain amount of elegance. He left a note bidding an affectionate farewell to everyone. Later on, he confessed to a fellow-prisoner that he had prepared everything beforehand for his escape as soon as he should have sufficient money. He also asserted that he had felt pain when pricked. Some of the peculiarities manifested in this case, aphasia, insensibility, and coprophagia, have been noticed in other simulators, and it is easy to see why morally insane persons, who are naturally insensible and filthy in their habits, should adopt these peculiarities as traits of their insanity. The stubborn resistance offered by the subject to all attempts to apply diagnostic instruments, except those for measuring insensibility, may be explained by fear lest the simulation should be detected. Simulators of insanity are generally psycho-physiologically, and often anatomically, degenerate, and their inferiority obliges them to resort to violence and trickery--the traits of savage races--to counter-balance their natural disadvantages. The simulation of insanity resembles in its motive the mimicry of certain insects which assume a protective resemblance to other and noxious species. Naturally inferior individuals tend to imitate characters of a terrifying nature (psychic in this case) which serve to protect them and enable them to compete with others who are better equipped for the battle of life. MENTAL DERANGEMENT AND CRIMINAL MONOMANIA DEMONSTRATED BY THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXAMINATION In June, 1895, Michele Balmi, aged 30, was arrested for stabbing Maria Balmi in the neck and hands. The deed had been committed in broad daylight and apparently without any motive, but the accused asserted that it was done in revenge, because the girls were always jeering at him. From evidence given, it appeared that far from insulting Balmi, the girls of the village were in the habit of avoiding him as much as possible on account of his lubricity. The testimony of other witnesses, including the mayor of the place, showed that he was looked upon generally as a semi-insane person, because in a very short time he had squandered all his inheritance and had quite ceased to work. _Somatic Examination._ Body fairly well nourished, height 5 ft., 3 in. (1.60 m.), weight 150 lbs. (68 kilogrammes). Shape of the skull apparently normal but more exaggeratedly brachycephalic than the mean cephalic index of the Piedmontese, which is 85; probable capacity 90 cu. in. (1475 c.c.), or slightly below that of a normal male skull, but proportioned to the low stature. General sensibility and sensibility to pain and touch more obtuse on the left, the general sensibility of the right hand being 68 and the left 81. Dolorific sensibility, 35 right and 41 left; tactile sensibility, 1.5 right, 3.5 left. The strength tested by the dynamometer showed 47 on the right and 54 on the left, which proved that the subject was left-handed. The field of vision manifested extraordinary irregularities, with serious scotoma on the inner side of the right eye; on the left side the eye showed only slight scotoma but there was myopia on the inner side. _Psychic Examination._ The behaviour of the subject was very strange. From the very first day of his imprisonment he seemed to be perfectly calm and composed, as though nothing had happened. When asked how he found prison life, he only remarked: "I certainly thought the food was better." When asked why he had committed the crime, he replied: "Crime indeed! I have only done my duty. Those women were always annoying me. Even in the night, they would come tapping at my window and calling me [acoustic hallucinations] and they insulted me because they wanted me to marry them." "Did they insult you during your absence from Italy?" "Yes, they worried me all the time I was in America. It was no use changing my occupation. I tried everything; first I was a musician, then a barber, then I tried weaving, but they went on just the same, until I lost my situations through them and had to leave the country." "Have you ever been insane or suffered from pains in the head?" "At Chicago, all of a sudden, a doctor called on me, but I have never been mad and should be all right if those women would leave me alone. After all, I only wanted to give them a lesson." He showed a profound and unshaken belief in his own assertions, such as is rare in simulators or in sufferers from melancholia, but is peculiar to monomaniacs, especially if subject to delusions and convinced that they are the object of general persecution. Careful investigation of the crime showed that it was entirely without motives and had been committed openly without any attempt to escape or to establish an alibi. It bore no resemblance to ordinary crimes and was clearly a case of monomania with hallucinations. This diagnosis was confirmed by the fact of the anomalies in the field of vision and sensibility, the acoustic hallucinations, and, psychologically, the anomalous nature of the affections and moral sense. It was impossible to suppose that any of these peculiarities had been simulated, because the subject was far too ignorant to be aware of the importance of hallucinations and alterations in the senses and affections. Moreover, his whole bearing was that of a man profoundly convinced that he had done his duty, and he had no motive for shamming to escape punishment, since it evidently never entered his head that he ran any risk of incurring it. He was sent to an asylum. APPENDIX WORKS OF CESARE LOMBROSO (BRIEFLY SUMMARISED) I _The Man of Genius (L'Uomo di Genio)_ In 1863, my father was appointed to deliver a series of lectures on psychiatry to the University of Pavia. His introductory lecture, "Genius and Insanity," showed the close relationship existing between genius and insanity; and the theme proved so absorbingly interesting to him that he threw himself into the study of the problem with all the ardour of which he was capable. Those who have never come into contact with mentally deranged persons may deem it absurd to mention genius and insanity in the same breath, and still more absurd to seek to demonstrate the existence of flashes of inspiration in insane persons. In the minds of most people, the word _lunatic_ has from earliest childhood conjured up the vision of an incoherent, stupid, or demented being, with wildly streaming hair, raging in paroxysms of maniacal fury, or sunk in imbecile apathy; not, certainly, a sharp-witted individual capable of reasoning logically. But the briefest of visits to an ordinary asylum will make it plain to any observer that such extreme types form only a very small minority. The greater number, when drawn outside the small circle of their delusions, often reason with greater acumen than normal persons; and their ideas, unhampered by stale prejudices which hinder freedom of thought, are remarkable for their originality. Fine fragments of prose and poetry and really beautiful snatches of melody, the work of inmates of lunatic asylums, were collected by my father and published, as special monographs, in _The Man of Genius_; and his museum at Turin contains specimens of embroidery of marvellously beautiful design and execution, and carvings of extreme delicacy. The well-known cases of mathematical, musical, and artistic prodigies and somnambulists with prophetic gifts, who nevertheless appear to be perfectly imbecile apart from their special talents, are interesting examples of the transition from madness to genius. The solving of equations of the fourth and fifth degree or mental calculations involving the multiplication or division of a large number of figures, are difficult operations for normal persons; yet individuals barely able to read and write, and often afflicted with insanity or imbecility, have been known to possess marvellous mathematical faculties. Imualdi was a cretin, and Dase, Juller, Buxton, Mondeur, and Prolongeau, men of feeble intellect. Among the inmates of asylums, we may find cretins and idiots that are able to play on a whistle any melody they have heard. The drawings of cats, executed by a Norwegian cretin, have been deemed worthy of a place among the treasures of art-galleries and museums. Such cases prove that the possession of one highly developed faculty does not imply a corresponding development of all the intellectual powers. Unintelligent, unbalanced, or even mentally deficient women, when in a somnambulistic or hypnotic state, are able to predict future events, an impossible feat for normal persons, or to discover the whereabouts of objects hidden at a distance, a marvellous phenomenon, which can be explained only by presuming the existence of a far-seeing vision, and the working of a powerful synthetic process resembling the inspirations of genius. Although not a difficult task to prove the existence of traits of genius in mentally diseased persons, the bringing to light of instances of insanity in men of genius was a much simpler matter. These instances, carefully classified, form the longest and most important part of _The Man of Genius_, but it is not necessary to give space to any of these instances here. The proofs of the connection between genius and insanity were supplemented by data supplied by the physical examination of a number of geniuses, compared with insane subjects, and a careful investigation of the ethnical, social, and geographical causes which influence the formation of both types. All the facts elicited demonstrated their complete analogy. But my father's studies did not stop short at the discovery of this analogy, or that of the sources whence the diverse varieties of genius spring, which is perhaps the most interesting part of the book, or even at the application of the new doctrines for the purpose of clearing up obscure points in history and shedding light on the lives of great men. He pursued his investigations until he found the keystone of the edifice reared by insanity and genius--epilepsy. It is a well-known fact that a great many men of genius have suffered from epileptic seizures and a still greater number from those symptoms which we have shown to be the equivalent of the seizure. Julius Cæsar, St. Paul, Mahomet, Petrarca, Swift, Peter the Great, Richelieu, Napoleon, Flaubert, Guerrazzi, De Musset, and Dostoyevsky were subject to fits of morbid rage; and Swift, Marlborough, Faraday, and Dickens suffered from vertigo. But it is in the descriptions written by men of genius of their methods of working and creating that we find the strongest resemblance to the different phenomena of epilepsy, which have already been described in detail in this work, in the part treating of the connection between epilepsy and crime. While writing his poems, Tasso appeared to be out of his senses; Alfieri felt everything go dark around him; Lagrange's pulse became irregular; Milton, Leibnitz, Cujas, Rossini, and Thomas could work only under special conditions. Others have encouraged inspiration by using those stimulants which provoke epileptic attacks. Baudelaire made use of hashish; and wine evoked the creative spirit in Gluck, Gerard de Nerval, Verlaine, De Musset, Hoffmann, Burns, Coleridge, Poe, Byron, Praga, and Carducci. Gluck was wont to declare that he valued money only because it enabled him to procure wine, and that he loved wine because it inspired him and transported him to the seventh heaven. Schiller was satisfied with cider; and Goethe could not work unless he felt the warmth of a ray of sunlight on his head. Many have asserted that their writings, inventions, and solutions of difficult problems have been done in a state of unconsciousness. Mozart confessed that he composed in his dreams, and Lamartine and Alfieri made similar statements. The _Henriade_ was suggested to Voltaire in a dream; Newton and Cardano solved the most difficult problems in a similar manner; and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, George Eliot, and George Sand asserted that their novels had been written in a dream-like state, and that they themselves were ignorant of the ultimate fate of their personages. In a preface to one of her books Mrs. Beecher Stowe even went to the length of denying her authorship. Socrates and Tolstoi declared that their works were written in a condition of semi-unconsciousness; Leopardi, that he followed an inspiration; and Dante described the source of his genius in those beautiful lines: "... quando Amore spira, noto, ed a quel modo Che detta dentro, vo significando." "When love inspires, I write, And put my thoughts as it dictates in me." "I call inspiration," says Beethoven, "that mysterious state during which the whole world seems to form one vast harmony, and all the forces of Nature become instruments, when every sentiment and thought resounds within me, a shudder thrills through my frame, and every hair on my head stands on end." These expressions show that when a genius attains to the fulness of his development and, consequently, to the widest possible deviation from the normal, he is more or less in that condition of unconsciousness which characterises psychic epilepsy and is represented by a series of unconscious psychic activities. Having demonstrated the frequent existence of a spice of insanity in the genius and flashes of genius in the insane, and, further, that geniuses are subject to a special form of insanity, my father, who was no mere theorist, but an admirer of facts and eager to turn them to account, considered next the possibility of making practical use of these discoveries. This he had no difficulty in doing. The prevalence of insanity in men of genius explained innumerable contradictions and mad traits in their lives and works, the true meaning of which had hitherto escaped biographers, who either ignored them altogether or covered reams of paper with vain attempts to represent them as inspirations or, at any rate, reasonable actions. It also explained the origin of some of the extraordinary errors committed by great men; for example, the absurdly contradictory actions of Cola di Rienzi, who, after making himself master of Rome when the city was in a state of chaos, restoring peace and order, reorganising the army and conceiving the vast idea of a united Italy, ended his patriotic mission with a series of extravagances worthy of a madhouse. The fact that traits of genius are so often found in mentally unsound persons and _vice versa_, permits us to suppose that lunatics have not infrequently held the destinies of nations in their hands and furthered progress by revolutionary movements, of which by reason of their natural tendencies and marked originality they are so often the promoters. It may seem a simple idea to class great men, who have exercised such an enormous influence on civilisation, with wretched beings, to whom no brilliant part has been allotted, and to estimate mad ideas at their true worth; yet it had never occurred to any one before. It is in the minor works of geniuses that the greater number of absurdities abound, but they are little known to the general public, who are acquainted only with the masterpieces. Critics either ignored the absurdities and heresies contained in these works, or, dazzled by the genius of the author, made them the subject of infinite studies, in the conviction that they were merely allusions or symbols demanding interpretation. All the defects of great men, all the extravagant notions written or spoken by them were covered with the magic veil of glory; and there was no innocent little child, as in Andersen's charming story, to tell the world of the nakedness of geniuses. Thus idiocy, epilepsy and genius, crimes and sublime deeds were forged into one single chain; and the brilliant lights of some of its links, and the gloomy shadows thrown by others, were reduced to a play of molecules, like those which transform carbon into a refulgent diamond or a sombre lump of graphite. II _Criminal Man (L'Uomo Delinquente) considered in relation to Anthropology, Jurisprudence, and Psychiatry_ Although my father's theories on the male criminal have already been set forth in the volume now presented to the public, I feel that it would not be inappropriate to add to the descriptions of his other important works a brief survey of the original book for the use of readers desirous of studying the subject more thoroughly. The first volume is devoted to an investigation of the atavistic origin of crime among plants, animals, savages, and children. This is followed by an exhaustive study of the physical nature of the born criminal and the epileptic, modern craniology, the anomalies connected with the different classes of offences, the spine, pelvis, limbs, and physiognomy. The data given are based on the results obtained from the examination of about 7000 criminals. In the study of the brain, the macroscopic anomalies in the convolutions and histological structure of the cerebral cortex of criminals and epileptics are the object of special consideration, since these anomalies solve the problem of the origin of criminality. Certain additional degenerate characters, the prehensile foot, wrinkles, lines on the finger-tips, the ethmoid-lachrymal suture, anomalies of dentition, the existence of a single horizontal line on the palm of the hand, etc., are further described, and a careful examination made of the field of vision and olfactory and auditory sensibility. The psychological examination of the criminal includes psychometry, the discovery of new characteristics, such as neophily, lack of exactitude, frequent existence of traits of genius, pictography, hieroglyphics, gestures, and the arts and crafts peculiar to the criminal. Finally, the different types of offenders--epileptic and morally insane criminals, political and passionate offenders, inebriate, hysterical, and mentally unbalanced (mattoid) criminals--are described separately and compared with each other, their diversities and analogies being thrown into relief. Around these types are grouped juridical figures of crimes, reproduced from psychiatric forms. These are followed by an examination of occasional or pseudo-criminals, criminaloids, latent criminals, and geniuses. The second volume treats of epileptics, and discusses, among other things, their ergography, psychology, graphology, and anomalies of the field of vision. The studies on criminals of passion are supplemented by observations on suicides and political offenders, those on the insane include investigations of their age, psychology, sex, tattooing, heredity, and the difference between insane and ordinary criminals with respect to the motives that prompt their crimes, and the manner in which these are carried out, thus furnishing a new theory of sexual psychopathy. The third volume of the fifth edition treats of the etiology and cure of crime. In the part dealing with the etiology of crime, the geological, ethnical, political, and economical factors determining or influencing criminality, as well as other causes,--density of population, food, alcoholism, sex, heredity, instruction, religion, etc., are examined statistically and sifted with critical care. For the first time, light is thrown on the influence exercised by criminality and wealth on the increase or decrease of emigration. My father demonstrates by means of data, contributed for the most part by Bodio and Cognetti, that the importance attributed to poverty as a factor of criminality, especially by certain socialistic schools, has been largely exaggerated; while, at the same time, the fact that both wealth and education have their specific crimes, has been ignored by these schools. In dealing with collective criminality, my father merely repeats the original theories on the subject, expressed by him in 1872 and constantly confirmed since then. These theories have been utilised and illustrated by a number of writers: Ferri, Sighele, Ferrero, Le Bon, and Tarde. In the prophylaxis and cure of crime, not content with mere criticism of present methods, the new doctrines suggest practical and efficacious means of repressing crime. In view of the fact that criminality is assuming a changed aspect, adapted to the conditions of modern life and civilisation, it should be combated by the very means furnished by progress,--the telegraph, press, all measures for fighting alcoholism, popular places of recreation, etc. For the prevention of crime, besides those measures designed to minimise the influence of physical and economic factors,--baths, sanitary regulations, clearing of forests, prevention of over-crowding, social legislation, limitation of wealth, graduated system of taxation, collective services, expropriation, etc.,--my father suggests special measures for diminishing certain kinds of crime,--divorce for sexual offences, affiliation orders for infanticide and government of a truly liberal character, with freedom of the press and public opinion to combat political crime. He also emphasises the importance of provident and charitable institutions, specially for orphan and destitute children, to aid in suffocating germs of criminality, in view of the fact that it is to ragged schools and similar institutions that the decrease of crime in England is certainly due. Finally, with regard to the direct repression of crime, the new methods of identification devised by Bertillon and Anfosso, and all modern aids for the detection and apprehension of criminals, such as rapid communication and publicity, should be utilised in all countries where the police aspire to be considered scientific in their methods. A minute and intelligent individualisation of penalties is suggested as being far more efficacious than the uniform and injurious punishment of detention in prison; so that while society defends itself, it tends to improve the perverted faculties of criminals, or where improvement is impossible, to utilise them in their natural state, following the example set by nature in the transformation of injurious parasitical relationships into pacific and mutually beneficial symbioses. III _The Female Offender (La Donna Delinquente); The Prostitute and the Normal Woman_ (In Collaboration with Guglielmo Ferrero) The first part of this book is devoted to a study of the normal woman, or rather the female of every species, beginning with the lowest strata of the zoölogical world and working upwards through the higher mammals and primitive human races to civilised peoples. As a result of this study, it is shown that although in the lower species, the female is the superior in intelligence, strength, and longevity, among the higher mammals she is surpassed in strength, intelligence, and beauty by the male, who is developed and perfected by the struggle for the possession of the female; while on the other hand, owing to her maternal functions, the female tends to a perpetuation of her physical and psychic characters; and this prevents variation and evolution. The same phenomenon is encountered in the human race. After a careful examination of the normal woman (height, weight, brain, nervous system, hair, senses, physiognomy, and intellectual and moral manifestations), the authors arrived at the conclusion that the physical, anatomical, physiological, functional, and sensory characters of the female show a lower degree of variability than those of the male. In the same way, cases of monstrosity, degeneration, epilepsy, and insanity are less frequent in the female of the human race; and the percentage of genius and criminality is decidedly lower. The examination of the senses showed that the normal human female possesses a lower degree of tactile, olfactory, auditory, and visual sensibility than the male, and also, contrary to the hitherto accepted opinion, a diminished moral and dolorific sensibility. Among savage peoples, the female appears to be less sensitive,--that is, more cruel than the male and more inclined to vindictiveness. But when we consider woman from the point of view of her maternal functions, her physiological, psychological, and intellectual nature assumes an entirely changed aspect; for maternity is the natural function of the female, the end to which she has been created. Lofty sentiments, complete altruism, and far-sighted intelligence develop all of a sudden when she becomes a mother. Maternity neutralises her moral and physical inferiority, pity extinguishes cruelty, and maternal love counteracts sexual indifference. Maternity stimulates her intelligence and sharpens her senses, explains and exalts those characteristics which have hitherto constituted her inferiority until they become signs of superiority when considered from the point of view of the reproduction of the species. A lessened sensibility enables woman to bear with greater ease the pains inherent to childbirth; her refractoriness to all kinds of variation--also that of a degenerate nature--serves to correct morbid heredity and to bring back the race, which owes its continuation to her, to its normal state. Women commit fewer crimes than men; and offenders of the female sex, generally speaking, exhibit fewer degenerate characteristics. This is due in part to the tenacity with which the female adheres to normality, but also to the deviation caused in her criminality by prostitution. The history of this social phenomenon, and an examination of the anatomy and functions of the types representing this variation of criminality show that the prostitute generally exhibits a greater number of degenerate and criminal characters than the ordinary female offender. Prostitution is therefore the feminine equivalent of criminality in the male, because it satisfies the desire for licence, idleness, and indecency, characteristic of the criminal nature. In addition to prostitutes and ordinary offenders, who constitute the larger part of female criminality, there exists a small number of born criminals of the female sex, who are more ferocious and terrible even than the male criminal of the same type. The criminality of this class of women develops on the same foundation of epilepsy and moral insanity. The physical characters are those peculiar to the male born criminal--projecting ears, strabismus, anomalies of dentition, and abnormal conformation of the skull, brain, etc.; in addition, an absence of feminine traits. In voice, structure of the pelvis, distribution of hair, etc., she tends to resemble the opposite sex and to lose all the instincts peculiar to her own. From this brief description it may be gathered that this work on the female offender owes much of its interest to the light it throws on the normal woman. It is true that it casts doubt on many of the postulates of feminism; but, on the other hand, it lays stress on and exalts the many invaluable qualities characteristic of the female sex. The preface to the work concludes with the following remarks: "Not one of the conclusions drawn from the history and examination of woman can justify the tyranny of which she has been and is still a victim, from the laws of savage peoples, which forbade her to eat meat and the flesh of the cocoanut, to those modern restrictions, which shut her out from the advantages of higher education and prevent her from exercising certain professions for which she is qualified. These ridiculous, cruel, and tyrannical prohibitions have certainly been largely instrumental in maintaining or, worse still, increasing her present state of inferiority and permitting her exploitation by the other sex. The very praises, not always sincere, alas, heaped on the docile victim, are often intended more as a preparation for further sacrifices than as an honour or reward." IV _Political Crime (Delitto Politico)_ (In Collaboration with Rodolfo Laschi) The law of inertia governs nature. Every organism tends to adhere indefinitely to the same mode of life and will not change unless forced to do so. In the depths of the ocean, where existence, comparatively speaking, is uniform and undisturbed, we still find organisms allied to the species of pre-historic epochs. Those stars and suns, which are outside the sphere of action of other worlds, continue eternally their vertiginous gyrations in the trajectories assigned to them at the beginning of all things. Every progress in nature is the result of a struggle between the tendency to immobility, manifested by misoneism, or the hatred of novelty, and a foreign force which seeks to conquer this tendency. As in nature, misoneism dominates every human community. It is most invincible in children and neuropathic and insane individuals, very powerful among barbarous peoples, and more or less disguised among civilised nations. But the world progresses: every day new conditions and new interests arise to combat the law of inertia and render impossible the realisation of the much-desired invariability; and progress, unwelcome yet inevitable, prevails. By political crime we understand every action which attacks the laws, the historical, economical, political and social traditions of a nation or, in fact, any part of the existing social fabric, and which comes into collision with the law of inertia. Any attempt to obtain forcibly a change in existing systems, to enforce by violence, for instance, the claims of free trade in a protectionist country, to plunge a nation into war or to incite workers to strike--all such actions represent the first steps in political crime, which reaches its climax in revolts and insurrections, and which victory alone can exalt above a host of blameworthy and base deeds, and crown with glory. Revolution is the struggle between the tendency to immobility innate in a community, and the force which urges it to move. Revolution is the historical expression of evolution and has always great and sublime ends in view. It is the struggle against an institution or a system which hinders the progress of a nation, never against any temporary oppression, no matter how unbearable it may be. The French revolution was not a struggle against an individual king or even a dynasty, but against the institutions of monarchy and feudalism; nor was Lutheranism a revolt against any pope, but against the corruption that had invaded the Roman Catholic Church. The Italian revolution was not directed against foreign rule, which indeed was mild and generous in some parts of the country, but it voiced an imperious demand for independence indispensable to every people that desires to become truly civilised. A revolution is therefore a slow, constant effort towards progress, preceded by propaganda. In some instances, it may last for years; in others, for centuries, until an entire nation, from the humblest citizen to the most wealthy patrician, is convinced of the necessity of the proposed change, and the habitual misoneism of the masses overcome, the existing order of things being defended by only a few, whose personal interests are bound up in the old system. The ultimate triumph is inevitable, even when the leaders of the movement perish and the first risings are suffocated in blood; nay, death and martyrdom serve only to kindle greater enthusiasm for an ideal, if it be worthy to live. This becomes apparent when we consider the impulse given to Christianity by the crucifixion of its Leader, and to Italian independence by the death of the two brothers, Emilio and Attilio Bandiera. But bloody episodes are not always essential to the march of a revolution. The triumph of Hungary over Austria was almost a bloodless one, and that of Free Trade in England was effected practically without violence. Since a revolution implies a change in the ideas of the masses and not of a minority, be this of the elect or merely of turbulent spirits, revolutions are rare occurrences in history and their effects are lasting. In fact, after the death of Cromwell, feudalism was extinct in England. Like the pear which falls in autumn when the process of ripening has caused the gradual reabsorption of the juices in the stalk, revolution triumphs and the ancient system perishes when an entire people is persuaded of the necessity for a change. The fall of the pear, however, is not always the result of a slow physiological process, but may be caused by a gust of wind, which dashes it to the ground before the pulp has developed the sweet juices that are the sign of its maturity. In the same way, a revolt or an armed rising of men, whose demands are enforced by threats, may result in the carrying into effect of some programme of reform which is nevertheless too progressive or reactionary, or otherwise unsuited to the country. In fact, nearly every revolution is preceded by an insurrection, which is suppressed by violence, because it seeks to realise premature ideals, and on this account is frequently followed by a counter-revolution, provoked by reactionary elements. Unlike revolutions, insurrections are always the work of a minority, inspired by an excessive love or hatred of change, who seek forcibly to establish systems or ideas rejected by the majority. Unlike revolutions, also, they may break out for mere temporary causes--a famine, a tax, the tyranny of some official, which suddenly disturbs the tranquil march of daily life; in many cases they may languish and die without outside interference. In practice, however, it is extremely difficult to distinguish a revolt from a revolution since the results alone determine its nature, victory being the proof that the ideas have permeated the whole mass of the people. Political offenders, insurrectionists, and revolutionists are the men who seize the standard of progress and contest every inch of the ground with the masses, who naturally incline towards a dislike of a new order of things. The army of progress is recruited from all ranks and conditions--men of genius, intellectual spirits who are the first to realise the defects of the old system and to conceive a new one, synthesising the needs and aspirations of the people; lunatics, enthusiastic propagandists of the new ideas, which they spread with all the impetuous ardour characteristic of unbalanced minds; criminals, the natural enemies of order, who flock to the standard of revolt and bring to it their special gifts, audacity and contempt of death. These latter types accomplish the work of destruction which inevitably accompanies every revolution: they are the faithful and unerring arm ready to carry out the ideas that others conceive but lack the courage to execute. Finally, there are the saints, the men who live solely for high purposes and to whom the revolution is a veritable apostolate. They rank high above the mass of mankind, from whom they are frequently distinguished by a singular beauty of countenance, recalling ancient paintings of holy men. They are consumed by a passion for altruism and self-immolation, and experience a strange delight in martyrdom for their ideals. These men sweep the masses along with them and lead to victory with their propaganda, their inspired songs, and thrilling accents. Tyrtæus was not the only poet who led soldiers to war: every insurrection has had its own songs, in which the love of a whole people is crystallised. Lunatics, unbalanced individuals, and saints are the promoters of progress and revolutions. These types have one thing in common--their passionate devotion to a sublime ideal and their love for humanity, which torments and crushes them in every case where they fail to attain that for which they have fought. But whether victorious or defeated, on the throne or on the scaffold, their efforts are not lost. Love is the spiritual sun of mankind. A ray shed by a human heart may spread far and wide, traversing unknown regions and sojourning with unknown races; and if powerless to revive some timid flower that has been numbed by the chilly night, it may still be stored up in the songs of a people, like the sunlight in green plants, to be retransformed at some future time into light and warmth. V _Too Soon! (Troppo Presto!)_ (A Criticism of the New Italian Penal Code) In this book, which was written during the interval between the publication of the new Penal Code and its sanction by the Italian Parliament, my father makes a rapid criticism of the Code, which he considered premature. Only a few decades had elapsed since the proclamation of Italian Unity; and the widely differing races that people the provinces constituting the kingdom of Italy had not been able in that brief period to acquire sufficient uniformity of customs to make a single code of laws desirable. But the book is not merely a criticism. It also contains an exposition of the fundamental principles that, according to my father, should underlie every serious and efficacious code of laws. It is this part that makes this somewhat hastily written book of such importance to criminologists; because it sets forth under the chief heads the juridical desiderata of the New School. The following brief extract gives an indication of the nature of these principles: 1. The legislation of a country should always be regulated by the customs of the people whom it is to govern; and although a system of different penal codes to suit the varying races and customs in the different regions of one State may offer certain disadvantages, they are always of less importance than the difficulties caused by a uniform code. 2. The object of every code should be the attainment of social safety, not the careful weighing of guilt and individual responsibility. The worst and most dangerous criminals should be treated with the greatest severity; but indulgence should be shown towards minor offenders. The former should be segregated for life in prisons or asylums; the latter should never be allowed to become acquainted with prison life, but should be corrected by means of other penalties, which would not bring them into contact with true criminals, nor necessitate their temporary retirement from civil life. 3. Certain reprehensible actions (abortion, infanticide, suicide or complicity therein, passionate crimes, duelling, swearing, adultery, etc.), which are not considered criminal by the general public, should be non-criminal in the eyes of the law. 4. Born criminals, the morally insane, and hopeless recidivists, whose first convictions are not followed by any signs of improvement, should be regarded as incurable and confined for life in criminal lunatic asylums, relegated to penal colonies, or condemned to death. A second edition of this book was published shortly afterwards with the title _Notes on the New Penal Code_. In this edition, each of the most notable adherents of the new doctrines: Ferri, Garofalo, Ballestrini, Rossi, Masé Dari, Carelli, Caragnani, and others, discussed one special point of the code and suggested the necessary modifications. VI _Prison Palimpsests_ (_I Palimsesti del Carcere_) (A Collection of Prison Inscriptions for the Use of Criminologists) "Ordinary individuals, and even scientific observers, are apt to regard prisons, especially those in which the cellular system prevails, as mute and paralytical organisms, deprived of speech and action, because silence and immobility have been imposed on them by law. Since, however, no decree, even when backed up by physical force, avails against the nature of things, these organisms speak and act, and sometimes manifest themselves in brutal assaults and murders; but as always happens when human needs come into conflict with laws, all these manifestations are made in hidden and subterranean ways. Walls, drinking-vessels, planks of the prisoners' beds, margins of books, medicine wrappers, and even the unstable sands of the exercise-grounds, and the uniform in which the prisoner is garbed, supply him with a surface on which to imprint his thoughts and feelings." With this paragraph my father begins the introduction to his book _Prison Palimpsests_, a collection of inscriptions and documents revealing the inmost thoughts of prisoners. In the first part, these inscriptions are classified under different headings: opinions on prison life, penalties, morality, women, etc., and according to the surface on which they are inscribed--books, walls, pitchers, clothing, paper, etc. For the psychologist and the student of degenerate types of humanity, this collection is of the greatest interest. The inscriptions are followed by a series of poems, autobiographies, and letters written by intending suicides, and criminals immediately before their execution. The comments made by criminals on the margins of books belonging to the prison library are especially interesting, because they enable the student to compare the effect produced on criminals by certain works with the impressions of normal individuals. The poems written by prisoners are equally interesting, since, like popular songs, they represent the intimate expression of the poet's desires and aspirations. In the second part, these prison inscriptions are compared with the remarks commonly found scribbled in the streets, on school benches, and on the walls of public buildings of all kinds--courts of justice, places of worship, and even those edifices in which the legislation of the State is framed. All the inscriptions are classified according to the sentiments they express and the sex of the writer, distinction being made between the writings of prisoners and those of the ordinary public. The book closes with practical suggestions regarding the use to which similar collections might be put, as critical hints on the present methods of dealing with criminals and as an aid in investigating the characters of accused persons. All offenders, except the most degenerate types, born criminals or the morally insane, desire work or occupation of some kind, and books of an interesting character. This demand emanates from innumerable inscriptions on the walls of cells and the margins of prison books: "How unbearable is enforced idleness for a man who has always been accustomed to work and study, and in whom activity and the desire of some ennobling pursuit are not quite extinct!" ... "The nun of Cracow cried, 'Bread, bread!' but my voice pleads from my solitary cell, 'Work, work!'" "If jurists would leave their desks and libraries," says my father in conclusion, "put aside all pre-conceived notions, enter the prisons and study the problem of criminality not on the walls of the cells, but on the living documents they enclose, they would speedily realise that all reforms evolved and applied without the aid of practical experience are only dangerous illusions." VII _Ancient and Modern Crimes_ (_Delitti Vecchi e Delitti Nuovi_) "This volume contains a collection of facts, sometimes valuable, at other times merely curious, that I was able to glean during long years of study in the field of criminal anthropology and psychiatry. They all tend to show the great difference that exists between ancient and modern crimes." With these words my father begins the preface to this book, in which cases of recent crimes are described and compared with those committed in by-gone ages. It is divided into three parts. The first part contains a comparative and statistical study of criminality in Europe, Mexico, the United States, and Australia. The second part describes the careers of typical criminals of former times, such as the Tozzis of Rome, a family of anthropophagous criminals, and Vacher, Ballor, and other assassins of the Jack-the-Ripper type, whose perverted sexual instincts prompted them to murder a number of women and mutilate the corpses in a horrible fashion. The third part treats of those modern criminals, like Holmes and Peace, who accomplish their misdeeds in a refined and elegant manner, substituting for the more brutal knife or hammer, the resources of chemistry, physics, and modern toxicology. In other cases, some product of modern times, such as the motor-car or bicycle, forms the motive for the crime, or is of assistance in its accomplishment. "From the data we have been able to gather relating to crime in by-gone ages," continues my father in his preface, "we are led to conclude that crimes of a violent and bloody nature predominated exclusively in more barbarous times, and that fraudulent offences are characteristic of modern communities. Violence is more primitive than trickery and must always precede it, exactly as a more barbarous state in which property is gained or maintained by force, at the point of the sword, precedes a state in which ownership is regulated by means of contracts; and crime always adapts itself to the prevailing customs. "The admirable work of Coghlan shows criminality in Australia to be of this latter type, as contrasted with its semi-barbarous nature in states like Mexico, and gives us a picture of the character it will assume a century or two later in Europe. "As the fundamental nature of the criminal has not changed, his actions are still of the same character; and violence and cunning are mingled or alternate in modern crime. But though the individual remains unchanged, he is subordinated to a more powerful factor than himself--modern progress. It is true that many modern crimes are facilitated by modern contrivances; but the same contrivances often furnish means for their defeat; and so we may foresee a time, perhaps not very remote, when such anti-social elements shall partially, if not totally, have disappeared." VIII _Diagnostic Methods of Legal Psychiatry_ (_La Perizia Psichiatrica Legale_) This work was not intended to introduce the doctrines of modern criminology to the general public, but as a text-book for the guidance of jurists, doctors, experts--in short, all those whose professions bring them, into contact with criminals. It consists of two parts, the first of which contains about fifty cases diagnosed according to the new methods, and collected by the author of the work and his followers. These cases include all types of delinquents: born criminals, morally insane individuals, hysterical, insane, inebriate, and epileptic criminals, criminaloids, criminals of passion, etc. In each case, as the diagnosis was intended to serve a practical purpose, the criminal is examined physically, psychologically, and psychiatrically; and his antecedents are investigated with great care. In the second part, "The Technical Aspect of Criminal Anthropology," a detailed description is given of the methods to be employed in the examination of a supposed criminal, the rules for determining to what class he belongs, the manner in which the physical examination should be conducted, a list of the necessary measurements, a description of the most suitable apparatus, and the mode of using them, the methods of procedure in the interrogation of a criminal, in order to elicit useful information, and instructions for analysing his intellectual manifestations (handwriting, drawing, and work), movements, attitude, and gestures. Thanks to the methodical instruction imparted by this book, the inexperienced student is enabled to progress gradually until he is in a position to conduct a complete psychiatric and medico-legal examination. The third part treats of the methods for discriminating between criminals and lunatics. The various forms of mental alienation are described in detail; and an examination of cases of feigned insanity shows that simulators of lunacy are generally mentally unsound. In the concluding part are discussed the various uses to which a careful diagnosis may be applied. The Appendix contains studies on the application of mental tests in medico-legal practice, and a glossary, alphabetically arranged, of the terms commonly employed in criminal anthropology, compiled by Dr. Legiardi-Laura. IX _Anarchists_ (_Gli Anarchici_) The book opens with an examination of the theories of anarchists, from which the author arrives at the conclusion that in view of the importance generally conceded to economic ideals to-day and the universal abuse of power, these theories in reality are not so absurd as they are supposed to be. It is the methods adopted by anarchists for the realisation of their ideals that are both absurd and dangerous. "However valuable many of the proposals of anarchism may be," says the author, "they become absurd in practice; because all reforms should be introduced very gradually in order to escape the inevitable reaction which neutralises all previous efforts." The crimes of anarchists tend to mingle with ordinary crimes when certain dreamers attempt to reach their goal by any means possible--theft, or the murder of a few, often innocent, persons. It is easy to realise, therefore, why, with a few exceptions, anarchists are recruited from among ordinary criminals, lunatics, and insane criminals. Investigations made by the author showed that 12 per cent. of the communards were of a criminal type, and this percentage was still higher in anarchists (31 per cent.). Of forty-five anarchists examined at Chicago, 40 per cent. had faces of a criminal cast. The majority of anarchists possess the passions and vices peculiar to ordinary criminals: impulsiveness, love of orgies, lack of natural affections and moral sense; and similar intellectual manifestations, such as slang, ballads, tattooing, hieroglyphics. But there are a greater number of genuine epileptic and hysterical subjects, lunatics, and indirect suicides among anarchists than among ordinary criminals; greater, too, is the proportion of criminals from passion. These truly heroic natures, profoundly convinced that the remedy for so many social evils lies in the murder of certain personages of high standing, who appear to bear the greatest share of responsibility for the existing system, do not hesitate to have recourse to violence when they deem it necessary; although it is distasteful to them and although they have hitherto disassociated themselves from the excesses of their companions. The anarchists Caserio and Bresci were of this type. The crimes of these passionate criminals are always accomplished single-handed; they always surrender to the police immediately afterwards and make no attempt to defend themselves. On the contrary, when in court, they frequently give a lucid explanation of the motives that have induced them to commit their crimes and affront the penalty with stoicism. Such being the origin, and such the promoters of anarchism, it is evident that the methods for curing crimes deriving from this source should differ greatly from those used in suppressing ordinary crime. In spite of the fact that anarchists are frequently criminals, their ideas, although often absurd, imply a greater elevation of character than the cynical apathy in which the worst types of criminals are sunk. Instead of combating violence by violence and dealing out death sentences with a prodigality almost rivalling that of anarchists themselves, the authorities should segregate the most dangerous types or relegate them to distant islands, and adopt exile as a penalty for genuine criminals of passion. However, political liberty and some safety-valve, whereby lawless instincts may be turned into harmless channels, are the best methods for preventing anarchism. Constitutional government and freedom of speech and the press may go a long way towards combating anarchism; but the restoration of popular tribunates, like those to which Rome owed her balance and tranquillity, would be still more efficacious. If the governing bodies were to favour, instead of hindering, the formation of such institutions, which tend to spring up everywhere and to voice the grievances of the people, just causes would not be abandoned exclusively to the advocacy of extremists. X _Lectures on Legal Medicine_ (_Lezioni di Medicina Legale_) This book, as the preface explains, was an attempt to present in a concise and popular form the theories of criminal anthropologists, on which the author had previously delivered a series of university lectures, and which he feared might have been erroneously or imperfectly understood by those of his hearers who were diffident or insufficiently prepared. It is divided into three parts, criminal anthropology, mental alienation, and the relation of serious offences (assault, murder, poisoning, etc.) to legal medicine. The first part contains a summing-up of the author's ideas on the atavistic and pathological origin of the criminal. He examines the equivalents of crime among plants, animals, savages, and children, describes the pathological causes which call forth atavistic instincts and alludes to other special kinds of degeneration peculiar to criminals. Finally, the anatomy, functions, and internal organs of the criminal are examined, and a careful study made of his intellectual manifestations and psychology. Similar studies on epileptics and the morally insane show that the three forms are only variations of the same degeneration. We have an examination of occasional, habitual, and latent criminals, who represent an attenuated type of delinquency, following on the investigations of these serious forms, admitting of correction, prevention, or cure. It develops much later in life than the vicious propensities of instinctive criminals or may even remain latent; yet at the root we always find the same anatomical and pathological anomalies, although less marked and fewer in number. The origin of passionate and political criminals is entirely diverse. Their criminality springs from an excess of noble passions, the impetuosity of which prevents them from exercising sober judgment and urges them to unpremeditated actions that afterwards cause them the deepest remorse. After a rapid survey of feminine criminality and its equivalent, prostitution, the author discusses juridical and social methods of curing crime. In the second part, mental alienation in relation to legal medicine, the author examines the anthropological and psychic characters of lunacy, which he divides into various classes: congenital mental alienation (cretinism, idiocy, imbecility, eccentricity); acquired mental alienation (mania, melancholia, paranoia, circular insanity, dementia); mental alienation in conjunction with neurosis (epilepsy, hysteria, progressive general paralysis); alienation resulting from toxic influences (alcoholism, including forms produced by indulgence in absinthe and coca, saturnine encephalopathy, pellagra). An investigation is made into the etiology of these various forms with special reference to their juridical importance. The third part is devoted exclusively to medico-legal questions, to an examination of the various forms of violent death: by heat, electricity, starvation, hanging, strangulation, asphyxia, and poisoning, the symptoms which distinguish each type being carefully defined. This is followed by a study on wounds produced by firearms, pointed weapons or blades, on living and dead bodies, in order to determine the exact situation of the wound and the manner in which it has been inflicted. Finally, we have an examination of the different forms of poisoning. A separate lecture treats of sexual psychopathy and offences against morality; and other lectures discuss questions of legal obstetrics: abortion, infanticide, and matrimonial questions. XI _Recent Discoveries in Psychiatry and Criminal Anthropology and the Practical Application of these Sciences_ This volume was published in 1893. It contains a complete summary of the latest research of criminologists in jurisprudence, psychiatry, and anthropology, during the interval between the publication of the fifth and that of the last edition of Prof. Lombroso's _Criminal Man_. The research includes anthropological discoveries in the skull, skeleton, internal organs, and brains of criminals, as well as others of a biological and functional nature. They are followed by a study of the methods to be employed for the cure and punishment of crime. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE CHIEF WORKS OF CESARE LOMBROSO Archivio di Psichiatria, antropologia criminale e scienze affini (Archives of Psychiatry, Criminal Anthropology and Kindred Sciences). Thirty-two volumes. Published by Fratelli Bocca, Turin and Lausanne. L'Uomo Delinquente (Criminal Man). Fifth Edition. Vols. I, II and III of xxxv + 650, 576, and 677 pages respectively, with separate volume of plates, maps, etc. Bocca, Turin, 1906, 1907. _Translations:_ L'Hommea criminel. Vols. I and II published 1895, Vol. III (Le crime, ses causes et remèdes) 1907, by F. Alcan, Paris. Die Ursachen und Bekâmpfung des Verbrechens. Bermuheler Verlag, Berlin, 1902. El Delito, sus causas y remedios. Librería de Victoriano Suárez, Madrid, 1902. La Donna Delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale. (With Guglielmo Ferrero.) New Edition. Bocca, Turin, 1903. _Translations:_ Das Weib als Verbrecherin und Prostitute. Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei, Hamburg, 1894. The Female Offender. Fisher Unwin, London, 1895. Il Delitto Politico e le Rivoluzioni. (With R. Laschi.) Bocca, Turin, 1890. _Translations:_ Das politische Verbrechen und die Revolutionen. Two vols. 1890. Le Crime politique. Two vols. Félix Alcan, Paris, 1890. Le piu recenti scoperte ed applicazioni della psichiatria ed antropologia criminale. Bocca, Turin, 1893. _Translations:_ Neue Fortschritte in den Verbrecherstudien. Wilhelm Friedrich, Leipzig. 1894. Neue Fortschritte der kriminellen Anthropologie. Marhold, Halle, 1908. Neue Verbrecherstudien. Marhold, Halle, 1908. Nouvelles recherches de Psychiatrie et d'Anthropologie criminelle. Alcan, Paris, 1890. Gli anarchici. Bocca, Turin, 1894. _Translations:_ Die Anarchisten. Verlagsanstalt und Druckerei, Hamburg, 1895. Les Anarchistes. E. Flammarion, Paris, 1896. La Perizia psichiatrico-legale. Bocca, Turin, 1905. Lezioni di Medicina legale. Bocca, Turin, 1900. Troppo Presto: Appunti al nuovo codice penale. Bocca, Turin, 1888. Palimsesti del carcere. Bocca, Turin, 1888. _Translations:_ Kerker Palimpsesten. Hamburg, 1899. Les Palimpsestes des prisons. Stock, Lyon. La Delinquenza e la rivoluzione francese. Treves, Milan, 1897. Criminal Anthropology. (Twentieth Century Practice of Medicine, Vol. XII, pp. 372-433.) New York, 1897. Luccheni e l'antropologia criminale. Bocca, Turin, 1899. Il caso Olivo. (With A. G. Bianchi.) Libreria Editrice Internazionale, Milan, 1905. Ricerche sui fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici. Unione Tip. Edit. Turin, 1909. L'Uomo di genio. Sixth Edition. Bocca, Turin, 1894. _Translations:_ L'Homme de génie. Alcan, Paris, 1889. The Man of Genius. Walter Scott, London, 1891. Genio e degenerazione. Second Edition. Remo Sandron, Palermo, 1908. _Translations:_ Entartung und Genie. Wiegand, Leipzig, 1894. Nuovi studi sul genio. Two vols. Sandron, Palermo, 1902. _Translations:_ Neue Studien über Genialität (Schmidt's Jahrbücher der gesammten Medizin, 1907). Pazzi e anormali. Lapi, Citta di Castello, 1890. In Calabria. Niccolo Giannotta, Catania, Sicily, 1898. L'Antisemitismo e le scienze moderne. Roux, Turin, 1894. _Translations:_ Der Antisemitismus und die Juden. Wiegand's Verlag, Leipzig, 1894. L'Antisémitisme. Giard et Brière, Paris, 1899. Problèmes du jour. Flammarion, Paris, 1906. Il momento attuale in Italia. Casa Editrice Nazionale, Milan, 1905. Grafologia. Ulrich Hoepli, Milan, 1895. _Translations:_ Graphologie. Reclam, Leipzig. Trattato profilattico e clinico della pellagra. Bocca, Turin, 1890. _Translations:_ Die Lehre von der Pellagra. Oscar Coblenz, Berlin, 1898. INDEX A Affection for animals, 62, 63 Affections, of born criminals, 27 in children, 133 examination of, 222-225 Age and crime, 102, 151, 152 Akkas, tribe of Central Africa, 15 Alcoholism, and hallucinations, 30, 82-84 chronic, 81, 142-143 physical characteristics, 81, 82 psychic disturbances caused by, 82-84 results of, 83 apathy and impulsiveness of victims, 84, 85 crimes peculiarly due to, 85, 142 course of the disease, 86 hereditary, 138 important factor in criminality, 138, 141 temporary, 141-142 and epilepsy, 142 effect on handwriting, 229 Algometer, 25, 246 Anfossi's tachyanthropometer, 237 craniograph, 239 Angelucci (_Actes du Congrès d' Anthropologie_), case of epileptic moral insanity, 69 Anomalies, of criminals, 7, 10-24, 231-235 of morally insane, 53 Anthropology, criminal, defined, 5 most important discovery of, 137 practical application of, 262-279 Aphasia, simulation of, 272 _ff._, 275 Arson, 121 Arts and industries of criminals, 44, 135 Assaulters, 25 Asylums for criminal insane, 205-208 Asymmetry, 13, 53, 242, 261 Atavism, 18, 135, 136 Atavistic origin of the criminal, 8, 9, 19, 48, 135 Australia, probation system in, 189, 191 Austria, percentage of illegitimates among criminals, 144 percentage of women among criminals, 151 Auto-illusion, 108, 109 Aymaras, the, an Indian tribe of South America, 6 Azara, d' (_Travels in America_, 1835), 126 Azeglio, Massimo d' (_Reminiscences_), 148 B Bain, 130 Ballvé, Señor, director of Penitenciario Nacional of Buenos Ayres, 201 Bank of Rome case, 106, 107 Barnardo, Dr., work for orphans and destitute children of London, 158-160 Beccaria, Cesare, founder of Classical School of Penal Jurisprudence, 3, 4 Bedlam, 207 Belgian Government, agricultural colony founded at Meseplas by, 202 Belgium, probation system in, 191 Bernard, experiments with dogs, 60 Blasio, de, explanation of hieroglyphics of the Camorristi, 43, 44 Booth, General, 156, 157 Born criminals, 3-51 percentage of, among criminals, 8, 100 physical characteristics, 10-24, 231-255 sensory and functional peculiarities, 24-27 affections and passions, 27, 28 moral characteristics, 28-40 intelligence, 41 relation to moral insanity and epilepsy, 58-73, 87, 259 professional characteristics, 71 difference between epileptics and, 72 no criminal scale among, 152 institutions for, 205 _ff._ Bosco and Rice (_Les Homicides aux Etats-Unis_), on crime in Massachusetts, 173 Brigands, 35, 113-115, 215 Broadmoor, 207, 208 Brockway, 192 Büchner, on instincts in bees and ants, 142 Burglars, 25 Burton (_First Footsteps in East Africa_), 128 C Cabred, Professor, 203, 204 Camorra, 44, 48, 117, 230 Camorristi, hieroglyphics of, 43, 44 dress, 230 Canada, homes for destitute children, 160 Capital punishment, 208, 209 Carrara, Francesco, 4 Carrara, Prof. Mario, on neglected children, 130 Cephalic index, 10, 241 Children, destructive tendency, 65 instincts, 130 _ff._ affection, 133 effect of environment on, 144 institutions for destitute, 156 _ff._ methods of dealing with, 176 _ff._ susceptibility to suggestion, 226 Children's courts. _See_ Juvenile courts Cinædus, 231, 244 Classical School of Penal Jurisprudence, 4, 9 Classification of criminals, 8 Colour-blindness, 26, 249 Confession of criminaloids, 105 Connon, Richard, 53 Coprophagia, 274, 275 Corporal punishment, 191 Cretins, physical characteristics, 227, 234, 236, 260 dress, 231 Crime, origin of the word, 125 among primitive races, 125 _ff._ in civilised communities, 134 atavistic origin, 135, 136, 137 ætiology of, 136 pathological origin, 137 organic factors, 137 percentage of, among Jews, 140 social causes, 143 prevention, 153 _ff._ curability, 153, 156 Criminal, the, defined, 3 Criminal type, 24, 48 Criminaloids, 100-121 percentage of, among criminals, 8 physical characteristics, 102, 251 psychological distinctions between born criminals and, 102 _ff._ cases of, 103, 104 reluctance to commit crimes, 105 easily induced to confess, 105 moral sense and intelligence, 106 natural affections and sentiments, 106 social position and culture, 107 _ff._ clever swindlers, 108 development into habitual criminals, 111-113 and certain crimes, 121 punishment, 186 Cruelty, 39 Cynicism, 31 D Dalton (_Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_), 129 Danish prisons, 195 "Darwin's tubercle," 15, 235 Dejerine, 138 Delirium, 98 Dementia, 76, 227, 259, 260 simulations of, 272 _ff._ Despine's method of punishment, 195, 196 Destitute children, care of, 156 institutions for, 156 _ff._ Dewson, Miss Mary, 189 Disease and its relation to crime, 8, 220 Don Bosco, the Black Pope, 157, 173 Drunkenness, temporary, 141. _See also_ Alcoholism Du Bois-Reymond's apparatus, 25, 246 Dundrum, Ireland, 207 Dynamometer, 252, 253 E Economic conditions, relation to crime, 150 Education, and moral insanity, 143 and crime, 143, 149 in Elmira Reformatory, 193 "Educational Alliance," for Jewish emigrants, 172 Egypt, theft in, 128 Elmira Reformatory, 192-194 England, crime in, 173 juvenile court in, 176 probation system in, 189, 191 asylums for criminal insane, 207 Environment, 8, 144, 145 Epilepsy, ancient application of the term, 58 characteristic phenomena, 58 mild forms, 59, 60 multiformity, 59, 60, 87 psychological characteristics, 61 effect on character, 62 relation to crime, 69, 71 motory and criminal, 71 psychic, 88 ambulatory, 89, 90 alcoholic psychic, 142 Epileptics, brain cells of, 22 relation to born criminals and morally insane 58 _ff._, 87 physical anomalies common to criminals and, 60, 61, 234 psychological characteristics, 61 _ff._ cases, 64-65 criminal, 66-69, 70, 259 difference between born criminals and, 72 non-criminal, 89-92 obsessions, 226 dress, 230 special offences, 259, 260 Epileptoids, 101 Erotomania, 96 Esthesiometer, 245 Examination of criminals, 219-257 antecedents and psychic individuality, 220-222 intelligence, 222 affections, 222-225 morbid phenomena, 225-226 speech, 226-228 memory, 228 handwriting, 228-230 dress, 230-231 physical, 231-245 sensibility, 245-251 movements, 251-255 functions, 255 table of, 255-257 F Fines, 187, 191 Fisherton House, 207 Forgers, 46, 140, 245 France, percentage of illegitimates or orphans among minors arrested, 144 system for minor offences, 187 probation system in, 191 Frank, Francis, 223 French Panama Scandal, 106, 107 G Gambling, 40 Games, 40 Garofalo, Senator, his table of penalties, 210 George, Henry, 164 George Junior Republic, 160, 164-167 Germans, ancient, theft among, 128, 129 Gilmour (_Among the Mongols_), 130 Gipsies, 140 Goitre, 220, 244 H Habitual criminals, 44, 110-115, 198 Hallucinations, 30, 82-84 Hamburg, percentage of illegitimates among prostitutes, 144 Handwriting, 228-230 Harwick, quoted, on sense of right and wrong, 33 Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society in New York City, 160-164 Heredity, indirect, 137 direct, 57, 137-139 influence of, 144, 220, 235 Hieroglyphics, 43, 44 Homicide, among criminaloids, 121 in Italy, 140 relation of temperature to, 145 in Massachusetts, 173 and melancholia, 259 Hydrosphygmograph, 223 Hypnotism, 101 Hysteria, 92-99 relation to epilepsy, 92 physical and functional characteristics, 93 psychology, 94 susceptibility to suggestion, 95, 226 and delirium, 98 sensibility to metals, 248, 261 special offences of, 259 simulation of, 261 I Idiots, impulses, 74, 258 speech, 227 physical characteristics, 235, 260 Idleness, 40, 150 Illegitimates, percentage of, among criminals, 144 Imbeciles, 75, 259, 260, 269 Imitation, 146 Immigration and its relation to crime, 147, 148 Imprisonment, 154, 186, 187 Impulsiveness, 36, 85 Incendiaries, 26 Indemnity, 191 India, infanticide in, 126 theft in, 129 Industrial Homes of the Salvation Army, 168 Inebriates, crimes peculiar to, 85-86 hallucinations of, 226 Infanticide, 121, 126, 127 Insane, the morally, relation to born criminals, 53, 57, 58 cases, 53 _ff._ relation to epileptics, 61, 65 _ff._ professional characteristics, 71 institutions for, 206 dress, 230 special offences, 259, 260 Insane criminals, 74-99, 234 characteristics distinguishing them from habitual criminals, 77, 78 antecedents, 78 motives, 78 typical cases, 79 institutions for, 205 _ff._ two classes, 208 Insanity, moral, 56, 65-69, 272 _ff._ criminal, 74-99 genuine and simulation of, 260, 276. _See also_ Lunacy Institutions, for destitute children, 156 for destitute adults, 167 for women criminals, 180 for minor offenders, 185 for habitual criminals, 198 for born criminals and the morally insane, 205. _See also_ Reformatories, Penitentiaries Intellectual manifestations of born criminals, 42-44 Intelligence, of born criminals, 41 of criminaloids, 106 examination, 222 Invulnerability of criminals, 64 Italy, hot-beds of crime in, 140 percentage of illegitimates among criminals, 144 percentage of women among criminals, 151 institutions for orphans, 157 J Jackson, on epileptic fits, 60 Jews, percentage of crime among, 140 Jukes family, the, 138, 139 Juridical criminals, 115-117 Juvenile courts, 176, 178, 179 Juvenile offenders, 139 methods of dealing with, 176 _ff._, 192 K Kleptomania, 141 Kowalewsky (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1885), 63 Krafft-Ebing, 84 quoted, on somnambulism and epileptics, 63 L Labour, in reformatories, 166, 199 enforced, profitable to the State, 202, 203, 213 Lacassagne, 47 Ladelci (_Il Vino_, 1868), 37 Landolt's apparatus for testing the field of vision, 249 Lewisohn, Mr., 161 Lombroso, Cesare, discovery of _median occipital fossa_, 6 new theory as to criminals, 52, 56, 57 view of hysteria and epilepsy, 99 on percentage of criminals of inebriate families, 138 on criminal associations, 146 _Criminal Man_, 9, 288-291 _Modern Forms of Crime_, 9 _Recent Research in Criminal Anthropology_, 9, 309 _Prison Palimpsests_, 9, 155, 300-302 _The Female Offender_, 180, 291-294 _Crimes, Ancient and Modern_, 173, 302-303 _The Man of Genius_, 283-288 _Political Crime_, 294-298 _Too Soon_, 298-300 _Diagnostic Methods of Legal Psychiatry_, 303-305 _Anarchists_, 305-307 _Lectures on Legal Medicine_, 307-308 Luciani, experiments of, 59 Lunacy, general forms, 74, _See also_ Insanity M Maccabruni, Dr. (_Notes on Hidden Forms of Epilepsy_, 1886), 89 Mafia, 117, 230 Magnaud, 187 Maniacs, 76, 259 Manzoni (_Promessi Sposi_), on instinctive tendency to law-breaking, 152 Marey's tympanum, 224 Marro (_Annalidi Freniatia_, 1890), 64 Massachusetts, crime in, 173 probation office in Boston, 189 reformatories at Boston, 190 Mattoids, 228, 229 _Median occipital fossa_, discovery of, 6 Melancholia, 75, 227, 252, 259 Memory, 228 Mendacity, 96-98 Meseplas, agricultural colony at, 202, 203 Metchnikoff, 14 Meteoric sensibility, 26 Modern School of Penal Jurisprudence, 4, 5, 9, 153, 155, 156 Monomaniacs, impulses and motives, 77 cases, 78, 276 _ff._ handwriting, 228, 230 dress, 231 examination of, 276 _ff._ Moral sense, of criminals, 28-40 of criminaloids, 106 Moreau, 130 (_De l' Homicide chez les enfants_, 1882), 131 Morel, 53, 98 Mülhausen (_Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific_), 129 Murder, among gipsies, 140 among Jews, 140 in United States, 145 Murderers, physical characteristics, 16, 18, 26, 46, 236 moral sense, 29, 38 imprisonment, 182 dress, 230 N Newspaper reports of crimes, influence of, 146, 147 Nothnagel's thermo-esthesiometer, 247 O Obermayer's methods in prisons, 195, 196 Obscenity, 63 Occupations suitable for prisoners, 197, 203, 204 "Open Door," the, penal institution in Buenos Ayres, 203, 204 Orange, 208 Orgies, 40 Osmometer, 251 Ottolenghi, discoveries of, 61 P Paralysis, 75, 226, 229 Paralytic, demented, 269 "Paranza," 48 Paresis, 82, 83 Parkinson's disease, 252 Passion, criminals of, 117-121, 186 Patrizi, 224 "Patta, La" 41 Pears (_Prisons and Reform_, 1872), 196 Pederasts, 232 Pellagra, 76, 150 Pelvimeter, 239 Penal codes, 176, 178 Penal colonies, 201-204 Penalties, 153 table of, proposed by the Modern School, 210-212 Penitenciario Nacional of Buenos Ayres, 198-203 Penitentiaries, 194-198 Penta, on percentage of criminals of inebriate families, 138 Perez,(_Psychologie de l'enfant_), quoted, on anger in children, 131 Perth, Scotland, 207 Peruvian Indians, 6, 7 Physical anomalies of criminals, 7, 10-24, 231-245 Pictet, 125 Pictography, 43 Pinel, 37, 53 Plethysmograph, 223, 225, 264 Poisoners, 31, 182 Political offenders, 186 Polyandry, 127 Population, density of, effect on criminality, 146, 148 Positive School of Penal Jurisprudence. _See_ Modern School of Penal Jurisprudence Pott, 125 Poverty and crime, 150 Precocity in crime, 222 Preventive methods, 175 _ff._ Primitive races, tattooing among, 45 views of crime, 125-129, 134 death penalty among, 209 Prison life, effect upon criminals, 148, 149, 153, 154, 186 Probation Office in Boston, 189 Probation system, 178, 179, 188-191 Professions and crime, 149, 150, 221 Progeneismus, 13, 60, 243 Prognathism, 7, 12 Prostitution, 144, 151, 180 Proverbial sayings concerning criminals, 49, 50 Prussia, percentage of illegitimates among criminals, 144 Psychology of born criminals, 27 _ff._ Ptosis, 14, 236 Punishments, 185 corporal, 191 capital, 208, 209 R Race and crime, 139, 140 Recidivists, 46, 222 Reformatories, 182, 192 _Reformatory Prison for Women_ at South Framingham, near Boston, 183-185 Remorse, 29 Repentance, 29 Rescue Homes of the Salvation Army, 169 _Revue d'Anthropologie_, 1874, 128 Ribaudo, Brancaleone, 138 Richet, experiments with dogs, 59, 60 on hysteria, 95 Roncoroni, discoveries of, 21, 22, 61, 100 Rosenbach, experiments of, 59 "Rota, La" 41 S Salvation Army, 167-170 Samt, on epilepsy, 88, 90, 91 San Stefano, island, convict population, 34 Sensibility, general, 24, 245, 246, 277 to touch and pain, 25, 245, 246, 277 to the magnet, 26 meteoric, 26 of the senses, 26, 249-251 localisation of, 247 to metals, 248 Simulation, 97, 261, 272 Sisterhoods founded by Rabbi Gottheil, 170-172 Skin diseases, 232 Skull, formations, 10-12 measurements, 239-242 Slang, 28, 33, 42, 152 Smugglers, 114 Snow (_Two Years' Cruise round Tierra del Fuego_), 129 Social causes of crime, 143 Somatic examination, 260, 277 Somnambulism, 63, 141 South America, institutions for orphans, 157 Salvation Army in, 170 reformatories, 192 penal institution in Buenos Ayres, 203 Spain, percentage of women among criminals, 151 Spencer (_Principles of Ethics_, 1895), 129 Strabismus, 14, 236 Strength, 27, 252 Suggestion, susceptibility to, 95, 269 examination of, 226 case, 269 Suicide, 119, 259 Swindlers, characteristics, 16, 18, 20, 25, 46, 231, 245, 246 percentage among criminaloids, 108 cases, 109 imprisonment of, 182 Sydenham, on hysteria, 95 Symbiosis, 212-215 T Tachyanthropometer, 237 Tamburini, quoted, 37 Tardieu (_De la Folie_, 1870), 85 Tattooing, 39, 45-48, 232 Temperature, relation to crime, 145 Theft, instincts of, 37, 38 petty, 117 percentage of, among criminaloids, 121 among primitive races, 128-130 and paralysis, 259 and epileptics, 260 Thieves, physical characteristics, 20, 46, 150, 236, 243-244 cases, 28, 29, 37, 38 moral sense, 32-35 handwriting, 230 Tissié (_Les alienés voyageurs_, 1887), 88 Tonnini, 62, 64, 65 Traumatism, 140, 141 Treachery, 34 U United States, institutions for destitute children, 160 percentage of crime in, 173, 174 probation system in, 178, 189, 190 juvenile courts in, 178 reformatories in, 192 V Vanicek, 126, 127 Vanity, 35 Vidocq, 35 Vindictiveness, 38 Volumetric glove, 224 Volumetric tank, 223 W Weber's esthesiometer, 245 _Where the Shadows Lengthen_, 168 Women, percentage of criminality among, 151, 180 nature of criminality among, 181, 182 Work, motive force of every institute, 197 Wormian bones, 12 Z Zakka Khel, criminal tribe in India, 129, 140 Zehen, experiments of, 59 Zino, 41 THE SCIENCE SERIES EDITED BY EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE, PH.D., AND F. 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The aim of this work is to expound, in a simple manner, the facts of heredity and inheritance as at present known, the general conclusions which have been securely established, and the more important theories which have been formulated. 21.--+Age, Growth, and Death.+ By CHARLES S. MINOT, James Stillman Professor of Comparative Anatomy in Harvard University, President of the Boston Society of Natural History, and Author of "Human Embryology," "A Laboratory Text-book of Embryology," etc. 8º. Illustrated. This volume deals with some of the fundamental problems of biology, and presents a series of views (the results of nearly thirty years of study), which the author has correlated for the first time in systematic form. 22.--+The Interpretation of Nature.+ By C. LLOYD MORGAN, LL. D., F. R. S. Crown 8vo. Net, $1.25. 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MEYLAN, Columbia University. _Other volumes to be announced later_ Footnotes: [1] For a description of the methods employed in measuring skulls see Part III. [2] For a description of the methods used in measuring the acuteness of these senses, see Part III. [3] As in the case of the Sicilian brigand Salomone (see Fig. 19). Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. Passages in bold are indicated by +bold+. Illustration captions are indicated by =caption=. Additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text. The original text includes Greek characters. These characters have been removed from this text version because the original text provides a translation. The following misprints were corrected: "possesssed" corrected to "possessed" (page xiv) "Ethnolgy" corrected to "Ethnology" (page 129) "pecuilar" corrected to "peculiar" (page 135) "associaton" corrected to "association" (page 187) "segregrated" corrected to "segregated" (page 206) "distinguising" corrected to "distinguishing" (page 228) "chlidren" corrected to "children" (page 321) "his" corrected to "has" (advertisements) 
43986	----	THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY by JAMES DEVON Medical Officer of H.M. Prison at Glasgow with an Introduction by Prof. A. F. Murison, LL.D. "GREAT MEN ARE NOT ALWAYS WISE: NEITHER DO THE AGED UNDERSTAND JUDGMENT. THEREFORE I SAID, HEARKEN UNTO ME; I ALSO WILL SHEW MINE OPINION." _Job_ XXXII. 10, 11. Toronto: Bell and Cockburn London: John Lane MCMXII William Brendon and Son, Ltd., Printers Plymouth, England TO MATTHEW G. KELSO AND SAMUEL GIBSON FRIENDS INDEED INTRODUCTION The importance of the subjects handled in this volume requires no demonstration. Already, and for long, the treatment of them has naturally engaged the sympathetic study of philanthropists, and more recently it has attracted the earnest attention of scientific inquirers. Hitherto, however, the results have been far from satisfactory; and there is ample room for further discussion, especially from the standpoint of a thoroughly practical man with large experience both of criminals and of the social conditions that breed them. Nowadays there is a growing sense of social interdependence; there is a more general and a more definitely realized aim to elevate the condition of the less fortunate of our fellow-citizens; there are express efforts of scientific investigators to discover a firm basis for practical reforms; and practical reforms are urgent. Such tendencies of thought and feeling may be expected to go far to ensure a warm welcome to this volume. Dr. Devon's book is executed on a breadth of scale never before attempted. It has three distinct parts: The Criminal; Common Factors in the Causation of Crime; The Treatment of the Criminal. His exposition is perfectly clear; he sees precisely, and he states directly, simply, and definitely what he sees and what he thinks about it, very frequently driving home a point with epigrammatic force. If he throws overboard unceremoniously what he regards as mere lumber accumulated by the industry of speculation divorced from experience; if he betrays some impatience with existing theories and systems; if he advances his own views with confidence--the handling is at any rate piquant, and brings the matter promptly to a head. We are supposed to have travelled far from the mediæval brutality of prison life, but have the changes not been superficial rather than deep? Setting aside the catalogue of minor regulations and regarding the broad spirit of prison life, one cannot but recognize that the conditions still prevailing have much in common with the past. If we look for the really essential changes during a hundred years, we find just these: (1) a surface cleanliness of apparent perfection; (2) conversation, prison visits, and arrangements tending towards a decent sociability between prisoners and prisoners and between prisoners and the public reduced and rendered difficult by multitudinous bye-laws. On the one hand, a cleanliness obtainable only by irritating industry disproportionate to its proper value; on the other hand, a reduction of such facilities as are most likely to prevent a prisoner from degenerating to a social alien, an automatic machine, or a lunatic. The after-effects of a long sojourn in prison are not readily realizable: it would require a very lively imagination to picture the life and its inherent possibilities. The fact that some prisoners do manage to get through their existence without falling into despair may be taken rather as a tribute to the chances of exception confounding rule than as a proof of conversion to virtue through punishment. It is too much to expect that an ordinary man that has been incarcerated for a period of seven, or five, or even three years, can become, on his liberation, once more a "respectable" member of society. His spirit has been cowed; his self-respect has been annihilated; he has been disqualified for reabsorption in the community; he has been prepared to gravitate once more towards crime and prison. Another unfortunate aspect is the position of the prison warder. Apart from the care of those under him, he is subject to so much personal discipline--is so much the slave of "Rules"--that his life often becomes little superior to that of his charges. In point of social origin or of intellectual attainments he is not inferior to the ordinary policeman; but, while the policeman is taught by society, the warder spends most of his time in an atmosphere of degradation, fatal both to character and to intellect. We are pretty well agreed that consideration and sympathy should be extended to the first offender, except in case of sheer brutality--and, as Dr. Devon points out, even a man that commits an act of brutality is not necessarily a brute--for the first offender is usually the victim of "accidental misconduct." In the case of the habitual offender, who returns to prison time after time for various transgressions, it would seem judicious to keep him permanently from actual freedom, but to treat him more as a diseased and positively dangerous man than as a noxious animal. At any rate, first offenders should not be herded together with case-hardened criminals. Dr. Devon argues stoutly for the liberation of prisoners when responsible citizens come forward to undertake for necessary periods the guardianship and care of them. On this point it is important to note his precise position: it is not for a moment to be thought that he advocates any reckless liberation of scoundrels upon society. Let us see his actual words: "Unconditional liberation has ended in disaster to all concerned. Conditional liberation can only be expected to produce good results if the conditions are reasonable.... A prison ought merely to be a place of detention in which offenders are placed till some proper provision is made for their supervision and means of livelihood in the community.... The prison in which they would be placed would not be a reformatory institution where all sorts of futile experiments would be made, but simply a place of detention in which they would be required each to attend on himself until he had made up his mind to accept the greater degree of liberty implied in life outside. The door of his cell would be opened to let him out when he had reached this conclusion; but it would not be opened to let him out, as at present, to play a game of hare and hounds with the police." The argument hinges on the conditions. Side by side with this, the State might well note the advantage of pursuing the scheme of letting first offenders out on probation; giving them guidance and help in welldoing, and impressing upon them the inevitable consequence of restraint in case of violation of the law. In this way the transgressor--unless he be of the stuff of which arrant evildoers are made--seems more likely to feel repentance instead of remorse. He is shown clearly the power and the certainty of the law; and at the same time he avoids the stain a prison life must inevitably have left, even though the imprisonment had been of a comparatively short duration. Dr. Devon expounds, with irresistible logic, an argument in favour of a proper training of the class most in need of it. It must not be forgotten that ignorance cannot be expected to reason, and that poverty is heavily handicapped. Many offenders do evil simply because they have never known good. To punish these with blind and brutish vehemence is only a little less callous than ill-treatment of mental derelicts and little children. The principal aims of a prison system are presumably to punish offenders and to induce them not to offend again. In neither case can the present system be regarded as successful: it provides neither a proper punishment nor an effective deterrent. That the influence is brutalising cannot be ignored: the savage become bestial, the refined become tragically shamed outcasts. It is not to be anticipated that Dr. Devon will at all points and at once conciliate agreement. Probably he is the last man to expect it. Perhaps it is even undesirable that his views should be accepted without keen discussion. But Dr. Devon is a seasoned warrior, well accustomed to fight his own battles; and no man is readier to acknowledge frankly a sound criticism. Dr. Devon begins and ends on the same note: absolute necessity for the "recognition of social conditions as they exist." Yes, "as they exist"; and not otherwise. His official position as medical officer of a large prison for more than half a generation, and a long experience as one of the examiners for the Crown for criminal cases in the West of Scotland, give him a right to a hearing on the medical and official aspects of the subject. There have been other writers that could claim official knowledge of the subject but Dr. Devon's qualifications on the social side are exceptional. He was helping to earn his own living before he was eleven, and his knowledge of the conditions of life among the working class has not been acquired from the outside. He had a practical acquaintanceship with the work of the unskilled labourer and of the artisan before he began the study of medicine; and his professional life, spent mainly in the poorhouse and the prison, has given him opportunities for outside observation of conditions with which he had had an earlier and more intimate acquaintance. He has been emphatically a man of the people, going in and out among his fellow-citizens of all classes for many years--lecturing, sharing confidences, advising and counselling every day, and, in a word, familiarising himself with every aspect of the diversified social life around him; an incalculable advantage when utilized by a keen intellect and a sympathetic heart. It will be found, then, that he has brought together the two factors of the problem--the Criminal and Society--with a solvent power beyond any previous effort. I believe that his book is the most illuminating and the wisest that has ever been written on the subject. CONTENTS PART I THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL CHAPTER I THE CRIMINAL AND THE CRIMINOLOGISTS Classification of criminals--The treatment of the criminal not a medical but a social question--Technical differences between crimes and offences--Changes in the law--Vice and crime--The beginner in crime--Common characters of the "criminal class"--Atrocious crimes exceptional--So-called scientific studies of the criminal--How figures mislead-- Composite photographs and averages--Estimate of character from physical examination--Causal relationship to crime of these characters _pages_ 3-17 CHAPTER II HEREDITY AND CRIME Does heredity account for one quality more than another?--Impossibility of forecasting the conduct of others--Do criminals breed criminals?--The fit and the unfit--Unequal endowments--Ability and position--Inherited faculties and social pressure--Crime the result of wrongly directed powers--Original sin and heredity--Heredity behind everything 18-23 CHAPTER III INSANITY AND CRIME Insanity and responsibility--Removal of the insane from prison--Crime resulting from insanity--Case of theft--Of embezzlement--Of fire-raising--Insanity and murder charges--The result of an act not a guide to the nature of the act--Observation of prisoners charged with certain offences--Insanity as a result of misconduct--Cases--The mentally defective--Cases 24-40 CHAPTER IV PHYSICAL DEFECTS AND CRIME Physical defects beget sympathy--Rarely induce crime--May cause mental degeneration--Case of jealousy and murder 41-43 CHAPTER V THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL The reliability of prisoners' statements--Deceit or misunderstanding?--Frankness and knowledge required on the part of the investigator--The prisoner's statement should form the basis of enquiry--Information and help obtained from former friends--The diffusion of knowledge so obtained--The prevention of crime and the accumulation of knowledge 44-48 PART II COMMON FACTORS IN THE CAUSATION OF CRIME CHAPTER I DRINK AND CRIME Drink commonly accredited with the production of crime-- Minor offences usually committed under its influence-- Drink a factor in the causation of most crimes against the person--Double personality caused by drink--Drunken cruelty--Drunken rage--Assaults on the drunken--Sexual offences--Child neglect--Mental defect behind the drunkenness of some offenders--Malicious mischief and theft--Drunken kleptomania--The professional criminal and drink--Thefts from the drunken--Amount of crime not in ratio to amount of drinking in a district--The vice existent apart from crime, in the country--And in the wealthier parts of the city--Drunkenness and statistics-- Summary 51-66 CHAPTER II POVERTY, DESTITUTION, OVERCROWDING, AND CRIME The majority of persons in prison there because of their poverty--Poverty and drink--Poverty and petty offences-- Poverty and thrift--Poverty and destitution--Case of theft from destitution--Poverty and vagrancy--Unemployment and beggary--Formation of professional offenders--The case of the old--The degradation of the unemployed to unemployability--No ratio between the amount of poverty alone and the amount of crime--A definite ratio between density of population and crime--Slum life--Overcrowding-- Cases of destitution and overcrowding--Overcrowding and decency--Poverty and overcrowding in relation to offences against the person--The poor and officials--The absence of opportunity for rational recreation--The migratory character of the population--The multiplication of laws and of penalties--Transgressions due to ignorance and to inability to conform--Contrast between city and country administration--Case of petty offender--Treatment induces further offences--The city the hiding-place of the professional criminal--Crime largely a by-product of city life 67-94 CHAPTER III IMMIGRATION AND CRIME The stranger most likely to offend--The reaction to new surroundings--The difficulty of recovery--The attraction of the city--The Churches and the immigrant--Benevolent associations--The alien immigrants--Their tendency to hold themselves apart--Deportation--A language test required-- The alien criminal--His dangerous character--The need for powers to deal with him 95-102 CHAPTER IV SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND CRIME The millionaire and the pauper--Ill-feeling and misunderstanding--Social ambitions--Case of embezzlement-- Preaching and practice--Gambling--The desire to "get on"-- The need to deal with those who profit by the helplessness of others--Political action--Its difficulty--Legislation and administration--The official and the public--Personal aid--Fellowship 103-116 CHAPTER V AGE AND CRIME The inexperience of youth--The training of boys--Case of a truant--Another case--Intractability--The foolishness of parent and teacher--The absence of mutual understanding-- Recreation--Malicious mischief and petty theft--The cause thereof--The need for instructing parents--Pernicious literature--The other kind--The modern Dick Turpin--The boy as he leaves school--Amusements--Repression-- Blind-alley occupations--The adolescent--Physical strain of many occupations--Unequal physical and mental development--The street trader--Hooliganism--Knowledge and experience--The perils of youth--Old age 117-139 CHAPTER VI SEX AND CRIME The position of woman--The posturing of men--Love and crime--Two cases of theft from sexual attraction--The female thief--Case--Blackmailing--Jealousy and crime--Two murder cases--Case of assault--Fewer women than men are criminals--Their greater difficulty in recovery--Young girls and sexual offences--The perils of girlhood--Wages and conduct--Exotic standards of dress--Ignorance and wrongdoing--The domestic servant--Her difficulties-- Concealment of pregnancy cases--The culprit and the father--Morals--The fallen woman--Bigamy 140-160 CHAPTER VII PUNISHMENT The universal cure-all--The public and the advertising healer--The essence of all quackery--The quackery of punishment--Rational treatment--Justice not bad temper-- Retribution--Our fathers and ourselves--Their methods not necessarily suitable to our time--Capital punishment--The incurable and the incorrigible--Objections to capital punishment apply in degree to all punishment--The "cat"-- The executioner and the surgeon--Whipping and its effect--The flogged offender--The act and the intention-- Pain and vitality--Unequal effects of punishment--Fines and their burden--Who is punished most?--Punishment and expiation--Punishment and deterrence--Social opinion the real deterrent--Vicious social circles--Respect for the law--Prevention of crime 161-185 PART III THE TREATMENT OF THE CRIMINAL CHAPTER I THE MACHINERY OF THE LAW The police and their duties--Divided control--Need for knowledge of local peculiarities--The fear of "corruption"--The police cell--Cleanliness and discomfort--Insufficient provision of diet, etc.--The casualty surgeon--The police court--The untrained magistrate--The assessor--Pleas of "guilty"--Case--Apathy of the public--Agents for the Poor--The prison van--The sheriff court--The procurator-fiscal--Procedure in the higher courts--The Scottish jury 189-209 CHAPTER II THE PRISON SYSTEM Centralisation--The constitution of the Prison Commission--Parliamentary control--The Commissioners--The rules--The visiting committee--The governor and the matron--The chaplain--The medical officer--The staff 210-219 CHAPTER III THE PRISON AND ITS ROUTINE Reception of the prisoner--Cleanliness and order--The plan of the prison--The cells--Their furniture--The diet--The clothing--Work--The Workshops--Separate confinement and association--Gratuities--Prison offences--Complaints-- Punishment cells--Visits of the chaplain--Visits of representatives of the Churches--The gulf between visitor and visited--The Chapel--The Salvation Army--Rest-- Recreation--The prison Library--Lectures--The airing-yard--Physical drill 220-242 CHAPTER IV VARIATIONS IN ROUTINE The sick--Prison hospitals--The removal of the sick to outside hospitals--The wisdom of this course--The essential difference between a prison and other public institutions--The treatment of refractory prisoners--The folly of assuming that rules are more sacred than persons--The position of the medical officer in relation to the prisoner--The danger of divided responsibility--The untried prisoner--His privileges--Civil prisoners-- Imprisonment for contempt of court--The convict--Short and long sentences 243-257 CHAPTER V THE PRISONER ON LIBERATION His condition--His need--Alleged persecution of ex-prisoners--Discharged prisoners' aid societies--Work-- Temptations--The discharged female offender--The attitude of women towards her--"Homes"--The women's objections to them--Pay--The religious atmosphere and the harmful associations--The effect of imprisonment 258-270 CHAPTER VI THE INEBRIATE HOME The need to find out why people do wrong before attempting to cure them--Enquiries as to inebriety--The inebriates-- Official utterances--Cost and results--The grievance of the unreformed--The time limit of cure--The causes of failure--The fostering of old associations--The prospect of the future spree--The institution habit 271-283 CHAPTER VII THE PREVENTION OF CRIMES ACT (1908) The Borstal experiment--Provisions for the "reformation of young offenders"--Is any diminution in the numbers of police expected?--Preventive detention--The implied confession that penal servitude does not reform and the insistence on it as a preliminary to reform--The prisoner detained at the discretion of the prison officials--The powers of the Secretary of State--The change under the statute--The necessary ignorance of the Secretary of State by reason of his other duties--The "committees"--The habits to be taught--The teaching of trades--The ignorance of trades on the part of those who design to teach them-- The difficulty of teaching professions in institutions less than that of teaching trades--The vice of obedience taught--Intelligent co-operation and senseless subordination--The military man in the industrial community 284-303 CHAPTER VIII THE FAMILY AS MODEL The basis of the family not necessarily a blood tie-- Adoption--The head and the centre of the family--The feeling of joint responsibility--The black sheep-- Companionship and sympathy necessities in life--Reform only possible when these are found--"Conversion" only temporary in default of force of new interests--The one way in which reform is made permanent 304-310 CHAPTER IX ALTERNATIVES TO IMPRISONMENT What is required--The case of the minor offenders--The incidence of fines--The prevention of drunkenness--Clubs-- Probation of offenders--Its partial application--Defects in its administration--The false position of the probation officer--Guardians required--Case of young girl--The plea of want of power--Old and destitute offenders--Prison and poorhouse 311-328 CHAPTER X THE BETTER WAY The offender who has become reckless--If not killed they must be kept--The failure of the institution--Boarding out--At present they are boarded out on liberation, but without supervision--Guardians may be found when they are sought for--The result of boarding out children--The insane boarded out--Unconditional liberation has failed-- Conditional liberation with suitable provision has not been tried--No system of dealing with men, but only a method--No necessity for the formation of the habitual offender--The one principle in penology 329-339 INDEX 343-348 PART I THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY CHAPTER I THE CRIMINAL AND THE CRIMINOLOGISTS Classification of criminals--The treatment of the criminal not a medical but a social question--Technical differences between crimes and offences--Changes in the law--Vice and crime--The beginner in crime--Common characters of the "criminal class"--Atrocious crimes exceptional--So-called scientific studies of the criminal--How figures mislead--Composite photographs and averages--Estimate of character from physical examination--Causal relationship to crime of these characters. People were never more anxious to reform their neighbours than they are in our day. Everyone admits the widespread existence of misery, degradation, and destitution; and many seem to think that the presence of these evils is a modern phenomenon. Any man who has reached middle age and who has lived and worked among the masses of the people knows better. The evils are not new, but their widespread recognition is. For ages the few have been the governors of the many, and the governed have neither had the means nor the ability to communicate with their rulers and with one another. In our day the ends of the earth have been brought together by the invention of the engineer, and the schoolmaster has been abroad among the people. The writer reaches a larger contemporary audience, and the message of the speaker is carried over a greater area than was ever before possible. Whether this has been wholly an advantage may be questioned; but there can be no doubt that things that were hidden have been made manifest, and one result has been that laws and institutions which our fathers accepted have been placed on their trial. Our system of dealing with criminals has not escaped criticism and has not borne it well. Like all systems, it is based largely on the assumption that men are, or ought to be, of one pattern. It is charged with failing to reform those who come under its sway; but there is nothing to show that it was designed for their reformation. Men are brought under it as a punishment; and their acts, not their personality, are the cause of their imprisonment. Experience has shown that the military man who applies impartially a set of rules to those who come under him has not been a success when placed in charge of an institution for dealing with offenders. It is not that he is less human than others, but that he is more rigid. Differences among those placed in his charge have always been recognised; for instance, they could not all be treated as though they were the same height, nor could it be assumed that it was possible to secure uniformity amongst them in this respect; but only the most obvious differences were regarded. Even elementary classifications could not be left to the man whose duty it was to administer rules, and so the doctor's aid was obtained in order to sort out those who were physically unfit to do any but light work; those to whom the diet was unsuited; and those who required to have special privileges granted them lest the system killed them. It is sometimes much easier to call in the doctor than to get rid of him; and largely on account of his work it has been shown that all classifications hitherto made have been inadequate. In the name of science he demands still further classifications. Men can only be placed in classes because of certain qualities they have in common. Every classification must neglect individual differences; and as it is these that mark men off one from another, any system or method of dealing with men will fail in so far as they are left out of account. The treatment of the criminal is not a medical question. It is a social question. A medical training is of more use to a man who is to study the subject than a military training would be. It is important to be able to form a rational opinion on the physical and mental capacity of a man; to know whether he suffers from any disease which impairs his faculties and to be able to direct treatment to the cure of that disease; but a considerable degree of knowledge regarding these things may coexist with an amazing amount of ignorance regarding the social conditions under which the person examined has been brought up and formed. Give the medical man head and, so far as he is merely a medical man, he will be a more expensive nuisance than the military administrator. A great deal has been written about the study of the criminal, but any such study is defective and can only be misleading in so far as it is not a study of offenders in relation to their circumstances. "Criminal" is as loose a term as "tradesman." It may mean anything, but so far as any real study is concerned it usually means nothing of any importance except to the printing and allied trades. When the character of the prisoner is estimated by men whose writings show no knowledge of his outside life, and is confined mainly to an enumeration of the selected physical, and imagined mental, characters of men while in prison, no study of the subject has been made that is worth any consideration, save for the purpose of formulating a theory without taking the trouble of ascertaining the important facts. The study of the criminal has mainly been based on observation and examination of persons in prison; but in prison the criminal is not himself. He whose obedience the law could not command, who kicked against restraint, is now compelled to direct all his acts under authority. His life has been arranged for him, and he might as well run his head against the wall as refuse to obey. Everything is done with regularity and quietness, and the monotony of it all oppresses him. His inclinations are not consulted; his anger not regarded, except it transgress the rules. Outside he may have a reputation for wit and sociability; in prison he has no encouragement to show these qualities. Very likely he will talk freely to any official person who is of an enquiring turn of mind; he may be glad to have the chance; but he is on his guard, and will not communicate any information that may get his friends into trouble and himself into bad repute among them, unless he is going to gain a good deal by it; and not always even then. He learns to take advantage of every opening that offers any chance of increased comfort to himself, and he may readily make a general confession of sin and promise of amendment if thereby he can gain sympathy and obtain privileges. It is not surprising that he should behave in this manner--the principle of making friends with the mammon of unrighteousness is not unknown outside prison--but it is strange that people who might be supposed to know the conditions in which he is placed should talk as though the criminal were usually a stupid kind of person. Any person who offends against the penal laws of the community in which he lives may be sent to prison; whether he be called an offender or a criminal will depend on consideration of points that are technical. Generally speaking, persons convicted of offences against the person or against property are classed as criminals, while those who have transgressed against public order--as in breaches of the peace, etc.--are classed as offenders. "An Act for the more effectual Prevention of Crime" (34 & 35 Victoria, cap. 112, sec. 20) defines the word "Crime" to mean "in Scotland any of the Pleas of the Crown, any theft, which in respect of any aggravation, or of the amount in value of the money, goods, or things stolen may be punished with penal servitude, any forgery, and any uttering base coin, or the possession of such coin with intent to utter the same." The Pleas of the Crown are murder, robbery, rape, and wilful fire-raising. Those who have been convicted of crime as defined by the section quoted would properly be called criminals, but it is obvious that the name is applied and is applicable to many who do not fall under the definition. In practice the treatment of prisoners who have been convicted of offences is the same as that of those who have been convicted of crimes, when the sentence is one of imprisonment. The distinction between them is a technical one. If he is to be judged by the act of which he has been found guilty, the same person may at one time be called a criminal and at another time an offender. As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to draw the line between crimes and offences; and it is not uncommon to find that a man who has committed a heinous crime is not so wicked a character as another who has never been guilty of more than a petty offence. The largest number of persons in prison have been convicted of minor transgressions and have been dealt with in the police courts. Many of these offences do not differ in character from those which engage the attention of the higher courts. Their gravity is estimated either by the result of the act, or the bad record of the person committing it, or both factors together. Thus if in the course of a quarrel one person should strike another and bleed his face, the police magistrate will assess the damage done to society; but if the blow break the injured person's nose, the case will pass to the sheriff. If a man in a drunken "spree" lift a pair of boots from a shop-door, the bailie will probably deal with him; but if, drunk or sober, he has been in the habit of taking other people's property, he may be sent to a higher court. The law differs in the same country at different times. It is the minimum standard of conduct to which all members of the community are required to conform, and, as public opinion changes, it undergoes alteration. Men who in one generation have been executed as criminals have been honoured as martyrs in the next, while acts which at one time have been regarded as meritorious have at another time been severely punished. At no time will an honourable man do all that the law permits him to do, for his standard of conduct is higher than, and in advance of, the law. But a man may live a thoroughly vicious life; he may lie, act dishonestly, be cruel and vindictive--in short, break any or all of the ten commandments--and yet keep within the law. The law differs in different parts of the same country at the same time, and a man may find himself brought under its operation in one district for doing something which is permissible in another. This is a result of the special powers given to corporations, or is due to the adoption by one local authority of permissive legislation which a neighbouring authority has not adopted. It may be very puzzling to a stranger, but the principle of allowing the more enlightened districts freedom to improve their administration is at the back of it; whether they could not find a better way of carrying out their purposes than by sending to prison those who offend against them is another question altogether. Even under similar laws the administration may be different. The more laws there are and the more rigid their administration, the greater will be the number of offenders. All kinds of people break the law. In some social positions there is less opportunity for doing so than in others, but the conditions in which many are placed make it easier for them to offend against certain regulations than to conform to them. All who are brought to prison for the first time are not first offenders. In some cases they have had a long and successful career before being apprehended, but even in these cases the physical and mental characteristics that would mark them off from others among whom they have been living are not apparent. A man's character and his characteristics are the result of interaction between outside influences and inherent faculties. He acquires habits of body and of mind, and they leave their mark on him. Vice and crime are not the same thing, nor have they any necessary relationship. Though generally the result of a vicious impulse or intention, there is hardly a crime in the calendar that might not be committed by a person acting from a higher moral standard than that set by the law. On the other hand, a vicious person may indulge in almost any vice and yet keep clear of the law; it all depends on how he does it. A dishonest person, if he puts his hand in the pocket of another and abstracts the contents, may be sent to prison; but if by appealing to the cupidity of his neighbours he can get them to put their hands in their own pockets and hand him over the proceeds in order that they may share in the El Dorado he has invented, he robs them just as effectively and is not sent to prison. He may become a pillar of society and a legislator. When people are sent to prison for the first time all that has been determined is the fact that they have been guilty of breaking the law. There is no justification for assuming that their characters are, on the whole, worse than those of others. Some of them may have committed very wicked crimes; but, except in a few cases, a thorough investigation of all the attendant circumstances might modify any impressions derived from the trial. Even the commission of a fiendish act is not incompatible with a disposition that is usually and mainly good. We do not in practice assume that a man is a bad man because he has done a bad thing, any more than we credit him with being a good man because he has done a good thing. When the evil he has done has taken a criminal form we are as little entitled to judge the man by the act we condemn. The fact that a person is in prison hinders any attempt to study him. The investigator begins with a prejudice against him because of the crime he has committed. Yet it is the most common thing to hear people who have known a prisoner intimately for years say that they could not have believed he would do the thing he has done. These people are quite as fit to judge character as those who are called scientific investigators, and they have better opportunities for doing so. They have not seen the weakness of their friends in the form it has taken. The investigator usually sees nothing else. If those who come to prison for the first time were made the subject of examination, it would be found that they are principally remarkable for the absence of what the books call criminal characteristics. Prisoners differ as much from one another as people who are law-abiding. No two are alike even among those who have committed similar offences; and those who enter prison for the first time are not distinguishable in appearance from members of the same social class who have not transgressed the law. That they may develop certain common characteristics as a result of their way of living is true; and there is a criminal class in the same sense as there is a professional class or an artisan class. The criminal is born and made just as the policeman is born and made. See him early in his career and it is impossible to tell what he is, but when he has undergone his training it may be expected to leave its mark on him which those who know may read with more or less success. These common characters in the criminal have been laboriously sought for and recorded; measurements have been made and tables compiled; ratios have been calculated to decimals, and an appearance of scientific precision has been given to the study of the criminal which has led many to the assumption that the writers must know more about the offender than they themselves do. Yet there are few men or women of mature years who have not known with some degree of intimacy at least one person who has sunk into the mire of vice and it may be of crime; and one such case thoroughly known is a better basis for study of the subject than any amount of tables. It may be of importance to compare the peculiarities of habitual offenders, but it is of greater use to learn how they acquired them. As for the habitual himself, he is not really the problem. His life is seldom a long one, and even if nothing other than is at present were done to, or for, him, he would die out in a generation. I do not say that the question of what we should do with our habituals is not important, but of much more importance is the devising of means for preventing the wrongdoer from acquiring the habit and joining their ranks. A study of confirmed criminals may be interesting pathology, but it is the study of the beginner in crime that will prevent the formation of the criminal class, in so far as it affords means for enabling us to deal sanely with them. When an atrocious crime is perpetrated there is intense public interest shown in the criminal. He is examined in a distorted mirror and his parts are magnified. The more extraordinary he is, the more monstrous he appears, the greater the sensation. Yet the ordinary men and the ordinary offences are at once the more common and the more important. Here and there a person may be born with such a crooked disposition that it is difficult to see how he could go straight; just as occasionally one of great wisdom enters the world, or a child with more than the usual number of heads or limbs; but the occurrence is quite exceptional, and it is never profitable to generalise from it. We have been reproached in this country with failure to make a scientific study of the criminal; and the works of foreign writers have been translated for our example and emulation. They contain a certain amount of information, but its value is not apparent. The importance of a book is not to be measured by the difficulty of understanding it. Big and strange words may as easily mask an absence of useful knowledge as convey a fruitful idea, and the man who has anything of importance to say regarding his neighbour--even though that neighbour is a criminal--does not require a pseudo-scientific jargon in which to say it. The criminal is a man or a woman like the rest of us, and information about his head or his heels, while it may have a special value in relation to his case, should not be confounded with knowledge of himself. He is something more than a brain or a stomach. Either the so-called criminal characters are the cause of the man's wrongdoing, the result of it, or have nothing to do with the matter. If they are the cause of the criminal act, how is it that they are admittedly present in others who are not criminals? It would certainly simplify the work of the police if they knew that they could with any degree of safety look for the perpetrator of certain kinds of crime among men with heads of a given shape; but anyone who glances at the illustrated papers will see for himself as many villainous-looking faces among notable people, even among able people, as he will find in a prison. Our forefathers had a rule that when two persons were charged with the same crime and there was a doubt which of them was guilty, the uglier should be condemned. It is not stated whether the officials and governing classes were at that time chosen for their good looks. Fortunately the practice has long since lapsed. Unless a peculiarity is shown to have a causal relationship to crime its mere existence proves nothing except the fact that it is there. That in some cases physical defects do cause those who suffer from them to make war on society, is undoubtedly the case; but it is very far indeed from being the rule. There are many people who are prepared to regard a book as learned if it is sufficiently scrappy and contains figures arranged in a tabular form. Yet figures when they deal with other than very simple things are almost invariably misleading; and the more so as they have such an appearance of exactness. It is easy for any two people to count the number of men in a room and to agree as to the result; but ask them to say how many tall men, how many with black hair, how many blue-eyed, how many straight-nosed--and you will get a different result each time. The figures will be exact--they cannot be otherwise--but your knowledge will be the reverse. If this is apparent in such a simple matter as the recording of physical characters, how much more apparent it is when an attempt is made to classify and generalise on men. Most books admit that there are not sufficient data on which to base conclusions, and then proceed to suggest conclusions. The whole science of criminology is illustrated by the composite photographs published gravely as contributions; for a composite is a photograph of nobody at all. It is obtained by the superposition of photographs of different persons, and is itself different from any of them. It may represent them all as they ought to be, but it does not represent any of them as he is. It is the criminal in the abstract--who does not exist. It conveys in itself a warning against averages, for it is a pictorial presentment of an average. An average is the mean of different numbers. In dealing with masses of people--feeding them, for instance--by providing a certain average supply for each, all may be satisfied; but whenever the average is applied to individuals it is misapplied, and one finds he has too much, another that he has too little. Measure two men; one is 5 ft. 8 in., the other 5 ft. 4 in.; the average height of both is 5 ft. 6 in., which is the height of neither. So when we have averages of height, weight, etc., given in the case of criminals, we know that we have been told nothing about any of them. The other physical characters of criminals in prison have been noted without any attempt having been made to ascertain whether, and if so when and how, they were acquired, and we are invited to contemplate a number of twisted and bloated faces, many of which could easily be matched among the non-criminals. See these men and women before debauchery has left its mark on them and they are no uglier than some of us who are set over them. As for the assessment of the mental characters of prisoners, the value of it will largely depend on the ability of the examiner to place himself in touch with them. Few people believe nowadays that by feeling the knobs on the outside of a man's head you can tell the faculties within, far less whether these faculties will be used for good or ill; and we are not likely to advance the study of the criminal by founding conclusions on the measurements of his head, facial angle, etc. The new phrenology differs from the old in respect that it changes its terms and insists on more exactness of measurement. Like the old, it may be fairly successful in judging men after they have shown their qualities. No one has yet discovered a reliable means of estimating the nature, quality, and amount of a man's mental powers from his appearance. We may learn what he says or does, but we can never be sure what he thinks. In practice we are all continually forming estimates of those we meet. Some judge by the clothes, some by the expression, most of us not knowing how. So far as our impressions are concerned, however we think they have been arrived at, we all make mistakes and have all to revise our opinions. The man who prides himself on his ability to read character is usually the man who makes the most mistakes; his confidence misleads his judgment. Even the shrewdest are occasionally deceived after many and varied opportunities of arriving at a correct estimate of their friends or enemies, yet for his own purposes each man's judgment may be, in the main, satisfactory and no one troubles about his neighbour's methods; but when they are erected into a science it is time to protest. The size and shape of the head, its malformations and asymmetry, may be measured with a fair amount of success. This and more has been done with a view to the future identification of individuals; but the theory underlying the practice of taking such measurements is that no two criminals are alike. The theory the criminologists seek to establish is that they are all very much alike. It is stated that so many men who have committed crimes have heads of a certain conformation, have peculiarities in the character of their skulls. If these physical deviations have a causal relation to their conduct, since the heads cannot be altered the criminals are therefore outwith reform. The Church-people, on the other hand, hold that all wrongdoing springs from "the heart"--not meaning thereby the physical organ so called. You cannot give a man a new head free from the objectionable shape; but men have developed a new spirit, and from being bad have become good citizens without undergoing any physical alteration; so that after all it would appear that "The heart aye's, the part aye, That makes us right or wrong." CHAPTER II HEREDITY AND CRIME Does heredity account for one quality more than another?-- Impossibility of forecasting the conduct of others--Do criminals breed criminals?--The fit and the unfit--Unequal endowments--Ability and position--Inherited faculties and social pressure--Crime the result of wrongly directed powers--Original sin and heredity--Heredity behind everything. In the effort to assign a general cause for criminality an undue emphasis may easily be placed on any one factor. There are those who seem to think that heredity is the main cause, but they rarely attempt to define the content of the term. In a sense heredity is the cause of everything, but in that case it cannot be held to be the cause of one thing more than of another. Suppose a man becomes insane at the age of thirty and it is shown that a number of his relatives, direct and collateral, have also been insane. If heredity accounts for his insanity what will account for his sanity? Such a man under treatment may recover, but sane or insane his heredity is not altered. The fact is that we none of us know enough regarding the qualities of our ancestors to be justified in imputing our inheritance of any special tendency to any particular one of them, and every successive generation implies a mixing, if not a blending, of very complex and sometimes opposing qualities. If a man knows anything about anybody in this world surely it is about himself. His knowledge is incomplete, but it is more full and varied than his knowledge of any other body. He may be expected to know something about the qualities and faculties of his wife. Yet all he knows of himself and her, added to all he knows of the laws of heredity, does not enable him to forecast with any degree of accuracy the faculties and tendencies of his infant child, or to trace these back when they have developed. In the case of criminals born and brought up in hotbeds of vice it is even more hopeless to trace back family history, because there is often in their case a grave uncertainty as to the personality of the male parent. To say that as wolves breed wolves criminals breed criminals is nonsense and mischievous nonsense. As canaries breed canaries do poets breed poets? Criminals are men and women who have gone wrong; not necessarily because of the possession of certain powers which they have inherited, but because these powers have been used in a wrong direction. They come from all classes; and there is nothing to show that if their children were taken from them early in life and brought up in favourable surroundings they would take to crime; but there is an abundance of evidence on the other side. There is a good deal of discussion nowadays regarding the fit and the unfit among us, and a tendency to forget that a classification of our fellow-citizens under one head or the other can only be made if we regard the terms as relative to the conditions under which they live. That very many prove their fitness to survive the continuous strain of economic pressure, can as little be questioned as that others sink under the ordeal. No one will deny that there is a good deal of unfitness shown by persons in a comfortable position economically; and if some of the Apostles of Fitness had any sense of humour they would hold their tongues and hide themselves, for neither intellectually nor physically do they show much claim to present an ideal standard. Nobody denies that men are unequally endowed. Some have a powerful physique; others have greater intellectual power. The usefulness of their endowment to themselves and to others will largely depend on the position in which they are placed. Put them to work unsuited for them, or place them in positions where their faculties are not allowed free play, and they may do very badly. The difficulty is to get the right man in the right place. When he is in the wrong place he may be a nuisance to himself and others; but it does not follow that placed in another position he would not be a useful member of society. An attempt has been made to show that certain faculties are inherited and transmitted in certain families; but it is conveniently assumed that position is of no importance. Everybody knows that, in the professions chosen to illustrate the theory, promotion is not wholly dependent on ability. That a father and son have both been judges offers no presumption of special fitness on the part of the son. That high military rank has been held by several members of the same family need not prove any of them to be great soldiers; that the government of the State is now in the hands of one family and now in the hands of another does not show anything more than that these families have been in a position to secure the offices. It would be a new and startling doctrine to assert that the man who is best fitted for a position always obtained it. Everybody knows that the main consideration in determining an appointment is whether a man has influence enough to get it; and that influence need not depend on his personal ability, but on his position in relation to those in whose gift the appointment lies. Granted equal ability in two men, let one of them start with family or social influence and the other with none, and there can be no doubt as to what will happen. That an able man will obtain influence in time is highly probable, but by the time he has gained recognition he is likely to be too old to benefit much by it. The stupid man who has a clever father has a better chance than the clever man whose father has shown no special ability. It is a very difficult thing for any man to learn the history of his family. In the case of the eminent you get no two biographies that are alike. An enquiry would show that this is equally true in the case of those who are not eminent. A man may have one reputation inside his family circle and quite a different reputation outside. We are all influenced in our conduct towards others by our opinions regarding them. A man who has pride in his ancestry will show it in his actions. There may be nothing to be proud about, but that will not prevent him playing his part. On the other hand, if he believes he has been disgraced by something that has been done by some member of the family, his conduct is likely to suffer from the belief. I have seen a woman whose brother was executed for murder sink under the disgrace into a condition of recklessness verging on insanity; and it is a matter of common observation that in some degree men have been broken in spirit by the shame brought upon them through the action of their relatives. It is impossible to discriminate between the part played by inherited tendencies and social pressure, in the production of certain acts. Crime is not the result of inherited faculty, but of the direction in which that faculty is exercised. There are some families where the parents have been criminals and the sons have all done well; while the daughters have followed in the footsteps of their parents. In these cases it is probable that the determining factor has been the influence of the mother. Her criminal acts and methods were more susceptible of imitation on the part of the daughters than on the part of the sons, and the girls, even though they had been willing to leave the house, would have had to face life outside under greater difficulties than the boys. The practice of singling out heredity as the cause of certain things to the exclusion of others has no sanction in experience. Our forefathers recognised that all men showed imperfections. They saw that one man was given to envy; another to lust; another to covetousness; another to wrath; and so on through all the deadly sins. They attributed these defects to our heritage of Original Sin. The theologian has been displaced by the scientific man, and if heredity is a newer name for our ignorance it does not fit the facts any better. We inherit all the faculties and powers which we possess, but what they are only the event shows. Nothing can be taken out of a man but what is in him, but there may be a good deal in him which is never taken out. We may develop certain faculties, but not unless they are first present; and the stimulus that they obey at one period in our lives may fail at another. We may estimate the capabilities of a man who is dead from observation of what he has done, but we cannot say that he might not have done better or worse had his life been prolonged. In the case of great men this is recognised, and we have laments over their early death and speculations as to what they might have done, or regrets that they lived too long for their fair fame. It is the same in the case of small men as of great. Heredity is behind everything; not merely behind some things. If it explains a man's disease, in the same sense it must also explain his antecedent health. It cannot account for one part of his life more than another. Even those who attribute disease or misconduct to heredity seek to cure the diseased person and to correct his bad habits. Any success with which they meet is not obtained by altering his heredity, but by changing the conditions under which he has been living in such a way and to such an extent that he reacts favourably to the change. We are not warranted in saying of anybody that he is doomed by heredity to a life of vice or of crime. The conditions that suit one person may not be suitable to the healthy development of another, and the problem with regard to those who transgress our laws is to ascertain under what conditions they would behave best and place them there. Though their family history may be of the blackest; though their ancestors may have been vicious, it by no means follows that it is impossible for them to be otherwise. When a man has done wrong it does not help him to be informed that he cannot do better. He is often more than willing to transfer the blame to the shoulders of others. It is more profitable to teach and help him to do well than to encourage him to curse his grandfather. There is only one way of finding out why people commit crimes and that is by making a patient enquiry in each case. The causes in many cases may be similar, but the part they play may be different. CHAPTER III INSANITY AND CRIME Insanity and responsibility--Removal of the insane from prison--Crime resulting from insanity--Case of theft--Of embezzlement--Of fire-raising--Insanity and murder charges--The result of an act not a guide to the nature of the act--Observation of prisoners charged with certain offences--Insanity as a result of misconduct--Cases--The mentally defective--Cases. There seems to be a widespread opinion that all criminals and offenders are more or less insane, but those who hold it have nothing to say in support of their view save that they cannot understand how certain crimes could be committed by any sane person. This is to beg the whole question, which is, how many persons who are charged with committing offences are found on examination to be unsound mentally? Insanity has never been satisfactorily defined, but it is a term which in the legal sense connotes irresponsibility. Yet if all insane persons had no sense of responsibility it is difficult to imagine how they could be suffered to live. Even in lunatic asylums the great majority of the inmates can be induced to behave in such a way as to make it unnecessary to tie them up. They have a very large amount of liberty conceded to them without serious inconvenience to their neighbours and greatly to their own advantage. If they simply did what any stray notion impelled them to do this would not be possible. Their affliction frees them from responsibility to the law for their actions; but in practice they have to show by their conduct that they can and will obey the rules of the institution in which they are placed before it is safe or reasonable to let them go freely about in it. The physician does not demand from them better conduct than their mental condition warrants him in expecting; but they learn, in so far as they are capable of learning, that their own actions will determine the degree to which they will be free from interference, and that the necessary result of misconduct will be increased restraint. Only in so far as they show a sense of responsibility is it safe to allow them to be free from supervision. A person may suffer from such a degree of mental unsoundness as will free him from responsibility for his actions in the eyes of the law, and yet be able to conform to the rules laid down for the guidance of his life by an asylum superintendent. A very small proportion of prisoners are persons of unsound mind, and in most cases the mental unsoundness is the result of their own misconduct. In Scotland there is no difficulty in freeing insane persons from prison. By section 6 of the Criminal and Dangerous Lunatics (Scotland) Amendment Act, 1871, it is provided that "When in relation to any person confined in a local prison in terms of the Prisons (Scotland) Administration Act, 1860, it is certified on soul and conscience by two medical persons that they have visited and examined such prisoner, and that in their opinion he is insane, it shall be lawful for the sheriff, on summary application at the instance of the administrators of such Prison, by a warrant under his hand, to order such prisoner to be removed to a lunatic asylum." The matter practically rests with the prison surgeon, for the prison commissioners on his report never raise any objection to the transfer of a convicted prisoner who is found to be insane. Yet the same persons return again and yet again. The warrant for detention in an asylum expires with the period of the sentence of imprisonment, and the asylum authorities must obtain new certificates before they can continue to keep the patient. When the degree and kind of mental unsoundness is very marked there is no difficulty in getting the necessary documents; but when the patient has been benefited to the extent of being able to behave and speak no worse than many of his fellow-criminals, it is different. He is sent for examination to a man who is not acquainted with him. The doctor has to state facts observed by himself as a ground for certification; quite properly he is not permitted to ensure the detention of anybody on evidence that is second-hand. The patient is quiet and on his guard, and his examiner can make nothing of him. Accordingly he goes back to his haunts and his vices, impatient of restraint, and is soon in the hands of the police again. Clearly there is need of some modification in the law or its administration to permit of such persons being dealt with. Insane offenders may be divided into two classes: those whose wrongdoing is the result of their insanity; and those who have been sound enough to begin with, but who have become insane, just as they have contracted physical diseases, as a result of vicious indulgence and its treatment. Of the first-named class there may be one in about a thousand admissions. The crimes charged are of all kinds and degrees of gravity, as the following examples will show:-- X 1.--A man is brought to prison for the first time charged with a series of petty thefts committed while under the influence of drink. He shows signs of alcoholism, and is too dazed to give any account of himself. In a day or two the alcoholic symptoms have passed off and his general condition suggests enquiry. He has signs of mental disease which cannot now be confused with drink. It is found that, until a year before, he had been in business in an industrial town; that he had been a reputable citizen, quiet, peaceable, and abstemious in his habits; that he began to take to drink, and sold off his business, which realised several thousand pounds; and that he had since been lost to the knowledge of his friends. What happened in the interval I do not know. He was taken in charge by the police for stealing glasses from a public-house, weights from a shop-counter, and such-like things, which were certainly of no use to him and which he could not sell. The charge was dropped and he was sent to a lunatic asylum. X 2.--A young man is imprisoned on a charge of fire-raising. He is brisk, talkative, and cheerful, and laughs at the charge as ridiculous. Beyond showing a high appreciation of his own qualities he does not do or say anything to attract attention, and as he is really "bright" his conceit only provokes a smile. He has no physical symptoms of brain disease, and it is not suggested on his behalf that he is mentally unsound. A decent workman who was interested in him called to say how well-behaved he had always been, and to ascertain what ought to be done by way of assisting his defence; and some things he said suggested the need for special enquiry. It was found that prisoner had always been energetic and bright at his work, and that he had good reason for boasting of his skill. His fellow-workers admitted that, though they disapproved of his bounce. He had been a teetotaler all his life and was a prominent member of a militant temperance society. He was very industrious and thrifty. He married a quiet, reputable girl who shared his opinions and ideals. He had saved some money and he suddenly made up his mind to start in business for himself. His wife did not approve of his doing so, as she did not like the risk and was quite content to go on in their accustomed ways. He persisted, and she yielded the point, but only when she saw her opposition was causing domestic strife. He rented a small workshop and furnished it. He got as much work as he could undertake--not a great amount--but before he had time to see how his venture would prosper, he conceived the idea of removing to a larger house. His wife was unable to see how he could safely do this, as she did not think he had money sufficient to justify such a course. Her opposition only made him more insistent, and on one occasion he lost his temper so completely that she became alarmed. He threatened to kill her, and looked as though he meant it. When she spoke to him about this afterwards, he apologised and laughed it off; and as he had always been a most affectionate and dutiful husband she dropped the subject. Things went on as before till one day there was a fire in his workshop. It was not got under till some damage was done, and it might have resulted in serious loss of life and property, as there were dwelling-houses adjoining. It was quite obviously the work of an incendiary, and he was arrested on a charge of fire-raising, as he could give no satisfactory account of his movements. On closer investigation it became quite apparent that he was a person of unsound mind. Little things that had passed as peculiarities, receiving only a passing comment, when dovetailed into the story as I have related it left no room for doubt. The charge was dropped, he was sent to an asylum, and there he died two years later from general paralysis of the insane. In his case his fellow-workmen, seeing him from day to day, failed to observe more than a slight accentuation of the qualities they had been accustomed to see in him. He talked a lot about what he could do; he always did that. He offered to make certain articles for a man better than any other could; very likely he was able. He started business on an altogether inadequate capital; others have done the same thing. He wanted to set up in a higher style of living; he was always ambitious--and so on. Until he set fire to his workshop they had never known him do anything inconsistent with his character, and while they laughed at his boasting they did not doubt his sanity. It was the same with his wife. She distrusted his judgment but did not doubt his sanity. His sudden murderous threat she put down to his temper. His temper she attributed to his want of sleep; for she admitted that he got up at night, and worked or moved about. On one occasion, she confessed, he had proposed that he should cut her throat and his own. He was quite quiet at the time and she thought it an ugly kind of joke, as he woke her to make the proposal; but she explained it to herself on the ground of overwork and sleeplessness. Those who are coming most in contact with persons afflicted like this man are the last to see the significance of the changes taking place before them, because the transition is so gradual. This is true of people in all social classes. X 3 was a professional man in a very good line of business. Late in life he was arrested on a charge of embezzling large sums of money. When I saw him first he had a paralysis of the muscles of one hand, which was withered in consequence; and he could not articulate owing to paralysis of the muscles of the mechanism of speech. He put or answered questions in writing. Enquiry showed that for many years he had been much respected and trusted. He had amassed a considerable fortune, and had been upright and honest in his dealings with others. He lived in the country and kept up a large establishment. His business was one which dealt in large sums of money. Some years before his arrest he married for the second time, and there was trouble between his second wife and his family by her predecessor. He had always been an open-handed man, but latterly his public gifts had excited comment by their number and character. His mental condition, however, was never suspected by his family. They assumed his ability to afford anything he chose to buy. His wife left him as a result of his conduct to her and in doubt as to his sanity, but these doubts were not shared by his family. She said he had become capricious and sometimes cruel to her, and quite different from his ordinary self. He would sometimes bring in parcels of costly jewellery for which there was no need. In the end she became frightened to stay with him; but though she feared he might injure her, as he seemed to have taken a dislike to her, she never suspected that he was frittering away his substance. When the crash came it was found that he had within a short period thrown away tens of thousands of his own, and as much belonging to others who had trusted him. He had bought and sold property in a reckless way and without any authority to do so, his reputation enabling him to do things which in another would have been questioned. He was sent to an asylum. In his case the paralysis from which he suffered, gradual as it was in its onset, had attracted attention to itself and had actually masked the mental condition which accompanied or followed it. There are some crimes which in themselves shock us to such an extent that we find it difficult to believe that any sane man would commit them. In a book such as this I can only refer to certain sexual offences without discussing them, but even in these cases the crime need not infer insanity. We are no more justified in saying that a man is mad if he does a mad-like thing than in calling him wise if he does a wise-like thing. A man's criminal acts are only to be judged in relation to his other conduct if we would form a rational opinion as to his mental condition; and that again has to be considered in relation to the social condition in which he is placed before anything approaching a fair opinion as to its adequacy can be formed. If a man's criminal act were to be taken as sufficient to infer his insanity there are certain crimes for which we should never have anybody tried. Every murderer would straightway be sent to a lunatic asylum on the plea that he must have been mad or he would not have done it; and yet that is precisely one of the most important points that have to be examined in the course of a trial for murder in Scotland. Murder is practically the only crime for which the death sentence is passed. Scottish jurymen have shown a strong repugnance to be parties to the death of a criminal. They may favour capital punishment in theory, but, no matter how bad he may be, they shrink from handing a culprit over to the hangman; and they will seize any opportunity to escape from doing so if it is given them. They may be told they have nothing to do with results; that their duty is to find a verdict on the evidence; but they might as well be told to pull the bolt. They know what will happen. They do not seem to believe that they are not responsible for the necessary consequence of their acts, and in spite of the assurance of the law the verdict is a worry to them. Few homicides are hanged in Scotland, and there are few verdicts of murder, mainly for this reason. If the death penalty were abolished--if it were even made only a possible penalty--brutal murders would have a chance of being called by that name and not by "Culpable Homicide." For a time it was almost a matter of routine to set up a defence of insanity in murder cases where the facts could not be seriously contested. Now in most assaults there is an element of accident. The assailant is in a state of rage and hits out wildly. The blow that will kill one man may only stun another. Blows inflicted on one part of the body may cause little more than inconvenience, but if the same amount of violence be applied to another part death may result. I have known cases where as a result of assault the victim seemed to have sustained injuries sufficient to kill him, even though he had the nine lives sometimes attributed to a cat, and yet he recovered--maimed and permanently unfitted to support himself. That was not murder; in some respects it was worse; but there was no attempt to prove the assailant insane. If death had ended the suffering of the victim there would have been a plea of insanity set up. The determining factor in the plea was thus the physical condition of the assailed, not the mental condition of the assailant. In Glasgow special care is taken in all cases of murder to enquire into the mental condition of the accused. From the time he is admitted to prison he is placed under observation with this purpose in view, and any evidence bearing on the subject is carefully examined. His conduct in prison may be perfectly sane, but if there is any reason to believe that, when at liberty, he showed signs of insanity, the medical officer personally makes an investigation and reports. The prisoner may be penniless, but he suffers no prejudice thereby, as the work is undertaken at the expense of the Crown; and at the trial the necessary witnesses are usually produced on his behalf if the reports show that he is insane. This is true in other than murder cases to this extent, that the procurator fiscal informs the prison authorities of any allegation as to the prisoner's mental condition and asks for a report. He also puts before the judge any statement by the prison doctor as to the health of a prisoner mental or physical, even although the report may not have been asked for. Insanity may be a result as well as a cause of misconduct. A life of alternate indulgence and repression tends to unsoundness of mind; and I have seen men and women, who when first they fell into criminal courses were free from any suspicion of insanity, gradually degenerate and become insane. When the kind of life they lead is considered the wonder is that so many of them do not become mad. X 4 was a girl of the labouring class. She was handsome and of a fine figure. Good-tempered and of an easy disposition, she was rather indolent; and as she was not trained in any very strong regard for morality and had plenty of admirers, she soon gave up working and took to the less restricted life of the town. She got into the hands of the police and was sent to prison, where her behaviour was beyond reproach. She did the work required of her and was always even-tempered and orderly. She took to drinking rather heavily, and during one imprisonment had a bad attack of delirium tremens, from which she recovered only to fall into a condition of dementia which remains and, though it has become less marked, leaves her unfit to take care of herself. Her insanity is the direct result of her excesses. X 5 got into bad company and was encouraged rather than corrected by her mother, who found her profit in her daughter's misdeeds. She left her work but did not take heavily to drink, and by and by came to prison charged with theft. She contracted disease in the course of her misconduct and began to take fits. She gradually became worse, as she gave herself no chance of recovery and neglected treatment when at liberty. She was in prison for short periods during two years and finally became insane and died. When first I saw her she was free from any mental or physical infirmity. Her disease and death were the direct result of her way of living. X 6 had always been a wild and uncontrollable lad. He entered the army and was soon found to be one of the bad bargains. He was ultimately discharged. He got into a lawless set in Glasgow and picked up a living, sometimes honestly, sometimes otherwise. He suffered imprisonment on several occasions and was always a troublesome man to deal with. Gradually he showed delusions of suspicion and had attacks of violence; and finally he had to be dealt with as a criminal lunatic. In his case there was from the beginning a condition of mental instability, which showed itself in his restlessness and impatience of restraint. It unfitted him for a soldier's life, and the discipline incident thereto was much more likely to aggravate than to remedy his condition. Having no friends capable of directing him, he flew to excesses and was punished for the crimes in which he took part. Than life in prison there could be nothing imagined that would be worse for him; and the monotony of it and the quiet would tend to develop the delusions which afterwards dominated his mind, and influenced his conduct to such an extent that under their influence he committed assaults and proved himself to be a dangerous lunatic. His case is different from the last two in respect that the very means adopted to deal with his excesses were largely the cause of his final insanity. Short of cases of certifiable insanity there are a number of prisoners who are mentally defective. The total is small, but the individuals command an amount of attention, and cause an amount of trouble to the public, out of all proportion to their numbers. In some cases the defect consists of delayed development; the body and the passions have grown at a greater rate than the mental powers, but time and training would be likely to establish an equilibrium. In other cases there seems to be something wanting in their mental outfit--they "have a want," as it is put colloquially and expressively. Many of them are capable of behaving themselves when under the guidance of well-disposed persons; and more may be found about religious meetings than in prison. They have come under the influence of the Churches and have benefited thereby, and it is largely because no such healthy influence has been obtained over those others that they are in prison. They are usually quite tractable and pay obedience to stronger-minded persons. When these are law-abiding they cause no trouble, but when the influence is evil it is otherwise. Mental powers that may be sufficient to enable a man to work and live in conformity with the law in one social position may be quite inadequate to enable him to support himself in another. There are men holding positions and discharging the duties required of them to the satisfaction of their employers, who would sink to a very low level if cast adrift. Any fixed standard of mental capacity is irrational, since it leaves out of account the conditions under which the person examined has to live. The question is: Is the person by reason of mental defect unable to bear the stress of life under the social conditions in which he is placed? Is he fit to take care of himself and abstain from offending against the laws? Whatever may be the view of lawyers on the matter, no business man expects the same conduct from a boy as from a man; nor will he trust a young man to the same extent as an old man. The younger man may possess more knowledge, but there is a difference between knowledge and experience, and a man may know right from wrong without having the experience of life that enables him to discount his passions and follow his knowledge. A person who is mentally defective, and who has the additional misfortune to be born into a family of poor people and brought up in a slum, if he transgress the law can only be dealt with as though he were as fully endowed as his neighbours. If he is not mentally unsound to such a degree as to justify his certification as insane, there is only the prison for him; with the prospect of hardships on liberation and imprisonment when he offends, till he is sufficiently mad, or his record and his condition combined are bad enough, to enable him to be placed under the treatment he ought to have received from the first. This is not necessarily the fault of those who administer the laws. The police are not justified in permitting offences to be committed; and whether the person who offends is sane or mentally defective it is their duty to arrest him. The medical men who may see him can only certify if they find him insane from their examination of him. Even if he is sent to an asylum the medical superintendent cannot detain him if his condition improves so far that he behaves sanely there; and out he goes to the old struggle that he is quite unfit to face, with no one to help him or to exercise authority over him when he has a wayward turn. X 7 is congenitally mentally defective, and he has been neglected. He has a stutter which makes it more difficult for him than for others equally weak-minded to get in touch with those around him and, asking questions, to learn. When he does make himself understood he has nothing of any great interest to say, and he is bound to find in the impatience of the ordinary man a barrier when he tries to speak. He cannot get work and there is not much he could do. He haunts outhouses at night for shelter and is arrested for trespassing in doing so. He is in a filthy condition and is a nuisance and an offence to those with whom he comes in contact. He is sent to prison for committing an offence which he cannot avoid committing and which is the direct result of the destitution incident on his mental defect and friendlessness. X 8 is a quiet, peaceable, and rather attractive young woman. She was married to a respectable young man with a small wage. She behaved very well and seemed to be managing their home in a satisfactory manner, but to his surprise and horror she was one day arrested, and was afterwards convicted, for obtaining goods under false pretences. She had been unable to make her income serve for the support of the household, although she was not extravagant, and she had played up to her appearance and got certain articles by a story that was fraudulent. Had she appealed to his friends she would have been assisted, but she took the other course from sheer mental incapacity to deal with her situation. Her case was thoroughly investigated while she was in prison and arrangements were made for directing her on her liberation. She is quite tractable, has no vices, is anxious to do well, but is not fit to bear unaided the responsibilities of her position. The Church to which she belongs has constituted itself her guardian now that her condition has been shown; and she is not likely to transgress so long as interest in her is sustained, nor to cost much in money to those who are looking after her. X 9 is a lad who has got out of parental control and seeks adventures. He answers questions intelligently, if somewhat insolently, and so far as a merely professional examination would show is not defective mentally. He is to all appearance simply a bad boy. Observation of his conduct in prison and enquiry outside, show the mental defect behind it. He has recurrent outbursts of temper without apparent cause, and while showing no sign of confused intelligence, he proceeds to smash things. He has been in prison for malicious mischief and for offences against decency as well as for theft. He is not given to drink, but is beginning to indulge when he can get a chance. He works intermittently, but cannot stay at anything for more than a short period. He was charged with housebreaking, but on a report from prison as to his mental condition he was certified as insane and was kept in an asylum for about a year. He had improved so much in conduct that he was discharged, but the medical superintendent expressed the opinion that left to himself he would probably break back; and he did; resuming his old practices within a short period of his liberation. He can do well enough under proper conditions, but is unfit to look after himself. X 10 is a young woman who is strongly built and of a pleasant manner and appearance. She has been a domestic servant, but falling into bad company has given up work. At first she only appeared to be "soft" a little, but drink and excess have contributed to cause or to show--for in her case it is difficult to say which--mental deficiency. She is quiet and well-behaved in prison, and is of fair intelligence, but on liberation she resorts to the lowest haunts and indulges in such excesses that when brought back to prison she is in terror of death, she feels so ill. She was induced to place herself under control for a time, and she did well, working hard and cheerfully; but she returned to the city and resumed her old courses. All who know her recognise that she "has a want," but the defect is so slight that there is no possibility of having her dealt with for it, as the laws at present only enable her to be punished for its results. Unless her excesses produce some marked degeneration--and, as she is reported to be having "fits" occasionally, that seems probable--all that can be done for her is to arrest and imprison her when she offends. When she is a wreck she will receive the kind of treatment and the guardianship that might save her were it possible to give it now. Just as some prisoners become insane as a result of their criminal and vicious life, some undergo mental degeneration to a degree not certifiable. In the case of the older ones this is accompanied by such an amount of physical disability as compels them to seek refuge in the poorhouse, and they are only back to prison on the rare occasions that they leave its gates, induced thereto by a feeling of improvement and a renewed desire to visit their old haunts. Taking insane and mentally defective prisoners together, their number is small relative to that of those who suffer from no mental deficiency. Clearly then insanity will not account for crime in any except a very small number of cases. In fact the proportion of insane among prisoners generally is not greater than among the population outside, but in the case of females admitted for cruelty to children it is enormously in excess. CHAPTER IV PHYSICAL DEFECTS AND CRIME Physical defects beget sympathy--Rarely induce crime--May cause mental degeneration--Case of jealousy and murder. Just as some degree of mental deficiency is not incompatible with the ability to live a peaceable and useful life, physical defects do not necessarily unfit a man to discharge his duties as a citizen. In either case the sphere of his usefulness is limited, but that is all that can be said. Much will depend on his social position. When a person who is physically defective falls into evil courses, it appears likely that he should find it more difficult to return to the right path than one who is healthy and complete in all his parts; but this expectation leaves out of account the fact that the more pitiable and abandoned a man is the more does his condition appeal to the charitable. His very helplessness attracts attention and begets for him a consideration not given to those who are stronger; and if he will but place himself in their hands, there are many willing to look after the lost sheep whose condition is so pitiable. In some respects, and as things are at present, there is less need for anyone who suffers from physical disability taking to crime than for an ordinary citizen; for the law provides for him and prevents him suffering from destitution in respect that he is disabled.[1] [1] In Scotland able-bodied destitute males are not eligible for Poor Law relief. Physical defects are in very few cases the cause of offences. They narrow the opportunities of employment, and they lessen the chances of work even though the defect may not be of such a nature as to unfit a man for it; but except in so far as they may result in destitution--which, if due to disability, must be relieved by the Parish on application--they rarely induce crimes. In some cases, however, serious crime can be traced to this cause. X 11 was an energetic and industrious man. He was a teetotaler and took an active interest in local affairs. He was respected and trusted by his fellow-workmen and took a leading part in the trade and friendly societies to which he belonged. He also had an interest in books; read a good deal, considering his opportunities; and exercised his intelligence beyond most of his neighbours. He married a suitable partner and their family life was an evenly happy one. In the course of his employment he sustained an accident whereby he lost his arm. When he left the hospital his employers found a suitable place for him; and his income did not suffer appreciably, while his prospects were actually brighter in the new than they had been in the old situation. He began to brood over the loss of his limb, and by and by he became jealous of his wife. One day he made a murderous attack on her and was sent to prison. He was very penitent there, and quite reasonable. He explained that he had ceased to be the man he was when he married, and that since the loss of his arm his wife had regretted their union. She had never said so, but though she tried to hide her change of feeling he could see it. He detailed the causes of his jealousy; and when it was pointed out to him that, granting the facts, his inferences may have been all wrong, he admitted the force of the argument. At most he was unreasonably jealous, but not insane; and on going over certain incidents with him and supplying the explanations of them, he agreed that he had been too hasty in coming to the conclusions on which he had acted. He said that he could not blame his wife, even while he believed she had been unfaithful; that he could not bear to lose her and that was why he had attacked her; but that he was very sorry he had done her the wrong of suspecting her. He was convicted and sent to prison for a period and he behaved rationally and well. His wife was warned that his jealousy might reassert itself and that there was a probability that he would become certifiably insane if he continued to brood on his accident; and she was advised not to live alone with him. He behaved so well that the warning was forgotten. About a year after they had resumed housekeeping he nearly killed her and committed suicide. In this case the crime was traceable to the accident which caused the loss of the man's arm. The cause is exceptional only in respect to the seriousness of the crime, but it is not at all unusual for persons who have the misfortune to be lame or deformed to show a morbid sensitiveness on the subject. Their defect overshadows their lives and colours their view of things, sometimes causing them to become reckless in their behaviour and offenders against the law. On the other hand, many develop a strain of piety and tenderness for their fellows. The presence of the defect proves nothing beyond its own existence. CHAPTER V THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL The reliability of prisoners' statements--Deceit or misunderstanding?--Frankness and knowledge required on the part of the investigator--The prisoner's statement should form the basis of enquiry--Information and help obtained from former friends--The diffusion of knowledge so obtained--The prevention of crime and the accumulation of knowledge. Any study of the criminal based on observations made when he is in prison must of necessity be partial and misleading. It is like writing a Natural History from a study of caged birds. Parts will be right, but the whole will be wrong. Advantage might be taken of his presence there to find out something of the antecedents of the prisoner. The opinions of experts may be of value with regard to him, but they are not nearly so useful as his own opinions on how he comes to be in prison, nor are they more reliable. Prisoners are no more truthful than other people, but they are not generally purposeless liars. When a man is in trouble and is called on to give an account of himself he makes the best of his case; but people who have never been in prison have been known to make no disclaimer when praised for qualities they do not possess, preferring to let time correct any false impression that may be to their advantage. It is not reasonable to expect any higher standard of behaviour from a prisoner than we look for from others. Much of what is harshly called lying on the part of prisoners is due to misapprehension on the part of their questioners. Most of them do not waste lies. If the truth will serve, it is easier to tell it, to put the matter at its lowest; but they are frequently worried with questions they do not understand, put by persons whom they distrust, with the result that they leave an impression of stupidity and untrustworthiness that is not deserved. I remember a gentleman who considered himself a very acute observer, informing me with regard to a certain prisoner whom he had been questioning, that the man was weak-minded. I had very good reason for holding another opinion, but wishing to find out how the visitor had arrived at this conclusion, I interviewed the prisoner, and after some talk approached the subject of his recent examination. A smile overspread his face as he explained that he had been asked all sorts of questions by the stranger and had not been allowed to answer in his own way, so he got tired and let the other have it as he wished. His opinion of his examiner I obtained as a personal favour, for as he put it, "It's no for the like o' me to say onything aboot the like o' him--at least no here." I cannot print his words, all of them. He said, "He's a ---- of a flat." Each had a poor opinion of the other, and how far each was right others may judge. The incident suggests several reflections. It is not reasonable to expect that a prisoner will take the trouble to understand and answer the questions of a stranger whose object in quizzing him he does not know. Few of us would care to unbosom ourselves to the first visitor who chose to interest himself in our affairs. He might count himself lucky if he did not find himself violently expelled. The prisoner cannot throw an unwelcome visitor out, but sometimes he would like to; and the attitude of some who seek to do good is at times provocative. When the enquirer is known it is a different story. Get the name of being "all right" and you will learn, but you must first deserve confidence. Frankness begets frankness, and for my own part I have found very few prisoners who wilfully sought to deceive me when they knew why I sought information from them. It was either freely given, or withheld with the plain statement that they could not fairly give it. The information given has not always been accurate, but there are not so many people who are accurate in their statements--not through want of desire to be truthful, but because their perception, their memory, or both, are blurred. But more than frankness is required; there must be some ability to see things from the standpoint of those who are questioned, and a sufficient knowledge of their language to understand an answer when it is given. There are very many people who think they know the English language, and who do not seem to have realised the fact that a different significance is attached to words in different districts and among different classes. There are not merely slang words, but words used in a slang sense, and when these are taken literally the result is misunderstanding. Yet we are sometimes treated to the result of investigations by people who have had no training, and who in a marvellously short time can obtain voluminous and striking information; how much it is worth is another question. Try to get by question and answer a short record of the antecedents of any of your friends, and you will find that it cannot be done in a few minutes, that it will not be free from inaccuracies, and that it will require explanation before you understand it as they would like. To obtain such information from a stranger is a more difficult task. In the case of the prisoner the advantages to be gained are worth the effort to overcome the difficulties. Having obtained his statement, it might form the basis of an enquiry into his case and an attempt to help him on his discharge. There are few men who have not some friends who are persons of goodwill. They may be relatives, or employers, or fellow-workmen; but their will may be greater than their power. Their patience may have been tried to the limit of endurance or their interest may have become languid; but if they will not or cannot help, they can at least tell what they have done and prevent a repetition of the treatment that has failed. There are very many people who would never dream of joining a society for aiding prisoners, but who will willingly assist in helping a person whom they have known in his better days. The societies have their use, but that is no reason why a man's fellows should not be enlisted in his aid; though they have no interest in the general question, they may take an interest in the special case. In the attempt it will be found that, even though the efforts made to help a given prisoner should fail, a knowledge has been gained of the existence of conditions that favour ill-doing. Every official knows that in a great city there are occasions of misconduct which the ordinary citizen does not suspect. Such knowledge, so long as it is confined to officials, is comparatively sterile. They may speak, but some other matter distracts public attention before it has been focussed long enough on the subject to do any good. At most they may get further powers to do for the citizens things which the citizens could far better do for themselves. Talk of slums to a man who is comfortable is often only talk, but set him to live in them and the effect is different. In the same way, if you can, through his personal interest in a man, get another to examine into the causes of his wrongdoing; to go over the ground for himself; to see the process and the means of his degradation; that man will note how many occasions of offence exist that might be removed, and if only for the safety of his own family will give assistance in removing them. Incidentally and in process of time a large mass of information regarding the history of criminals and offenders would be collected, and some generalisations of importance might be made. At present those who generalise do so without any such careful study of the persons whom they deal with as that I recommend. For sixteen years I have been looking for the offender of the books and I have not met him. The offender familiar to me is not a type, but a man or a woman; and we shall never know nor deserve to know him till we are content to study him, not as the naturalist studies a beetle, but as a man studies his neighbour. PART II COMMON FACTORS IN THE CAUSATION OF CRIME CHAPTER I DRINK AND CRIME Drink commonly accredited with the production of crime--Minor offences usually committed under its influence--Drink a factor in the causation of most crimes against the person--Double personality caused by drink--Drunken cruelty--Drunken rage--Assaults on the drunken--Sexual offences--Child neglect--Mental defect behind the drunkenness of some offenders--Malicious mischief and theft--Drunken kleptomania--The professional criminal and drink--Thefts from the drunken--Amount of crime not in ratio to amount of drinking in a district--The vice existent apart from crime, in the country--And in the wealthier parts of the city--Drunkenness and statistics--Summary. Though the differences among prisoners in antecedents and faculties must be taken into account if they are to be treated in a rational manner, there are factors which are common to the causation of crime in many cases. Their influence may vary in strength, but it cannot be disregarded. Drink is denounced--and consumed--by all classes. There are many who attribute all evils to its use, and some of these take the logical course and advocate the prohibition of its manufacture and sale. Others make the theory an excuse for doing nothing to remedy social conditions; for "you never can stop men from drinking," and if drink be the cause of social evils, and you cannot stop its use, why should they worry? Any theory of the causation of evil will be fashionable if it offers a superficial explanation of the facts and affords an excuse for doing nothing more troublesome than giving good advice to the poorer classes. Drink has brought misery and degradation on many, through their own indulgence or that of those on whom they have been dependent; if it does not cause, it is often an aggravation of poverty; and it is with no wish to minimise its ill effects that I protest against exaggerating them. Our social troubles are not traceable to any one cause, and it is not profitable to single out a particular vice and place all evil to its account; nor is the practice more laudable when the vice is not one to which we are ourselves inclined. By all means let temperance be taught and drunkenness be discouraged; this too we shall do better when we search for the causes of intemperance. One of the statements most frequently made is that the great majority of crimes are due to drink. It would be more accurate to say that most prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the breach of the law for which they have been convicted. The great majority are petty offenders. Strike them off and our prison population would at once be reduced by more than a half. They have been drunk and incapable of taking care of themselves, or they have committed a breach of the peace through drink. Their sentences are short and their number is large. Many of them are regular customers and return again and again in the course of the year. Whether we are dealing wisely with them will bear discussion. They do not seem to be any the better for it so far as their conduct shows. They are enabled, in consequence of the rest and regular living of the prison, to start on their next spree in a better condition physically than would be the case if they were not detained there for a time; but this is rather a personal than a public gain. At present they swell our prison statistics and are a burden on the exchequer. That they should be mixed up with criminals is no advantage either to us or to them. The cause of their conviction is drink; but it does not make for clearness of statement to add their numbers to those of criminals who have committed crimes against the person or against property. Crimes against the person are generally committed by people under the influence of drink, or on persons who are intoxicated. A man takes liquor to get out of himself, and is then in a condition to do or say things from which he would refrain if sober. Some are not improved in temper as a result of their drinking, and are more prone to quarrel and less able to control their passion. It is commonly observed that a man can and does develop a double personality, showing one set of characteristics when sober and another when under the influence of drink. In both states he receives impressions, and his actions when sober show that the impulses which direct his acts are different from those which dominate him when he is intoxicated. Just as his sober self is forgotten when he is drunk, his drunken self is forgotten when he is sober--not wholly, it may be, but in part. He seems more readily to remember violence suffered than violence inflicted by him. Impressions received in one condition tend to be revived when the person is again in that condition. If when he gets quarrelsome and hits out he finds he has struck one who will strike back, he generally gets out of the way and avoids the danger from that kind of person on a subsequent occasion. Just as he learns to keep clear of lamp-posts and other resistant objects, he learns to stop short of striking one who is likely to hurt him. The most serious assaults are not so much the outcome of drunken anger as of drunken cruelty; and, pent up in one direction, it finds vent in another. This passion seems to possess some men regularly, and it is indulged at the expense of those who offer least resistance to it, viz. the female members of their household. With them a habit is formed of assaulting their women-folk, and the habit grows in force and intensity. In most cases of brutal wife-murder that have come under my observation, the fatal assault has simply been the last of a series committed regularly when the culprit was under the influence of drink, and the woman's death was the final incident in a long-drawn-out martyrdom. In other cases men who are ordinarily peaceable find themselves in prison charged with assaults of which they have no distinct recollection, the result of sudden passion that has swept their minds when they were intoxicated. Others become so pugnacious when they take drink that they are not content till they are in a row and do not seem to mind whether they get hurt or not. In their case--which seems to be the most common--it is not the lust of cruelty but the delight in battle that stirs them, and though they may get fully as much as they give, it does not deter them from repeating their conduct. Another class of assaults is that committed on persons who are under the influence of drink, and who by their misconduct have provoked their assailant. They are relatively few, and the assault is rarely so brutal in character or so serious in result; though occasionally it may end tragically. X 12 was a young man who married a girl of respectable character. They were both sober and industrious. She had been engaged in a factory before her marriage and had very little practical experience of housekeeping. She was not accustomed to household routine, and as her husband did not get home for his meals she had a lot of time on her hands. Her house was in a different part of the city from that of her parents, and she had to make friends for herself. Unfortunately she got into the company of some who gossiped together and moistened the talk with drink. At first she abstained, but by and by she began to do like the rest; and unlike them she could not control herself. She showed a tendency to excess which they tried to discourage for their own sakes as well as hers. Her husband discovered her misconduct, and in order to break her of it removed to another district. For a time she did well, and her relatives helped her. But again she drifted in her search for company into that of those who took the "social glass." It is wonderful how a woman when she has once taken to drink finds a difficulty in making friendships with other women who have not done so, unless she becomes a militant teetotaler. In the present instance the young wife had relapse after relapse over a series of years, and her husband seems to have done all in his power to save her. She had two children, and when sober she attended to them adequately; but her fits of drinking began to occur more frequently, and in them she became more reckless. After one, in which she had sold out the household furniture and disappeared, she returned penitent and he set up house again with her. She kept sober for some weeks, they were getting things together, and he was trusting her with some money. One Monday evening he went home from his work to find the house partially stripped, the children neglected, dirty, and in tears, and his wife in a dazed condition waiting to receive him with maudlin apologies. In his anger he pushed her from him. Her body struck the corner of the table, and shortly after she fell and died. She had sustained rupture of an internal organ and she bled to death in a few minutes. The result was altogether disproportionate to the amount of violence used and was in a sense accidental, but her death could as truly be attributed to drink as many of those which result from the assaults of drunken persons. Drink plays an important part in the commission of sexual offences, but it is not more generally a factor in such cases than in those of simple assaults. In the great majority of these charges against men under middle age it is found that the assailant was at the time under its influence, however; and in the most atrocious and unspeakable cases it is rarely absent unless when there is insanity present. Of late years there has been an increasing desire on the part of the legislature to secure proper care for children, and to punish those who by negligence or cruelty allow their offspring to suffer. Cases have been reported that reveal a shocking state of affairs, and parents have been prosecuted and sent to prison for their callousness and cruelty. Of all prisoners these are usually the most hopeless and useless; the most entirely selfish in their outlook; the most inclined to grumble and shirk work; the persons with the keenest sense of their rights and the lowest sense of their responsibilities--this from a merely superficial observation of them. The care of the children falls naturally to the women; the provision for them to the men. The men have excuses to offer for the condition of the children, and these excuses are sometimes valid; for a man cannot be at the same time working outside to support his family and looking after them in the house. If the woman is given the money to defray the necessary expenses, and neglects their care, it is difficult for her to stand excused. In practically all the cases drink enters into the question, and its presence explains but does not excuse the neglect. It is a good thing for the children that they should be removed from the care of parents who are cruel to them either by neglecting or by maltreating them, and it is well that those who are inclined to carelessness should know that their conduct may form the subject of complaint; but a person may be physically fit to have children and mentally incapable of taking care of them. A large proportion of those women who have been convicted of cruelty to children are in this sad case. The evidence has been of the clearest that they have squandered their substance, indulged their appetites, and shamefully ill-used their offspring, but only after they have been placed out of the reach of drink is it possible to say whether at their best they are capable of undertaking the obligations they have incurred by becoming mothers. In some cases their mental condition has been so bad as to justify their removal to lunatic asylums; in other cases the mental defect is quite perceptible and is obviously such as to unfit them for their duties, but is not sufficiently marked to enable them to be cared for by the lunacy authority. Drink has been held accountable for their conduct and it has had a share in its causation, but it has masked the permanent flaw behind it, whether that defect has existed before the subject gave way to drink or has resulted from drink. In the case of these women it is a serious matter to allow them to return to duties they are unfit to discharge, especially as there is a probability that the condition of the family may be aggravated by its increase. Among women convicted of cruelty to children there are very few who are not mentally defective as far as my experience goes. Just as drink causes some people to become savage, it incites others to mischief. If a man lift things that do not belong to him and carry them off, that is theft and punishable as such. If the culprit could state the case to the magistrate as a lawyer would, it would be classed as malicious mischief; but if he had the necessary training, or could afford to pay a lawyer, he might not be in court at all. It is not yet an uncommon thing for young bloods to destroy or take away the property of others, but they are not charged with theft as a result of their exuberance. They are not usually charged at all if they compensate the owners. Students of medicine have been known to return from a symposium with a miscellaneous collection of articles which they had conveyed without authority from shop-doors, in addition to an occasional door-bell handle or knocker. If any of them had been convicted of theft in consequence of this conduct, he would as a result have been struck off the register and been prevented from entering the profession for which he was training. A conviction for malicious mischief would have no such grave result. The consequence is quite as serious in the case of a labouring man. It is not merely that the sentence is heavier; that is the least of it; it is the reputation of being a thief that is attached to him on his discharge which he will find difficult to overcome. It is bad enough for his prospects of honest employment that he should have been in prison, but if the cause was not dishonesty he may be regarded as merely foolish. If his offence has been theft it is another story. Explanations are not wanted--nor thieves; and the dog with the bad name may set about in despair to deserve it, becoming a recruit to the ranks of the professional criminals. In such cases the man's downfall may be attributed to drink; but he might reasonably attach some of the blame to our stupidity in dealing with him. Apart from those who are led into sportive acts when they are in liquor, there are some who take to theft pure and simple. X 13 was a most respectable man about thirty years of age. He was honest and industrious, and except that he occasionally gave way to intemperance he appeared to have no faults or follies. He was not very fond of company, and after his work was done he spent most of his time at home in his lodgings, where he had the reputation of being a quiet, peaceable, and somewhat studious man. He was arrested one night when under the influence of drink, in possession of property which had been stolen by him. On his room being searched the proceeds of several thefts were found, and the remains of articles which had been stolen and partially destroyed. It became apparent that he had been responsible for quite a number of thefts from public places during the two preceding years. His story was that he had no recollection of stealing; and on the Sunday morning after his first theft he was horrified to find a bag containing articles of clothing in his room. He ascertained from his landlady that he had brought it home the night before, and he told her some story to explain his questions. He made no attempt to sell the property, but destroyed it in detail. He kept off drink for a time, but falling in with some old friends one night, he took too much and again he stole. It preyed on his mind to such an extent that he went on a spree, with the same result. He could tell nobody of his trouble, and he got into despairing and reckless moods in which he flew to drink, nearly always returning with something. He was remonstrated with on account of his growing intemperance, but with very little result; and it was a relief to him when he was found out. How many thefts he had committed was never known, but he had never made a penny by them. He was not a kleptomaniac when sober, and his case is an uncommon one in respect more to the freedom he enjoyed from arrest than to the nature of the impulse which he obeyed; for there are a good many occasional thieves who are quite honest when sober. Others have fallen from a position as law-abiding citizens, and have lost their self-respect, as well as their position, through habitual intemperance. Their one passion is drink, and they will do anything to get it. They cannot get work and could not keep it if they did, because of their unsteadiness; so they live off others by begging or by stealing. The most troublesome criminal to those whose duty it is to protect the public, and the most dangerous to the property of his fellow-citizens, is the professional; and no more than other professional persons does he go to business the worse of drink, for that would be taking an unnecessary risk. There are few occupations in which sobriety is not required to ensure and maintain success, and this is true whether the business be an honest or a dishonest one. Not that the thief need be a teetotaler; in his hours of relaxation he may be found proving the contrary; but he cannot afford to drink during business hours. In prison he may say that he is there on account of the drink, but the statement, though it may be true, is misleading. It is a convenient formula, and serves to prevent further enquiry. He knows that those who question him have their prejudices, and he is aware that it is the fashion to trace all crimes to drink--and no further. Let him frankly confess his failing for liquor and he will obtain some sympathy which may materialise on his liberation. It is literally true in many cases, the statement: "If it hadna been the drink I wadna been here." But it is also true that he has not been honest when sober. For every time he has been caught there are many thefts he has committed and escaped capture. Continue the enquiry and it is found that what he means is that if he had not obscured his judgment with drink he would not have attempted the job he undertook; or he would have kept a better look-out before he did take it in hand. He is not a thief because of the drink, but a thief who is caught because he has been intemperate. The drink in this case has not proved an ally to crime, but an auxiliary of the police; it has not caused the theft, but has enabled the thief to be caught. In many cases, however, it assists the professional criminal; for the intoxicated man is an easier prey to him than the sober citizen. He can be assisted home by willing hands that will go through his pockets with skill on the road. He can be lured into dens that when sober he would avoid, and there be robbed at leisure and with little risk. He may even be relieved of his property without any pretence of friendliness, with small chance of his offering effective resistance or causing a hot pursuit. In all these ways he affords opportunity to the thief, and to the extent that the drink places him in this condition it is a cause of crime. It appears then: (1) that the great mass of prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the offence for which they have been convicted; (2) that of these the "crime" of the majority is drunkenness, or some petty offence resulting therefrom; (3) that nearly all the crimes against the person are committed by, or upon, people who were intoxicated at the time; (4) that many offences against property are partly the result of drink; (5) that the majority of crimes against property are not due to drunkenness on the part of the criminal. But the amount of crime in Scotland is not in proportion to the amount of drinking in any district. The consumption of drink is not confined to our cities and towns, and excessive indulgence sometimes takes place on the part of people who live in the country, yet no considerable proportion of our prison population comes from the courts of country districts or of small towns. The vice may be present without issuing in crime, though the drink itself has the same effect on the drinker whether he be living in the town or in the country. In the country and in small towns, where the population is stable and where people are not packed together, they have opportunities each of knowing his neighbour, and they take some interest in one another. Indeed, one often hears complaints of villagers taking too much interest in their neighbours' affairs. If a man drink more than he can carry, there is usually someone about who will see him home; or at worst he finds rest until he recovers, without the necessity of interference of an official kind. In the town, although a man may have friends who would be willing to look after him, he is separated from them, not by green fields, but by rows of tenements and multitudes of passers-by who have no personal interest in or knowledge of him; and if he lie down he obstructs the traffic and has to be taken in charge. He need not be any more drunk than the man in the country, but he is a greater public nuisance. In the country if a man have his evil passions stirred or inflamed by drink and seek to indulge them, friendly hands restrain him from doing the injury he might otherwise do, and the crime which has been conceived may never be executed; but in the city a man may, and sometimes does, brutally assault and even slay another person, while people are living above, below, and on each side of him; and no one troubles to look in and ascertain what is going on. Men do not know their neighbours and do not care to interfere in the affairs of strangers. They have learnt to attend to their own business and to leave other things to their paid officials. The officials likewise attend to their business; and the prison cells are filled with men and women who have taken liquor to excess and have had no friendly hand to assist them or to keep them out of mischief. In the absence of this restraint and help, crime is just as likely to result from excessive drinking in the country as in the town. There is another difference in favour of the country toper that is worth noting. The man who sells him the drink is usually a member of the community in which he lives, and he cannot afford persistently to outrage the sentiments of those among whom his lot is cast. He will not find it to his comfort to obtain the bad opinion of his neighbours; and if he get the name of filling his customers full he may run the risk of losing his license. It is not to his interest to disregard the welfare of his patrons even were he so inclined. Each district has its own standard of what is fair and allowable, and no publican can safely continue to fall below it. In the large towns the licenses are not usually held by men who live in the district. Many of them are in few hands. The licensee is represented by barmen who have a most harassing and exacting time; who work long hours for wages that are seldom what could be called high; who are engaged selling drink to men the majority of whom they do not know; and who are expected while keeping within the law to sell as much liquor as possible. Public opinion in the district can only touch the publican on his financial side; and then only by a campaign directed to ensure regulations that are sometimes as futile as they are vexatious, and that attack indiscriminately the man who is really trying to conduct his business in a reasonable way and him whose only care is to get as much out of it as he can. But not only is there drinking in the country as well as in the town. There is no district of the town that has a monopoly of temperance. There are fewer public-houses in the wealthier than in the poorer districts, but there are more private cellars. There is no bigger proportion of teetotalers among men who have money than among men with none; and business men are as much given to drinking as artisans or labourers. There is a difference in their methods of consumption, the one judiciously mixing his potations with solids, the other taking his amount in a shorter period of time and running a bigger risk of getting drunk. Even when he does get beyond the stage of being quite clear in the head, the wealthier man has the means of getting home quietly, and there may be no scandal and no arrest. Though there may be as much drinking in the district in which he lives as in some of the congested parts of a city, there is less crime in proportion to the number of inhabitants; so that there are other factors than drink necessary to the commission of crime, even when drink is present. In Glasgow we are accustomed periodically to learn from the testimony of English visitors that we are the most drunken city in the kingdom; and tourists write to the newspapers and tell their experiences and impressions of sights seen in our streets, quoting statistics of the arrests for drunkenness. This alternates with panegyrics of the city as the most progressive in the world--"the model municipality." We are neither so bad nor so good as we are sometimes said to be. That the streets of Glasgow--or rather some of them--are at times disgraced by the drunkenness of some who use them, is quite true; but the fact that some travellers at some times see more drunk people in a given area than may be seen in any English city does not justify the inference that the inhabitants of Glasgow are more drunken than those of other cities. In no English city is there so large a population on so small an area. If there are more drunk in a given space there are also more sober people; but only the drunks are observed. In Glasgow, moreover, the ordinary drink is whisky, which rapidly makes a man reel. It excites more markedly than the beer consumed so generally in England, which makes a man not so much drunk as sodden. If it were worth the retort, one might point out that even if it be true that in Scotland you may see more people drunk, in England you see fewer people sober. As for the statistics of arrests they are absolutely useless for purposes of comparison, if only because of the different practices that prevail in different parts of the country in dealing with drunks. It is also well known that a comparatively small number of persons is responsible for a very large number of arrests. The facts show (1) that drink puts a man into a condition in which he is more liable to commit an offence or crime than he is when sober; (2) that while drinking is common in all parts of the country, police offences and crimes occur mainly in closely populated districts; (3) that the amount of crime and police offences in Scotland is not dependent on the amount of drinking alone, but is mainly dependent on indulgence in drink under certain conditions of city life; (4) that the major portion, and the most serious kind, of crimes against property, are not attributable to drink. CHAPTER II POVERTY, DESTITUTION, OVERCROWDING, AND CRIME The majority of persons in prison there because of their poverty-- Poverty and drink--Poverty and petty offences--Poverty and thrift-- Poverty and destitution--Case of theft from destitution--Poverty and vagrancy--Unemployment and beggary--Formation of professional offenders--The case of the old--The degradation of the unemployed to unemployability--No ratio between the amount of poverty alone and the amount of crime--A definite ratio between density of population and crime--Slum life--Overcrowding--Cases of destitution and overcrowding--Overcrowding and decency--Poverty and overcrowding in relation to offences against the person--The poor and officials--The absence of opportunity for rational recreation--The migratory character of the population--The multiplication of laws and of penalties--Transgressions due to ignorance and to inability to conform--Contrast between city and country administration--Case of petty offender--Treatment induces further offences--The city the hiding-place of the professional criminal--Crime largely a by-product of city life. While the majority of prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the offences for which they are convicted, it is equally true that they are in prison because of their poverty. They are there because they are unable to pay the fines imposed on them. Their offences may be attributable to drink, but their imprisonment is due to want of money. There are many who are most estimable citizens, though poor; poverty alone does not lead them to prison. On the other hand, there are many people who drink to excess and do not transgress the law; their drunkenness alone does not lead them to jail; but while a man may be poor and virtuous, his poverty will compel him to live under conditions in which any vices he has may easily develop into crimes or offences. It is sometimes said that poverty, and especially the poverty of the masses, is the result of drink, but no statement was ever more grotesquely untrue. That drink aggravates poverty is obvious; but no one can shut his eyes to the fact that all poor people do not drink, and that all teetotalers are not rich. Drink is often a cause of poverty; but to attribute poverty mainly to drink is wantonly to libel thousands of our poorer fellow-citizens who live far cleaner lives than many of their critics. On the other hand, it is equally unsafe to attribute drinking mainly to poverty, for many who indulge freely are possessed of considerable means, and the practice is not peculiar to any social condition. That some are driven to drink as a refuge from the monotony of their lives is undeniable; but if poverty makes some men drunkards it makes others teetotalers. They see that their chances of "getting on" are less if they take drink than they would be if they kept strictly sober, and they abstain till they have attained their object; though they may make up for their abstinence afterwards. Of prisoners convicted for committing petty offences--the largest number--many have been driven to offend by the squalor of their surroundings. Poverty tends to limit a man's choice in work and in recreation. He is on the verge of destitution, having nothing in the way of reserve, and he is forced to take work that may and often does result in an income that is much less than the expenditure of energy necessary to obtain it. If he is a member of a family or has friends in the district where he is living, he can usually obtain assistance in the time of his distress; and he is himself counted on to render help when required. That such help is commonly given by the poor to the poor is a commonplace, but its importance in preventing destitution in places where poverty is always present is not sufficiently recognised. The majority of working-class families live almost from hand to mouth. The utmost to be expected from them in the way of thrift is provision for pay in time of sickness from a friendly society; and even that is not possible for all the members of a household. Provision may also be made for aliment from a trade union in time of unemployment; and in some cases for some period there may be something saved and set aside in the bank. They are accustomed to hear of their improvidence from people who have never known what it is to suffer from ill-health and consequent loss of income, and who would find their place in a lunatic asylum if they tried to live for a year under the circumstances of those whom they criticise and direct. Their lamentations and advice are sometimes echoed by the man who has risen from the ranks to comparative opulence, and who forgets that if his neighbours had been like him he would never have been where he is. The only capital they have is their health, and anything may happen to set aside the principal member of the family and throw the others into a struggle that may lame them. The life of the individual worker is nearly always one of interdependence. In his early years he is dependent on his parents and his elder brothers and sisters. When he is able to work his wages go into the common stock, and by the time he can earn enough to support himself he may have to contribute to the support of his parents. Thrift in the case of any family cannot be estimated by the money saved, and in many of the model thrifty families it may be found that the cash saving has been made at the expense of starving the bodies and minds of the children. Time and again, well-doing families have become destitute after a severe and prolonged struggle, or after a short period in which they have suffered blow after blow, as a result of sickness or loss of work; and as there is no public provision made for helping such people until they are quite destitute, and then only the minimum of relief is given them and they are set adrift to recover under conditions that render recovery almost impossible, it is wonderful that so many manage to survive. Those who sink are not therefore to be condemned on that account as worse citizens than those who survive; the time at which they have been struck by calamity may account for all the difference between them. We are all liable to sickness and death, but if either comes at one time rather than another it may make a very considerable difference to our families. When a man who is in a steady situation with a fair wage dies leaving no provision for his wife and family he is condemned. It is in vain to point out that he used his pay towards their comfort and in such a way as to ensure their fitness; he ought to have been more careful; and the very people who preach faith are the first to blame him because he took no thought of tomorrow, but did the best he could in the day that was his. The fact is that every man who thinks, among those that are dependent on the wages they earn--usually under a precarious tenure of their situations--sees that his choice lies between securing the best conditions in his power for his family in order that they may be the more fit to do their work in the world, and doing something less in order to lay by some money for them; between starving them in essentials during his lifetime to secure them from starvation should he die, and giving what he has while he is there to give, in the hope that he may live to see them develop healthily. From poverty to destitution is in many cases but a short step, and it may be taken by those who have done nothing to deserve it. Sickness, loss of employment, absence of friends who can assist, may drive a man to extremity; and then it is a hard task indeed for him to keep within the law and live. His sickness may enable him to qualify for parochial relief, but as soon as he is recovered so far as to be able to go about he may be cast adrift without means of support. If a man does not live by working he can only support himself by the work of others; being destitute he must beg or steal. X 14 was a man of thirty-five years of age who was charged with theft. He was somewhat "soft," and had managed to support himself during the lifetime of his relations by casual labour. He was physically in good health and mentally not bad enough to obtain care from any public body. On the death of those who had looked after him he drifted to the common lodging-houses, but he had not enough devil in him to be attracted by any of the vicious or to indulge in any vices. He began to find difficulty in obtaining employment. Under the stress of his condition his mental defect became accentuated, and, though not prominent enough to call for official recognition, it hindered him in his efforts to obtain work. Asked why he had stolen, he gave a reply that in its reasonableness was striking. He said, "What was I to do? I tried the parish, but they could do nothing for me, for I'm quite weel. I tried beggin', but I didna get much, an' I was catched. You're no sae often catched when you steal." He did not want to steal, but it was the easiest thing to do. In begging he took a risk of apprehension for everybody he approached, and from most he would get nothing in the way of help. He took the same risk when he lifted something, but at any rate he drew no blanks. He had some very orthodox views on punishment; for he believed that the proper thing to do with a man who stole--when you caught him--was to send him to prison for so many days, the time to depend on the value of the property stolen; but he thought that the man who had suffered imprisonment for theft, and so paid the penalty, ought to be allowed to enjoy the proceeds of his theft; and he complained that though he had served so many days for the theft of a pair of boots, he had not been given back the boots on his liberation. I cite his case here, in spite of the fact that he was mentally defective, because he really stated correctly the dilemma into which a person is driven when destitute; and because he appeared to be one who, had it not been for his poverty and destitution, would not have required attention either as a mentally defective or a criminal. His social condition gave no opportunity for the proper development of his mental powers, but stunted their growth. As for their quality, it is in no wise different from that of many who, thanks to better chances, are able to get themselves accepted as public leaders on the strength of an absence of showy vices, and the exposition of a logical and narrow view of things; solid men and safe, free from levity and serious-minded. Poverty is no crime, but it is something very like a police offence if the poor person is destitute. Everybody needs food, clothing, and shelter, and they cannot be had without money or its equivalent. A man may starve and go in rags rather than beg or steal, but he must sleep somewhere. He cannot pay for a lodging, and to sleep out is to qualify for sleeping in a cell. If the police were not better than the law in this respect our prisons would always be full. There are many men out of work who are far from anxious to get it; indeed, and for that matter, most people are quite content to do no more than they need; and in spite of all that has been said of the blessedness of labour, there are few of the most earnest preachers against the idleness of others who would prefer to work longer hours for less pay rather than shorter hours for more. We must discriminate; the objection to the man who will not work is that he is not content to want. When he gets like that he is so far from being an unemployed person that he has adopted the occupation of deliberately living off others; that is his profession, and I am not at all sure that it is quite as easy as it is assumed to be by those who have not tried it. Certainly the amateur beggar makes but a poor show with the professional. His is, at any rate, a dishonourable and an illegal profession; but while in some cases he has been brought up to it, in many he has drifted into it through destitution. We ought to have no professional beggars and no professional thieves; but as they are in some way made, it does not help to an understanding of the question to label them "habitual," condemn them, and neglect to ask, if they "growed," how it was they began their career. Many of these full-blown specimens have been offered work at remunerative rates and have scorned it, which shows--that they did so; that is all. It does not show that if in the beginning they had been taken in hand they would have refused to do their share of labour. All experiments of that kind only prove that the sturdy beggar finds it easier and pleasanter to beg than to do the kind of work offered to him; they teach nothing as to the causes which led him to begging; and poverty and destitution are the most common causes. In our large cities there are numbers of children who are destitute because of their parents being unable to provide for them, or failing to do so. They are cast on their own resources from a very early age, and have sometimes to assist in the maintenance of others. When they can, some of them leave the homes which have been far from sweet and take to living in common lodging-houses--in Glasgow we call them "Models," with a fine sense of humour, for they offer the best of opportunities for the formation of citizens who will not be models. If the boy grows up as he can, and in the process develops anti-social qualities, it is not he who is most to blame; and when we condemn his conduct, as we must, we might at least admit that his course has largely been shaped by the destitution which it would have paid us better to prevent than to punish, when as its result we have allowed him to develop into a pest. At the other end of the ladder there are men who are refused work because they are or seem old, and who are driven down through destitution to become petty offenders. I remember when I was employed in the poorhouse a man was brought to be certified insane. He had attempted to sever a vessel in his arm in order that he might bleed to death, but his ignorance of anatomy--he was a pre-school-board man--had caused him to make an ugly gash at the wrong place. He was talkative, and his story was clearly told. He was about fifty years of age and was unable to follow the only trade he knew. He was an iron-worker and had done hard work in his day. He had never been a teetotaler, but he had always attended to his work. At times he made good wages, but he had suffered from periods of depression. Sometimes he had been able to save money, but it had always melted. He could get work when work was to be had, but for some year or two now he was physically unable to take a place. He had contracted a disease of the heart. His son had got married and had two children. He was a well-doing and industrious young man; sober, steady, and a good workman. He had been supported by this son, of whom he spoke in the highest terms. He also was an iron-worker. The son had never grudged him his keep, nor had his wife. Why then had he attempted to kill himself? His explanation was as clear as it was unexpected. He said, "Doctor, do I look unhappy?" He did not; indeed he was rather cheerful. "Well, I never had ony melancholy, if that's the name for't. My son's a good lad. He slaves as I slaved, and at the end he'll drap tae. I'm done. I've enjoyed my life on the whole, but I'm fit for naething but to be a burden on him. He disna object; but there's the weans. Every bite that goes into my mooth comes oot o' theirs. If they're to be something better than their faither or me, they'll need mair of the schule; and what wi' broken time an' low wages they'll no get it. I want them to be kept frae work till they're educated tae seek something better. He and I have had our share of hard work. I've had my sprees, but he's a better man than I was--no a better tradesman; I'll no say that--an' I want his weans to hae a better chance than he had. No, I'm no a Socialist; I'm a Tory if I'm onything, but I never bothered wi' political questions, though I've heard a heap o' blethers on a' sides. What? Hell? Noo, doctor, does ony sensible man believe in that nooadays? God's no as bad as they make Him oot to be, an' at onyrate I believe that death ends a'." There was no shaking him. All he wanted was some lessons in anatomy--which he did not get. He insisted that he was as sane as any of us, and asserted that he could not be certified; but he was wrong there. The law takes most elaborate precautions to prevent people killing themselves, aye even when it has sentenced them to death, but so far it has not made any provision for enabling them to work for their living. We hear of the unemployable who could not work even if he were willing, but apart from those who labour under mental or physical disabilities--and many of them can and do work--I have not met many of this class. There are many on distress works who make a very poor show; they are not fit for that kind of work, but that is a different thing altogether from saying that there is nothing they can do that is useful. Certainly in the ordinary sense it cannot be said of the man who is too old to secure employment that he is unfit for work. He is shut out by competition, the employer quite naturally preferring what he believes to be the more efficient workman. Few of the older men who are thus thrown on the scrap-heap take things in such a way that they try the open door of death, but the fact that they are condemned to forsake their occupation does prey on the minds of many and embitter their lives; and the fear of dismissal increases in intensity as their hair turns white. When the blow falls, if they have no resources what is to become of them? There are all sorts of schemes proposed for dealing on the one hand with the young and keeping them longer at school, and on the other hand with the older men and providing them with work. To an outsider it would seem that if the number of men employed is sufficient to produce what is required, and there is a large surplus of unemployed labour, those who are working are working too long. A stranger might be excused for thinking that if one man is working eight hours and another not working at all it would be better for both that each should work four hours; but if he said so he would only show his simplicity. The man who is employed would quickly point out that this would reduce his wages. Yet when a man gets promotion, whether in the public service or in private business, his salary and his responsibilities are increased--the former certainly, the latter in such a way that it becomes less easy to get rid of him--but his hours are usually reduced; for more money would be of little use to him if he did not get time to spend it. This is merely an observation, not a doctrine; but it is difficult to see how employment is to be found for those who are willing and able to work unless we cease to improve machinery and produce less economically; or increase our production enormously; or divide the work and the proceeds more evenly. In any case, and while that matter is being settled, we might recognise the dilemma into which those are thrust who cannot find work and are destitute. They must beg or steal, and if they get into the way of doing either they are liable to become less fitted and less inclined for other occupations. X 15 was an artisan earning a fair wage and enjoying good health. He was married to a woman who was a good housewife and manager. When he was about thirty-eight he was thrown out of work by a strike in an allied trade. A commercial crisis ensued and there was general distress. He managed for a time to keep his head above water, but his resources gradually were eaten away. His employers wound up their business, and when the local difficulty had passed he found that he had to look out for another place. While idle he had formed the acquaintance of others in like case. He had been a steady, stay-at-home man, but in their company he took to amusements which were harmless in themselves and new to him. He also imbibed a taste for beer, but he did not get drunk. The company was not bad company, but it was different from any he had been accustomed to, and it was not good for him. For a time he looked for work, but he did not find it. Others got settled, but the luck was against him, and he became discouraged and despairing. By and by he looked about in a half-hearted way, and gave more time to loafing than to seeking rebuffs. He was not destitute, as his family was able to keep the wolf from the door. In two years he was only interested in getting drink from anybody who would treat him, and in discussing public affairs with others who had fallen like himself. He had given up the idea of work and had degenerated from a good citizen to a loafer and, later, to a drunkard. He was never convicted, but he had to be warned because of his conduct towards his wife; and he died as a result of exposure when drunk--to the relief of his family, who were in danger of being dragged into the mire by him. In this case his family saved him from destitution, but the loss of his work drove him almost imperceptibly into the ranks of the derelicts, in spite of the counter-influences of home. In many cases there is no family to do what his did for him, and the process is more certain and easy. Poverty compels men to live under conditions in which their vices may easily develop into crimes or offences; and it makes those who have transgressed the law less able to recover from the effects of a conviction and more liable to become habitual offenders; but it cannot be said that the amount of convictions in Scotland is in relation to the poverty of any given district. In some parts of the highlands and islands, where poverty is pronounced, there is an entire absence of crime. While no ratio can be traced between the amount of drinking or the degree of poverty and the number of crimes or offences in Scotland, there is a very definite relationship between the density of the population and the incidence of breaches of the law. Not only is there more crime in the city than in the country, but from the densely populated parts of the city there are more committals than from the less crowded districts. The sanitary reformer has shown us that our city slums are breeding-places for diseases that do not confine their operation to the people who dwell there, but may easily infect those who live under more wholesome conditions; and substituting vice and crime for disease and death the statement is equally true. By letting in light and fresh air to the houses where so many dwell we are able to save lives which would otherwise be crippled or destroyed by the insanitary conditions in which they are placed; and just as surely we could break up the aggregations of people whose acquired way of living is fatal to the proper development of an enlightened civic spirit, if we were as eager to prevent as we are to punish wrongdoing. There they are; born into little boxes of houses which are packed together in rows and built in layers one above the other in the air. Their home life is passed in similar boxes; and when they die they are put in smaller boxes and placed in layers under the earth. The health officer would speedily interfere if we tried to house as many pigs to the acre as human beings; but we eat the pigs and cannot permit them to be raised under conditions that would be likely to result in their contracting disease. Also there are fewer people making a living by furnishing accommodation for pigs than for men; and it is easier to regulate an occupation when those who are engaged in it are not influential, than when they are; for we have a traditional dislike to interfering with the rights of property. It is therefore much easier to punish a slum-dweller for breaking our sanitary regulations than a slum landlord for living off rotten dwellings. It is well known that the worse the building is, the bigger the rent charged in proportion to the accommodation supplied. If a man owns house property he expects to make a profit when he lets it, from the difference between what he has paid for it and the rent he receives from it. X 16 is an old woman who is past work and has no resources. She has been in the poorhouse, but will not stay there, though better housed and better fed and kept cleaner than when outside. She is too old to settle down to the ordered life of the institution, and when all its advantages are enumerated to her and all available eloquence has been expended on her with a view to persuading her that in her own interest she ought gratefully to accept its shelter, she sullenly and silently shows that her opinion of the place as a desirable residence does not coincide with that of those who are in no danger of being forced to live there. She rents a small house and takes in lodgers, intending to make her living from the difference between what she pays and what she receives in rent. Under the Glasgow sanitary regulations certain houses are "ticketed"; that is to say, their cubic content is measured, and a card is fixed on the door stating the number of cubic feet in the place and the number of persons who may be lodged therein. One adult is the allowance for every 600 cubic feet; and half that space is allowed for every person under twelve years. The sanitary inspector is entitled to demand admission at any hour in order to ascertain whether there is overcrowding. He calls one night and finds that the limit has been exceeded, and she is sent to prison, in default of paying a fine, for overcrowding. Of course there is a difference between her and her landlord, for she has broken the law. Precisely; but what kind of law is it that can reach only the poorer transgressor and allows the partner in profits to escape? X 17 is a woman of forty-two who has never been in prison before, and is under sentence for overcrowding. On a midnight visit the sanitary officer found six adults in a room ticketed for three and a half--a bad case. The woman's story was that her daughter had been married to a young man some twelve months previously. He was an iron-worker and seemed decent enough. He lost his situation through bad trade and was unable to get another. Meantime a child was born. The young people wrestled along for a time; but after exhausting all the channels of aid which were open to them, they were turned out of their house for failing to pay the rent. Their furniture had been disposed of. The girl's mother took them in to shelter them. She admitted she had kept them in lodgings for some weeks before the "sanitary" came down on her, and I suspect she had been warned, but as she said, "What was I to do?" Asked if she had informed the magistrate of the facts, she said she had not. "I pleaded guilty, because if ye dae that ye get aff easier." She could not even make the best of her case, but if she had been able to employ a lawyer she would not have required to transgress the law; and as for stating her own case, that is what few are able to do--till by experience they learn. Even when a person of education and means finds himself in conflict with the law, if he is prudent he gets an experienced lawyer to appear for him and present the truth in the way that will appeal most strongly to the judge. Overcrowding not only breeds disease, but it tends to destroy the sense of decency, and affords opportunities for the commission of crime which ought not to exist. Now and again cases come before the courts that have to be heard with closed doors, and in every one of them this factor of overcrowding is present, affording the opportunity and inducing to the commission of the crime. The subject is so foul that it cannot be adequately treated here without grave occasion of offence. Unspeakable corruption is easy and possible, and it goes on because it is unspeakable. It has often been said that poverty and destitution are not likely to lead to the commission of crimes against the person, but rather to crimes against property and _a priori_ there is something to be said for the statement; but whatever the likelihood we need not concern ourselves with it when the facts are before us for examination. In the first place, the great majority of persons in prison for committing assaults of all descriptions are poor persons. It is a rare thing for one in a good position to be convicted of assault, and even the most cursory examination of those who are in prison for assaulting others will show that their social condition was a factor in the causation of the crime. I have pointed out the part that drink plays in the matter, and incidentally shown that it is mainly operative under the conditions which exist in closely populated districts; but many of the minor assaults are committed by persons who are not under the influence of drink. Next to drink, among the women, the most common cause assigned by them for their imprisonment is "bad neebors." They do not lose their tempers and fight with each other because they are poor or destitute, but poverty makes strange bedfellows and forces people to rub against one another in such a way as to give occasion for trouble; and to leave the fact out of account is simply to attempt to study man apart from his surroundings and to ignore the effect they have on his conduct. In some parts of Glasgow--much as it has been improved during the last generation--there is literally no room for the people to live. A place to sleep in, to afford shelter from the weather, to take food in? Yes. Room for recreation or for quiet rest? No. The forbearance, the good-humour, the willingness shown to stand aside and allow another member of the family to monopolise the scanty accommodation, are wonderful; and they are the rule. Now and then, here and there, a breakdown occurs; and if it result in a breach of the peace, we are not concerned to recognise the cause, but only to punish the wrongdoers. "What's done we partly may compute, but know not what's resisted," and are not disposed to find out. A stair-head quarrel is a stock subject for the humorist; but try to live for a week in such close and constant contact with anyone, earning your living the while with exhausting labour, and your wonder will be that the peace is so well kept. The fact is that those people put up with a great deal more than their censors would stand, and that is one reason why they are so badly off. If they were as impatient of our smug mismanagement as we are of their transgressions we should have learned how to regulate our cities long ago. There is a great effort made to evangelise the poorer classes, and it is well supported by earnest men who are better off; it would not be a bad thing if the slums returned the compliment and started a mission to the West End. The _a priori_ reasoner would then perhaps learn that while he might expect that crimes against property would in part be the result of poverty and destitution, because such crimes would relieve the poverty, though in an illegal way; crimes against the person are also frequently a result of poverty, not that they are committed with a view to its relief, but because discomfort, irritability, impatience of restraint, and other mental conditions which lead to assaults, are as much an outcome of poverty as it exists in the slums of our great cities as are hunger and want. There is no slum district in Glasgow that does not contain a larger number of well-disposed than of evil-disposed persons; but a tenement may get a bad name through the misconduct of one or two of its inhabitants, and a street may be regarded as wild although there is only a minority of rowdy people living in it. We take no account of those who do not annoy us, and when the noisy people anywhere assert themselves we forget all about the others. When we interfere officially it is to find that, good and bad, they stand by one another. In this respect they are like gentlemen; they do not give one another away to outsiders; and it is an interesting sidelight on their view of the law that they do not look on its representatives as their friends. So often its interference results in making their condition worse that they distrust it; and it is often a greater terror to those who do well than to the evil-doer. It is no uncommon thing to see a woman who has been assaulted by her husband plead with the court to let him go, and make all sorts of excuses or tell the most incredible story to account for her injuries. Then we hear exclamations and reflections on the power of human love and the forgiving spirit of even a degraded woman. Human love is wonderful, but it is no more marvellous than human stupidity; and in these cases the woman is moved not so much by love of the man as by knowledge of the results to her and hers of our way of dealing with him. On the whole, she prefers to run the risk of ill-usage from him when he is at liberty, being assured of his protection against the ill-usage of others, to having to wrestle on in his absence and suffer from the disapproval of others who are as badly off, because of her disloyalty. See that her condition is really improved by his conviction and she will be less likely to perjure herself in the attempt to save him from the penalty of his brutality. In every slum district there are some living who could afford to go elsewhere, but who remain where they are because it has never occurred to them that they should remove. They have gone to the district in its better days, and the change in its character has been so gradual that they have not taken much notice of it. They stay on just as men stay on at business after the need has passed, because they cannot think of doing anything else and are loth to seek fresh fields. It is not good for them that they should do so, but it is not bad for the slum; for old inhabitants of this kind exercise a good influence on many of the others. Most slum-dwellers are not there because they prefer slum life, but because they are unable to pay for better accommodation. The smallness of their dwellings makes healthy home-life difficult and in some cases impossible. Having no room in the house for the recreation required after work, the man goes out to seek change. The opportunities offered to him are few, except those provided by private enterprise. There are the parks, and great advantage is taken of them; but in Glasgow they are nearly all at considerable distances from the most crowded districts. The public bowling-greens are used to the utmost in the evenings, but are only available for a part of the year. The libraries attract comparatively few of those whose labour has entailed much physical strain on them; and picture-galleries and museums appeal to only a very limited number of our fellow-citizens, working-class or otherwise. It was once the idea of those who pleaded for the public provision of means of recreation that these should be of such a character as would "improve" the working classes. The intention was excellent, but the people themselves were left out of consideration, as is usual when efforts are made to recreate men instead of providing opportunity for them to amuse themselves. Perhaps they do not believe that it would be an improvement to conform to our ideals; at any rate, the great majority have not shown any eagerness to take advantage of the means for studying science and art which we have placed within their reach; and they remain as regardless of the worship of these deities as the great mass of the richer people who quite honestly have sought to elevate them. The private caterer has found a way to interest them, for if he failed to do so he would lose his means of livelihood, and that fact may have helped to sharpen his powers of perception. He has to amuse men as they are, not as he thinks they ought to be; and our regulations quite properly debar him from doing so in an objectionable way. The entertainments provided may not be of a very high order, but the purpose of recreating thousands is served. If we regret that they do not seek something better, let us remember the monotony of their lives, the numbing effect of the conditions to which they are subject, and be thankful they do not seek worse. The small house of one or two rooms in a tenement is what the majority have for a home, and when there is a family it is insufficient to enable them to evolve a complete and healthy home-life in it. Social intercourse is of necessity restricted, for there is no room for the gathering of friends; and though public entertainments, while valuable adjuncts, are poor substitutes for social intercourse, they are better than nothing. The public-house is almost the only place where the mass of town-dwellers can meet in a social way with their friends, and the perils attendant on such meetings are evident to all men. The effort to provide some substitute for it has taxed the ingenuity and baffled the attempts of many temperance advocates and social reformers. Much as they have been criticised, the music-halls and such places have been a powerful counter-attraction, but any means of public entertainment cannot in the end supply the need for social intercourse between kindred spirits. Some day the fact will have to be faced that the only real substitute for the public-house is the private house; and when that is fully realised the slums will go. Many have to migrate from one district to another because of the nature of their work. They have not "steady jobs," and though they may not suffer from unemployment, they may be engaged now in one part of the city and now in another. The result is that they have no abiding dwelling-place, and as a rule have only the barest acquaintance with their neighbours; for when people are moving about in this way they have neither the same opportunity nor the same desire to form friendships with those around them. Improvement in the means of locomotion has contributed to send employers and well-to-do people out of the crowded areas of the city and away from the parts wherein their employees reside. They see less of their workmen than did a former generation, and their wives and families know nothing about the men whose co-operation is required to secure their comfort. There is less of personal contact than there was and more chance of mutual misunderstanding. The bond between employer and employed becomes more and more a mere money bond; each seeks to get as much as he can out of the other; and with it all there arises a general feeling of instability and insecurity, the necessary result of the absence of a spirit of fellowship such as can only spring from the existence of a personal as distinct from a pecuniary interest between man and man. Where people are crowded together regulations are required for their health and comfort, and the liberty of each has to be restricted in the interest of the community. The more closely they are packed the more interference is required. Practices which in the country might be harmless or even laudable would be intolerable if permitted in the town. To make our rules operative we enact penalties against offenders--and sometimes enforce them. There are so many now that it is questionable if there is anybody in Glasgow who has not at one time or another been a transgressor. The man from whose chimney black smoke has issued, or who has obstructed the footpath by leaving goods outside his shop-door, does not worry over, because he is not seriously worried by, such laws. He may swear a little when summoned, and say evil things about the officiousness of the authorities, but it is a small matter to him even though he is fined. The man who finds himself in court for using strange oaths in public or for spitting in or upon a tramcar has more worry over the business. Even a small fine makes a serious inroad in his day's earnings, and the loss of time attending the court docks him of the pay by which he might discharge the fine. However much it may be required, every extension of the police regulations for the government of a city implies an increase in the number of offences and offenders dealt with; and while it is necessary that transgressors should be made to cease to do the things the law condemns, it does not follow that the wisest means are always taken to secure this object. A crusade against consumption will meet with hearty approval everywhere; but if the crusaders allow their zeal to direct their energies wrongly their good intentions cannot be held as an excuse for the harm they do. In a city that is ordinarily covered with a haze, and sometimes with a cloud, of smoke; where the inhabitants for the most part live in tenement houses that by no stretch of fancy could be called spacious; where the workers are in many cases subjected to severe physical strain by the nature of their work; and where the weather is variable and trying; it is not surprising that many should suffer from "colds." They are under the necessity of spitting, and they spit not out of joy of spitting, but because they have to. The practice is filthy--it is all the evil things that can be said of it; and it should be discouraged. The best way would be to alter the conditions that occasion it; the worst way is to make the spitter a comrade of the criminal before the bar of a police court. As with this so with many other offences; they are manufactured without due regard to the injury that may be caused by their enforcement. It is an easy thing to place burdens on the backs of others, but in fairness to them it should first be ascertained whether they can bear them. Many of our laws are transgressed because of ignorance or helplessness; and neither is an excuse. We are all supposed to know the law, and surely no greater irony could there be than such a hypothesis. If everybody knew the laws there would be no need for lawyers; and if the lawyers were agreed as to what is the law at any time there would be little need for judges. So well is it recognised that even the judges differ, that one set is employed to correct another; and a final decision is only arrived at because there is not another set yet provided to differ from them. If a layman does not know the law he may be punished for his ignorance; but if a judge does not know it the person in whose favour he has given a decision may be punished by payment of the costs of appeal. Let us not be too hard then on the ignorance of the man who has transgressed one of our numerous commandments. In the country, and where people are not crowded together, there are offenders against good government; but there each one knows the other, and when a man commits a petty offence, though the local constable sees it, he may be judiciously blind if in his judgment that is the best course to take. He knows the inhabitants--they are his friends--and he reacts to the opinion of the district. If he makes an arrest the matter is discussed, and when the offender comes before the court, magistrate and prisoner meet as persons who know one another. Judgment is given on a knowledge not only of the offence, but of the offender, and all parties in the case are tried by the public. In the city it is not possible for the policeman to know the people who live in his district, nor for them to know him. This is a great disadvantage to begin with, for he is not able to distinguish between those who may be corrected and restrained by their friends without the need for their being charged and those who cannot be so dealt with. He arrests a person whom he does not know for committing an offence. The prisoner is brought before a judge who knows neither of them, save officially, and judgment is given according to scale. As for informed public opinion directed on the proceedings, there is none. In the city as in the country, however, if an offender is known as being ordinarily a well-behaved man he may not be prosecuted. If he is overcome by drink someone may see him home or send him there. It is not so much a question of his being well-to-do; it is a question of his being known. If not known, no matter what his means he cannot be sent home in a cab; but he may be taken to the police station in a wheelbarrow. What else can the police do? We take men of good physique and character, many of them country-bred and unacquainted with the complexities of city life. They are paid the wages of a labourer, and with a uniform invested with powers and duties of the most varied kind. They must be able to keep people from offending, or to arrest them if they do offend; they must know the law; they must be prepared to act as doctors on emergency--what must they not be able to do? We multiply our complaints, and cast on their shoulders duties we ought to perform ourselves; blaming them not only for any blunders they may commit, but also for our own. We compel them to make arrests and then lament the result. X 18 is sent to prison in default of paying a fine, on conviction for using obscene language. She is seventeen years of age, but does not look more than fifteen. In years she is a young woman, but in body and in character she is a big girl. She is the eldest of a family, the father of which is a casual labourer. The mother does occasional charing. Both take drink, but neither has ever been convicted or charged. The girl is employed in a factory and earns about enough to support herself. At night she wants some fun after her day's work, and she does not want to assist all the time in the household. She plays with other and younger girls and is probably their leader. There is no playground for them but the street corner, except they take the "back close," which is not lit and which might be a source of greater evil than the street. A complaint is made to the police of the bad language used by the girls. It is certainly lurid; but where have they learned it? The decorative expressions complained of are part of the current vocabulary of many in the district, but are used with more restraint by the elders. We have all our pet adjectives, which differ in different localities and are of the nature of slang. In the West End a thing may be "awfully nice," though nothing can be at once awful and nice; in the East End the adjective may be quite as inappropriate, but everybody knows its signification; and so with other parts of speech. True, their language is filthy, but it does not shock those who use it; and that is perhaps the saddest thing about it. The girls are warned, but they persist in speaking their own language, and in bravado ornament it profusely and shout opprobrious words at the policeman. One is caught. She has not necessarily been worse than the others in her behaviour, but she has either run in the wrong direction or not fast enough to escape. She is taken to the police station and warned. The complaints persist. Again she is arrested. She is the bad one; she was taken before. On her liberation from prison she had lost her work. She was shunned by the other girls, whose mothers forbade them to associate with one who had been in prison, lest they should be taken in charge also. It is an offence to associate with some classes of offenders and criminals, and the cautious among the dwellers in these districts do not care to take risks, so they try to keep clear of anyone who has been in the hands of the police. The law may be right enough, but you will not get them to believe that the innocent person is safe; not if he is poor. "Keep awa' frae Jeannie. She's been in the nick; an' if they see you wi' her they'll maybe think you're as bad, and land ye there tae." They would help her if they could, but they fear that association with her would only hurt themselves and do her no good. Those who have been in prison themselves will go with her, and those who are reckless; to their company she is confined, for she will not take to religion and the help of its professors. She is soon back again; as cheerful and as tractable as any girl could be. In essence it is a common story. The police could have done nothing else in the circumstances, and she had no grudge against them, but admitted that they had treated her fairly; can as much be said for those who by persistent nagging force the hands of their officials, and who are more bent on punishing offenders than on mending their bad manners? We have lost the personal interest we ought to have in our neighbours; we have gone out from among them; we have cast on officials duties we ought to undertake ourselves as citizens, and the result is an increase in the number of offences. In themselves these offences are small matters, but the offenders in many cases find themselves in prison for the first time as a result; and it is the first time that counts. Every time a man is sent to prison for a small offence committed he has been given a push towards the life of a habitual offender; and the poorer and more destitute he is the greater difficulty will he have in overcoming the effect of that conviction. His first appearance may be on account of a small transgression, but there is a common saying that is often taken to heart--"As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb." The absence of personal interest in their neighbours on the part of men in crowded districts not only permits atrocious assaults and homicides to take place in the very heart of a densely populated district, but it allows thieves to exercise their profession unmolested because unknown. It also enables them to escape observation when they are being sought for. The city is their hunting-ground and their refuge. Crime is largely a by-product of city life. It might be mitigated if we were more public-spirited; but it will always be an evil crying out against us, so long as we permit conditions to exist which shut men into dens under circumstances that make decent communion and fellowship between them difficult if not impossible, and compel them to remain there till they can pay a ransom to the man who holds up the land for his profit or his pleasure. CHAPTER III IMMIGRATION AND CRIME The stranger most likely to offend--The reaction to new surroundings--The difficulty of recovery--The attraction of the city--The Churches and the immigrant--Benevolent associations--The alien immigrants--Their tendency to hold themselves apart-- Deportation--A language test required--The alien criminal--His dangerous character--The need for powers to deal with him. A majority of the prisoners dealt with in Glasgow police courts are not Glasgow-born; and this holds true of outlying towns. It is the stranger who is the "bad one." The town-bred man more readily accommodates himself to the conditions of life there. He grows up among them and his life is rooted in them. While he is yet young his steps are directed for him, and he learns to avoid dangers into which the stranger may fall. There can be no association of a man with his neighbour anywhere without some degree of conformity to a common standard of conduct. No one can outrage the social customs of his companions with impunity; and everybody is more or less influenced by the opinion of those for whom he has a regard; so he conforms to the standard of behaviour set by the circle in which he moves and is steadied thereby. If, as is generally the case, his companions are not ill-disposed, he is likely to be a law-abiding citizen; if otherwise, he will get an impetus towards crime. In any case he is of the soil, and his growth can the more easily be watched and directed. The man from the country finds himself living under new conditions that may rapidly make or mar him. He is away from the friends to whom he looked for guidance; he is cast on his own resources and must exercise an independent judgment; a temptation is not checked by the consideration of what the family would think; and having nothing but his own inclinations to consult, he is more likely to run loose than he would be when at home. He is not necessarily more vicious or more foolish than his town-bred brother; but he is not accustomed to the same kind of temptations, and can neither resist them as well nor yield to them as gracefully. He is therefore more likely to succumb, and more likely to suffer severely from the consequences if he is found out; for just as he is handicapped by the want of guidance, being a stranger he is not so likely to get proper assistance if he falls into trouble. Men are attracted to the city by the hope of increase in pay and pleasure; and though in some respects the life seems unattractive enough, they still come. The only people who are certain not to come, and perforce to stay, are those who have a home in the country and fixity of tenure there. Their sons may and do invade the towns, but when they do not succeed there they return to the land. Workmen in the country are as liable to lose their situations as townsmen; their work is hard and their hours of labour are long; they think their pleasures are few and dull compared to those men may have in the city, and they gravitate to it. They are drawn in by its glitter, and driven in by the drabness of country life; sometimes also by the clearance of men to make way for the huge pleasure-grounds that disgrace Scotland, and have resulted in the replacement of men who drew their subsistence from the soil (living a hardy life and rearing a healthy race) by deer and their keepers. When the landless man comes to town and fails to find steady work, he cannot go back to the country unless the family of which he is a member have some hold on the land. The children of crofters do go back in times of depression, returning to their father's holding and working there; but the others swell the ranks of the unemployed and are in peril of degeneration into the loafer or criminal. The Churches play an important part in helping those young people from the country who are recommended to them; but many never connect themselves with Churches when they come to town at first. Some make a beginning, but drop off, not so much because they dislike religion, but because they like occasionally to talk and think about something else; and in comparatively few of the Churches is the need for providing social intercourse recognised. A man filled with the missionary spirit can find numerous outlets for his energies, for there are evangelistic meetings held in all districts and on all nights, and they welcome new-comers; there are also temperance societies engaged in the propagation of their ideas; but the majority of people who migrate to our towns are not prepared to engage in that kind of occupation in their leisure hours, and they have just to drift for the most part. There are Benevolent Associations of the natives of one county and another which have a powerful influence for good in aiding those who come under their care, but that they do not cover the whole ground is evident from the fact that many of their compatriots are never heard of by them. That they stand by one another in an admirable way is undeniable, and their influence is so strong that for certain kinds of public appointments in Glasgow the Glasgow man has a poor chance--there being no Society of the Natives of Glasgow in that place yet. The absence of family counsel and constraint which may lead to the degradation of the man who takes the wrong turn, may be a powerful aid to his rise if he gets on the right track. He has to think and act for himself; and his freedom from ties enables him to attend more exclusively to his business. The immigrant to the city from the country is largely represented in prison; but he is also largely represented in the town council--and the one place may be held to be as typical of the reward of the ill-doers as the other is of the well-doers. There is another immigrant whose conduct usually receives more attention from the public, viz. the alien. In the West of Scotland foreigners are present in large numbers, having this in common, that they tend to form little colonies wherever they settle, retaining many of the habits they have brought with them, and remaining aliens in the sense that they are not absorbed in the community as they ought to be. In the collieries in various parts of the West of Scotland large numbers of aliens are employed. Their names, which in many cases are difficult either to pronounce or to spell, have been set aside by somebody or other and local names substituted; so that it is not uncommon to find a man with a familiar name who is quite unable to speak the language of the country. They keep themselves apart, and do not usually interfere with others, but some of them get into trouble through fighting among themselves. Ordinarily peaceable and tractable, they contribute a fair quota to the number of serious assaults committed, though the person assailed is usually another alien. Their ignorance of the language also makes them a source of danger to others. When they have done some wild or criminal thing the culprits are deported, after they have served their term of imprisonment; but their isolation from the life of the district has in many cases contributed to the offences committed, since it has prevented them from acquiring the point of view of natives of this country and has caused them to follow the customs of their own land. Any proposal to prevent their settling here would come with a very bad grace from us, whose relatives are scattered all over the globe and who pride ourselves on the fact. They are healthy; and are neither wild nor intractable, but are generally industrious and steady. In their interests and our own it is surely not advisable to permit them to continue as colonies apart, separated from us by the bar of language. It would be no act of tyranny or hardship to insist that every alien settling here should, within twelve months of his arrival, satisfy the local authority of his fitness to speak the language sufficiently well to enable him to understand others and be understood by them. At present it is no uncommon thing to find men who have been in the country for years and are yet unable to engage in the simplest conversation in English--or Scotch if you like. In one homicide case the accused had been in the district for sixteen years, could only speak a broken dialect, and required to have the simplest statements interpreted to him. In the city this condition of things is less marked, but as a general rule aliens--apart from the professionals--who are committed to prison do not speak the language intelligibly, even though they have been some time in the country, and that for the same reason--they get on all right without it. The Italians and others who are largely engaged in trading, pick up enough to enable them to understand and be understood; their occupation makes this a necessity; but even among them the interpreter is far too often required. People are generally given to save themselves trouble; and to learn a language is troublesome. If they can escape the necessity they will do so, and there is no need to blame them for it. But their ignorance is a trouble and a possible danger to us, and it does not seem to be unreasonable to ask that it should cease. There are other immigrant aliens who do speak the language and who are present in the large cities. These are the professional criminals who import their vices, and work their business, in a very systematic way. They are more remarkable for their knowledge of the law than for their ignorance of the language; and they are a very dangerous although not a very large element in the population. They have an organised system of correspondence and go from one part of the country to another, where they have connections. They employ skilled lawyers for their defence when they get into trouble, and within certain limits assist each other in the way of business. There are some of them capable of any atrocity, and they are all quite different from the ordinary criminal of the professional class familiar to us here. They have a certain amount of polish, and an aptitude for appreciating the standpoint of others sufficiently well to get on their blind side. As for moral sense as we understand it, it does not seem to exist in them. Crime is their business and they place business first. When they are convicted they are deported, but their resources and organisation enable them to escape conviction very often. They require to be dealt with in a much more drastic way than the law at present permits; for they are not only a danger because of their depredations, but their presence and conduct incite our own undesirables to do things they would not otherwise attempt. As the law stands the onus of proving their undesirability rests on the police, and it is very difficult to get positive evidence. If they were required, on the initiative of the police, to prove to the satisfaction of a court that they were earning an honest living, they would find it impossible to do so. It may be objected that this is like assuming a man to be guilty till he proves his innocence, which is contrary to practice and a bad principle on which to act. As a matter of fact, it is acted upon with our native thieves, once they have been convicted; they may be charged with being found in possession of property and required to account for having it or go to prison; and they can be summarily tried. In respect that a man is an alien he might reasonably be required to show that he is not living off the proceeds of crime, as a condition of his being allowed to remain in the country. He may be refused permission to land if his character is known; but these people know how to get past the immigration authority. Why they should then be free to transgress until they trip and are caught it is difficult to see. If an alien seeks citizenship here he must satisfy the authorities that he has lived for at least five years in the country and during that period has been a reputable citizen. The onus of proof is on him, and it is not assumed that because he has never been convicted he should be naturalised. The examination to which he voluntarily submits in order that he may become a British subject he need not undergo if all he wants is the protection of our laws while he is living by breaking them. I suggest that just as some aliens have to submit to examination before being allowed to land, those who have given the authorities occasion to suspect that they are living by illegal means should be cited to appear before and satisfy a court that their conduct is such as to justify their being permitted to remain in the country; and failing their appearance, or their being able to do so, that they should be arrested and deported. CHAPTER IV SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND CRIME The millionaire and the pauper--Ill-feeling and misunderstanding-- Social ambitions--Case of embezzlement--Preaching and practice-- Gambling--The desire to "get on"--The need to deal with those who profit by the helplessness of others--Political action--Its difficulty--Legislation and administration--The official and the public--Personal aid--Fellowship. Our social inequalities are the cause of much serious crime. That such inequalities always have existed is undeniable, and that they may continue to exist is at least likely; at any rate, there is no immediate prospect of their abolition; but the form and degree they take are variable. Within recent times the gulf between the wealthy and the poor has been widened. The pauper is an old inhabitant, but the millionaire is a new portent. The rich man of our grandfathers' day was a local magnate who might be capricious, but who could be personally approached. His successor is cosmopolitan. The poor in those days were not so well informed as they are now that the ends of the earth have been brought together, and the mechanical inventions that have brought wealth to many have enabled the multitude to get a wider outlook on the world. A rich man may be courted for his riches, but they do not now gain him reverence from the poor. If free education has not educated the masses any more than the expensive kind has educated many of the rich, it has enabled them to read. They know more than they did, and with the access of knowledge discontent with their condition has increased. For good or ill many of them have lost the fear of hell, but the fear of the poorhouse is still with them as with many who are better off. The desire to make money dominates all sorts of people, and in the effort men are marred. Each sees the greed of his neighbour, but fails to see that he shares the vices of those he condemns. The man who is "successful" is critical of the faults of those less fortunate; and they in turn are often too ready to attribute his position to his absence of scruple rather than to any ability he may possess. There is envy on the one side and distrust on the other; but out of, and in spite of, it all there is steadily growing an effort towards co-operation and mutual help. In the welter of conflicting interests there is much done that every man would disapprove if he saw it done by his neighbour. Yet those whose conduct is most shady are often not conscious of the enormity of it, being too much engrossed in the end they seek to be particular as to the means; and that end is not always an ignoble one. They mean to do great things and kind when their ships come home; and they do not see that the question for each of us is not, What would we do if we had what we desire? but, What are we doing, being what we are and where we are? In the thirst for wealth dishonest practices are condoned in business, and within the law robbery is allowed. There is a disposition to take more account of what a man has than of what he is; and this cannot fail to have a vicious effect. X 19 was a young man who held a position of trust and received a small salary. He had no showy vices and, so far as could be ascertained, not many others. He was strong in the negative virtues; being an abstainer from drink, tobacco, and such things as are affected by pleasure-seekers and cost money. His employers were quite satisfied that they had in him a model servant; but they found their mistake, and were as unreasonably indignant as they had been unreasonably pleased; for he had been conducting a very ingenious system of fraud upon them. With the money he had abstracted he had been speculating in shares, and he had been successful up to a point. If his last venture had turned out well he would have been able to resign his situation and live virtuously ever after, first paying back to them their money. This is what he calculated would take place, and if his expectations had been realised nobody would have known of his misfeasance; but he lost on his venture and there was a crash. He pleaded guilty to embezzlement and was sent to prison for a long period. He had disposed of a considerable sum of money, but the curious thing about it was that he claimed that he was simply doing what his employers lived by doing--using other people's money without consulting them as to details; though he admitted that in their case they were in a position to meet claims, and their clients knew that their money was not lying in a safe. He took his sentence quite philosophically, with the remark that he had observed that people who had defrauded certain kinds of commercial corporations, such as banks, always got longer terms of imprisonment than those who merely robbed poor people; and as the firm that employed him was a big concern he would have to be made an example of. He was shrewd in his observations, however wrong-headed they were in some respects, and he is not the only young man who has taken the risk in the attempt to acquire riches and who has argued in the same way. The number of those who are tempted to do so will diminish when it is shown that the successfully dishonest person is as much condemned by the opinion of those whose society he seeks as the failure is condemned by the law. Men young and old go wrong in the endeavour to make a show. They want position and are willing to pay for it even at the expense of others; indeed, there are many who spend as much effort and energy in intriguing to get a position they could not fill as, if properly applied, would enable them to qualify for it. Some want to be social leaders, and exceed the limits of their income in the attempt. So long as they merely get into debt their creditors are the losers, but there are limits to credit and their situation may offer them facilities for peculation. The intention is to repay the money; but the honourable intention may be out of their power to execute, and the criminal act brings them to disgrace and ruin. In all cases where the process has gone on for years without discovery, the offender is found to be firmly persuaded that he is rather an ill-used person, and that if he were only allowed time he would be quite able to show a balance on his side of the account. This suggests the reflection that his conduct must have been often under review by himself, and a wonder as to how long he has taken to twist his mind to a belief in his own integrity in face of the facts; yet it is only some such belief that has enabled him to continue his defalcations. It is sometimes matter for surprise to the public that men who have continued to embezzle funds for years should have appeared so respectable; but they are not acting a part; they have convinced themselves of their uprightness through it all, and that is a very important step towards convincing others. Even the Churches are not free from the imputation of making the end justify the means; and with lectures against gambling they sometimes run lotteries to obtain funds. This does not show bigotry against gambling, but it can hardly help to drive home the objection to the vice. Example is worse than precept in these cases. The Press, which reaches a wider audience than the pulpit, is becoming more a means of making money for its proprietors than a medium for the formation of reasoned opinion; and some papers have organised sweepstakes under the thinnest disguise. As for betting, there are numerous papers that depend on it for their profits. Workmen and women pore over the betting news and run into debt to back a horse. The misery that many entail on themselves and their dependents by this conduct is widespread, and efforts have been made to check it, but it does not seem to be diminishing. As a rule it is safe to assume that people do not bet with the intention of losing, but with the hope of winning. It is not harmless excitement they seek; it is money they want; and they argue that they are doing nothing different from what is done by wealthier people on the Stock Exchange. They know as little about horses as those who speculated in rubber knew about that substance; and they have no interest in improving the breed. They want to be rich without working, and they see that some men manage it. The losers are forgotten; and what do they matter anyway if _we_ win? This spirit of selfishness and greed is not confined to the gambler, though it shows itself nakedly in his pursuit; and before it can be exorcised a better conception of our duty to each other will require to be attained. Meanwhile it is a small thing to prosecute bookmakers and those who deal with them, if the higher forms of gambling are left untouched. The poor cannot afford to gamble and must be protected from themselves; but can anybody afford to gamble? Can the State afford to allow them to set such an example? The whole evil has been dealt with in a peddling spirit. The bookmakers stand to win, whoever may lose, but they are not the people who gain most. They are not an influential class, however. If the newspapers were prohibited from publishing betting news the machinery for the gamble would fall to pieces; but if this were attempted there would be a howl, for they are not without influence. So there are difficulties. There always are difficulties when influential people have to be dealt with; and it is much easier to hit a little man than a big one--but the profit is less. I do not say that there are not those who gamble for the sake of the excitement, but that these do not come to prison as a result. The man who does run grave risk of landing there is he who gambles for the money that he may win but that he usually does lose. The desire to shine among others is at the root of much of the foolish and criminal conduct of many men and women. It is not necessarily an evil desire, but the methods adopted to secure admiration may result in evil. There is much talk of the dignity of labour, side by side with the worship of money. If people draw the conclusion that the dignity of labour means that one man should work that another may spend, they are likely to make an effort to escape the dignity. They hear of the blessings of poverty, but they see that among them are not comfort and social consequence; and in so far as they prefer these they will let anybody else have the blessings. To admit that some must be poor if others are rich is not to accept the poor man's lot for oneself. So long as honest work is only given formal praise and poverty implies practical hardship, while the possession of money is allowed to create a presumption in favour of a man, there will be those who will seek to get it by any means in their power. If we paid the homage to poverty that is given to wealth we might reasonably expect to find these people content to be poor; but while there is no likelihood of that being done, we may as well face the fact that our social inequalities result in the commission of crimes against property among a proportion of those who have a chance of helping themselves thereby. The great mass of men and women--rich and poor--do keep free from grave offences, living their lives quietly and discharging their duties as citizens according to their light and their ability; but these false ideals stimulate many to the commission of crime. It is well, therefore, to remind ourselves and others that ultimately a man is judged not by what he has but by what he is, and to recognise that a man is foolish if he sacrifices his life and dwarfs his personal development for any social advantage whatever. The conditions which engender crime may be greatly modified and in many cases may be destroyed by political action. Crime is largely a concomitant of city life, as we have it. To live properly people need room, and so long as the present congestion exists all our efforts can at best palliate the evils which infest and infect us. We may regulate the sale of drink in order to prevent drunkenness; we may classify our poor and attempt to relieve their poverty; but drink and poverty are factors which remain comparatively inactive in the causation of crime, except where men are packed together to the degree in which we see them. Let our cities continue to be hemmed in and built in the air instead of being spread over the earth, and we shall require additional sanitary regulations to combat disease and more police laws to cope with crime, while the numbers in our institutions will increase. The city is the product of our industrial pursuits and the methods by which they are followed; but the city as it exists is no more necessary to the life of the community than the city before the day of Public Health Acts was a necessary part of our civilisation. Men could live conveniently near each other and work at the same occupation, at least as efficiently, if they had room, as is possible under the cramping conditions that exist at present. Man's life ought to be something more than his work; and there will be more who work to live when there are not so many who merely live to work. Reform your cities; or rather see that men are not allowed for their private interests or pleasures to "do what they like with their own" in defiance of the public welfare, and the cities will reform themselves. The tenants of the crowded districts are hustled by the law, which in some cases they offend from sheer inability to do otherwise. When those who make a profit by the existing conditions of affairs are as summarily dealt with there will be a possibility of improvement. There are some landlords who assume the supervision of their property and of their tenants, but others are merely rent collectors; and their carelessness provides opportunity for the criminal classes to hide themselves. So long as the law allows men to make a profit by denying others access to the land except on payment of whatever ransom they choose to exact, the cities will remain crowded and the country will become depopulated. When the landlord is made to pay if he will not let his land be put to its most profitable use, there will be less inducement for him to withhold it for a time in the hope of realising a famine price from the needs of the community. It is poor policy to punish people for the results of the strain to which they are subject while those who profit by the cause are left alone. But political action is slow and political parties are--what they are. To most of us a change of Government means that Lord This is replaced by Mr. That; probably relatives, and almost invariably belonging to the same caste; none of them particularly hasty in applying the remedies in which they believe--for when it comes to doing things instead of talking about them a great deal more depends on sentimental impressions, the result of friendly contact, than on intellectual opinions and political theories. Politicians are like other people; their imagination can more readily picture the result of action as it affects their own friends than as it affects those of another social class. Those who have a vested interest in the present conditions of things may personally suffer by any remedial change; and though there are many who are magnanimous enough to place the public gain before all else, there are far more who honestly cannot see that any measure whereby they would suffer a private loss can possibly be a public gain. They are often very estimable persons, and knowledge of that fact paralyses the action of their friends who are politically opposed to them. It would be so much more easy to remedy evils if those who profited by their existence were only ill-natured and grossly selfish people; but when they are kindly and courteous it is a pity to push them. Besides, they are often widows and orphans; for there is a remarkably high rate of mortality among the husbands and fathers of people who have money invested in land and in breweries. There are other widows and orphans, however, who have no intimate friends in Parliament, and whose condition cannot appeal so powerfully to the imagination of Ministers because they belong to another class. The trouble is that the measures that would aid one set of widows and orphans would hurt the other; and even when legislation is passed its action is delayed out of tenderness to existing interests. There are many men in every Parliament who are anxious to remedy the bad conditions they see around them, and they are not confined to any side of the House; but there is no popularly elected body in the country where the private member has so little power. In a Town or County Council he has a vote in the election of the executive, and if he is not pleased with the conduct of those whom he helps to office he can let them know the fact pretty effectively. The Member of Parliament finds the Government formed without any consultation with him on the subject, and if he belongs to the same political party it is disloyalty for him to criticise Ministers unfavourably. He is, however, allowed to praise and defend them, and this usually keeps him tolerably busy. For the rest, he must never vote against them except on a subject that they count of little importance and on an occasion where they are quite sure of having a majority without him. He must keep his own side in, no matter how much he disapproves of their conduct of business; and he must recognise in practice that the men who lead are the party. The people who sent him there may replace him at the first opportunity, but he will have the consolatory reflection that if the other side has got in it is only to behave in the same way. Some other members of the families whose hereditary genius for governing the country has made us the great nation we are will fill the posts their relatives have vacated; and the electors will continue to have the shadow of representative government while the substance remains with their betters. Whatever the laws may be, much will depend on their administration. The more the Parliament is occupied in discussing legislation the less attention can it pay to administration. The real executive power thus passes into the hands of the permanent officials; and the tendency is that they should direct, as well as carry out, policy. As the public departments extend their activities they are brought more closely into contact, and it may be into conflict, with the lives of the citizens; and it is all the more necessary that the powers given to them should be exercised in consonance with the views of the representatives of the public, or the public servant may become the master of those he serves. A man may be both able and zealous, but if his ability and zeal are employed in the wrong direction he is a greater danger than a stupid and lazy man would be; yet if he is not guided and directed in the path he ought to go he can hardly be blamed for following his own judgment. The only security that public departments will act in accordance with public opinion lies in their intimate supervision by representatives of the public. At present it is notorious that only a nominal supervision exists, and this is bad for everybody concerned; bad for the Member of Parliament, for his constituents will not separate administration to which they may object from legislation which they may approve, nor his votes from the acts of the departments; bad for the officials, for the desire for power grows with its use, and the heads are in peril of confusing their will with the public interest and their prejudices with the good of the service, while their subordinates will be tempted to a servility that is fatal to faithful discharge of duty, if they get the idea that their comfort and their promotion depend without appeal on their chief; bad for the public, for it is a poor exchange to overthrow the tyranny of an arbitrary monarch and to live under the unchecked dominion of a Board. This condition of things may seem far off yet to many, but it has arrived already so far as some of the poor are concerned, for they are hurried and worried and prosecuted by zealous officials for doing things they cannot avoid doing; and for my part I do not believe that that is in accordance with public opinion, though I do not attribute blame to the officials concerned, who are only acting according to their light. Where there are an enlightened public opinion and a real public interest in affairs it is better for all concerned; and though Parliament may fail to deal with those whose interests conflict with public needs, there are many things that private citizens can do to mitigate existing evils, even although there were no new legislation passed. Officials could be aided and encouraged to aim at the prevention of wrongdoing rather than at the punishment of the wrongdoer. We might set about to see that more opportunities of reasonable recreation are provided, and to find out wherein and why our present provision fails. Employers might take a greater interest in their workers, and if they sought to learn from them would be in a better position to teach them. The Churchman might easily come more closely into contact with some less fortunate member of the congregation and give kindly aid and counsel; or receive it, perhaps, where he would least expect it. All of us might see, if we looked a little less to our own business and pleasure, that there are many around whose struggle is a sore one, and whom a friendly interest would help far more than any gift. Many there are who, although neither able to pay nor to pray, could do much good and gain much by personal service. It would help as nothing else can to a better understanding between us and our neighbours, and a more acute apprehension of the evil surroundings in which so many are compelled to live. Men go wrong and keep wrong for the lack of good fellowship; and the conditions which keep them struggling in a crowd hinder the fraternising of man with man. The man who is comfortably seated in a theatre has time and opportunity to look around him and to observe his neighbours if he choose. He will not be uncivil to them, even if he take no interest in them. Put him in a crush at the door, and in the effort to get into the place or out of the crowd, he will not have the chance, even if he had the will, to keep his elbow out of the ribs of his neighbour, though that neighbour were his dearest friend. How many are crowded together struggling to get out of the welter and too busy to take much interest in others! I do not forget that there are many good people who are interested in the poor and fallen; but it is those who are in danger of falling that get least attention. There are mothers who are struggling on to save their sons from the ruin to which they are tending, and children who are trying to redeem their wayward parents; in face of all failures striving with a patience as admirable as it seems futile; but there are few to help. Let a father turn his daughter out for her misconduct and shirk his duty as a parent; let her go headlong to the gutter; and when she is sufficiently stained there will be rescuers tripping over each other to aid her. The pity is that so often they should be more interested in trying to make people conform to their ideals than in helping men and women for their own sake. Most of us have not been so brilliantly successful in ordering our own lives that we are justified in directing the lives of others; but by interest in those who are having a harder struggle to live than has fallen to our lot we may not only encourage the individual to better effort, but we shall see more clearly what needs to be done by us as a community, not to make men, but to remove those conditions which tend to enslave them. CHAPTER V AGE AND CRIME The inexperience of youth--The training of boys--Case of a truant-- Another case--Intractability--The foolishness of parent and teacher-- The absence of mutual understanding--Recreation--Malicious mischief and petty theft--The cause thereof--The need for instructing parents-- Pernicious literature--The other kind--The modern Dick Turpin--The boy as he leaves school--Amusements--Repression--Blind-alley occupations-- The Adolescent--Physical strain of many occupations--Unequal physical and mental development--The street trader--Hooliganism--Knowledge and experience--The perils of youth--Old age. The great majority of those who enter prison for the first time are young persons, and in many cases they do not show any great degree of moral turpitude. "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined," and what might have been merely a phase of recklessness or a passing mood of lawlessness is sometimes made a fixed habit as a result of the way it has been treated. The younger the person the narrower is his experience, other things being equal. In making the experiments which give experience we may hurt ourselves and others. There are some who are content to accept the statements of others and to yield an easy obedience to those over them, but in early life the number is not great; and where the elders are too busy to pay much attention to the young there is a greater need for the boy to find out things for himself. Rules of life as they are presented to many boys consist of a series of prohibitions, and it is not always the worst boys who kick against them. Wild and intractable boys do not always grow up into bad citizens; but if they are taken in hand by the penal machinery of the State there is not much chance for them. They may imitate the showy vices of their elders not because they are vices, but because they are showy. They do not admire the wrong things more frequently than grown-up people, but they show their admiration in a way that is sometimes awkward both for them and for us. They are misunderstood and condemned when they persist in going their own way, although the cause of their vagaries may be simple enough if an attempt were made to find it. X 20 was a boy of ten, the son of a man in a comfortable position who had lost all control over him. The boy had run away from school, and had left his home more than once and gone wandering in the country. His father had coaxed and beaten him alternately without any beneficial result. His schoolmaster informed me that the boy was usually quiet and tractable, but did not take much interest in most of his work. He was not of defective intellect and he would not apply himself to some parts of the school course. He was fond of animals. I found him suspicious and reserved; but as he had been told that he was to be seen by the prison doctor, and as he evidently had expected to be confronted with an animated bogey-man, there was nothing surprising in that. He answered questions in monosyllables or not at all, but he promised that he would come himself to my house and see some things which I thought might interest him. I would not allow him to be brought to me, though he lived some three miles off, and he kept his promise and came. With the aid of some other juveniles he was made to feel at ease, and I found he could tell a good deal about animals, such as tadpoles and frogs, and that he had a real interest in such things. He came back several times, and in an indirect way he was advised of the danger of doing what his father had objected to; but it was perfectly evident that his conduct had been the result of the way in which he had been treated, and fear had caused him to commit at least some of the actions that had given cause for complaint. Those who had charge of him were more in need of direction than he was; for they had acted on the assumption that they understood what was best for him, whereas the fact was that they had not the faintest idea of the disposition of the boy, and were simply driving him to extremities in their efforts to keep him right. They were repressing instead of directing his tendencies, with disastrous consequences. His schoolmaster understood; and he was permitted to act on his knowledge with satisfactory results, the parents never having thought that he was as likely to be able to instruct them as to teach their boy. In this case the boy was fortunate beyond many others in respect that his parents were able to seek and obtain advice when they became alarmed because of his behaviour. They were in a position which enabled them to give him the necessary attention when they learned what was required. X 21 was a boy who had developed the habit of playing truant from school and had come under the observation of the attendance officer. He was in danger of becoming an associate of city undesirables. His mother was a decent widow who had to support him and herself by casual labour. She was obliged to go out in the mornings to clean offices and he was left to himself. She was loth to have him sent to an Industrial School, but she preferred that that should be done to running the risk of having him get into the hands of vicious persons. There was no question as to her rectitude, and as little of her ability to look after him when she had the power; but she could not be out working and at the same time be discharging her maternal duties in guiding him. So he had to be sent to the institution. In a case like this--and they are not uncommon--it would be far better to free the woman from the need of leaving her child and see that she looked after him. She has a greater personal interest in him than any official person can have and it need cost no more; while the gain in character cannot be measured in terms of cash. The mother's burden is greater than she can bear, and that is a reason for relieving it; but it is no reason for breaking up the family and loosening the tie between parent and child, and the practice cannot even be justified on the score of expense. Boys get the name of being bad when they are intractable, but bad boys are fewer than bad men. There are too many people who are driven to assume that they know what is best for the boy--or the man--and that without making any attempt to understand those for whom they prescribe. When a boy rebels against the line of action laid down for him it is taken as evidence of his wickedness, though it may only show his good sense. He may be doing the wrong thing with a purpose more reasonable than that of his mentor, but he is likely to find that his intention will meet with no sympathetic consideration even if he reveals it, and his action will meet with punishment if he owns it. He is encouraged to lie in the hope of pleasing his master, and when he is found out his iniquity is magnified. Boys are far more given to the attempt to find the point of view of those who are in authority over them than grown-up people are to find the standpoint of the boy; and children will often show a deeper knowledge of their parents than the parents have of them. If instead of assuming knowledge and showing ignorance parents would try to understand, there would be less disposition to rule the young by general prohibitions and a freer hand given to them in the choice of their pursuits. Left alone, the child will show its bent; it is not for the parent to thwart its aptitudes, but to direct them into useful channels. Many are made miserable by being set to books, and others are made equally wretched by physical drill. Every year brings forth its own fad. The adult may keep free from its tyranny to some extent, but let it find a place in some code or other and every juvenile runs a grave risk of being subjected to it, because someone in authority who knows nothing about him or his needs has so ordered it. The boy is kept at school for nearly as many hours in the week as many men work, and when he is set free from its restraint he runs wild--if he is not too tired, or if he has not been set tasks which cause him to work overtime at home. He gets into mischief, and is denounced for his misdeeds and the trouble and annoyance he causes; but boys are not more mischievous than they were. There are few adults who have not been a great nuisance to others in their own early days, but too many of them seem to have forgotten all about that. By all means let the boy who has played some mischievous prank be restrained and corrected, but in choosing the method it might not be a bad plan to remember the exploits of a boy who was no better in his day than the culprit is, if no worse. When we show that we recognise a clear distinction between cramming juveniles with knowledge and educating them, they will learn at the school how to amuse themselves without annoying others. At present they are in this respect left mainly to their own devices, and in very few cases is there any serious ground of complaint against them. Considering their imitative tendencies and the incitements many of them have towards wrongdoing, it is wonderful how few go far astray. When a boy is sent to a reformatory he has opportunities given him for play, and the importance of providing different forms of recreation for him is not ignored. This is by some called "putting a premium on wrongdoing," and yet in spite of the reward there are few boys who deliberately adopt a course of law-breaking in order to have the advantages of life in that institution. Either they are too stupid or there is not such a bias on their part towards evil as some would have us suppose. The recreation which forms part of the means adopted to reform the boy who has transgressed might conceivably prevent transgressions if it were placed within the reach of others, especially as the association of boys whose common interest is that they have all been before the courts is not likely to make for their improvement. Whatever its defects as an educational institution, the school has this to its credit, that a better standard of conduct is maintained than could be acquired by many of the scholars if they were left to grow up under the conditions that obtain in their homes. Now and then someone does a particularly shocking thing, and until quite lately when this occurred the offender was liable to be brought to the police court. Now there is a special court for dealing with children, but as there is no change in the judge or in the officials before whom the child appears, all that has been gained is his separation from older offenders. This is something to be thankful for, but it is a minor mercy compared with what ought to be done. He is more a subject for treatment by those whose experience enables them to understand children than a "case" to be tried by a magistrate whose traditions are those of the criminal courts. Most of the charges are acts of malicious mischief or petty thefts. The offenders have got out of parental control or have eluded the supervision of their parents. In some cases the parents are culpably careless or negligent, taking little interest in their children and making their home worse than it need be. They spoil the child without sparing the rod, for the boy is often hammered without mercy when he annoys them. He keeps out of their way and may fall into bad company and bad habits. Most of these boys show evidences of neglect in their appearance; but they are not, though they may become, desperadoes. Others go astray not so much from the culpable neglect of their parents as because, with the best will in the world to guide the boy, the parent is either incompetent to do so from sheer stupidity, or, more frequently, from being too busily engaged in trying to make a livelihood to have the necessary time to give to his care. A smaller number are the children of parents who are quite competent to look after them, but who have failed to keep themselves in sufficiently close touch with them--which is a more difficult thing to do than it seems. At school the boy may be under good guardianship, but he is away from his mother during the greater part of the day, and he may pick up companions who will not exercise the most favourable effect on him. They need not be bad, but they may be bad for him. Out of school hours he seeks for recreation, and in the effort to obtain amusement of a special kind he may take what does not belong to him, and be found out and complained of; or not be found out and continue the practice. It is all very simple and not at all uncommon--except in the result. Honesty has to be learned, and some people never learn it; though they never commit crimes. There is a difference between being honest and being dishonest within the law. There are few women or men who have not at some time or other "dishonestly appropriated property," though they did not express it that way when they abstracted sweets well knowing the penalty if caught. Some boys do not steal sweets, but they steal money to buy sweets; and in the same way others steal money to pay the price of admission to a place of entertainment. Sometimes they break into shops to steal, and they are then young criminals; but this rarely happens when the necessary money can be picked up at home. In a young person the desire for pleasure is naturally too strong to be at first repressed by a sense of the rights of property. He does not need to be taught that sweets please the palate or shows delight the eye; but he requires to learn that in the long run honesty is the best policy. Children are not likely to steal if they can get what they want without stealing, but they may help themselves when they can if they are subjected to unreasonable prohibitions. Even men and women have been driven far out of the right path through attempts to repress their desires for harmless amusement and to make them take life solemnly. The dishonesty of children arises not so much from a perverted nature as from an inability to appreciate the importance of honesty. It is a phase that passes as their experience of the world grows. They can be trained out of it, but attempts to knock it out of them are as likely to knock it into them. There ought to be provision made whereby parents could be advised, admonished, and assisted in dealing with children whom they have been unable to control. Our Children Courts are not designed with this end in view, and I doubt whether it makes much difference to the child who is sent to one of our institutions that he was sent from one room in the courthouse rather than from another. Our money would be better spent in assisting parents who have the will to do well by their children, but who have not the power, than in taking the children away from them. As for those who are careless of their children, they should be dealt with for their carelessness. In many cases the apathy they show is a consequence of our methods. If, instead of taking the children away from those who neglect them, we trained and assisted them, we should have better parents and better children. If carelessness and callousness were then shown by the parents we could proceed with justice to deal with them for culpable misconduct. At present we are not in a position to do so, since we are not prepared to help them to discharge their responsibilities. We make it easier for them to neglect than to care for their offspring, and if they lose control of them to a sufficient extent we free them from the burden altogether. The spirit of enquiry and experiment leads many boys into mischief, and some of their malicious acts are the result of it. Men too readily forget that the boy sees things in a quite different light and relationship from them. Some of the housebreaking adventures that look so bad on a charge-sheet appear quite different when the story is told from the boy's standpoint, and they do not always show such depravity as one would expect. Some boys are always seeking adventures and becoming absorbed in them; others are content to read about deeds of daring, and the works they favour are often crude enough. Occasionally one is taken with a mask and pistol in his possession attempting to rob in the highway, and then we have homilies on the evils of pernicious literature of the "Dick Turpin" sort, which might be more convincing if the homilists were themselves free from connection with stuff that is worse. The adventurous boys are not those who read much of any kind of book; they are too busy living. The "Blood" is devoured more by the boy who dreams rather than acts; but of the thousands of men who as boys read prohibited books and enjoyed them, few are likely to spend much time on the equally sensational publications that circulate in millions among adults. On the whole, the boy will not get a more distorted view of life from the highly coloured papers he reads than he would obtain from some of the newspapers; and when he is being condemned for his preference for "Bloods," it would not be amiss to remember that these productions have never set themselves to foment in his mind feelings of ill-will against people of other lands. It is not the boys but the adults who are raised by the papers they read into hysterical outbursts of senseless rage or equally senseless fear now of one and now of another continental power; and if "literature" is to be judged by its apparent effect, then these papers are more pernicious than the "Bloods," which the boy prefers to the books which are designed for his moral instruction. There is no comparison between his highwayman--a boy's highwayman who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, to the inversion of all social order--and the industrious apprentice who married his master's daughter, poor girl. The hero is a hero to him because he dares all risks, is true to his friend, is gallant and generous, and faces death with a brave heart. If he does the wrong thing he does it in the right way, and it is not the thief but the man who gains the boy's admiration. As for the industrious one, even a boy knows that there are not enough masters' daughters to go round; and if he revolts at the selfishness of the gospel of getting on, he is right in rejecting such a false basis of morals. We know that the boy's Robin Hood or Dick Turpin never existed in fact; but if they exist in his fancy? To those who denounce them these papers are only a glorification of theft of a particular kind, but there is no likelihood of its ever coming into vogue again. Dick Turpin is now a company-promoter and his cheques are in demand by Churches and political parties. He does not risk his life now, and we are very glad to be taken into his confidence; but the boy has not found that out yet. His books may be ill-chosen, but wholesale condemnation will not mend the matter; and in books, as in other things, it is impossible to tell what is good for the boy till something more is known about him than that he is a boy. When he reads it is safe to assume that he does so because he feels some need is supplied thereby. When its nature is discovered a step will be made towards its better supply, but not before. To take the boy away from the book he likes to a standard author on the ground that it is better for him, is to run the risk of creating in him a permanent dislike for the books chosen. In the city most of the boys leave school when they are fourteen years of age, and entering on new pursuits are subject to fresh temptations. The employment they obtain is largely a matter of chance, but whatever it may be, they are less likely to go wrong when engaged at it than when free from it. Their playground is the street, and there is no adequate provision made for their recreation. On payment of a small sum they may obtain admission to the music-halls or the picture-shows, and these latter are largely patronised by boys. That they serve a useful purpose is undeniable, and if the entertainment they offer may not be all that is desirable, it is practically all that is to be had by many. Since it cannot be had freely there are temptations to find the means, and the boy amongst his neighbours who is worst off in respect of money is hardest pressed. It is deplorable that some should yield to the temptation to obtain money dishonestly, but it is idle to ignore the condition of things and neglect to provide reasonable opportunities for the recreation which is required after work done. There are private organisations taking the matter in hand, but their appeal, though wide, is, and must be, sectional. Boys' Brigades in connection with the Churches can only reach a minority of the juvenile population, and the same statement applies to Boy Scouts. There are those who object on principle to both organisations on the ground that they foster the military spirit, but the militarists themselves do not appear to share this view. Boys like to play soldiers, but when they get sense they drop that; and meantime they play, greatly to their advantage. As for the Scouts, they seem to represent an improved edition of "follow my leader," and their uniform prevents their being interfered with while they play. It does none of them any harm to believe that they are saving their country so long as they are really saving themselves, and no greater number of them develop a taste for a soldier's career later in life than enlist from among those who have never belonged to one or other of the organisations. It may be that the intention of some of the promoters is to feed the army, but that is to leave out of account the boys themselves and the development of their minds. Whatever the intention, the result is good in so far as the interest of the game keeps the boys in healthy exercise. The most popular of all the forms of public recreation is the football match. Week after week the grounds are filled by tens of thousands of spectators who find in the game they witness not only amusement for the time, but matter of conversation and interest which outlasts the day. Young and old they are mostly partisans, and though their conduct may leave much to be desired, that should not distract the observer's attention from the main fact, which is that they are enabled to find a real interest in something which is at least harmless. There are those who lament the fact that the spectators are not players, and who condemn them for being merely vicarious partakers in the game. As a matter of fact, a good many of them have played, and some of them have got into trouble for playing. A very little acquaintance with the facts would make the Jeremiahs aware that there is no public provision made for allowing very many to play; that a great many who enjoy seeing others play have no time when free from labour to practise much themselves, even if a field were near; and that if any large number began to play football in the only spaces open to them--the streets--there would be no room to get about. It is not a bad plan to consider men's limitations before condemning their pursuits, but it is too little practised. The football match is a strong counter-attraction to the public-house or the aimless wander through the streets, and the football field would be an admirable playground for many of the young, as they would readily admit; but those who want them to play rather than to look on are never very prominent when an attempt is made to find them the means. Some of them use the public streets for a practice ground, greatly to the annoyance of the passengers and sometimes to their danger. The nuisance has to be stopped and the usual method is adopted; the universal panacea for all evils is applied, and the culprits are taken in charge by the police. A small fine is inflicted, with the alternative of imprisonment if the lads are over sixteen. I have seen a batch of them brought to jail because their fines had not been paid. All that had been done was to ensure that these boys would not play football in the streets for several days; yet the cost of their escort and board during that time, if expended on the hire of ground, would have provided them and others with opportunities of play for six months; and they do not play in the streets for choice--at least it has not been demonstrated that they do. Alike in work and in play the boy's pursuits are largely matter of chance. He has to seek employment and is generally ready to take anything that presents itself. Some of the situations that offer most attractions to him are of such a character as to prevent him from applying himself to work at which in his manhood he could earn a living. In the beginning he may earn more money at these occupations than he would if apprenticed to some skilled handicraft, but before many years he is cast off by his employers, unsettled by his work, and less fit and less inclined to spend time in qualifying either for a trade or a profession. There are far too many blind-alley occupations open to boys, and they should be closed to those entering on industrial life. There are many men who by advancing years are shut out from the work they have been accustomed to do; they are leaving the ranks of the skilled workers, and they could do the work at present done by lads with advantage to the community, since there would not then be numbers of young persons spending the most receptive years of their life in occupations by which they cannot hope to earn their living when they reach manhood. As the boy grows to adolescence he tends to get further from the control of his parents. His growth implies change in him, and he may develop new needs and new desires without the power necessary to control them. It is well recognised that in adolescence there is a special liability to physical or mental breakdown, and short of this it is no uncommon thing for young people to show a degree of instability that alarms their friends for their safety. Yet in youth there are very many employed at occupations that are in a marked degree physically exhausting. They are permitted to take far too much out of their body, and though they may thereby develop their muscles, they are almost certain to hinder the healthy development of their minds. The State has interfered with some trades and prohibited certain processes of manufacture on the ground that the chemicals employed affect the health of the workers in an injurious way; and it has laid down regulations for the proper sanitation of workshops. It will yet have to consider the advisability of limiting the amount of physical energy that a man may be allowed regularly to expend in work, and the sooner it begins with lads the better for everybody. At present we hear of the large wage earned by workmen in certain trades and their notorious improvidence. To anyone with eyes to see their improvidence is not more evident in the way they spend their wages than in the way they earn them; for their lives, industrially, are short, and they are too often physical wrecks in middle life, partly from the undue fatigue to which they have been subjected and partly from vices they have contracted in the attempt to stimulate themselves when fatigued. We only hear of the vices, but their industry is equally foolish if it implies excessive expenditure of vitality; and no income in money would justify the cost at which it is obtained. Time and again there come before the courts young men who are neither insane nor weak-minded, but whose mental powers have been stunted and twisted by the conditions to which they have been subjected. They are not there for committing offences against property, but for startling the district by some atrocious assault; and there is this point of similarity about them all, that they have been engaged at work which was too heavy for them, and when set free from it have used the strength of a man incited by a man's passions to do things that only a boy would conceive. Equal mental and physical development is rare in youth, and in practice everybody recognises the fact. There are some big lads who are young for their years and little ones who are preternaturally old-fashioned; but time mends the matter, and a balance is established if something does not occur to mar the youth meanwhile. Placed under conditions that favour the development of muscle and prevent the development of the mental powers, young men cannot be wholly blamed if now and then they shock us by showing the natural result of such a course of training. About the streets of the city there are lads who take care not to work too hard. Many of them are the children of parents who have never exercised much care over them, and in some cases they have been sent out with a few coppers to purchase papers and sell them; or to beg. They have learnt to like the life and have deliberately adopted it themselves in preference to other employment. They come to prison sooner or later if they escape the reformatory; and sometimes after they have been there. There is only one opinion possible among those who know the facts about the street-trading they carry on--that it should be abolished; and the only real difficulty is that its abolition ought in justice to be accompanied by some provision for the employment of those young persons who have been engaged in it. The newsboy is a great convenience to the public and the newspaper owners. He sometimes is an important aid to his family, for in a proportion of cases the parent is as respectable and as anxious to take care of the boy as anyone could wish. It is her poverty that compels her to use his services. But the risks to the boys outweigh all advantages. The poverty that compels a mother to subject her child to such risks ought to be relieved; the public and the newspaper proprietors would find other means of obtaining and delivering the news if they realised the cost of the present condition of things; and a nursery of criminals would be removed. In most cases the parents require more attention than the boys, and especially the female parent. The children are her peculiar care, and if she takes to drink the results to them are serious. Whatever differences of opinion there may be as to the hereditary transmission of intemperance, there is no room for doubt as to its effect in causing the mother who is subject to it to become an inefficient guardian of her child. Her family suffers from neglect, and they are driven f on the street to pick up a living as best they may. When they can they may take lodgings in a "Model," and in any case they learn from others how they may live with most license. They are nearly all gamblers, and honesty is not a virtue that they find profitable. The fact is that there could be no worse school for a boy than the street and no worse companions than those who live there, not because they are gifted with any additional dose of original sin; they are no worse mentally, morally, or physically than many others; but because a tradition has grown up among them that is anti-social in its character, and like the rest of folks they conform to the conditions in which they find themselves. When they loaf or steal they do it because they believe that it is easier and more profitable than working in a regular way. Show them that they are wrong and they will modify their opinion and their action; but that is precisely what is not done. They have heard all you can tell them, and they adhere to their own standpoint not because they are more stupid than their teachers, but because they see another side to the story. When they are imprisoned they are not generally intractable, and they do what they are told because it pays better to obey than to rebel; but outside, though they recognise the inconvenience and risk of being caught, they have a not unjustifiable belief in their power to dodge those who are watching them, and at the worst they prefer to serve a term of imprisonment once in a while rather than exchange their way of living for another. It is just as well to recognise the fact that they do not follow their objectionable courses because it is difficult to do so. When they are dishonest it is usually because they believe it is easier for them to pick up a livelihood that way than by any honest occupation within their reach or experience. Their opinion may be right or wrong, but it is formed on a knowledge of a different set of facts from that within the ken of those who judge them; and it does not help to a better understanding of them that we should assume that they are greater fools than we are, though we do not share their follies. Now and then there are outbreaks of savage violence on the part of young lads in the streets; acts which, apparently purposeless and certainly cruel, shock the citizens and anger them. Then there is a cry for vengeance; never an attempt to seek the causes of the trouble; and the matter is forgotten when a few of the offenders have been given "exemplary punishments." Exemplary punishments always repay examination, and sometimes the hapless individual who is made the whipping-boy for others has been rather cruelly treated; not that that seems to matter if the offence complained of ceases, for it is taken as proof that the authorities have done the right thing in making an example of him. The assumption is one that never bore examination at any time, but it seldom is examined. When a crop of offences of a similar kind startles a district there may be a common cause found if it is sought for; and when the offences cease their cessation may be found to have some relation to that cause; but the arrest and imprisonment of one here and there as examples have as little relationship to the cessation of offences as prayer had in the stopping of an epidemic of cholera. In the one case you have to break up the association of offenders and destroy their spirit; in the other you have to attend to your drains and your sanitation. The punishment and the prayer in either case may assist in so far as they direct attention to the need for right action. How then do these outbreaks originate, and what causes them to cease? In the first place, they are not the work of professional thieves, though these take advantage of them. They begin in horseplay among the lads at the street corner. None of them may be abnormally mischievous or wicked, but a crowd has a spirit of its own which is different from that of its members. Everybody has seen dignified citizens under the excitement of, say, an election, when they got the news that the country had been saved in the way they desired, behaving in a sufficiently ridiculous manner and inciting others to a like behaviour. If they had received the news when at home it would at most have caused a smile, but in a crowd one has stirred the other to do and say things that neither would ordinarily do or say. An orator may sway a crowd and utterly fail to move the members of it if he spoke to them individually. The lads at the corner will do things when they are together that none of them would think of doing if he were alone. Not only does each incite the other, but all incite each one to action. The horseplay is extended and indulged in by them at the expense of passers-by, and to their annoyance. If it stops there no noise is heard about "Hooliganism"; but if the lads, letting themselves loose, go further and injure a respectable citizen there is complaint. The culprit is at first frightened, but having done the thing he tries to make the most of it, especially if he sees his companions rather admire his temerity. He boasts of his daring and excites emulation. One tries to outdo another; other "corners" hear about and imitate the desperadoes; the newspapers take the matter up; and the place is in a state of terror. There is reason for the terror, too; for in the process unoffending and peaceful citizens have suffered serious injury. The professional criminal, who is quick to take advantage of any chance, hangs on to the tails of the foolish lads, and under cover of their depredations helps himself to what he can get. Anything that gathers a crowd helps him, but he knows better than to commit assaults of this purposeless kind himself. He has no objection to rob the assaulted or the threatened and terrorised parties, however, provided he can conceal himself. If he can get any of the lads who began the proceedings to assist him, good and well; but in that case they may find they have started on a new and criminal career. The loose cohesion between the mischievous and the criminal elements in the crowd becomes organised; and by this time there is a general demand on the part of the citizens that somebody should be punished. Then the examples begin. But the very fact that the outrages have been advertised, while it causes their imitation at first, makes parents and employers enquire into the conduct of their sons and their workers. The lads are kept in at night, or they are otherwise separated from each other. When the association begins to break up the process is not long before it is complete. Everyone who leaves it is suspected of being a possible informer, and the dread of they know not what--the most powerful kind of fear--invades their minds. The conduct that seemed so laudable is now given up and the epidemic dies out. To send one of the offenders to prison is simply to make him a martyr in the eyes of his associates, who know that he is no worse than they were and who sympathise with rather than abhor him. The real deterrent is the action of the parents and employers who know the lads. They neither want to get into trouble at home nor to lose their jobs. Those who are sent to prison have often little to do with the matter, and their exemplary punishment has less. Real hooliganism--the existence of young professional thieves who are in the habit of committing brutal assaults and inflicting injuries recklessly on their victims--is rare in Glasgow. The young person is more likely to fall into error than his elders because of his inexperience. Whatever the law may hold, no business man expects the kind of service from a youth that he looks for from a man. The young man may have more knowledge than his senior and more recent information on many things, but only time can enable him to co-relate his knowledge. The question whether a lad knows right from wrong is all that some people will consider; which shows how little they know, if they really believe that the answer will enable anyone to assess a man's responsibility. We are taught "right and wrong" from our earliest years by way of principles to guide us, but they are not always easy of application. The difference between a young and an old man is one of experience. Practice has enabled the one to use his knowledge in a way that the other has yet to learn. Our conceptions of many things on which we have been given information apparently full and accurate have been proved time and again to be quite wrong; experience enables us to discount our anticipations, but it only comes with years. In judging young people it is specially necessary to bear in mind the fact that with all their apparent knowledge they may have totally wrong conceptions of things, and that thus they have been misled. On many occasions I have had to note the fact that a young man had committed an atrocious crime; that he knew perfectly well it was wrong; that it was not due to imperfect powers of control; that he had brooded over and visualised it before the act; and that its accomplishment had left him shocked beyond expression, for it was all so different from his conception of it. No punishment could intensify the shuddering horror with which these lads regarded their own acts, "so different from what I thought it would be"; and yet in ordinary affairs we are well acquainted with the phenomenon. Why we should lose sight of it when a crime has been committed and we are seeking to unravel the causes is a mystery. Know right from wrong? Yes, and conceive the whole matter wrongly. This state of mind is not peculiar to the criminal, and may sometimes be present in those who take upon themselves to judge and condemn him. In early life a lad is not only more liable to go astray, but having fallen it is more difficult for him to recover. He is more impressionable, and the impression of his crime and of the way in which he has been treated stands in his way. He has no record of experience behind it to which his memory can turn and by which he can be helped to seek the right road when he leaves prison. "Learn young, learn fair," is as true of crime as of other things. At the opposite end of the path of life a special cause of crime is degeneration of the physical or mental powers. In the first case the man may become destitute and forced into criminal courses in order to gain a living. In the latter case he may develop tendencies and commit certain offences that are quite at variance with his former conduct. As a result of senile changes in body and mind some old men offend against the law. When the condition is marked they are dealt with for it, but in some cases it is only suspected and is not capable of proof. It is simply a question of whether they should be sent to prison or to a lunatic asylum. CHAPTER VI SEX AND CRIME The position of woman--The posturing of men--Love and crime--Two cases of theft from sexual attraction--The female thief--Case-- Blackmailing--Jealousy and crime--Two murder cases--Case of assault-- Fewer women than men are criminals--Their greater difficulty in recovery--Young girls and sexual offences--Perils of girlhood--Wages and conduct--Exotic standards of dress--Ignorance and wrongdoing--The domestic servant--Her difficulties--Concealment of pregnancy cases-- The culprit and the father--Morals--The fallen woman--Bigamy. For good or ill great changes have taken place, and more are likely to occur, in the relative social and political positions of the sexes. Women are excluded from political power on the ground of their sex, and by way of opposing or of justifying this condition of matters everything but sex is discussed. It has been shown that woman is as clever as man; pays her rates at least as promptly; can work as hard and at as varied occupations; is capable of outstripping him in learning; shows as much intelligence; is more moral; and can sometimes be a greater nuisance to her neighbours. All which may be a very good reason for giving her a vote, but does not alter the fact that there is a great difference between the sexes. That may be no reason for excluding her from a share in the direct election of representatives to Parliament, but it is a fact that cannot be lost sight of and which seems to be forgotten when it is not deliberately minimised by both parties to the controversy. Man is something more than his brain, and so is woman. Indeed, their thoughts and their acts are often the outcome of the condition of their other organs; and the attraction of one sex for the other disturbs most frequently the calculations of observers. Among the primitives in our own country the principal subject of interest, after their means of subsistence--and occasionally before even that--is the opposite sex; and if one may judge by the books in greatest demand, those whose opportunities are more varied are far from indifferent to the same subject. The young man who is not stirred by desire to excite admiration in some girl--perhaps in all girls--is an exceptional being; at least he feels uncomfortable in their presence. The love of attracting attention is very common, but while it causes men to do many strange things to obtain praise from their own sex, it much more frequently moves them to extraordinary actions in order to secure the admiration of women. Whether men or women are most moved by this feeling it is impossible to say, but the men are more likely to make fools of themselves. Their present social position gives them greater opportunities to do so; for the woman's training and traditions are against her openly giving way to her feelings, and when she does so the result is apt to be disastrous. It is the commonest thing in the world to see young people posturing to attract the attention of those of the opposite sex, and their feelings may blind them to the consequences of their conduct. A too intense interest in anything else is fatal to business, and the rule has no exception in favour of the amorous; so it is not uncommon for a lad to lose his place through inattention to his work, the result of preoccupation in his love affairs. In some social stations this condition of mind may lead the lad into criminal courses. X 22 was an intelligent lad who had drifted into crime and continued in it. He had not offended against the law as a boy, though he had passed his early years in a part of the town where the sights are appalling and the prevailing tone of morals is low. He spent the later years of his boyhood in a suburban village and went to work in that district. When he was about seventeen there was an epidemic of "club dancings"; that is to say, places where a number of young men, having hired a room and a fiddler, charged others a small sum for admission to dance--girls being admitted free--and divided the profits or the losses among themselves afterwards. The dancers were usually the sons and daughters of respectable people, but their behaviour after the dance was not innocent. The more ardent among them became passionately addicted to the practice of attending such places and dropped both work and reputation in the process. The scandal of the thing ultimately became so great that under the pressure of public opinion the "clubs" were discontinued. At one time they were many in number and spread over a wide area. The young man of whom I speak was an enthusiastic devotee and went far afield at times to seek his pleasure. Working from early morning and dancing till late at night, it was morning again before he got home. He could not possibly keep up both the work and the pleasure, and the work had to go. He had to find money, and he got it dishonestly at less fatigue than by work. This had its end and it finished him. After being in prison he found the door of some of the clubs closed to him, but there were others. He did not escape so readily now when he stole, being known; and gradually he was shut out from the pleasures that had led him astray and shut into the company of those who, like himself, had been in prison. He was only one of a number whose downfall was attributed to dancing; but he had not the slightest doubt that if the dancing had been between those of the same sex it would never have led him off his feet. It was the sexual element in the matter that attracted him. In this case the man lost his regular employment through absorption in his pursuit of women, but in many more cases the situation is forfeited through dishonesty caused by the desire to make an impression on some girl or to provide for her. X 23 was a lad of good character, quiet in his manner, well educated, and employed in a position of trust. He was serious and sober in his walk and conversation, and appeared likely in time to become a pillar of the Church and a model citizen. He was attracted by a girl who was of good reputation, and there was never any suggestion of improper conduct on the part of either of them. She lost her situation through no fault of her own, and he placed her in a house which he furnished at the expense of his employers, expressing his intention to marry her later. There was no improper intimacy between them. Those who knew him were surprised that he should be able to make the provision for her that he did--surprised also at his choice of her as a wife; but that is not an uncommon attitude on the part of friends--and equally surprised and pained when it was discovered that he had used money which was not his own in order to set up the establishment. It would be easy to multiply examples of cases where the relations between the parties are less innocent, and to show that not merely young men, but men who are advanced in life, have been driven by the attraction of the other sex to sacrifice their position. Women are not ignorant of their power, and the criminal among them know how to use it to advantage. Because of their sex they are able to commit many thefts and to escape with impunity; indeed, a very large proportion of thefts from the person are committed by women, or with their assistance. They attract the man, go along with him, pick his pocket, and find some excuse to get rid of him in a hurry. When he discovers his loss they are out of reach, and in the great majority of cases he says nothing about it to the police, as to do so would cause scandal about himself. Only when the loss is too considerable to be borne, or when something is stolen that cannot be replaced, is the theft reported; and even then it is difficult to convict the thief. X 24 is a girl of twenty-six who has several times during the last eight years been convicted of theft. She is a buxom and cheerful young woman, neither a teetotaler nor intemperate, shrewd, and possessed of a considerable share of intelligence and humour. Brought up in a slum district, she was early at work; and when she began her present career she was earning honestly about fourteen shillings weekly. Some time ago I was asked to see her on behalf of a lady who had taken an interest in her from her appearance in court, and who was willing to help her to a better way of living. She was perfectly frank with me, and declined assistance on the ground that she could do better for herself. She said that with very little trouble she could make twice the amount to be gained by work, and with little risk. "You ken weel enough, doctor, that the lady could do nothing for me. She would put me in a place among her servants, maybe, and that would be a nice thing for the servants! Na, na. When I find it disna pay I'll gie it up. As long's the drink disna get a grip o' me I'm a' richt; and there's no much fear o' that." Like others of her class, she does not live by prostitution, though her sex is her decoy. She has no prejudice in favour of chastity, but she takes very good care to run no unnecessary risks, and will find a means of getting away from the man she may pick up--if possible with his purse, but if not, then without it--before matters have proceeded to an extremity. Others acting in concert with male accomplices lure men to houses where they are bullied and robbed; and this goes on with a degree of impunity that would be amazing, were it not for the fact that though the practice is well known, there are few of those who have suffered loss of money who care to add to it the loss of reputation that would result if they had to appear in court. Blackmailing is another practice that springs from the conduct of both men and women influenced in the direction of vice and crime by sex impulses; and jealousy is a powerful factor in the causation of some crimes of violence. Jealousy is not generally looked for on the part of those who are themselves loose in their conduct, but among them it may exist as intensely and manifest itself as powerfully as in any respectable citizen. It seems to be largely a matter of temperament, and to be to some extent existent apart from the desire for exclusive possession. X 25 was an ex-soldier married to a woman of low morals. They had both been loose in their behaviour and were both given to drink. He had on several occasions assaulted her for her infidelities, but he admitted that it was not jealousy that had caused him to do so; and he owned that he was just as bad himself. He went off to the war, and in his absence she behaved very badly and took headlong to drink. She lived with another man. On his return he took up house with her, and the other man was a source of quarrel between them, especially when they were drinking. He was admittedly jealous, though there does not seem to have been any but a retrospective cause for the feeling. One day in the course of a quarrel she compared him with the other man to his disadvantage, and he savagely set on and killed her. X 26 was a sailor who was attached to a woman whom he knew to be a prostitute. When he came to Glasgow he lived with her, quite well knowing her character. He spent his money freely on her, but could not keep her from her associates. One night she insisted on leaving the house where they lodged. She had been drinking heavily, and he tried to detain her. She insisted on going to the lodgings of another man whom he knew; and when he endeavoured to persuade her to remain where she was, she made a comparison between him and the other that set him in a blind fury of rage and jealousy, in which he killed her. The cases present similar features: a tolerance of general infidelity; a jealousy of a particular individual; and an explosion when the other was praised for certain qualities. The same kind of thing has occurred with women. One day in the airing-yard of the prison a woman who was usually quiet in her behaviour made a sudden attack on another who had been admitted to prison on the preceding day. It transpired that the assailant had heard that the woman she assaulted was living with "her man." The man was a bloated blackguard whom she had screened by pleading guilty to a charge of theft in which he was implicated. She herself was a prostitute, and when I pointed out that morally he could not be worse than she in that respect she admitted the fact, but added furiously that she would not allow that--to take him from her; although she was ready enough to recognise his worthlessness. It would be easy to theorise on these cases, and it might be interesting; it is well to note them, for they show that crime may result from passion in circumstances where it might not be expected. The fact is that feelings the result of sex strike far deeper and wider than many good people care to acknowledge; but the whole subject is one on which a taboo is placed and it cannot be treated as frankly as it ought for that reason. The cause of jealousy and the excitement of the feeling is not so simple as many seem to think. It may be absent where there would appear to be the strongest ground for expecting its presence, and present under circumstances where it would not be looked for; and when present it may induce criminal acts on a provocation that would appear small indeed. There are fewer female than male criminals and offenders, but they are more likely than men to continue in the wrong way when they set out on it, for it is more difficult for them to recover. Women are much harder on one another than they are on men; or than men are, either on their own sex or on women. This may be one reason why so few of them go astray, but it also contributes to keep the stray sheep from getting back to the fold. The girl is more closely guarded at home and is more intimately associated with her mother than the boy is. Even mothers who have gone to the bad do not always want their daughters to follow their example; and I have known those who lived by vice and crime who have sent their daughters away from them in order to be trained in religion and morals. Most of them cannot do that, but many do what they can, up to a point, to keep them straight. A girl suffers more than a boy from the neglect of a mother, and when to neglect is added bad example it may have a fatal effect on her. In proportion to their numbers there are more daughters than sons of criminal mothers who take to evil courses. Apart from the mother, there are districts of the city where girls hear language and see sights that are not likely to have a good effect on them. The girl is taught to repress herself more than the boy and is trained towards secretiveness. The boy is rather given to flaunt his new-found naughtiness and to be checked for it or to discover of how little account it is. The girl may nurse it to her harm. It is a mistake to suppose that because a man or woman never uses objectionable language, or repeats objectionable stories, they have not left an impression when heard. As a matter of fact, the female side of any lunatic asylum is generally more remarkable than the male side for the foulness of the language of the inmates and the filthiness of their ideas. Among the sane members of the community the opposite is notoriously the case, but the insane are only repeating words that have lodged in their mind when they were sane. The same thing is true of female offenders; they outdo the men in the profanity and indecency of their language, when they begin. When as a result of their surroundings young girls take to imitating their elders in vice they are much more dangerous than boys. Every surgeon in a great city, if he is connected with the administration of the law, knows that very young girls are sometimes made the subjects of horrible assaults; but he also knows that other girls as young incite and provoke assaults, and that some among them make the most terrible and detailed charges against men on no foundation whatever but that of their own imagination excited by what they have seen. When men are guilty of certain offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act there can be no defence of their conduct; they have no excuse for taking advantage of young girls; but it is sheer folly to ignore the fact that there are girls of school age in some parts of the city who deliberately importune men. It is terrible that it should be so, but they are only doing what they see their elders do and there is no use disregarding the fact. If the street is a bad playground for the boy it is worse for the girl. She runs greater risks and her ignorance is as vast as his. When she goes to work new perils beset her. Her choice of occupation is more restricted, and her wages, though they may not be less in the first instance, do not increase in the same ratio as she grows to youth and womanhood. Whatever may be said for the higher education of women it is out of reach of the many. Most girls have the idea that some day they will be married; and they are often right. When this idea is present it is bound to affect their actions. Marriage means for a man the holding on to his work; for a woman it implies the giving up of her employment--at any rate, in Scotland most men who marry try to keep their wives at home. Among the poorer labourers this is not always possible; but it remains true that the great majority of married women are not industrially employed. They have quite enough to do at home, and sometimes more than enough; but the fact that the home is to be their permanent sphere of work, or the hope of this, makes many girls and women careless as to the choice of their occupation meanwhile. It also prevents combination among workers, to a large extent, and tends to keep wages low. How some of them live on their earnings is a mystery, but they do; and keep themselves in a condition of health and fitness which will compare favourably with that of many of the scientific people who prove by figures and standards that they don't. There is grave risk in it, however; risk that they should not be asked to run. If they were not members of a family, each contributing earnings to a common pool, and each undertaking a share of the household work, many could not exist on the wages they receive. That any large number of them are directly driven to the street by the low rate of their wages is not, in my experience, true. Complaints have been made that the children of well-to-do people accept lower wages and make it hard for those who have to earn their living to obtain reasonable pay. This may be true in a few cases, but it is not of general application. These people do not compete at all in many occupations; their parents are not foolish enough to let them do much for nothing; but they do sometimes exercise an injurious influence on the other girls by their presence. Girls are at least as vain of their appearance as lads, and they are quite as much given to personal adornment. Indeed, I think men will readily admit that women pay more attention to their dress and are keener on ornaments than they are. Certainly when one gets a new kind of hat-pin or "charm," others must obtain something to balance it. If a girl has a fund to draw upon apart from her earnings she is likely to dress more expensively than her neighbours, and the weaker sisters are sometimes tempted to adopt extraordinary measures to keep pace with her. In so far as a standard of dress is set up that is beyond the earning power of the workers to maintain, girls who have other resources than their wages are liable to exercise an injurious effect on their fellow-workers. X 27 was a young woman of prepossessing appearance and good manner. She had been employed in a place of business in town. Her wages were small, and she had charge of cash transactions to a considerable amount. She was quietly and well dressed. She was arrested on a charge of embezzlement and she admitted her guilt. She confessed that she had begun to take small sums in order to keep herself "respectable," and her peculations not being discovered, she had continued to help herself. There was sickness at home, and to relieve the pressure there she had taken larger sums and been found out. In the course of enquiries I found that there were other employees none of whom had her opportunities of taking from the cash-box, but some of whom dressed themselves on "presents" from gentlemen. There was room for suspicion that each knew what the others had been doing. It was certain that they knew that their earnings were insufficient to enable them to live and dress as they did, and it was equally clear that in their cases they had no resources at home to supplement their earnings. There are some workshops in which the moral tone is very low, and the association of young girls together in them has a bad effect on their conduct. The ignorance of many men and women with regard to the most elementary physical facts is remarkable. Mysteries are made of physiology, as though innocence and ignorance were synonymous terms. Fear takes the place of enlightenment, and when a girl is seen to transgress the limits of conduct laid down for her without the dreadful consequences they have been led to expect, the others are apt to think they have been misled; and some of them embark lightly on a certain course of conduct with a confidence begotten of ignorance as great as that which once made them timid. Young people are better to learn the truth about themselves from those they respect and trust, than to be kept in ignorance till some chance reveals a distorted version to them. X 28 was a man of the labouring class who was charged with contravention of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. He had been a very hard-working man, and for years had lived on little and saved the greater part of his earnings. Then, as systematically as he had put the money past, he started to get rid of it. He had nearly £200, and he proceeded to spend about £2 a week on his "spree." He drew the money from the bank in small sums, and, doing no work meanwhile, he proceeded to take enough drink to keep him on the right side of drunkenness. This had been going on for over six months before his arrest. Early in the course of his wanderings he had made the acquaintance of two girls who were employed in a tailoring establishment in the city. They spoke to him and made him certain proposals. This was in the dinner-hour. In time he was introduced by one girl to another during the succeeding four months, till he had dealings with seven in the same establishment--that is to say, seven admitted the facts. Their ages ran from fifteen to nineteen years, and without exception they were all the daughters of respectable parents, to whom the story of their conduct came as a severe shock. That story will not bear repetition; it was exceedingly gross. The facts were only discovered in an accidental way through the illness of one of the girls. She at first denied everything; but under pressure made a confession of part of the truth, and, the charge being laid, enquiry elicited the rest. A large number of girls are still employed in domestic service, though the tendency has been for them to seek industrial work, where they are for some part of the day their own mistresses. The spread of elementary education has been blamed for the shortage in the supply of servants, but it is only one of many causes for the change from the time when there were more girls seeking work than places for them; and girls are not likely to seek service as a result of the railings of those who, to judge by their utterances, are in need of some elementary education with regard to their own position. There seems to be an idea fixed in their heads that they have a right to be served by others, and that on their own terms. If the schools have taught the girls that they are not born to do for others what they ought to be able to do for themselves, it is something to the credit of the schools. Domestic servants have been too long treated as though they were inferior beings, with the natural result that their work has come to be looked upon as lower in character than that of the factory or the office girl. A greater independence of spirit and behaviour is permitted in those engaged in industrial occupations than in domestics, and this has a good deal to do with the preference shown for these pursuits. Domestic service is a better preparation for married life than work in a factory, but in spite of this it has very serious disadvantages. It presents the form of family life without the spirit. In a great many cases it has all the disadvantages and few of the advantages. Those who are loudest in their complaints of the degeneration of servants show quite clearly that they are angry really because they no longer get girls to give not only reasonable service, but the obedience of flunkeys. Girls in workshops are not treated as domestics are; they would not stand it. Their wages may be lower, but at least they are not looked upon as beings of another creation than those placed over them. When people shun certain kinds of employment it is not generally because they are foolish, but because they believe that that kind of work is not worth having. The servant in the house is too much in the house. Her mistress is quite ready to assume that she should know all that the girl is doing, but the confidence is expected to be all on the one side. For the mistress to interfere in the girl's affairs is to show a proper interest in her; but for the girl to return the compliment is impertinence. The girl is often subject to unsympathetic supervision; she is seldom allowed out to associate with those whose company she desires; her life is a monotonous and exacting one; and in many cases she has as few opportunities for seeing visitors as she has for visiting. That some should react unfavourably to these conditions is not surprising; and when they are out they may show the same tendency to friskiness displayed by that other domestic animal, the family dog. Many of them have few friends near the place of their employment, and their work does not provide them with the same facilities for forming friendships as industrial employment does. If they do go astray the consequences are therefore more serious, because they are to a large extent thrown on their own resources, having few to whom they can appeal for help or advice. There are no workers who are more generally industrious, honest, and patient, and who are more harshly judged. Only those who go wrong seem to attract attention; at least it is only they who are heard of; and in proportion to the large number employed they are few. Their position away from their family leaves them more exposed to the attentions of those of the opposite sex than other girls, and when they succumb the consequences may be more serious. If their condition is suspected or discovered the extent to which they are considered members of the family soon becomes apparent. The girl who is in this state has no illusions on that subject. She knows quite well that she will receive no sympathy, and that would not matter so much if she were not equally certain that she will be turned out whenever the fact becomes known. She cannot face her people. She fears the scandal she will bring on them, and what she should do is a puzzle to her. What she tries to do is to conceal her condition as long as possible. She knows quite well that a time will come when it will unmistakably reveal itself, but anything may happen in the interval. She refuses to think about the future and lives in the present. The effort that should be expended in making preparations for the event is spent in concealing its approach; till some day she finds herself a mother. The habit of concealment has become a part of her, and it asserts itself in the state of pain and panic in which she finds herself, with disastrous results to the child. X 29 was a girl about twenty years of age who came from a mining district to domestic service in Glasgow. She was a healthy girl and a good servant. One day her mistress had reason to suspect that something had taken place in the house of which she had not been made aware; and a search revealed the dead body of a new-born child in an outhouse. The girl was arrested and sent to hospital. In due course she was transferred to prison, where I had to investigate the case with a view to determining her mental condition. She told me the story bit by bit quite clearly. When she became aware of her condition she took steps to hide it, and up to the end she had been successful in doing so. She did this in order to make up her mind what she ought to do. Sometimes she decided to go home to her friends, and at other times she meant to apply to the parish. Her health was good all the time. At last she made up her mind to go home, and had written stating her intention, but saying nothing about her condition or about staying there. The child was born the night before the day she had fixed for her visit. She was taken by surprise, and had no preparations made for its arrival. By her actions she showed that she knew what was necessary in order to attend both to child and mother. It cried out, and in her alarm she stopped its mouth. It did not cry again, and she next set about its concealment. She knew that she had killed it, but she did not think this murder. She would have thought it murder if it had not just been new-born. She had seen similar cases reported in the newspapers as "Concealment of Pregnancy" and not counted murder. As she had her day off to pay her visit she did so. She walked at least ten miles in doing this. She told her friends nothing. She hoped to be able to dispose of the body, but her mistress had found suspicious signs in her room, and on a search had discovered the child. She was curiously knowing in some respects, but her ignorance was as peculiar as her knowledge; and I had no reason to doubt the truth of her story, which stood such tests as could be applied to it. The case in its main features is quite characteristic. There are some mistresses who, when they find their servants in this condition, take steps to see that they are tended in some way. They cannot be expected to keep them in the house, but they do what can be done to prevent the mother and child suffering. There are others who simply turn them out and take no further interest in them; and it is the fear of this that leads to concealment. If they would even act as mediators between the girls and their people much mischief would be prevented. Hardly ever does such a case as the above occur but what there are letters to the newspapers demanding that the father of the infant should be placed in the dock with the mother. The mother is not there for begetting a child, but for killing it, and the former act is not yet punishable by law. The general opinion seems to be that men are continually seducing women, and I am not in a position to say whether it is true or not. Judging from books, it forms the subject of many stories, but I am here only writing of that small portion of the world which has come under my own observation, and in my experience it is grotesquely untrue. I have heard the woman's statement in the great majority of cases of infanticide in Scotland during the last sixteen years, and I can recall few in which she made any complaint against the father of the child, although I sought for it. In some cases I was told that the father had not been informed of the woman's condition, although she knew where to find him; and that he had been kept in ignorance because she did not want to marry him. In the other cases the conception seemed to be the result of intimacy that was temporary and long past. I am far from suggesting that there are no bad men who lead girls astray; what I say is that in this class of case these are not the girls who appear as criminals. The fact is that among a certain class of lads and girls there is a degree of looseness of behaviour that is in striking contrast with the officially recognised code of morals. They take risks with a light heart, and the woman pays; not always because the man shirks, but because any consequence of their conduct is entailed on her by her sex. The girl knows this as well as the lad, but neither of them considers consequences at the time. An acquaintanceship begun innocently enough may insensibly and by degrees become something more, not as the result of consideration, but quite independent of anything in the way of thought. If consequences were certain it might be different. It is difficult to apportion blame and it is not very profitable to try; but it is quite certain that the woman leads the man as much as he leads her to misconduct. Child murder is no necessary consequence of his act, and there is no sense in assuming that he knew the girl's condition and deserted her, when the fact can easily be ascertained. It would be a great mistake to suppose that girls who do not preserve their chastity are necessarily bad. It is largely a question of manners and customs. They would quite readily admit that it is wrong to be unchaste, as many an untruthful person will admit it is wrong to lie; but they do not seem to suffer in self-respect, nor greatly in the esteem of others, if they yield themselves to the lad who is their sweetheart for the time. Their conduct may be suspected; but in the absence of proof, and if decency is observed, their morals are taken for granted. Every professional man knows that there are very many different standards of conduct in Glasgow. The doctor cannot shut his eyes to the fact if he would; the lawyer during the time he acts as Agent for the Poor sees and hears enough to convince him that the professed and the working standards of conduct are different; and even among those connected with their Churches clergymen occasionally find some who have to get married as a result of their behaviour. The girls who misbehave in this way may be reviled as prostitutes, but that is utterly to fail in judging them. That they are no worse than the men goes without saying; but there cannot be a standard for the woman and another for the man, though in practice it is more frequently the moralists who try to make one--not by their words, but by the effect of their judgment. The same girl who has given herself to men is sometimes the most bitter in her denunciations of prostitutes; but on the subject of prostitution I do not propose to enter, for any real consideration of it would involve a plainness of speech on which it would be unsafe to venture. This must be said, however, that the woman who goes astray is treated shamefully by the law, which operates to drive her deeper in the mire and causes reformation to be more difficult for her than for any other kind of offender. Any proposal to place these poor souls more completely under the domination of officials, medical or police (whether made on the specious pretext of public health or public morals), would intensify the difficulty, and would result, as it would deserve, in increasing the evil it sought to remedy. It is bad enough that any members of the community should become slaves to the vices of others, but it would be worse to confirm them in their slavery in order to protect those whom they serve. In proportion to the number of offences committed by women bigamy appears to be more common than it is among the male offenders. The reason is largely economic, but the method of its operation is dependent on sex. The woman wants a home, but if she were not a woman that is not the way she would choose to get one. She could get established, but her sense of propriety will not allow her to accept the position without the form of marriage, even although she knows the form to be illegal. In many cases, however, she does not know this. She may have ground for a divorce by reason of the desertion of her husband or his misconduct; but the ground for divorce and the ability to obtain one are different matters. If divorce is to be permitted there does not seem to be any reason why it should be refused to those who cannot afford to go to law to obtain it. If one of the parties to a marriage gives cause for divorce the need for it will be the greater in proportion to poverty, for people are less able to keep out of each other's way if they are living together in a small house than would be the case if they had more room; and if they are separated the economic disadvantages are not less. Yet these are the very people who are least able to obtain relief; their poverty ensures that. When they go through the form of marriage with some other we pay the cost of their imprisonment. The money would be better employed in setting them free from the contract which has gone wrong. Some of them voluntarily give themselves up in the belief that their imprisonment will break the former marriage. Our judges have become more and more inclined to deal leniently with such cases; reserving their heavy sentences for those which show moral turpitude; and the number of these is small. To the woman there is something in the form of marriage which enables her to preserve her self-respect, and the "marriage lines" are a testimony to others. It is a queer condition of affairs, in their view, that allows them to live with a man if they do not go through a ceremony of marriage with him, and which sends them to prison if they do; for they cannot be expected to see that the rights of property may depend on the prohibition of conduct such as theirs. CHAPTER VII PUNISHMENT The universal cure-all--The public and the advertising healer--The essence of all quackery--The quackery of punishment--Rational treatment--Justice not bad temper--Retribution--Our fathers and ourselves--Their methods not necessarily suitable to our time--Capital punishment--The incurable and the incorrigible--Objections to capital punishment apply in degree to all punishment--The "cat"--The executioner and the surgeon--Whipping and its effect--The flogged offender--The act and the intention--Pain and vitality--Unequal effects of punishment--Fines and their burden--Who is punished most?--Punishment and expiation--Punishment and deterrence--Social opinion the real deterrent--Vicious social circles--Respect for the law--Prevention of crime. Since newspapers have become great advertising mediums their readers have had information thrust upon them by picture and story regarding the need to flee from ills to come and seek refuge in the patent pill. Health is the great thing to attend to, and there is a large number of people engaged in our instruction. Some will have us see to the equal development of all our muscles, though what we are to do with them when they are developed we may not clearly apprehend. Others prescribe for us all a proper course of diet, and though the professors differ among themselves as to what is the best food for mankind, they seem to be all agreed that there is a universal food. If we find their prescriptions do not suit us, that is an evidence of degeneracy on our part which must be overcome. It is all very like what has passed itself off as education. At school, if a boy showed an aptitude for drawing and none for composition, he was taken from the thing he could do and worried into doing the thing he was not fitted for doing, with the result that in many cases children left school able to do a number of things equally badly and few things well. The attempt to make people ambidextrous is more likely to make them left-handed in both hands. Health is the greatest of blessings, but the man who is always concerned for his health is not the healthy man; time passes, and he may lose his life while he is preparing to live. He is encouraged to examine himself, and all the possible ailments which may annoy him are described and their significance exaggerated till he gets nervous. A specific is found for every ill to which the flesh is heir, and its efficacy is trumpeted till some equally infallible cure replaces it in public estimation. The saving remedy may be called a quack preparation, and its composition proclaimed and condemned by the regular practitioner, but a sufficient number of purchasers is found to justify the expense of advertising it. It is sure to benefit somebody, however antecedently improbable that effect may be, and there is certain to be some sufferer who will be grateful enough to testify to its cure. Some of the testimonials may be spurious, but many of them are quite as genuine as any that the doctors receive. The reader sees that Mrs. Dash has suffered from pains in her back for years, and has tried the patience and the prescriptions of every doctor within her reach without obtaining any permanent relief. She has had to resign herself to a state of chronic invalidism, and is an object of pity to all who know her. She hears from a friend of the wonderful curative effects of the Rational Rheumatic Regimen and puts herself under treatment, with the result that her neighbours cannot believe she is the same woman, and she herself feels in better health than she has ever before enjoyed. Then follows a list of symptoms which is sure to appeal to some sufferer. The public, knowing all that can be urged against quack medicines, distrusts and purchases them. The buyer knows that the case of Mrs. Dash is not published for philanthropic but for business reasons, but he thinks that what cured her may help him. It may or it may not, but he risks it. Even those who utterly condemn quack medicines fall quite readily into the error of quackery when they come to discuss social subjects; for the essence of quackery is the belief that what is good for one person must be good for every other. Diseases are not entities, but conditions that cannot exist apart from the man; and similarly crime cannot exist apart from society. We may alter conditions in such a way that the tendency to disease or crime will be lessened; but when a person has become diseased we have to know something more about him than the fact that he shows certain symptoms before he can be treated in any rational way and with a prospect of his recovery. So when he has committed a crime we must know more than that fact before there is much hope of being able to correct him. There is as much quackery in the practice of making punishment fit crime as in that of making remedies fit diseases. When a man offends against the law he is taken in hand by the ministers of the law; and they are awakening to a sense of the futility of their treatment of him, but so far not much progress has been made towards a rational method. There are more institutions projected and a greater variety of remedies prescribed; but they depend on the nature of the crime charged, rather than on the character and condition of the culprit. Some day it may be acknowledged that the court that has to determine whether a person is guilty of the offence charged against him is not therefore the court that is able to determine his treatment, but there will first require to be a more general recognition of the fact that before a man can be treated rationally for any physical, mental, moral, or social fault in him, something more must be known about him than that the fault is there. I do not suggest that rational treatment will invariably be successful; there is nothing absolute in this world, not even our ignorance; but I do assert that we are not entitled to act irrationally in dealing with criminals, and that that is what we generally do at present. The practice of the courts has changed much more than the law during the last sixteen years, and there is a greater disposition on the part of judges to seek information regarding those who are brought before them, as well as a more marked reluctance to send offenders to prison if there appears to be a probability that they will not repeat their offence. The old theories of punishment have broken down, and it is now difficult to find any coherent theory behind the practice. When a crime is committed that shocks the public by its atrocity there are demands made for fierce retribution on the culprit, partly on the plea that he ought to be made to suffer, and partly for the purpose of deterring others from repeating the act. Incidentally those who are most insistent on the employment of the executioner show that they possess a fair share of the same spirit that educed the act which they condemn. They are rightly indignant, but they do not seem to see that justice and bad temper are not the same thing. Few would defend the application literally of the retributive "eye-for-an-eye" principle. They know that a man's eye may not be of as much use to him as that which he has destroyed may have been to his victim. It may be like taking gold and offering lead in exchange. Even if the eyes be equal in value it does not in the slightest degree compensate the injured person to know that the person who did him the injury is as blind as he; and as for the community, it is to place two blind men where one was before. Of course nobody has proposed to deal in this manner with the person who blinds another; but many are quite satisfied to act on the principle, and to apply it by way of killing murderers and flogging those who commit assaults. The law has prohibited certain actions as below the standard of conduct permitted to the members of the community. When a man takes life, in order to show him the sacredness of life, it takes his. It is a lesson to him; and there is this to be said for it, that it prevents him from offending again. We all know how much we are the superiors of the poor foreigners in our manners and our powers, for in spite of our modesty, our teachers in the Press are always insisting on the fact, and truth compels us to admit it. Yet these same teachers sometimes confuse us not a little by their methods of defending us when we are charged with doing something which we cannot deny having done. Some necessary severity in war, or some strong actions on the part of those who in our name teach the native races how to live, may have provoked remark on the part of other nations. At once we hear that they have done similar things; but if we are better than they, surely we must prove it by our actions? If we are better than those whom we judge and condemn, why do we treat them as they have treated others? To hire a man to kill another is a queer way to teach men to respect life. That our fathers did it is true, and we have taken over the practice from them. I do not think it probable that our fathers were any greater fools than we are, but their circumstances were different; not to speak of the fact that we have had handed on to us by them an accumulation of experience in civil life which they had not time to absorb. We may be no better than they were, but they have not failed to contribute to make us better off, and their ways of doing things are not suitable to the altered circumstances in which we find ourselves. They were more worried by their fighting men than we are, and were always liable to be assailed by some lord or other whose honourable occupation was arms and who was industrious in the pursuit of it. He or somebody like him professed to protect the worker and ensure him the fruits of his labour--less discount. The fighting man has always made this profession; but he never protects the worker from the worker; he protects the worker from some other warrior who may be a greater nuisance--or may not. Now he is under the direction of the law, and is not allowed to make war on his own account. The survivals that do are criminals. In the good old days the governor was often busily engaged and had no time to bother with offenders. The pit or the gallows were for them, unless they could be depended on to refrain from troubling him and pay him for letting them work. Part of the time he was himself a prisoner in his castle--and a not very sanitary or comfortable prison it was--and at other times he was acting as warder over some other lord whom he had besieged. The easiest way to deal with unruly persons was to hang them to a tree and leave them there; they deserved it, and even if they did not, they might do so; in any case they were a good riddance. Now we are more settled and less summary in our dealings with each other. We have long ceased to employ the hangman except in cases of murder, and even then the penalty is seldom inflicted in Scotland; for it is repugnant to the feelings of most juries, and they only call killing "murder" when their feelings of indignation get the upper hand. I am far from saying that no case can now be made out for capital punishment; what I am contending is that it is the outstanding example of the application of the retributory principle; and yet in practice it is usually defended on the ground that the culprit is so bad that he ought to be killed--another ground altogether. "What could you do with a man who would do that?" is the question addressed to those who assert that the worst use to which you can put a man is to kill him. Well, is he so bad as all that? I have seen a number of very tough specimens under sentence of death, and have watched the effect on warders of intimate association with them. They have had to be constantly in the company of the condemned, for although he has to be killed he must be given no opportunity to kill himself; and in almost every case the men had only one opinion after getting closely in touch with the criminal, and that opinion was that, in spite of all the evil in him, he was not such a bad creature after all. In some cases the opinion of his character was much more favourable; but in all cases the opinions were the result of seeing the man when he was under the sentence of the law. That is as true an observation as that the sentence was the result of conduct when he was running wild. It was the same man who had done the wicked act who impressed men favourably, though their official bias was against him; and he could not have done so if the qualities had not been in him. There may be men among us who are so utterly bad that all the State can do with them is to kill them in order to secure the safety of others, but I have not seen them. There are men so riddled with disease that no cure for them can be held out, and the disease may be of such a character that it is likely to infect or affect injuriously those who attend them, but doctors are not permitted to kill them. In these cases as strong an argument could be adduced in favour of capital punishment as in the case of criminals; and there are those who advocate the lethal chamber for certain classes of the diseased and "unfit." In every case the advocates of the proposal should be the first to go there, for their very advocacy shows that they are themselves unfit to take a sufficiently wide view of the good of the State. We know too little of the possibilities of life to be justified in condemning anyone to death. The medical man speaks of some diseases as being incurable; but so far from meaning what he says literally, his whole life is spent in seeking for cures. Knowledge widens slowly, and false lights are hailed as true, but in spite of all set-backs there is progress; and to-day the diseased conditions that our fathers could not deal with may be relieved and in many cases cured. What the doctor really means is that there are many diseases for which he has not yet found the appropriate remedy; and when we speak of men as being incorrigible we are only entitled to use the word in the same limited way, meaning that we have so far not been able to correct them. The infliction of the death penalty has no good effect on those engaged in it. I have never seen anyone who had anything to do with it that was not the worse for it. As for the doctor, who must be in attendance, it is an outrage on all his professional, as well as his personal feelings. The physician is taught that it is his duty to save life, apart altogether from its personal value. When he is called in to a patient it is no affair of his whether the sick person is a saint or a sinner; it is his duty to do his best for the patient irrespective of any question of character, and to risk infection as readily for the sake of the wicked as for the sake of the good. At the behest of the law he has to take a part in the killing of a man whom he has been instructed to attend in order that at the proper time he may be led to death in a state of good health. I do not say that there are not men who may seem so debased and vile that any reformation would appear to be only remotely possible; but while they are to be blamed for their wickedness, we are not free from blame for permitting them to grow into such a state before taking them in hand. In no case that I have seen was such interference impossible had our system been one that lent itself to the prevention of crime and the reformation of the criminal; but because it was easier and more profitable for them to do ill than to do well, they went the wrong road with disastrous results to others as well as to themselves. Blame them by all means; but let us be just, and having settled how much they are to blame--not a very profitable task--let us set about to find how far we are to blame; having punished them, what about punishing ourselves? Our punishment is fixed by laws that no Parliament can alter; our own neglect of the wrongdoer ensures it. The objections to capital punishment apply to all punishment up to a point, for if it is wrong to slay a man it is also wrong to maim him; and in so far as our conduct towards him makes him a less efficient member of the community it does maim him. There are many who are so indignant with the law-breaker that they have no patience with anybody who has doubts as to whether our way of dealing with him is all that could be desired. They object to his being pampered--whatever that means--and call everybody a sentimentalist who is not for "vigorous means of repression." There is a sentiment of brutality that is quite as dangerous as any sentiment of pity, and a great deal more harmful; but pity for the criminal need have very little part in consideration for his reform. He may be, and often is, far from being an estimable or attractive person, and the last thing he needs is pity. A man may be a good physician or surgeon without being given to anything approaching sentiment that is maudlin; but whether he is full of pity or not he must be sympathetic--that is to say, he must be able to appreciate the standpoint of those with whom he is dealing. So must the man who would deal with offenders; if he fails in that he fails in everything. It may be all very well to describe some of them as brutes and to say they should be treated as brutes, but it does not help forward the matter of treatment in the slightest degree; for even brutes cannot all be treated alike, and if a man is treated as a brute it is not likely to result in making him behave like a man. "The only way to make a man is--Think him one, J. B., As well as you or me." The cat is a specific for the "brutes" that have not qualified for the "rope." The argument seems to be that because a man has committed a brutal crime therefore he is a brute; as he has inflicted serious bodily injury on a fellow-citizen it is proper that someone should be employed to inflict serious bodily injury on him. But will the man whom you employ to do this laudable work not be a brute also? Does your official imprimatur remove the brutality of his act? If not, one result would seem to be that at the end you have two brutes among you instead of one. There has never been any pretence that the executioner's occupation is not a degrading one; never in all this country for very many years, at any rate. He is not looked down upon because by his office he inflicts pain. The surgeon in the course of his work inflicts pain, but nobody considers him any the less worthy on that account. A hand might be cut off by either of them in the discharge of his duty; but though the result may be the same to the owner of the hand, the object has been different. The surgeon has amputated the hand to save the man's life; the executioner has cut it off to maim the man. There can be no objection to the infliction of pain on a criminal more than on others if it is incident on a course of treatment which there is good reason to believe will result in his reform; but there is no such reason for belief in the efficacy of flogging. I do not say that nobody has been the better for a whipping. There are many men who are ordinarily as modest as those of our race usually are, and who say that they were well whipped in their boyhood with great benefit. It might be unsafe to suggest that the argument is not so convincing as it may seem to those who advance it. Sometimes there is a temptation to think that the treatment, if it were really so efficacious in making them virtuous, might with profit have been continued; but there can be no doubt they are firmly convinced that without the thrashings they received they would have been worse than they are. This hardly touches the point, for it is one thing to be whipped by an official who has no interest in the person whipped, and another thing altogether to be chastised by a parent or guardian, or even at his instance. The effect on the integuments may be the same in both cases, but there is a psychological effect which is different. Children know that wrongdoing on their part is sometimes the occasion and the excuse for an exhibition of temper on the part of their parents; and they take their punishment with the best grace they can and keep out of the way next time they misbehave. A whipping in cold blood they do not take in the same spirit; and they are right. The great objection to any arbitrary punishment is that it may do far more harm than good. Suppose a child is disobedient and obstinate, and the father proceeds to whip it into obedience. If he succeeds the child may, through fear, avoid such conduct in the future; but if the child persists in his obstinacy in spite of the whipping, and gets into that dumb dour state in which he is likely to go off in a fit if the whipping is persisted in, the shoe is on the other foot. The father has to desist through fear, the child having met force with passive resistance is the master, and he retains the impression of his parent's brutality and impotence. It is never wise in the case of children, or of men, to embark on a course of treatment that you cannot continue till your object is gained. There may have been some reason in flogging men with the object of ruling them by fear, but the policy would depend on the thoroughness with which it was carried out for what success it could obtain. There would always be the risk that the penalty would make men more ferocious if it were the probable result of their misconduct, for if fear may prevent people from doing the ill they desire, it will also cause them to seek safety by attempting to destroy the evidence of their wrongdoing. Make death the penalty for robbery, and a direct inducement is offered to the robber to kill his victim and prevent him from telling tales. Flog men for breaches of the law, and if they fear the pain they will the more readily become reckless, on the principle of its being as well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. That there is a strong feeling on the part of the public against flogging is undeniable, and it is not so much the result of reasoning as of sentiment. The process shocks their sense of propriety. The mass of men not only shrink from suffering pain, but they shrink from the suffering of others, and they are less inclined than they once were to believe in its efficacy as a remedial agent. The man who in a former day would have been flogged and set to work is now sent to hospital if the whip has scored his flesh. A surgeon stands by to see that his vitality is not lowered beyond a certain point in the execution of the sentence; it is a nice occupation for him to superintend the impairment of a man's health, but as a compensation the rogue may become a patient and the doctor have the privilege of healing any wounds made under his supervision. The patient is now in a position to do any mischief he chooses; you have done your utmost with him and are not permitted to kill him. If as rigid an enquiry were made into the causes of men's wrongdoing as is made into the question of their personal guilt there would be less occasion for punishment as we have had it. Boys are still whipped for some offences and in certain cases. To say that it is better to whip a boy than to send him to prison, is only to admit that whipping is the less serious of the two methods of injuring him; and in some cases the boys are whipped for no other reason. There is a well-founded reluctance to sentence them to detention in any existing institution, combined with a belief in the necessity of inflicting some penalty on them for their misdeeds. The boy has done wrong and he must pay for it. The world is so constituted that we are all the children of our acts; payment may be delayed, but it must be made sometime if every deed carries its penalty with it; but such a belief is quite consistent with scepticism as to the necessity for the legal penalties on which so many place importance. Indeed, that they also carry their consequences is seen of all men, and there is no manner of doubt that those on whom they fall are made worse citizens by them. That might be a small matter if their degeneration did not injuriously affect the community of which they are unworthy members, but in hurting them we are hurting ourselves. It is not so much what we do as the spirit in which it is done that causes the mischief. A person who is sick and in bed may be as much a prisoner as a man in a cell. His doctor may prevent him from seeing visitors and may sentence him to a period of something very like solitary confinement, but he knows that this is done with no intention of hurting him, but because it is necessary in the interest of his health, or that of others. The prisoner has no such opinion as to the purpose of his imprisonment, and neither have those who carry it out. He may be the better for it, though that is exceptional, but discomfort and pain is an essential part of whatever cure there is. I remember when a student a worthy old practitioner who made a point of choosing the most painful remedies for persons suffering from certain diseases, as he held the opinion that they ought to be made to suffer for their misconduct. He certainly made them suffer, but as they were not compelled to attend him they chose others who cured them more rapidly and with less pain. It is now generally recognised that pain, or anything that lowers vitality, operates injuriously and retards the recovery of patients; and every means is taken to prevent suffering, not because it makes the patient feel bad, but because it causes him to be bad. Suppose a surgeon said to a man who appeared before him with a scalp wound received through falling on the kerb while under the influence of drink, "You have been foolish and wicked, since you have made yourself intoxicated and lost control of your senses. Your head is wounded, and it is only a chance that you have not been killed. You have disgraced yourself in the eyes of those among your friends who have any sense of respectability, and you have run the risk of losing your employment as the result of your intemperance. This I cannot permit to pass unpunished. An example must be made of you in order to deter others from following the same pernicious course. You have forfeited the right to consideration, but, though you must be made to remember that such conduct as yours cannot be lightly passed over, I shall deal with you as leniently as possible for the sake of your wife and family. You will receive an application of germs to your wound which will produce erysipelas, after which I shall proceed to deal with your cure." The doctor who tried this method would be sent to a lunatic asylum; but it is precisely what is done in our courts. The prisoner is told he is bad--and he is; then he is sent--to be made better? Not at all. Whatever may be said against the prisons, it cannot be shown that they ever were designed to reform those sent to them, and if they fail to do so they do not therefore fail in the purpose for which they were built, which is to detain and punish criminals. The extent to which they do punish varies greatly according to the antecedents of the person who is sent to them. On the clerk and the labourer who have received the same sentence its physical effect may differ very much. If both are put to do labouring work, as they very well may be, at the end of the day the man who is accustomed to it will be less hurt and fatigued than the man who has been used to other employment. If the object is to make them all alike uncomfortable the clerk should be set to dig a trench and the labourer to write, and at the end of the day the one would be stained with ink and the hands of the other would be stinging or blistered. As it is the work done by the labourer is child's play to him, but it is toilsome to the man whose occupation is sedentary; to the public it is not of much utility in any case. A common method of punishing offenders is to impose fines upon them, so that if a man has money he may commit any of a large number of offences without any risk of imprisonment. It may even be profitable for him to do so, for the fines for doing some illegal acts by which money can be made are in some cases less than the profits to be made by transgressing the law. It is a queer condition of affairs. The principle of restitution is one that can be readily understood and approved, but fines are not an attempt to apply such a principle. They go, not to any person who may have been injured, but to the local exchequer for the most part. This is a vicious arrangement, for it is an incitement to the local authorities to make as much as they can off the offenders in their district; and whether they are ever moved by it or not, it is not proper that they should have any interest in filling their coffers by such means. Fines fall very unequally as a burden on those subjected to them. The amount inflicted, though small, may be out of all proportion to the offender's means; half-a-crown is not much, but it is a great deal to the man who has not got it. Before the same court you may have two men charged with similar offences. One is a motorist who has exceeded the speed limit; the other is a driver of a light van who in trying to catch a train has been reckless in his driving. The motorist may be fined in five times the amount inflicted on the vanman, but to the one the sum only represents a small inroad on his means, while to the other it represents something like a week's wages. There is not one law for the rich and another for the poor; if there were they might not be so unequally treated. There is the same law for both; but in its effect it favours the rich at the expense of the poor, and that is not to the ultimate advantage of the community. The fine is an alternative to imprisonment, and in practice it is a peculiarly striking example of our whole system of punishment. The magistrate on behalf of the public says to the offender, in effect, "You have transgressed the laws of the state in which you live and must therefore be punished. I do not wish to be too hard on you, but you must either pay us five shillings or we shall keep you for three days." Now as people cannot be kept in prison without cost being thereby incurred, the effect of the sentence is that if the offender does not pay to the police five shillings on his own account the taxpayer pays the prison five shillings. The culprit is injured by being sent to prison; but the public is also injured by having to pay. It is remarkably like the operation known as cutting off the nose to spite the face. This is indeed the effect of most of our punishments; they injure others besides the criminal, and there is room for grave doubt as to whether they benefit anybody. Once the punishment has been undergone, the offender is supposed to have expiated his offence; but as there is no positive expiation for past wrongdoing, except it may be future welldoing, this is a fiction. It is not a wise thing to teach the ignorant that they can pay for any harm they do; least of all to teach them that they atone by imprisonment for injuries inflicted on others. It is no compensation to a man who has been hurt to know that his assailant is being lodged and fed at his expense, and that some day he will come out no better than when he went into his place of retreat. When a man is disabled by injuries he has received his family is likely to suffer, and if he be a working man they may be in peril of becoming destitute. His assailant is shut up, and his family too may suffer in a similar way and to an equal degree. The law will see that the offender is taken care of, but the injured person and the families of both the parties are left to struggle as best they may. What harm have they done? They are neglected, and may suffer hunger unless they also do harm, while the offender is "expiating" his offence at the public expense. In so far as punishment is retributive it is foolish and indefensible, harming not only those on whom it is inflicted, but those who inflict it. If as individuals we are not justified in fostering a spirit of revenge, we are as little entitled to encourage such a spirit in our corporate capacity. Their actions show that some men are capable of doing very wicked things, and that is a very good reason for interfering with them; but it is no reason for interfering in such a way that we are all burdened by it, while there is no reasonable expectation that they are being brought to a better frame of mind. Until late in the last century the Crown Prosecutor craved for punishment on those who had committed indictable offences "in order to deter others from committing the like offence in all time coming." That form has been dropped, but the theory is still widely held that punishment deters others than those convicted. The prison returns show that there is no reason for claiming that it deters many of those who have been punished from repeating their offensive conduct. The "others" in some numbers are always recruiting the ranks of those who habitually transgress, but the great majority of our fellow-citizens keep out of prison. Are we to believe that this is because the punishment of the prisoners sent there has deterred them from committing offences? It may be the reason; but it cannot be proved even if it is. For my own part, I have never seen any cause to believe that my acquaintances and friends refrain from beating their wives and from taking what is not their own because if they did these things they might be sent to jail; and I have observed that those who theorise most about the conduct of others and its causes, are frequently quite unable to advance any evidence from their own observations and experience that would support their theories. There can be no doubt that the dignified jurists who adopt Mansfield's view (that a man should be hanged not because he had stolen a horse, but in order that others might not steal horses) would resent the suggestion that they themselves are honest simply from the fear of the law, and it would show less conceit of themselves and more knowledge of their neighbours if they assumed that the mass of their fellow-citizens are no worse than they. In my day at school some boys were unmercifully whacked, when the master got into a temper as a result of their iniquity. The theory was that this discouraged others from committing the same offences; but as boys are as often punished for the stupidity of themselves or the teacher as for any wilful misconduct on their part, the theory was not in accord with the practice. When some unfortunate culprit was called up, the feelings of the rest of us were of a mixed nature. Partly we were sorry for him, but the degree was dependent on our personal regard for him; partly there was a feeling of contempt for him in so far as he was imprudent enough to let himself be caught; partly there was some curiosity as to how he would demean himself; and mainly there was thankfulness that we were not in his shoes. The punishment did not deter any of us from doing the same thing; but it did make us more careful in the doing of it, and it gave some a training in duplicity that appears to have been of use to them in their business careers. In so far as the teacher was considered to be a tyrant it was rather a feather in a boy's cap than otherwise if he could disobey, especially if he escaped. Even if he were caught it was not considered a disgrace, and if he were severely punished the clumsiness he had shown in playing his pranks was overlooked and he was treated with the respect due to a martyr. It was a small matter to break the master's rules, though nobody cared to be caught; but it was a serious thing for a boy to outrage the standard of conduct which was adopted by his neighbours. The teacher who knew this could command obedience so long as he worked on the knowledge; and it is the same with men as with boys. They react most powerfully to the opinion of the circle in which they move; if it were not so they would soon cease to be members of it. Who sets the standard it is usually impossible to say; but each influences the other, although one personality may be more dominant than any other. He is the bad one when there is a bad one; not because he is worse morally than others, but because he is usually more daring and active; and as the commandments by which boys are ruled are mainly negative, his positive personality brings him into conflict with them and leads others after him. But there are social circles in our midst where men are placed in the same relation to the law as boys were at school. They are told to respect it, and they know they must obey it at their peril; but it appears to them as a series of senseless and unjust prohibitions which interferes with their comfort and does not offer them any protection against their enemies. They do not need policemen to protect their property, for they have none to protect; and they feel quite able to look after their personal safety. What they would appreciate would be protection from what they consider the exactions of the factor and the tax-collector, and there are no police of that sort yet. They have no respect for the law any more than I have respect for a steam-engine, though I keep out of its way. If the law is something that protects other people from them, but does not protect them from other people, they cannot be expected to hold it in much respect; they may look on it as their enemy. Many do not go so far, though they distrust it and its ministers; but there are coteries, groups, who do regard the law as something that it is praiseworthy to break. I am not now referring to a man who makes a living by theft, but to the young people who are brought up in certain slum districts and who there contract inverted ideas of morality. Granted the existence of such circles, it is easy to see how defiance of the law may get a young man the admiration of his fellows; and as there are parts of the city where homage is rendered to him who has most frequently and cleverly outraged the law by stealing, or by tricking its representatives--where so far from honesty being esteemed a virtue it is sneered at; where chastity is at a discount, and the thief, rake, and bully is the ideal character--there is no reason for any wonder that in the face of punishments there is no lack of offenders. These people see no reason to respect our rules of conduct. Our punishments may exercise a deterrent effect on them to the extent of causing them to modify their methods of operation, but the bogey we fix up for their warning will not make them virtuous or cause them to alter the standards they have set up. Punishment does not deter the great mass of our fellow-citizens from committing crimes. They are law-abiding because they have no inclination to break the law and no inducement to do so. Let it press on them and we may hear another story. I am old enough to remember when in 1886 it was proposed to give Home Rule to Ireland; we had then professors and eminent citizens threatening to take up arms rather than allow the proposal to be carried. They were genuinely alarmed for the safety of their friends, and their respect for the law took a back seat for the time. It is an easy matter for many of us to stand by the laws, for we have not felt their pinch. That may be a reason why there is always such a difficulty in changing them, and why almost any change is supported by the poorer classes. Certain it is that even among the honest and welldoing poor there is a suspicion of the law and a reluctance to have anything to do with it. Those who are definitely at war with it and those who may be tempted to join them, are the only persons whom we may reasonably hope to deter from the commission of certain offences by our arbitrary punishment of those whom we catch; and even in their case there is no ground for the belief that the deterrent effect is such as to cause them to mend their way of living, but only to modify their methods. The real deterrent is social opinion, and when one of them comes out of jail it is quite evident that his imprisonment has not caused him to sink to the smallest extent in the estimation of those whose good opinion he values. Serious crime has steadily declined in Glasgow as the nests of the criminals have been torn down. They are much less potent for evil when separated from each other than when herded together; but now and then there is a recrudescence of brutality and violence followed by demands for more severe treatment of those who are captured. In France, lately, the guillotine has been brought forth again with the object of frightening the bandits. I know nothing about conditions there; but it is quite evident that here we might have such a demand resulting from an outbreak of crime, caused not by leniency of treatment of prisoners, not caused indeed by the way in which any part of our penal system acts, but due to the impunity with which the sharpers and criminals in our midst are allowed to practise. So long as there is no provision whereby a man can obtain opportunity for honest work with a guarantee that the fruits of his labour will not be taken from him, there will be many unemployed. Most of them are quite well-disposed persons, but some of them are not. We cannot deal properly with the shirkers and sharpers till we have separated off the merely unfortunate. When we have seen that men have opportunity to support themselves we shall be fairly entitled to question the person who has no visible honest means of subsistence as to how he is obtaining his living; and, failing satisfaction, to deal with him. Meantime they are mixed up with the honest and law-abiding but unfortunate citizens, to the aggravation of the misery that honesty and poverty combined have brought on them. Let them combine and act together and there is no saying how far they may go; not because our prisons are too comfortable; not because of anything that does or does not take place there; but because our cities are not properly managed; because we have permitted the aggregation of people under conditions that have been favourable to the growth of an anti-social sentiment; because we have bred the monster that strikes fear into us. The treatment of the criminal may be wise, or it may be as foolish as I think it; but you might as well blame the method of treating a typhus case in hospital for the spread of that disease in an insanitary area, as blame the leniency of the courts for any outbreak of crime you may have in the areas which are known to be infested with criminals. All the elements are there for such an outbreak, and if it occurs it will be because we have permitted them to combine. How far we are justified in making one person the scapegoat for the sins of another, even if we could do it, is a matter for discussion by those who are concerned with such problems. For my own part, I do not think it fair to make an example of anybody, as it is called, and I do not believe that it serves any good purpose that could not be better attained by more rational means. PART III THE TREATMENT OF THE CRIMINAL CHAPTER I THE MACHINERY OF THE LAW The police and their duties--Divided control--Need for knowledge of local peculiarities--The fear of "corruption"--The police cell-- Cleanliness and discomfort--Insufficient provision of diet, etc.--The casualty surgeon--The police court--The untrained magistrate--The assessor--Pleas of "guilty"--Case--Apathy of the public--Agents for the Poor--The prison van--The sheriff court--The procurator-fiscal-- Procedure in the higher courts--The Scottish jury. To the majority of people the living representative of the law is the policeman. It is his duty to protect the citizens from evil-doers, and to arrest offenders. He is the subject of a good deal of chaff, but his position is generally respected; and although men get into the force who by temper and experience are quite unsuited for their work, the great majority discharge the duties laid upon them in a manner that is surprisingly satisfactory, when the demands made upon them are taken into account. They are supposed to have a knowledge of the law, and for practical purposes they must know something of medicine in order that they may give first aid to the injured; they are expected to be able to answer questions of an exceedingly miscellaneous nature when asked by the passing stranger; and they require to be always cool and clear-headed, to be ready for any emergency, and to have a temper that nothing can ruffle. If they have enough of these desirable qualifications to satisfy the authorities they may receive a salary for their services rather better than that given to the unskilled labourer. That efforts are made to obtain good men for the post is undeniable. That these efforts are always so enlightened or so successful as they might be is not so certain. In Glasgow, for instance, a standard of height is set up which excludes the vast majority of Glasgow-bred men from this occupation. In some parts of the country men go to flesh and bone, and they are big-framed and brawny; but this is not the case in the town. Yet a man's height offers no presumption of his fitness for any position involving the exercise of judgment. A minimum 5 ft. 6 in. includes all the 5 ft. 7 in. and 5 ft. 8 in. men; and a minimum 5 ft. 9 in. excludes all these and limits the choice of candidates very much. It is not the best men to act as guardians to the public peace that are sought, but the best men amongst those of a certain height; and this is bound to lower the standard of efficiency. Indeed, the higher the standard of height the lower the standard of efficiency will tend to become, because of the limitation of choice implied. The police force is a civil force and ought to be entirely under the control of the citizens through their representatives, but this civil force is not formed on any conception of civic needs. It is organised on a military model, and subject to inspection by a military man on whose reports to the Secretary of State its efficiency is decided. Nobody seems to think of asking what such an inspector knows of the needs of the district whose police he inspects. His training enables him to tell when a man carries himself well and turns out his toes nicely, and the ability of the police to do so is aided by their going to inspection in new uniforms; so that the inspector sees a number of men in new clothes, and decides by their bearing their fitness to act as policemen. This condition of things enables a man to earn a salary who might otherwise be unemployed, and if it stopped there the absurdity might be worth the money; but when a police force is to be judged and their grants to be graduated, not according to their knowledge of the work, but according to the ignorance of their inspectors, there is likely to be trouble. If the police require to pay more attention to the inspector who can stop their grant than to representatives of the citizens in whose service they are supposed to act, it is a bad thing for the police and for the citizens. Every district has its own peculiarities, not observed by those who live there because of custom, but noticed by strangers and sometimes disapproved by them. It is an advantage, therefore, that those set in positions of authority should be acquainted with the customs and manners of the people among whom they live. A policeman will discharge his duties with more comfort to himself, more credit to the force, and greater benefit to the community if he knows those in the district in which his duties lie. Unless he is in touch with the law-abiding elements therein, unless he knows them and has their confidence and support, in many cases he will not be in a position to distinguish between conduct that is harmless and conduct that is criminal. For instance, it is well known that professional thieves depend largely on their coolness and daring for their success. If "thief" were written all over them they would starve, and they only earn their living because, to those who are personally unacquainted with them, they are not distinguishable from honest men. The policeman knows this; and if he sees a person coming out of business premises long after business hours, he quite naturally questions that person by look or by word. If he does not know whether the person has a right to be there he may make a fool of himself, either by arresting a man who has had legitimate business on the premises or by letting a thief get away. He is on the horns of a dilemma in which he should not be placed. Again, supposing complaints have been made about lads loitering around certain closes or corners, and the policeman has been instructed to have this stopped. If he knows the inhabitants of his beat he is able to discriminate between those who have a certain right to be about the place and those against whom the complaint is directed. If he does not know them he may reprimand or arrest the wrong people altogether, causing trouble for himself and widespread irritation that need never have been aroused. Those who have been affronted or injured do not take his difficulties into account; and it may be that those who are responsible for placing him in what is, after all, a false position, have not sufficiently considered the evil results caused thereby. The military habit of assuming that every man is like every other man, and shifting people about like so many dolls, has its disadvantages in civil life. It does make a difference whether the man set to do a certain duty is acquainted with the conditions in which he is placed or is ignorant of them. Even at the door of a court not only discretion but knowledge is necessary on the part of the door-keeper, and from neglect to recognise this simple fact a Sheriff has been stopped at the door of a High Court; a Procurator-Fiscal after thirty years' service in the court has been refused admission; and the medical officer in attendance has had to demand to see a superintendent before he could get in. If such things are possible in cases like these, it is quite clear a good deal of trouble and annoyance, and possibly a good deal of injustice, may result in quarters which cannot be said to be influential. It has been said that it is advisable to move men about from one district and from one duty to another in order to prevent their possible corruption; but the men are neither so stupid nor so bad as this reason would imply. The person who is corrupt will carry his corrupt tendencies with him over a wider area and be quite as dangerous there; for the less he is known the more readily will his personal defects escape supervision and criticism on the part of those among whom he works; and it is better that he should be discovered and dismissed than that the great mass of policemen, who are neither stupid nor corrupt, but who are honestly seeking to discharge their duty in such a manner as to gain them the goodwill of their fellow-citizens, should have their work rendered unnecessarily arduous and difficult. Too much is expected of them considering the opportunities they are allowed, and their faults are due more to the system by which they are ruled than to any personal defects on the part of the men. Anything that will bring that system more intimately in touch with the needs of the community and more sympathetically in contact with the difficulties of the poorer classes will help towards the efficiency and also the comfort of the force. When a person is arrested on any criminal charge he is first taken to the local police station, where the charge is entered. He is searched and placed in a cell, and if there is anything special in the charge against him, or in his appearance and behaviour, his treatment may be modified accordingly. In the great majority of cases the person arrested is only a petty offender at most. If he has money sufficient, he may hand it over as bail and be released with a notice that if he does not appear at a time and place specified his money will be forfeited and he may again be taken into custody. If he or his friends cannot leave a pledge for his appearance he makes acquaintance with the routine of administration. He becomes the tenant of a cell where he remains till the sitting of the court next morning. If the cell accommodation is fully taken up he may have company; and while every effort is made to prevent old offenders being placed in the same cell with those who are in for the first time, the best that can be done is bad. Although prisoners are presumed to be innocent till they are found guilty, they are in many respects worse treated while waiting to be sent to prison than after they arrive there. This is not the fault of the police so much as that of the authorities who are responsible for the accommodation or the want of it. A drunk man may be a very helpless or a very intractable person, and little can be done for him till he is sober. His condition is such that it is quite clearly not the best practice to put him in a cell and leave him there. It is no uncommon thing to find that the drunkenness has masked some more serious condition; but even although there should be nothing behind his intoxication, the man is more liable to contract illness than a sober person. In less enlightened countries than ours such prisoners are not left alone, but are kept warm and placed under observation till they are sober. In our country they are less carefully treated. Drunk or sober the prisoner is in an uncomfortable position. The police have difficulties to contend with that are not present in the prisons. The prisoners they arrest are not appreciably more dirty than when they arrive at the prison, but in the police cells there are not the same facilities for making and keeping things clean. There is no supply of free labour and not a generous provision of paid cleaners, and the cells in some cases seem to be constructed more with a view to saving the expense of cleaning than to providing for the reasonable custody of prisoners. Wooden floors are less easily cleaned than asphalt or cement, and both in the prisons and the police cells this seems to determine their construction. It is a piece of senseless cruelty in a climate such as ours, as anyone can easily find out for himself if he cares to try. In such a place even in warm weather it is difficult to keep the feet warm, and cold feet do not improve a man's temper. The newer cells are lined with glazed brick in deference to some sanitary notions. It is a great pity that the apostles of sanitation cannot be compelled to live in the places they design. No doubt the glazed walls are more easily cleaned than whitewashed brick would be, but they strike a chill into the occupants of the place, and moisture condenses on them in a way that it does not elsewhere. Cleanliness let us have by all reasonable means, but to be clean it is not necessary to be uncomfortable; and such methods are enough to disgust with cleanliness those who have to submit to their results. Another objectionable feature of the cell is the presence of a water-closet in it. Surely the sanitary expert has been napping when this was arranged; but here again the matter seems to be one of expense. The reasonable way would be to escort prisoners to a place when necessary, but that would mean the provision of a proper staff of warders. The cell is otherwise unfurnished save for a raised slab of wood which takes the place of a bed. There is no bedding provided. It is a barbarous provision for the man who is presumed to be innocent. As for his diet, there is none prescribed. He may have food sent in or he may have money to purchase it. If not, he will have to get along on bread and water, not having been proved guilty. In the morning he will be brought before the court, and if he asks for it he may have water to wash himself before appearing there. Cleanliness is not enforced, though it may be encouraged; but judging by their appearance when admitted to prison, not many have sought the water-basin during their stay in the police cell. By the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1908, it was provided that persons should not be kept in police cells for more than one night, and all persons remanded were sent to prison, to their distinct advantage; for there the staff and conditions are arranged for the custody of prisoners, and they are free for the time being from the noises incidental to the arrest and confinement of drunken persons, while they have a better chance of having their needs attended to. This procedure entailed more work on the officials, a difficulty that could easily have been overcome by a small increase in the staff. It meant not more trouble than is necessitated in the case of persons remitted to higher courts, and if the interests of the prisoners who are presumed to be innocent had been considered the Act would have remained in force; but their convenience was not represented so powerfully as that of the officials, and reversion to the old, bad plan of retaining prisoners in the custody of the police has taken place. They may be kept in the police cells for forty-eight hours. Some of those who are arrested may be suffering from injuries or disease. To attend these a casualty surgeon is employed. When he is asked to do so, it is his duty to call and see prisoners who complain or who are obviously ill. His pay is small; and from it, until lately, he had to provide any dressings and medicines that were required. It is not part of his duty to see every prisoner before the court begins. Occasionally people are sent to prison who should never have been brought before the courts at all. Both police and surgeon are placed in a very difficult position by the system. The police may err in their judgment as to the condition of a prisoner and may fail to direct the attention of the medical man to him. On the other hand, if they call in the surgeon too frequently to see persons who are not in need of his services he may reasonably complain, and dissensions may arise on this account which will make the working of the system irritating to all parties. In order to their comfort, surgeon and police have to make allowances for each other and to stand by one another in a way that is not likely to make for such efficiency of service to the public on the part of either as is desirable. When some extraordinary case attracts attention blame is lavishly showered upon the police; and it is generally undeserved, at least in the form it takes. They are not to blame because of their failure to do things for which they are unfitted. They may be to blame for not protesting against duties being thrust upon them which should be performed by others. It is misdirected economy to underpay medical men, and until this is recognised accidents may be looked for and incidents will occur to shock the public because of the injury which some person has inadvertently sustained. In the Court the Burgh Procurator-Fiscal may prosecute, or his depute may act for him. In Glasgow with all its police courts there is only one trained lawyer who prosecutes. The great mass of the charges are conducted by his deputes, who are invariably police officers. The only witnesses in many cases are constables and the prosecutor is one of their superior officers. It is a state of affairs that does not impress an outsider by its wisdom, and it is not regarded by those who come within its scope as being fair. The police have too many duties thrust upon them. On the bench, in the great majority of cases, there is an untrained judge. In Glasgow there is only one stipendiary magistrate, who is a trained lawyer. The others are magistrates of the city, who have to discharge a multitude of duties, among which is that of sitting in judgment on their fellow-citizens. They have been elected to the Town Council to serve their constituents as members of that body, and in due course they are made Bailies. Nobody pretends that they are thereby endowed with a knowledge of the law, experience in weighing evidence, or the judicial mind; but they are invested with judicial powers, and in certain cases can send men to prison for twelve months. They are usually men of excellent character and intentions, but unfortunately both of these qualities may exist with utter incompetence from a judicial standpoint. The draper would not admit that a grocer could exchange businesses with him and the concern go on as well as ever. Each man knows that to learn his own trade requires time, to speak of nothing else; but they appear to believe that all that is required to enable them to execute what in law stands for justice is the possession of a chain of office. Were there any foundation in fact for such an idea many weary years of study would be saved; for it is easier to get a chain than a licence to practise. That they are usually quite satisfied of their own fitness for the work goes without saying; and it would be a piece of vanity as harmless as it is foolish if the liberty of so many were not placed in jeopardy by it. It has been urged as an argument against the appointment of trained lawyers that there were fewer appeals from the decisions of the Bailies than from those of the professional man. This is meant as a testimony to their superior fitness, presumably; for the only relevant inference from the statement is that the Bailie is better qualified to act as a judge than the man who has had a training in the work. It is a startling testimony to the superiority of inspiration to reason. There are no testimonials from those who had appeared before the courts either as prisoners or agents, however; and the plea is not convincing. That it should ever have been made is a striking commentary on the fitness of those who made it; or on their modesty. Appeals from police-court decisions can only be made on a case stated by the magistrate whose judgment is appealed against. Trained men are not free from liability to error, and they recognise the fact. If a case is stated in such a way that the issue is obscured there is no use in attempting an appeal; so that freedom from appeals may as readily be a testimony to the inefficiency of a judge as to his efficiency. It may afford a presumption that he is not only unfit to try a case, but not to be trusted in stating one. To suggest that it affords evidence of the superior ability of the draper and the grocer to the lawyer in law matters, is to presume too much on the credulity of the public. If they are really so splendidly endowed it is surprising that they should not place their services at the disposal of one another when a question of trade causes dispute. In that they might be expected to have knowledge at least; but though Bailies have power to send men to prison they are not empowered to try civil causes involving the property of their fellow-citizens. That is to say, they have power over the lives, but not over the property of the lieges. This is surely a grave injustice; either to them or to the prisoners. In every court where a bailie presides he is aided and advised by an assessor, whose duty it is to keep him within the law. It is a somewhat farcical situation. The prisoner is there because he is charged with breaking the law; the bailie is there to try him on the charge; and behind him is a legal gentleman to see that the judge does not himself break the law in the process! He may either take the advice of the assessor or disregard it, but he is the responsible magistrate. If he follows the assessor's advice, that official is in the exercise of power without responsibility, which is not a position in which anybody should be placed; if he follows the inner light, the "safeguard" which the assessor is supposed to be is useless. It is looked upon by many as a very small affair, this whole matter of the Police Court, but it is really a very large affair and a very important one. Police Courts are those where most offenders appear for the first time, and from them they are first sent to prison. As the first step counts for so much, it is of the utmost importance that those who come before these Courts should have their cases thoroughly considered. This cannot be done if the proceedings are hurried, and it is notorious that Bailies "try" scores of prisoners in a day, the work not appearing to interfere with their ordinary occupations. Many of the prisoners plead guilty; but it is well known that there is a widespread belief among the labouring classes that if you plead guilty you get a shorter sentence. What justification there is for this belief I cannot say, but of its existence and its operative effect there is no room for doubt. They do not seem to take into account the effect the registration of a conviction may have against them at any future time, and pleas are given that no lawyer would advise. I do not mean to suggest that people in large numbers plead guilty when they have no knowledge of the offence, but that the act they have committed may have been capable of another than a criminal construction. X 30, a girl, is charged with fraud, which is a sufficiently serious crime. She has no previous convictions against her. She is remanded to prison, and there states she has been advised to plead guilty and she will get off lightly. She is told of the grave nature of the offence and legal assistance is obtained for her. It is found that she is a wayward girl who left her people and came to Glasgow. She obtained employment in a shop, and got lodgings in a part of Glasgow that is not very reputable and with people who were not likely to keep her straight. She lost her work and was kept on in her lodgings; but an event occurred there which made it imperative that she should go elsewhere, and she removed to the house of her landlady's daughter. She was there a fortnight when she met a woman whom she knew and through her obtained a situation. She left her lodgings and went to live with this woman. At the instance of her former landlady she was arrested for obtaining board and lodgings on false pretences. It was shown that she had paid her debt while she was working; and she protested she had made no false pretences, but meant to pay the balance when she could. The case was adjourned to enable her to do so. If she had not had legal advice and assistance there is no doubt that this girl would have had a conviction for fraud recorded against her. She had got into bad company and was on the way to the gutter, but by the operation of the law she would have been driven there. To deal properly with the large numbers which come before the Police Courts would take a great deal of time, but that is no reason why the cases should be hurried through. If a man has the means to fee a lawyer he is in a better case, or if he has committed an offence which is serious enough to cause his remand to a higher Court, for there he will get legal assistance free; but if he is simply a petty offender with no one to help him he will probably get dealt with without any loss of time and be sentenced by scale. It is time that some provision was made to have the police court made less a police court and more a court of justice. There is far too much police about it for the public interest. Anybody may attend, but few do so; and the proceedings might for all practical purposes be conducted in private, so far as the towns are concerned. The cases are seldom reported, and when the newspapers do notice the proceedings it is usually in a jocular way; but they are no joke to the persons concerned. A sensational murder is detailed and canvassed as though the only matter of importance to the country was the hanging of the wretch who has got into the limelight. Every hysterical theorist is anxious to get his opinion of the proper way to treat criminals put before the public; and all the time we are busily engaged in putting into our machine young and old who have taken the first step downwards, and congratulating ourselves on the smoothness with which it works. It is not cruelty that causes us to behave in this way, but sheer stupidity and lack of imagination. Now and then a man who has eyes to see gets made a Bailie, but he makes a poor police judge. Those who look upon themselves and are credited by others with the heaven-born instinct are as likely to be the men whom no one would trust to be a judge in his own cause; and it is quite possible for a man who is narrow-minded, vindictive, and callous to have the fate of his poorer fellow-citizens placed in his hands, and, because he likes the work, to continue on the bench long after his term as a Bailie has expired. If it is important to deal with wrongdoing in the beginning; if it is desirable to prevent people from being sent to prison when that can be avoided; it is obvious that we must see that our minor courts are so arranged and so officered that those who come before them have at least as good a chance of having their cases weighed as the old hands who go to the higher Courts get there. The Sheriff may sit to try cases summarily, just as the Bailie does; but the court is ordered differently. The Procurator-Fiscal has no connection with the police. The case is reported by them to him and he makes his own enquiries and may drop proceedings altogether. The Sheriff is an experienced lawyer and he sees that the prisoner's case is properly presented. The prisoner, if he wishes, may have a law-agent to appear on his behalf, and in jury cases it is the duty of the prison authorities to see that a lawyer has the defence in hand. In Scotland it has been the custom for all indicted prisoners who have not the means to pay for legal advice to receive competent legal representation. The Agents for the Poor give their services freely and ungrudgingly. They behave towards the poor person who is accused of crime in the same way as the hospital doctors do to the sick who present themselves. In the course of their work they have to devote considerable time to the cases of those whose defence is entrusted to them; and if the charge is one that brings the accused before the High Court they appear by counsel for him. No person appears in the dock of the High Courts in Scotland who has not a qualified member of the Bar to defend him; and the absence of financial means does not affect this privilege. This provision of legal advice and assistance is not made at the expense of the public, but at that of the profession; and it is of as much benefit in its own way as that made for the sick by the members of the medical profession. I have never seen young medical men work with more enthusiasm to pull a patient from the jaws of death than is shown by the lawyers in their efforts to snatch the accused poor person from the hands of the prosecution. In both cases the energy might be expended to better purpose; for sick persons are frequently restored to health only to become a greater nuisance to their neighbours, and some accused persons are acquitted and sent out to prey on society; but when all discount has been made there is left a great deal of good work that was well worth doing. With regard to the work of both doctor and lawyer, we may some day take steps to see that the persons restored to health do not use their powers to the disadvantage of society, and that those restored to liberty do not use their freedom to molest others. At present we take no account of them once they have ceased to be cases--to our disadvantage as well as to theirs--and no one recognises more clearly than the lawyer that he is sometimes engaged in the attempt to turn loose on society a man who has no intention of conforming to its laws. On the other hand, everyone who has taken part in the work knows that were it not for his action serious injustice would be likely to take place. If there were as full a provision made for the defence of prisoners who come before the Police Courts as exists for that of those who appear in the higher Courts, it would be alike to the advantage of the officials, the prisoners, and the public; but to ask that such a provision should be made at the sole cost of the legal profession is to ask too much. In special cases they have never been appealed to in vain; and they need to give more time to one case than would enable a medical man to attend twenty. Their services are not sufficiently appreciated and known by the general public, or it would be recognised that they have contributed to save many poor people from degradation and helped to prevent accessions to the ranks of the habitual offender. No one would propose that prisoners who are called before the higher Courts should be deprived of skilled advice and advocacy unless they are able to pay, and yet there is less need in these Courts than in the Police Courts for the provision that exists. When a prisoner has been remitted from a Police Court he is transferred in a van to prison, to await further proceedings. It has often been remarked that the various departments in Corporations seem to act independently of each other. The Sanitary Department acts energetically to prevent overcrowding in some circumstances, but the van used for conveying prisoners to prison seems to have escaped their notice. It is a prehistoric vehicle in the form of a bus without windows. It is divided into compartments each holding a number of prisoners, and the partitions contribute to prevent proper ventilation. It is lit by a few panes in the roof. On a hot day it is stifling. Any vehicle of the kind would never be licensed for the conveyance of ordinary passengers, animal or human, by a modern sanitary authority. The presiding judge in the Higher Courts is either a Sheriff or a Lord of Justiciary. The Sheriff has jurisdiction over a County and may sit both as judge and jury; that is to say, he may try cases summarily; but his Court differs materially, even when he is doing so, from that of the Burgh Magistrate. In the first place, more public attention is given to the proceedings, for the higher the Court the greater is the interest shown in its work. In small country burghs this rule may not hold good, for there the inhabitants know more of what is doing in their midst. They may be acquainted with police, judge, and offender, personally; and in that case are likely to take a lively interest in the proceedings, criticising freely all the parties and influencing powerfully the tone of the Court; but in a great city the Police Courts might as well be held anywhere for all the effective public supervision and informed criticism they receive. Then the police are not prosecutors in the Sheriff Summary Courts. The prosecution is conducted by a Procurator-Fiscal who is appointed by the Lord Advocate, and who holds his appointment for life and is not in any way under the authority of the police. The Sheriff is a man of experience in his profession, and is continually engaged in judicial work, mostly of a civil character. He is not merely or mainly engaged in dealing with criminals, and is not likely to acquire a subconscious prejudice against the defendant. The Lord Advocate is the head of the department concerned with prosecutions in Scotland, and no criminal action can be taken without his direction or concurrence. Private prosecutions at common law are practically unknown. His deputes act for him in the higher Courts and are instructed by the procurators-fiscal, who are solicitors and prosecute in the Sheriff Courts themselves. It is their duty to make enquiries into all charges with which the Police Courts are not competent to deal, and these enquiries are conducted privately. From the time a prisoner is passed on to them until he appears at the Court to plead or to be tried there are no public proceedings against him. He is brought into the Court at an early stage, the charge is read over to him, and he is asked to make a declaration. A law-agent is provided for his assistance, and he is told that anything he says by way of declaration may be used against him. The agent may advise him to say nothing and he usually does so, his declaration amounting simply to a denial of the charge. This is signed by him and read at his trial, usually closing the case for the Crown. While the declaration is being taken the public are excluded from the Court. If the Procurator-Fiscal considers that his enquiry does not justify further proceedings the charge is dropped, provided the Lord Advocate agrees; but if the authorities are satisfied there is a case for trial an indictment is served. In Scotland when a prisoner is indicted to appear before a jury court he must be served seventeen days before his trial with a copy of the indictment, containing the charge, a list of the productions against him, and a list of the witnesses to be called for the prosecution. Seven days thereafter he is brought before the Court to plead to the charge. If he plead guilty he may be dealt with there and then. If he plead not guilty his plea is recorded and he is sent back till the second diet of the court. If he intend to set up a special defence, such as insanity or an alibi, notice of such defence has to be given at the pleading diet; but the witnesses he intends to call need not be notified to the Crown until three days before the trial by jury. The prosecution cannot add any productions or any witnesses to the list furnished in the indictment; but if it is decided that additional witnesses are required the diet may be deserted and a new indictment served. In no case, however, can a prisoner be kept with a charge hanging over his head for more than one hundred and seventeen days from the date of his committal. After that time he is entitled to be liberated and no further proceedings on the charge can be taken against him at any time. The Crown usually makes careful enquiries in the public interest when any special plea of insanity is brought forward; and if satisfied that the plea is a valid one, has provided, at the public expense, expert testimony to that effect on behalf of the prisoner. The greatest care has been taken to ensure that prisoners brought before the higher Courts do not suffer from lack of means, and there is never any disposition on the part of the prosecutor to make it a point of honour that he should obtain a conviction. There is no speech by the prosecutor in opening his case. So far as the Court is concerned the jury start without any bias against the prisoner, and as the evidence is led they gain their knowledge of the case. In most cases the prosecutor does not address the jury at all. He contents himself with leading evidence. The character of the prisoner is not disclosed to the jury until after their verdict has been returned. If during the trial any reference is initiated by the prosecution as to previous convictions, the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal upon the charge against him. The point the jury has to determine is whether the person committed the crime charged, and they have to find their verdict simply on the evidence led. The Scottish jury consists of fifteen men, and the verdict of a majority is required. They may decline on the evidence to express an opinion on the prisoner's guilt, but instead may find the charge not proven. This is the most practical provision for giving a prisoner the benefit of any doubt that exists in their minds after hearing the evidence. Whatever the verdict may be, the prisoner, having been once tried, cannot again be charged with the same offence. It is difficult to conceive any system under which a prisoner charged with crime could be more fairly treated; and if in the minor Courts offenders received the same consideration, the number sent to prison would be greatly diminished and the ranks of the habitual offender would fail to receive so many recruits. CHAPTER II THE PRISON SYSTEM Centralisation--The constitution of the Prison Commission-- Parliamentary control--The Commissioners--The rules--The visiting committee--The governor and the matron--The chaplain--The medical officer--The staff. Before the year 1877 all the Scottish prisons, with the exception of the Penitentiary at Perth, were under the control and management of the local authorities. One result was that there were many standards of treatment, and Parliament decided that as the prevailing methods were unsatisfactory the treatment of prisoners and the management of prisons should be vested in a central Board. The changes made by the Prison Commission have been many, and the prison of to-day is widely different from that of forty years ago; but before attributing all improvements to the new system it is fair to take into account the progress made in local administration during that time. The true comparison is not between the prison of forty years ago and that of to-day, but between the prison and the local institutions of to-day. Central management is likely to result in uniformity of routine and treatment in all prisons; but it is questionable whether that is a gain. It may tend to more economical administration if the test is one of expenditure of money, but it makes experiment in the way of reform very difficult. Not only are no two men alike, but no two districts are alike; and methods of dealing with people belonging to one part of Scotland are not necessarily the best to apply to the inhabitants of another part. It is not a good thing to bring prisoners from outlying districts to centres; there is always a danger of their remaining there after their liberation and obtaining introductions that will not be likely to help them except in the way of wrongdoing. The large institution may cost less money, but it can never have such intimate supervision as the small one. The Prison Commission for Scotland consists of two ex-officio and two paid members. The ex-officio members are the Crown Agent and the Sheriff of Perthshire. The Crown Agent goes out with the Government of the day, but he is not usually a Member of Parliament. The Sheriff of Perthshire in virtue of his office had a place on the board which managed the old Penitentiary at Perth; that is probably the reason why he is a Commissioner of Prisons under the Act of 1877. It is certainly not because Perthshire is a county which contributes many criminals from its Courts to the prison population. There are thus two lawyers on the Board, one being a judge and the other being the solicitor in whose office public prosecutions are directed. The other Commissioners are permanent civil servants, appointed by the Secretary for Scotland. At first there were also two Inspectors who gave their whole time to the work of visiting the various prisons and reporting on their condition and management to the Secretary of State, but in process of time there has been a change, and now the Secretary of the Commission is the only Inspector. The Commissioners themselves visit the prisons and inspect them; but as they are responsible for the management, the arrangement is open to the criticism that they report on their own work, without independent inspection. The Secretary of State is the head of the Board, and is responsible to Parliament for the work of the department; but his sole means of knowing that work is the reports he receives from the Commission. Whether on all boards Members of Parliament should not have a place and power, just as members of a town council form the supervising authority over the work of its departments, is a question that will bear discussion. At present the Member of Parliament can only make himself a nuisance by asking questions; that is what it amounts to, since no matter what the answer may be, it leaves him very much where he was. He is usually as ignorant at the end as he was when he began. Some aggrieved constituent having more faith than knowledge has made an _ex-parte_ statement to his representative, who puts a question to the Minister, who passes it on to the department concerned, which transmits to him the answer given by the person complained of, which shows that there is no ground for the complaint. It may be uncomfortable for someone, but it is not business. If the complaints are too frequent or the complainers too influential to be disregarded, the Minister forms a committee of enquiry which turns things up for a time, censures somebody who is too small to cause trouble, makes a few apologetic suggestions for alterations, white-washes with liberality those who most need it, and presents another report for the waste-paper basket. Spasmodic enquiries can never make up for systematic neglect, and their effect is seldom to cause as much improvement as irritation. The danger to the public service is not from corruption, but from the official mind getting out of touch with the spirit of the time and the needs of the public. Rules for the government of prisons are laid down by the Secretary for Scotland, and these rules become statutory after they have been laid on the table of the House of Commons for a period. They define the duties of the various officials, lay down regulations for the treatment of the prisoners, and deal in detail with the management of the prisons. The Commissioners have the whole control in their hands, subject to the rules. They appoint all the inferior officers; transfer and promote them; or dismiss them if their conduct is unsatisfactory. They do not appoint the superior officers, but it is to be expected that their advice will be considered by the Secretary of State, with whom the nominations lie. As a Commissioner cannot be in more than one place at a time, they cannot be expected to have any intimate knowledge of the capability of the men who depend for promotion on them; and their task in this matter alone is no easy one. As for knowledge of the prisoners at first hand, that is impossible; for prisoners are as hard to know as other people, and one person cannot know much of another as the result of an occasional short conversation. If they were liable to err they could not be criticised effectively; for any official who might be in a position to criticise would run the risk of not being in that position long; any prisoner might be looked upon as a prejudiced person; and no member of the public is able to offer criticism, for he does not know the facts. This is an unfortunate state of affairs; for even the ablest minds are the better for being brought in conflict with others and in contact with other ideas, and a system that discourages independent thought is not likely to lead to rapid progress. It has its advantages, however, for a knowledge of the rules and a habit of always carrying them out ensure to the prisoner, peace, and to the officer a good reputation and better prospects than he could ever hope for if he were foolish enough to set his brains to work. In a private business, when a man gets a position, he cannot hold it unless by exercising his judgment in such a way as to satisfy his employer that he is worth his salt; when he fails in this he is liable to dismissal. In the public service the case is different. There is no question of bankruptcy for one thing, and there is security of tenure for another. You cannot depend on always having men of ability in the posts, but by the aid of rules you can teach a person of moderate talent to get through his work. To disregard the rules may be justifiable in a given case and so far as that case is concerned, but it is liable to knock the whole machine out of gear. There are many able men in all branches of the civil service, and the fact is often referred to by Cabinet Ministers amid loud cheers from the public; but they recognise the need for routine and follow it. They would otherwise have less time for literary work, in which they can use their original powers to greater advantage. The public departments have produced more poets, novelists, critics, and playwrights than any other large businesses, as, for instance, the railways or the engineering trades. These also employ talented men, but their talents are deflected to business channels. If they had their work laid down for them in rules and regulations they also might add to the gaiety of nations. Commissioners are always appointed from among men in a good position whose minds have not been warped by any previous association with prisons. They can thus approach their duties without prejudice; and officials and prisoners alike have the satisfaction of knowing that they are in the hands of gentlemen. Each prison has its visiting committee, consisting of members nominated by various local authorities with the addition of ladies nominated by the Secretary of State. Under the rules for prisons it has considerable powers of criticism, but they are not much used. In Glasgow the committee meets once a year, when its members arrange to visit the prison in pairs once monthly. In practice this means that each member spends in the prison two or three hours on an average every year. How much the members can learn about the work of the prison in that time may be surmised. They go round the place and ask each prisoner if he has any complaints, and they seldom receive any. They see that the place and its inmates are kept clean; that the food is good; that the sick are being attended to; and they may hear a complaint of breach of discipline and award a punishment therefor occasionally. They record their visits and make any suggestion that may occur to them. They may communicate direct with the Secretary of State if they choose. They might perform a very useful part in the management of the prison if their powers were used to the full extent and their meetings were more frequent. They have no power to incur expenditure, but without doing so it is quite conceivable that by inviting the officials to explain matters and to direct their attention to special cases they might do a great deal to suggest improvements, with a view to prevent certain people from being sent to prison and to provide for others on their release. They have the power to allow or to refuse certain privileges to untried prisoners. They are all agreed that the prison is an admirably managed institution, as free from faults as any place could be; but whether they have ever got the length of asking themselves what is the use of it is doubtful. It is clean--as it well may be; it is orderly--which causes no surprise, although its inmates are there because they "cannot behave themselves"; there are no complaints, and at the end of a visit they know as much of the inmates as they might learn of natural history by a walk round the Zoo. They might conceivably be set to find out on behalf of the local authorities they represent why the prisoners are there and why so many of them return; whether it is not time we were seeking other means of dealing with them, and what means; whether nothing more and nothing else can be done than is done at present to help them on their liberation. The Commissioners have enough to do; and in the nature of things they are not so well qualified to deal with these subjects as the local authorities, for they cannot come so intimately in touch with local conditions. But the members of the visiting committees are usually busy men on the local Councils and have little time to spend on prison affairs, which may be a very good reason for the Councils nominating others who could find the time. So long as they merely see that the prisoner is not being ill-used outwith the rules, they are only looking after the interest of prisoners and public in a partial way. When they begin to examine matters from the standpoint of the public welfare--when they realise that the treatment of the criminal is as much a matter of public health as the treatment of the sick, and that it is to the interest of the community that it should be undertaken in such a way as to lead to his reformation--it will be better for everybody, including the prisoner. I can imagine local committees making discoveries for themselves with regard to the causation of crime that would influence powerfully their whole administration; bringing pressure to bear within the law where it is most required and relieving pressure where it is harmful; using the powers they have, instead of lamenting the want of power which there is no evidence they could use if it were given them; but it needs a beginning. Each prison is in charge of a Governor who is in daily communication with the office in Edinburgh. He visits the prisoners once daily and hears any complaints by them or regarding them. He has the power to impose certain punishments for offences against discipline, but if they involve a decrease of diet they must be confirmed by the Medical Officer, who may refuse to allow them on medical grounds. He is responsible for the carrying out of the rules and his discretionary power is very small. No qualification has been laid down for the position, and this leaves the Secretary of State free to appoint anybody whom he considers most likely to perform the duties satisfactorily, and prevents the post becoming a preserve for the members of any profession. In Scotland military men have been appointed, and members of the clerical staff and warders have been promoted to governorships, but no professional man has ever been placed in such an important position. When the Governor is absent or on leave his place is taken by the head warder, who performs the duties of this important office in addition to his own. Where there are a sufficient number of female prisoners there is a Matron in charge of them, who visits them in the same way as the Governor does the males and discharges similar duties towards them. The Prison Chaplain must be an ordained minister, and in the larger prisons he holds services weekly and conducts prayers daily. He visits the prisoners in their cells and administers spiritual consolation and advice; and he does what he can to help them on their liberation. Prisoners who are Roman Catholics and those who are Episcopalians are visited by clergymen of those Churches in a similar way. The Medical Officer must be a registered practitioner, and it is his duty to look after the health of the staff and of the prisoners. Of all the officials he has the freest hand, for it has not so far been practicable to direct the treatment of the sick from a central office; but his very freedom--such as it is--may lead him into trouble should he pay regard to differences of temperament among prisoners and go beyond a consideration of merely physical signs. If he confine his energies to carrying out the rules he need never fear death from work or worry. He may hope to become a highly respectable fossil and have a place in the esteem of everyone to whom he has caused no trouble. He can do much to help prisoners, not by indulging them, but by humanising the place to some extent and setting the tone. He need not be a better man than his colleagues, but he is less a part of the working machine, and that should make a difference in his attitude. He is not concerned with discipline, for the sick are free of it, so that in a sense it is his business to interfere with discipline. His work is to do the prisoners good in a way they can understand; and he has even an advantage over the Chaplain, whom they also recognise as a humanising influence, for men are usually a good deal more anxious about their bodies than about their souls. The Governor may be a better man than either the Doctor or the Chaplain, but his position as the head of a system that the prisoners do not regard as directed to their aid handicaps his influence on them. At one time the clerical staff of the prisons was composed of clerks, but now men who join as warders are promoted to clerkships, serving part of the day in the prison and part in the office. All applicants for warderships have to pass a series of examinations and to serve on probation for twelve months before being finally admitted to the service. A rigid enquiry is made as to their antecedents; their health forms the subject of a careful enquiry; and they have to pass an examination in general education. After all this they receive a salary which is not large, to put it mildly. It is a steady job, and therefore sought after by those who prefer to take a small salary with security of tenure to risking the rough-and-tumble of industrial life. Female warders are paid better than men, as women's wages go. Compared with the work done by them in other institutions they are well off, but there is not a rush for vacancies. Both male and female warders in Scottish prisons will compare favourably with any other body of officials; and the prevailing spirit shown by them towards prisoners is kindly and human. CHAPTER III THE PRISON AND ITS ROUTINE Reception of the prisoner--Cleanliness and order--The plan of the prison--The cells--Their furniture--The diet--The clothing--Work--The workshops--Separate confinement and association--Gratuities--Prison offences--Complaints--Punishment cells--Visits of the chaplain--Visits of representatives of the Churches--The gulf between visitor and visited--The Chapel--The Salvation Army--Rest--Recreation--The prison library--Lectures--The airing-yard--Physical drill. Once prisoners are within the prison their condition is much more comfortable than it had been when they were under the charge of the policeman. When they leave the van their identity is checked and the warrants for their detention are inspected. They are then passed into the reception-room and are placed each in a separate box. They are taken one by one and questioned as to certain details that are noted for purposes of identification and for statistical records. Then comes the bath. The prisoner removes all his clothing and an inventory of it is taken. When he leaves the bath his own clothing has been replaced by a dress provided by the State. His clothing is disinfected and placed aside in a bundle, against the time of his liberation. He now receives a copy of the prison rules, which he must obey; a Bible, which he may study; a hymn-book; an industry-card, on which his earnings will be noted; and some other articles; and he is passed on to prison. His life there is one of monotonous routine whether his sentence be short or long. The prison surprises visitors by its quiet and by the conspicuous cleanliness which is its characteristic feature. Yet it is not surprising that people should be able to keep the place clean and tidy, when they have little else to do and no opportunity for making it dirty and untidy. The cleanliness and tidiness of a prison is different from that of any household. It is not the cleanliness and tidiness of healthy life. It is part of the prisoner's work to keep his cell and its furniture in order. One thing visitors cannot miss seeing, yet do not observe, though it is of much more significance than the cleanliness they admire: the good temper and tractability of the prisoners. That a prisoner should be clean is wonderful; that people who have been committing breaches of the peace, assaults, thefts, and have been generally a nuisance or a terror to the public, should be moving about at work or at exercises quietly and peaceably, should be so obedient and tractable that one warder can look after twenty of them and seldom have anything to report to their discredit, is far more wonderful. These people are sent to prison because they cannot obey the law, but while in prison they are not rebellious; so that it is reasonable to infer that there has been something in the conditions of their life outside which has led them into misconduct, and not that they are inherently incapable of behaving themselves. The modern prison is built on a simple plan. Roughly it may be described as two blocks of cells joined by a gable at each end and roofed over; a well being left between the blocks and lighted from the roof. All the cells have windows in the outer, and doors in the inner, walls. Balconies run round these inner walls, from which access is had to the cells in each flat. The cells in which the prisoners are confined are apartments measuring about 10 ft. by 7 ft. by 10 ft. high. The partitions and roofs of the cells are of whitewashed brickwork, and the floor of stone and asphalt. Each cell has a little window in the wall near the door glazed with obscured glass, and on the outside of these windows a gas bracket is placed. At night the cell is lit by this arrangement, which diminishes the amount of light and fixes its source in a corner. It is designed to prevent any person from attempting suicide by inhalation of gas; but in institutions where attempts at suicide are more likely to take place other means have been found to prevent the adoption of this method. It ensures that one hundred thousand people are inconvenienced in order that one may be prevented from ending his discomfort. There are other ways of breaking a walnut than crushing it with a steam-hammer. A prison cell does not contain much furniture. The bed is a wooden shutter hinged to the wall, so that it can be folded up during the day-time. When not in use the bedding is rolled together and placed in a corner of the apartment. Convicted male prisoners who are under sixty years of age are not allowed a mattress during the first thirty days of their imprisonment; they just lie on the board. I do not suppose that anybody imagines that a man is more likely to lead a new life if he is made to sleep on a bare board, than he would be if he were allowed a mattress. It is intended to hurt, and it will hurt the more sensitive in a greater degree than those of a coarser constitution. It is a part of the system, and will go with it when people wake up to the fact that it is a senseless thing to set about to irritate and annoy others. Of late years it has been discovered that prisoners were as little likely to escape if their cells were well lit as they would be their cells being ill lit. The windows have consequently been enlarged and nobody has been the loser. The cell at the best is not a place to inspire cheerfulness, but an effort has been made to make the place less bare. Some years ago a six-inch circle of glass was attached to the wall in many cells. The glass was of that variety that distorts everything seen through it when it is used for windows, and when it is silvered and converted into a mirror the effect is peculiar. The walls of some of the cells are decorated with a chromolithograph, such as is given to customers as a calendar by many shopkeepers at the New Year time. The mirror and the print, bad work and bad art though they may be, relieve the bare, ugly walls of the cells, and indicate a consciousness that the present system is not quite so perfect as it might be. Whether any such mitigations (if it can always be called a mitigation to see your face twisted out of shape and to gaze upon a sentimental chromo) are worthy of the fuss made about them is another matter, for the main question is not whether imprisonment should be mitigated, but--what is its object? In Scotland the diet prescribed is a very simple one. In quantity it is ample for the needs of the great majority of the prisoners. Indeed, a fair proportion receive more than they are fit to consume. The medical officer may reduce a diet to prevent waste; or he may increase a diet, if in his view the prisoner requires more food. As I believe that nearly every man knows his own needs a great deal better than the diet specialist, a request from a prisoner for more food is never refused provided he is consuming all he gets. A request for a change of food is quite another thing; but a man who for gluttony would gorge himself with the diet provided for prisoners would be a curiosity. The food is excellent in quality, but there is not much variety. There are three meals daily. Porridge and sour milk with bread form the morning and evening meals, and the dinner usually consists of broth and bread. This is the ordinary routine diet, and one can understand that after a time it is not unnatural there should be longings for a change. It is a simple diet and is sufficient. The death-rate in prisons is small. The improvement in the health of broken-down and habitually debauched persons during their term of imprisonment is marked, and there can be no doubt that the regimen saves many of them from death and prolongs their lives. In these days the benefits of sour milk have been preached by the scientific man, and the culture of the lactic-acid bacillus has become a recognised industry. In the Scottish prisons the inmates have had the advantage of its beneficent operations for many years, though they did not know its name and would have been glad to have seen sweet milk rather than sour. The state of their health forms a strong argument for the advocates of the simple life, yet most of them would choose greater variety in food, though they should die a few years earlier. The clothing of prisoners, as regards cutting and material, resembles nothing seen outside. The untried male is officially clothed in brown corduroy, and when convicted he exchanges this for white mole-skin. The surface of the cloth used to be decorated with broad-arrows, so that the prisoner looked like a person in a prehistoric dress over which some gigantic hen had walked after puddling in printer's ink; but this has been discontinued. The cut of the clothing seems to be designed to save cloth, and so long as the prisoner is kept warm he does not concern himself about the unfashionable character of his clothes. As for the women's dress, being a mere man I cannot describe it; but ladies who visit the prison seem to be agreed that it is plain and neat. It is certainly strikingly different from anything they wear. It is a rule that all convicted prisoners shall wear prison clothes. There are not very many of them whose own clothing is clean enough for them to wear, and not a few are more ragged than they need be. Whether they would not be better employed in cleaning and mending their own clothes than in doing many of the things they are required to do is a question that might be considered. It certainly does not seem reasonable that because a person has offended we should thrust upon him our hospitality to the extent of causing him to use clothing provided by us, if he has clothing of his own that he can decently wear. His own clothing has been placed aside while under our care, and at the expiry of his sentence it may be handed back to him as it was taken from him, excepting for the creases it has acquired in the interval. It would cost more trouble to the officials to set prisoners to improve their own appearance than to set them to break stones, and yet it might not be a bad thing to do nothing for a man, not even to provide him with clothing, if he can do it for himself.[2] [2] _The Rules for Prisons in Scotland_, 1854, ordain that the Matron "should ascertain how far those prisoners who are committed for considerable periods are deficient in a knowledge of domestic matters, such as cooking, washing, and repairing clothes, and instruct them in these things. She should encourage prisoners, in their spare time, to put their own clothes into a good state of repair before they leave the Prison, and in some cases to make new clothes for themselves. And, lastly, she should learn what their prospects are on leaving prison; and with the aid of the Governor and Chaplain, do what she can to procure suitable situations for them." This rule is omitted from the edition of 1875, and subsequently; but it is greatly in advance of anything that has been substituted for it. When prisoners' sentences exceed a certain term their own clothing is washed, and at the end of their imprisonment it is restored to them clean. This teaches them that if they do not keep their clothing clean it will be cleaned for them. At any rate, it does not teach them to do the necessary work themselves; but then it is much easier to do things for some people than to teach them to do these things for themselves. The work provided for prisoners varies in kind in different districts, but it has one common characteristic, which is that few could earn a living by it outside. It has been said by those who ought to know better that the prisons cannot undertake anything but the lowest kinds of unskilled labour, because of the objections made by trade unions. These societies are no more infallible in their wisdom than their critics, but they do not adopt the foolish attitude attributed to them. Like employers of labour, they have objected to unfair competition on the part of prisons, and quite properly have taken steps to prevent underselling on the part of the authorities. Prisons are not self-supporting institutions, and, in the nature of things as they exist, cannot be made to defray the expenditure incurred in their upkeep. Most prisoners could quite well earn the cost of their food and clothing; but the cost of their supervision is greatly in excess of the cost of their board. It does not take much to keep a prisoner, but it takes a good deal to keep me and my colleagues, and that is a necessary part of the expenditure incurred on behalf of the institution. The prison accounts, as published, show a profit in some departments of prison labour, but this is arrived at by the ingenuous way of leaving out everything but the cost of material and (if the work is not for an outside customer) so much an hour for every prisoner engaged at it. If a manufacturer had only these items to consider there would be fewer bankrupts and more wealthy men; and if the price of goods were determined on an estimate of cost which only included these items plus a reasonable profit, it is quite clear that prison labour could undersell free labour. The trade unions and the private employers have simply insisted on prison-made goods being sold at prices which will not cut the market rate. Prison labour is never so efficient as free labour, and though the employment of prisoners to do prison work may be justified on other grounds, it cannot be defended on an economic basis. It has often been suggested that tradesmen who have been convicted should be allowed to work at their trades while undergoing imprisonment; thereby they would be kept in practice, and would be less unfitted to resume their ordinary occupation on the expiry of their sentence; but a little consideration of the facts will show that however desirable this might be it is not practicable. In prison at any one time there may be a number of tradesmen, but their occupations are very different; and in many cases they are of such a character that even if work for them could be had it could not be undertaken owing to the fact that expensive machinery would require to be installed. Even where the work is of such a kind that it could be done in prison it cannot be obtained for other reasons. In Glasgow prison, where there are more women than men incarcerated, a laundry was started some years ago, and customers were invited to send in their washing to be done at ordinary outside rates. The washing is done by hand and no modern laundry machine is employed. The result is that the articles cleaned are not subjected to the same strain, and are likely to last longer. Before long difficulties arose, and it became perfectly clear that these were not due to any action on the part of outside laundries, with which the prison was competing, but to inherent defects in the prison laundry. No business will be successful for long unless it keeps faith with its customers, who require to have their work done and delivered in proper condition within a fixed period. Sometimes there are skilled laundresses among the prisoners, and at other times there are not. Washing may be a very simple process, not requiring much training (although a great many occupations are considered, by those who do not undertake them, to be quite easy, but are difficult to those who try them for the first time), but it requires some skill to starch and iron clothing in a satisfactory way. Customers found this out for themselves. Work of that kind, and it seems a simple kind, is difficult to get, not because competing firms outside put obstacles in the way, but because the customer has no guarantee that he will have it done regularly to his satisfaction. The workshops vary in kind in different prisons, but they have the common character of differing from any workshop outside a prison. The ability and experience possessed by the managers of prisons are not the same kind as those present in managers of workshops outside. The training has been quite different. The outside man may be very proud of his working arrangements, but if his balance-sheet is unsatisfactory his pride is effectively checked. There is no such check to the satisfaction of those who manage prisons. When one remembers that they are the sole authorised critics of their own work, it is not surprising that its character should differ from that produced by industrial concerns outside. As a general rule prisoners are engaged at unskilled labour. Some of them are associated at work, but always under the supervision of an officer, who sees that they do not engage in conversation with each other. Public attention has been directed to the cruelty of solitary confinement, and nothing that has been said or written on the subject could be too strong in its condemnation. The term "Solitary Confinement" is generally objected to and that of "Separate Confinement" substituted for it; but the public need not concern itself with differences which are merely technical. The practice of rigidly enforcing silence and attempting to prevent any but the merest official interviews or associations between a prisoner and others will do as much serious harm under whatever name it is called. Experience has shown that the association of prisoners with each other in the absence of strict supervision may result in general corruption, but rational efforts to prevent this evil can be made without the risk of inducing a greater. It is against the rules for prisoners to engage in conversation with one another; and the officers are not in a position to talk much to them except on business, even if they had the inclination to do so. Prisoners may not be the most suitable company for each other; but, in the case of most of them, to shut one in to no company but himself can only result in his mental deterioration, and there can be no doubt that some have been driven towards insanity through this treatment. It is not an uncommon characteristic of old convicts that they show delusions of suspicion and of persecution, and this is not to be wondered at when one considers the narrowness of their life in prison, and the undue importance that is apt to be placed on little things by a man who is denied rational intercourse with others and whose natural curiosity is repressed. The more monotonous his life, the more his mind is compelled to dwell on the trivial incidents that are happening around him; the more he is shut in to himself, the greater the tendency for him to become twisted mentally. The fresher and more varied his interest is kept in things outside of himself the better for him and for others. The tendency of late years has all been towards a less rigid application of the rules which are designed to enforce silence, and there is now more reasonable association of prisoners than ever there has been, and less tendency when they are associated for their attention to be strained in an effort to watch at the same time their work and the warder who is supervising it. When they are under supervision by a sensible person there is very little danger of their doing or saying things that would be harmful; and as at night they are all in separate cells, the corruption that sometimes takes place in institutions where the dormitory system is in use is not possible. Amongst prisoners in Glasgow there has never in my experience been any chance for the development of a brooding, suspicious, unhealthy habit. The fact that so many untried prisoners are detained there, necessarily under conditions more favourable than the convicted, has made the place one in which the life is more varied and in which rules could be less readily enforced than in some other establishments. There have been more occurrences taking place under the prisoners' eyes, and they have had more to interest them. A good deal of the work is done in association, and that which is done in the cells is usually engaged in by prisoners who are detained for short terms; but even in their case they are not left alone for long periods. Visits to them are frequent for one purpose or another, and there is no attempt made to harass or drive them. Still, at the best, the life is not a healthy one from the mental standpoint. Work and good conduct are rewarded by marks. Prisoners whose sentence exceeds fourteen days, and who are not on hard labour, may earn four marks per day. For every six marks earned one penny is allowed as a gratuity to the prisoner at the expiry of his sentence, and this may be paid to him on his discharge, or he may receive it through one or other of the Aid Societies after his liberation. Hard-labour prisoners may receive a gratuity of one shilling a month if their conduct and work have been satisfactory. The Governor sees each prisoner daily in order to hear any complaint that may arise, either on the part of the prisoner or of the warder; but the visit otherwise is a formal one, as visits of inspection usually are. If the prisoner has a complaint or a request to make it is examined or attended to. Should there be a complaint against the prisoner the parties are heard and judgment is given. There are numerous acts which are offences in prison, and the governor has power in minor cases to deal with them and to award punishment at his discretion; but in no case involving a change of diet or the infliction of any physical discomfort can the punishment be carried out until the prisoner is certified by the Medical Officer to be fit to stand it. The prisoner may offend in a great variety of ways, as through carelessness breaking a dish; through idleness failing to perform his task; through untidiness keeping his cell in an unsatisfactory condition; he may be insolent and insubordinate towards the officers; or he may be convicted of speaking to another prisoner or of making unauthorised communications. The offences for the most part are trifling in character and would not be offences outside the prison, but if the system is to be maintained the offenders must be dealt with. In more serious cases the offender is tried by a member of the Visiting Committee of the prison or by a Prison Commissioner. In some cases the conclusion cannot be escaped that offences are due more to an incompatibility of temperament between the prisoner and those over him than to anything else. A prisoner may behave and work well when under the supervision of one officer, and may do badly when under the care of another. Some people can manage those under them better than others; but not infrequently the prisoner is neither a malicious person nor the warder a stupid person, and yet they cannot get on together. The obvious thing to do is to separate them; the easy thing to do is to punish the prisoner. Sometimes assaults are made on warders by prisoners. In sixteen years' experience I have seen very few, and the assailants were usually half-witted creatures who had conceived a dislike, which did not seem to be founded on any tangible reason, against the person assailed. In my opinion these cases should never be tried in prison. Offences committed in prison which would be cognisable by the criminal authorities if committed outside should be tried in an open Court. I do not suggest that the prisoner would be treated unjustly if tried in prison, but it cannot be denied that the atmosphere is not favourable to his receiving the impression that he is getting what he would call "a fair show"; and the trial of a man before a Court consisting of those interested in the management of prisons, on the complaint of a prison official, and without the presence of any members of the general public, is not calculated to inspire confidence. Prisoners are at liberty to make any complaint to the Prison Commissioners in writing, and the governor is obliged to forward it; or they may communicate direct with the Secretary for Scotland without the writing being seen by the prison officials. Such complaints may be referred to those complained against for answer, and if the result is not satisfactory a special enquiry may take place. Each prison has its punishment cells--places for the incarceration of unruly prisoners. Under rational management there is no use for them except temporarily, and then only to prevent the prisoner from injuring himself or others, or from annoying other prisoners by noise, in a fit of temper suggestive of insanity. It is one of the Chaplain's duties to visit the prisoners, and although it is intended that he should minister to them spiritual consolation, that term may mean anything in practice. A man, whether a clergyman or not, who puts himself in a position of censor of morals to his fellows, is not regarded by them with any degree of affection or respect, unless he does not stop there. Few people like to be talked down to, whether they are in prison or out of it. A superior attitude adopted towards some is more likely to draw out their evil qualities, and to excite them to bad temper and wrath, than to help them. I do not think Prison Chaplains in Scotland, whether belonging to one denomination or another, are given to the practice of assuming that with those whom they address necessarily lies all the blame for their position. There is more a disposition to pity than to blame, although an attitude of pity is sometimes a greater insult than one of censure and may irritate as deeply. There has been a growing disposition to say kind things to and of prisoners. We may believe that more can be done by the kind look than by the harsh word, and lose sight of the fact that pity and sympathy are two quite different things. The fact of the matter is that nobody is able to assess justly the amount of blame to be attached to a man for his misdeeds, and the amount to be placed to the discredit of society; but in few cases is anyone helped by being encouraged to believe that he is free from blame, that he could not do any better than he has done. Prisoners are not different from others in their tendency to put the best construction on their own behaviour. An astonishing number are in jail because they had bad neighbours. According to their statements, they could get along all right if it were not for the people next door. It may be quite true to some extent, but they are not to be helped in mending their own conduct by attention to the faults of their neighbours. I do not suggest that this attitude on their part, this disposition to prove how comparatively stainless they are and how objectionable are those with whom they have been brought in contact, is due to the ministrations of the clergy, but merely that it affects their estimate of the ministers of religion. The attitude of the prisoner towards the minister is one thing; his attitude towards the doctor, for instance, is quite another. The Chaplain desires to be regarded as a friend of the prisoner, and that by many he is so regarded there can be no doubt; but unfortunately, with some of them, they seem to measure friendship by their ability to humbug the friend, and the value of the clergyman by what they can put into him which may tell in their favour when he estimates their character, and by what they can get out of him in the way of material help. The Chaplain is sometimes swindled, but so are we all; his office and his message make him a mark for the shafts of the wicked. He sees one side of the prisoner better than any other official, and if he has counterfeit penitents he has also real ones. His visits may be a source of encouragement and strength to the prisoner; but whatever spiritual effect his teaching may have--whether it be great or little--if he has a human interest in those he visits, in so far as his character commands respect his ministrations tend to prevent the prisoner from sinking under the monotony of the discipline to which he is subjected. Representatives of various religious agencies visit prisoners. They are remarkable for their earnestness and zeal, but there is often a fatal difference of standpoint between visitor and visited. A girl brought up in a slum, seeing and hearing sights and sounds which are an outrage on decency; working for long hours to earn a scanty living; housed rather worse than many horses and dogs; ill-taught and ill-cared for; has transgressed the law and been sent to prison. She knows she is to blame for doing the thing she has done in the way she has done it, but she and those like her regard her imprisonment as in some degree an accident. It is difficult to describe the standpoint. In a busy street where there is a constant stream of horses and mechanical traffic going in different directions and at different rates of speed, there is always danger to the passenger who seeks to cross; and occasionally someone is run down and hurt. The injured party is always to blame to some extent, and is hurt because he has failed to estimate the danger accurately and to avoid it successfully; but others may be to blame also. The fault is never wholly on one side. To the girl the law resembles the traffic in the street; and when she is knocked down she and her friends regard her as the victim of misfortune. That is not the standpoint of the visitor. She may have known nothing of the trials and temptations of the poor, save what she has seen from the outside. Hunger has never been her attendant; poverty has been unknown to her. She has received attention and care in her early days; has not been tasked beyond her strength; has been able to choose her own work and do it in her own time; has been well housed and well fed; and has found it easy to obey the law. Between the two a great gulf is fixed. Their outlook is as different as their experience. It is a great mistake to assume that the rich know more of the poor than the poor know of the rich. The street-corner spouter may denounce the luxury of the wealthy and expose himself to their ridicule. They know that they are not as he paints them, and they laugh or sneer at his ignorance; but they are as little qualified to judge him as he is to judge them. Each sees the other's vices; and every visitor is as much a subject of criticism by the prisoner as a critic. It is as unreasonable to expect that a woman in prison will give her confidence to a stranger who visits her, as it would be for the prisoner to expect that the visitor would submit to her questions. One thing is absolutely certain, and that is that visitors do not do the good they imagine they are doing when they pass from one cell to another exhorting the prisoners to better behaviour. They stir up the emotions of those to whom they minister, and some of the women find great consolation and relief in a good cry. There are those, however, who have learned to distrust the possibility of wholesale reform of prisoners, and who single out some one whom it seems possible to help and hang on to her, visit and encourage her on her liberation, and have their reward in the consciousness that they have really rendered effective assistance where it was needed. The ideal held up by the visitors in their advice to prisoners too often seems impossible of attainment by those to whom it is presented. There are some who have no ambition to live within the law, but there are many who would rather do so if they could. Most of us have not in us the capacity to become great saints; and to ask the ordinary person to conform to a standard which would present difficulties to us, does not seem reasonable. Something is gained if, though you fail to persuade a person to be good, you can induce him to be better than he has been. Just as many have drifted into evil courses step by step, they may be led into a better way of living by degrees. Sudden conversions are not uncommon, but they are not the rule. The visits to prisoners on the part of people from outside are of great benefit; anything is that breaks the monotony of the day; and if the visitors are receptive they may learn a good deal from the prisoners, and may be made the better for their visit even though they fail to make the impression they desire on those to whom they have spoken. There are three forms of religion recognised in prison: the Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Episcopalian. A service is held once a week by a clergyman of each of these Churches, and the Presbyterians go out to prayers daily. The chapel has a more or less ecclesiastical appearance, and is divided in such a way that the male and the female prisoners do not see each other, though the preacher can see both divisions. Most of the prisoners do not attend religious services when they are at liberty, but some make an ingenious distinction between religion and conduct. I remember one old woman who had grown grey and almost blind after a long course of vicious and criminal conduct. She was eloquent regarding a person whom she described as being "nae better than an infidel." I replied that "at least he had kept out of prison," and she replied, "Aye; but though I have been a drunkard, a blackguard, and a thief, thank God I never neglected my religion." I do not know whether the Salvation Army representatives are more effective as religious agents than the other visitors. Their work is certainly better advertised, and they belong usually to the same social rank as many of the prisoners. The religion they teach, if more emotionally expressed, is not different from that taught by the other visitors; but they can appeal to the prisoner more effectively because they are better able than many others to appreciate and sympathise with the difficulties and temptations under which the wrongdoer has fallen. Many of those in prison are not there because of idleness. They have worked harder in their day than the people who talk eloquently about the dignity of labour. Neither are they there because, like the heathen, they have never heard the message of the gospel. As a matter of fact, most of them can never get away from the voice of the preacher for any long time, for the evangelists are abroad nightly singing hymns and exhorting the public in all the poorer working-class districts. They have worked hard enough to earn money and are in prison because they have not known how to spend it wisely. In prison they are not taught useful work, and as little are they taught how to recreate themselves after work. Their day may be divided into four parts: There is a time for eating; there is a time for working; and what they do and what food they have has already been shown. There is a time for sleeping: they go to bed early in the evening and rise early in the morning. "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man----" well, it doesn't. At any rate, the inmates of the prison have not attracted attention hitherto on account of their wealth or their wisdom. Then there is a time left for meditation. Every prisoner has his Bible and his Prayer Book. I am far from suggesting that this is a provision that should not be made, but by this time it will be generally admitted that mere Bible reading, or praying, when a prisoner is in a measure compelled to it, are not likely to have the most beneficial effect. It is a useful thing occasionally to be able to quote scripture, and some of those who have spent a considerable portion of their lives in prison have stored their memory with a large and varied assortment of texts, which they are prepared to use when they think a profit is to be made thereby. A profession of reformation seems to have a more powerful effect when buttressed with texts of scripture, and an appeal for help on the part of the penitent is more likely to succeed when heard by the godly, many of whom are exceedingly kind to those who show a disposition to conform to their theological standards. Persons whose sentences exceed fourteen days may have books from the prison library with which to beguile their time. The books provided resemble the clothing, in respect that it is greatly a matter of chance as to whether they suit the person who gets them. I have seen an illiterate lad from the slums hopelessly wrestling with an elementary manual on Electricity and Magnetism. I suppose this would be regarded as an educational work. The library is carefully selected with the intention of excluding all pernicious literature--certainly the sensational is passed by--but we all differ in our ideas as to the value of books; I myself would describe some popular works as pernicious literature; and many of the papers that one set of people appreciate and are able to read without apparent injury are of no use to others. The complaint which has been made that prison libraries contain a great deal of poor stuff, and do not contain a sufficient representation of the classic writers, leaves out of account the fact that these classic writers are more talked about than read. The popular novelist of to-day has a larger audience in his own generation than ever Shakespeare had. The one writer is read during his lifetime, the other finds his audience all through the ages. In a prison, as in all institutions, the attempt is made to work to an average. When the educated person appears in prison let us refrain from insulting his intelligence by giving him books to read which he despises; but he must remember that others are not as he is, and that they may even derive stimulus and benefit from those works which can only annoy him. The untried prisoner may have newspapers and magazines sent in to him as well as books, unless, indeed, the Visiting Committee refuse to permit this. He can choose suitable literature for himself provided his friends are willing to send it to him, but immediately he is convicted he has no choice in the matter. The State is his librarian; and it seems a little absurd that the taxpayer should be charged for providing him with things which he does not want, and which can do him no good, if he or his friends could, at their own expense, procure him books he would enjoy. Of late years lectures have been given to prisoners, and occasionally concerts have been provided for them. The lectures have been on all kinds of subjects. Some of them have dealt with travel and have been illustrated by limelight views; others have dealt with sanitation, physiology, and the treatment of common ailments; others have taken the form of cookery demonstrations; and the prison audience is invariably more appreciative than most audiences outside. They enjoy anything that breaks the dulness of their routine life. No sensible person expects that the lectures will make them travellers, or physiologists, or cooks, though an interest in these subjects may be kindled by the lecturer. Few people are ever lectured into a change of life, but anything that prevents them from sinking into apathy, from brooding on the petty incidents that go to make up their lives in prison, from beating against the bars of their cage, is beneficial. There are those who protest against making the prison too comfortable and who seem to believe that people want to go there. There need be no fear of this. A cage is a cage even though it be gilded, and they are few indeed who seek imprisonment. Occasionally you have some saying they prefer the prison to the poorhouse. I have worked in both places and wholly agree with their preference, but that is not a testimony to the desirability of life in prison, but a reproach to the poorhouse. Those who support efforts to lessen the monotony of prison life are not moved by any desire that the prisoners may have a good time. For my own part, I am not concerned to make their lot less mechanical merely for their sakes, but for the sake of the community of which they are a part. I believe that imprisonment has been shown to have a bad effect on those who suffer it, and as some day they are to be turned loose on the community, it is advisable to prevent them being liberated in a condition that would make them more dangerous to their fellow-citizens, or more troublesome, than they were before their arrest. Outside the block of cells is an airing-yard, which consists of a space round which two narrow paved walks run. On these the prisoners take their exercise, each walking for an hour daily for the benefit of his health; separated by a space from the prisoner in front and the prisoner behind him, and watched by a warder lest any conversation or sign of recognition takes place between him and his fellows. The elderly or physically defective prisoners walk round the inner ring, where the pace is slower. Some of the female prisoners undergo a course of instruction in Swedish drill. Their opinion is expressed in the name by which the exercise is known. It is called the "Daft hour," and they enjoy it. As to its usefulness from an industrial standpoint the less said the better. It does no harm and it is a pleasant break in the day. In short, the prisoners are better employed in going through the drill than in doing something worse. CHAPTER IV VARIATIONS IN ROUTINE The sick--Prison hospitals--The removal of the sick to outside hospitals--The wisdom of this course--The essential difference between a prison and other public institutions--The treatment of refractory prisoners--The folly of assuming that rules are more sacred than persons--The position of the medical officer in relation to the prisoner--The danger of divided responsibility--The untried prisoner--His privileges--Civil prisoners--Imprisonment for contempt of court--The convict--Short and long sentences. The system makes no provision for individual differences between prisoners and takes no account of the past training which has made them what they are, but it recognises physical differences. It is the duty of the Medical Officer to see that no one is overtaxed or underfed or insufficiently clothed, and to attend to any sickness that occurs. If a prisoner is insane he is removed to a lunatic asylum. If he is ill he is put under treatment. In the majority of cases the prison hospitals are simply larger and better-lit cells. They are free from anything but the roughest imitation of modern hospital appliances; but as there is no occasion for the treatment in them of prisoners suffering from acute serious illness, they are sufficient for the needs they are required to meet. What is required for the treatment of such as are sick is not so much stone and lime as flesh and blood. Not new hospitals, but trained nurses. When a prisoner is reported sick or asks to see the doctor, he is automatically freed from the ordinary rules. If the medical man decides that there is nothing in his condition to warrant his being put on the sick list he falls back under prison discipline. If, however, he requires medical treatment, the Medical Officer may prescribe any regimen which he considers applicable to the case, and the Governor has the instructions carried out. It may broadly be stated that cases requiring the constant attendance of a skilled nurse and those demanding serious operative treatment do not need to be treated in Scottish prisons. Section 72 of the Prisons (Scotland) Act, 1877, enables the Governor, in certain cases, to petition the Sheriff for a warrant to remove sick prisoners to hospitals outside. He must present two medical certificates to the effect that the prisoner (1) is suffering from a disease which threatens immediate danger to life and cannot be treated in prison, or (2) a disease which makes his removal necessary for the health of the other inmates of the prison, or (3) that continued confinement would endanger his life. This is one of the wisest provisions in the Act. Cases might occur in which the treatment required would be of such a character as to make it inadvisable to have it carried out in prison. Assuming that there is no difference in the experience and skill of the prison doctors and their staff from that of the corresponding officials in the general hospital, the conditions in prison are essentially different. In a general hospital there are all sorts of people as patients, and their friends have access to them; it is a public place compared with the prison. The staff is subjected to continual criticism; not always enlightened, and sometimes unfair, but it exercises a healthy effect on their actions. There is no greater danger to the public than the uncontrolled specialist; and it is a bad thing for him if he is led into any belief either in the infallibility of his judgment, or in its necessary applicability to the case with which he deals. He can perform no operation without the consent of the patient or his friends, even though he believe that operation is necessary to the saving of life. There are cases in which this permission is refused in spite of all the persuasions of the medical man; and in some of these cases, contrary to expectation, the patient gets well. In others death takes place where life might have been saved had consent to the necessary treatment been obtained; yet it would be an intolerable condition of affairs if the medical man were to have his patients placed at the discretion of his judgment; and no one would propose that the inmates of a hospital should be compelled to submit to any treatment that the doctors in their wisdom might see fit to prescribe. In a neighbouring country lately the question of compulsory treatment was raised. All the information I have with regard to it has been obtained from the statements, official and otherwise, which have been published. These statements may have been imperfect, but only from them can the public form an opinion, The statements contradict each other, and as they refer to incidents which took place in a prison--a place to which ordinary members of the public have no access--they are bound to leave an uneasy feeling in the mind of the impartial observer. Certain women, impelled by the desire to advance a political measure, engaged in conduct which brought them into conflict with the authorities. It was claimed on their behalf that they had committed a political offence, and in that respect differed from other criminals; but all offences are political offences. Whether a woman strikes a man because she is angry with him, or because she is angry with a Cabinet Minister whom she does not know, she commits an assault which is a crime in the eyes of the law. Her motive may differ in the one case from the other, but its issue has no difference; and in both cases, in so far as the State takes notice of it, it is a political offence. Distinctions between offences can only end in confusion; distinctions between offenders have never been sufficiently recognised; and no real progress can ever be made in the treatment of the criminal until the differences between one person and another are taken into account. There can be no question that in character, in training, and in their previous history, these women differed widely from the ordinary prisoner, and all the trouble which resulted was due to the failure of those in authority to act upon their knowledge of this fact. That the conduct for which many of the women were sent to prison was unreasonable, few will deny; but it was no more unreasonable than the treatment they received. If they behaved like mad people, so did the officials. The only way in which one person can show greater wisdom than another is by conduct. If the women were hysterical, the officials did not exactly shine as examples of calmness. The highly strung person who glories in what she believes to be martyrdom, who sees everything in the light of her own ideals, is not likely to be brought to another frame of mind by receiving the treatment which she regards as persecution. These women had made it necessary that they should be restrained from annoying others by their conduct; but it mattered nothing to the public that they should be restrained in a certain way; what did matter was that the nuisance should be effectively stopped. That the method of dealing with them increased the trouble is beyond question; and there is no justification for interference with anybody except in so far as the method adopted has the result desired. It is folly, if not worse, to enter upon any course that cannot be carried on indefinitely. If your treatment fails to achieve the end aimed at, that is bad; if it results in the person with whom you are dealing beating you, that is worse. The law attempted to frighten the women, and the women, by their continued resistance, frightened the administrators of the law. Which presented the most sorry spectacle it is hard to say. The trouble seems to have begun through the refusal on the part of the authorities to allow the women to wear their own clothing. What harm it would have done to anybody to grant this permission it is difficult to see. If they had fed themselves and clothed themselves it would have saved expense to the public. They believed that the clothing was intended to degrade them; and they might have asked, if that was not the intention, why was the proceeding insisted on? Of course, to permit them to save the State the expense of keeping them while they were in custody would have upset the system; but the system is far from being considered by those who are responsible for its administration to be anything approaching perfection, for it is a fashionable thing amongst them to ask for its improvement, and to justify changes, when they make them, on the ground that they were required. Opposition grew with repression; unreason provoked unreason, and the public heard with considerable uneasiness that a hunger strike was taking place, and that the strikers were being artificially fed. In certain physical diseases resort to artificial feeding may be necessary, but prisoners suffering from these diseases are not fit for prison discipline and should be treated in a hospital outside. Among the insane are those who obstinately refuse to take food, and therefore require to be fed; but an insane person differs from a prisoner in this important respect, that in the eyes of the law he is free from responsibility and has no will of his own. His friends are permitted access to him. They may, and sometimes do, interfere with the discretion of the medical attendant, and in any case his actions are within their supervision and criticism. Medical men assume that self-preservation is a primal instinct, and that the person who deliberately sets out to maim himself or to destroy his life is insane, even although intellectually he may appear to be quite sound. If a man become possessed by religious zeal and set out to convert his neighbours to his views, he may incidentally be a considerable nuisance to them. He may stand at street corners and annoy the surrounding inhabitants by his exhortation; but, in Glasgow at any rate, they put up with this on account of the good intention they ascribe to him. If, however, he gives up his business, and prevents other people from attending to theirs by calling on them and arguing with them, people begin to suspect his sanity; and the man who would throw a brick into another's office at the risk of hurting some of the people employed there, in order to convince their principal that if he did not accept the religion the missionary preached he would go to hell, would probably be dealt with as a lunatic. The conduct of some of the women was quite as eccentric, but people may do insane-like things without being insane. That, however, is no reason for disregarding their eccentricities, which should be taken into account when dealing with them. If the women required to be fed artificially, it by no means follows that it was a proper thing to do so in prison. It certainly was indiscreet, and it is difficult to see how, if it was justifiable to resort to this measure in order to save the life of a prisoner, it could be argued that a medical officer would not be equally justified in cutting off the injured or diseased arm of a prisoner, in spite of his protestations, in order to save his life. It is one thing to place the liberties of men, and another thing altogether to place their lives in the hands of officials. There is no official and no number of officials--by whatever name called--good enough to be entrusted, unchecked by public observation, with the lives of their fellow-citizens; and there is no criminal bad enough to be immured from the public gaze and placed wholly under the control of anyone. It is not that the officials are bad; they are no worse than unofficial persons and no better, and there is far more danger from those who have gained a reputation for humanity and for enlightened opinions, even when they have deserved the reputation, than from the others, because the former are likely to be left more to themselves on account of their good name. Few who read this could be trusted to do as good a day's work at the end of the year as they did at the beginning, if there were not someone to check and criticise them. Here and there, now and then, there are violent outcry and excitement because of some administrative scandal, and there is seldom much in it; but there is no continued and intelligent interest in administration on the part of the public. If a man do not fulfil his contract his employer may accept an excuse once or even twice; but if his failure continue he will find himself out of a job, and someone less incompetent or unfortunate will be sought and put in his place. In the public service excuses and exceptions are so much the rule that it would be easy to form a library of blue books containing them, printed and paid for at the public expense. Only ordinary cases of domestic sickness need be treated in prison, and such ailments or injuries as are dealt with in the outdoor department of a general hospital. In Scotland there is little inducement to prisoners to feign sickness, as there is no automatic change in their diet or location as a result of their being placed on the sick list. The doctor may or may not remove them from their cells and alter their diet. So far as the Act of Parliament is concerned the treatment of the sick lies wholly in his discretion, and there is no power granted to any authority to interfere with or overturn his decision. He may be questioned as to the reason for his conduct; and if foolish enough or weak enough to be persuaded into altering it, in order to please some higher official, he may do so; but the Act of Parliament is absolutely specific in the matter, and refers the sick not to the Commissioners, but to the surgeon of the prison. It is much easier for a man to carry out an instruction received from above, than to assert and act on the powers conferred on him by statute; but it is not right to do so, and in so far as he is subservient he is unfaithful to his trust. Patients cannot be treated by correspondence. No man, however highly placed, is infallible. Better that the man on the spot should accept his responsibilities frankly, even though he do make mistakes, than that he should look to someone who is not present to direct him in a case of difficulty. No medical man need want for help from his neighbours, and he can easily get someone of approved skill to assist him in the diagnosis or treatment of a difficult case. It is quite proper that his actions should be scrutinised, but it is quite wrong that the scrutiny should take place in private. The statute has recognised this principle, and has ordered that a public enquiry should take place on the occasion of the death of any prisoner in prison. The relatives of the prisoner are there entitled to put any questions to the officials, personally or through an agent; and the Sheriff has to be satisfied that all reasonable care and skill have been exercised in the case. Private official enquiries give opportunity for petty persecution on the part of any Jack-in-office who fancies his abilities are equal to his position, and whose spleen may be raised against better men than himself. No man eminent in his profession would be likely to be guilty of such conduct, but the occupation of some positions does not necessarily imply professional eminence, though it may infer social influence. The Medical Officer has not an arduous task in treating the sick. His work practically consists of patching up old offenders, in the knowledge that he is prolonging their lives and their uselessness, to the injury of the public. Many of them would have been dead long ago as the result of their excesses had they not been interfered with. It is well that their lives should be prolonged and their health improved, but only if some security is taken that they use their powers to better purpose in the future than they have done in the past. There is no sense in the State doing anything for anybody without a reasonable guarantee that the person benefited will not use the benefit to the injury of the community. Many are cured of diseases in various public institutions, and turned loose to live on others for the rest of their lives. There is an increasing number of young people who, having suffered from some serious illness, have been saved from death, but have been left permanently crippled to some extent in one or other of their organs. They are not fit for the work they once engaged in, but they are fit for some work, and so far as can be seen, they have no intention of performing any. A number of them drift to the prison and on the strength of their infirmity try to get special treatment. The special treatment they require cannot be had there, nor is there any place at present where it can be had. The untried prisoner is permitted to wear his own clothing, provided it is clean and that he can have it changed with sufficient frequency. He may hire furniture and pay for the cleaning of his cell. He may have visits from those of his friends he desires to see; and he may correspond with them, provided that in the conversation and correspondence there is nothing said or written regarding the charge against him. All letters to and from him are read and censored on behalf of the Governor. Prisoners are not allowed to see and converse with their friends without the presence of a prison official. The prisoner is put in a box with a latticed front, and his visitor is placed in another box opposite. Between the two boxes there is space for a warder to move. He can see the occupants of both boxes, each of whom can only see the person in the box opposite. When a number of prisoners are having visitors at the same time, there is a shouting and gabbling that makes conversation difficult. Convicted prisoners and convicts of the first class may receive a letter and a visit from a friend once in three months, provided their conduct and industry have been satisfactory. Before their entry into the first class convicts may receive one, two, or three letters and visits in the year, according to the class they have reached. After being a year in the first class they may be placed in a special class, receiving a letter and a visit once in two months. The prisoner sees his agent in view of but outwith the hearing of the warder. He may have his food sent in to him by his friends, provided it is sufficient in quality and amount, but he may not have part of a meal sent in. He may also receive newspapers, magazines, or books. Any or all of these privileges may be granted or withdrawn at the discretion of the Visiting Committee. It is questionable whether it is right that they should be granted as privileges. The man is, in the eyes of the law, presumed to be innocent of the offence charged against him; and his detention is only justifiable on the ground that he might fail to appear at court for trial. That being so, he ought not to require permission from any committee or official before he is allowed to feed, clothe, and amuse himself; and he should only be prevented from doing so if his act is detrimental to his own health or that of the other inmates of the prison. This might cause more trouble to the officials concerned, but the primary object of the system ought not to be the saving them trouble. The untried prisoner may have a pint of wine or a pint of beer daily, but on no account is he permitted to smoke. This is a curious restriction nowadays, and there is not the faintest show of reason for its exercise. The proper attitude towards the untried prisoner is not that implied in the question "Why should he be allowed to do this?" The question ought always to be "Why should he not be allowed to do what he wishes?" and this would be the question if the theory that presumes an untried prisoner's innocence were put in practice. He is detained for the convenience of the public, not for his own, and his liberty should be curtailed as little as possible consistent with good order. There are very few civil prisoners in Scotland. Failure to pay aliment may entail on a prisoner imprisonment, at the instance and expense of his creditor, for a period of six weeks. At the end of that time the prisoner is free from similar proceedings for six months, but the costs are added to his original debt. He has some of the privileges of an untried prisoner. Failure to pay taxes may cause a man to be imprisoned under similar conditions. Persons sent to prison for failing to have their children vaccinated are treated by the same rule, and persons condemned to indefinite imprisonment for contempt of court. In Scotland we claim that we do not imprison for debt other than aliment, rates, or taxes; but the rule is evaded by process of law, and the Prison Commissioners are used as debt collectors in some cases. Technically this is not so, but in practice it occurs. X 31, a woman, has obtained jewellery on the hire-purchase system. She is the wife of a labouring man, and there is room for the suspicion that she has been tempted by the seller. A number of payments are made, then the husband loses his employment, and she is not only cut off from the means of paying her instalments, but has not money to get food. She pawns or otherwise disposes of the jewellery, and is called upon either to pay for it or return it. Her intention may be to pay, but she is not able. She is summoned to appear at Court, and fails to do so. In her absence a decree is granted ordaining her to deliver the jewellery to the person from whom she obtained it, in terms of the contract made between them. Failing to do this, she is seized and carried off to prison, on a warrant obtained for Contempt of Court, inasmuch as she had not obeyed its decree. All her friends become alarmed, and by their united efforts the money to satisfy the creditor may be obtained. If this is not done she may be kept in prison for an indefinite period at his expense. Had she contracted a debt with the grocer for food, or with a dressmaker for clothing, they could not have imprisoned her if she did not pay them, even though they desired to do so. They are thus at a serious disadvantage, so far as the exercise of pressure is concerned, compared with the hire-purchase trader; but the ingenious among them who regret the abolition of imprisonment for debt may revive it in effect by selling groceries and clothes on a hire-purchase contract. The routine treatment to which the convict is subjected is much more severe than that which is applied to the ordinary prisoner, and it does as little good.[3] It is a system of repression mainly; a sitting on the safety-valve that is apt to provoke outbursts of temper and violence resulting in assault. These may be punished with the lash. A power which is not possessed by the Judges of the High Court is granted to the Prison Commissioners. It is considered necessary in order to maintain the system, but as no one claims that the system is in any degree reformatory, it becomes a question whether it is worth maintaining. [3] The diet for convicts is more generous than that for ordinary prisoners, however. Male convicts whose conduct and industry have been satisfactory may be liberated on license when three-fourths of their sentence has been served. Female convicts in like circumstances may be liberated on license after serving two-thirds of their sentence. The same man who is at one time a convicted prisoner in an ordinary prison may at another time be undergoing penal servitude. While he is in an ordinary prison there is neither power nor occasion to order him the severe punishments which may be inflicted on convicts. If he need the lash when he is sent to penal servitude, there is at least the presumption that the cause lies as much in the character of the life he is compelled to lead as in the character of the man. The more punishment inflicted on prisoners in a prison the stronger the probability is that the place is badly managed. Repression is necessary, no doubt, but repressive powers should only co-exist with power to reward. Even a donkey will go further after a carrot than when driven by a stick. It never does any good to a man to treat him as a machine, and the tendency to do so under the name of discipline is a root vice of the system. In the convict prison, as in the ordinary prison, during the last few years the grinding mechanical routine has been relaxed, and the amazing discovery has been made that it is easier and better to manage men if you recognise that they are men than to regard them as mere numbers. There has even been talk of reformation resulting from the changes that have taken place, and to judge by some magazine and newspaper articles from the pens of enthusiastic and ignorant visitors, one would think the prison had become a kind of paradise. That other men's behaviour towards us will largely be determined on our behaviour towards them is no new discovery, and that more considerate treatment by officials should result in better conduct on the part of prisoners need surprise no one; but that this better conduct necessarily implies that they will live in conformity with the laws when liberated does not follow at all. You may improve a man's conduct in prison as you may improve his mental condition in a lunatic asylum, but you never know how he will behave outside until you put him there; and if we acted on the knowledge of this fact we should see that persons liberated from any institution are placed in proper positions outside--that they should be guided and helped in so far as they need guidance and help--so that there would be less excuse for their recurring to their old habits and conduct, and less chance of their relapse into the condition and actions for which we have dealt with them. Of late years short sentences have been generally denounced on the ground that there is no time to reform a prisoner who is only under the influence of the system for a few days. This would be a reasonable objection if those who are sent to prison for long periods were thereby made better, but that is precisely what cannot be shown; for the longer a person is in prison the less fit he is on liberation to take his place in the community. So that if short sentences are bad, long sentences are worse, from the standpoint of the reformer. A person sent to prison for a few days is usually the cleaner for his experience. Imprisonment has kept him off the streets for a time. It has also caused him to lose his job, and, as usually the short-time prisoner is not a person of means, his position is worse after his imprisonment than it was before. He has to earn his living by his work, if he would avoid coming into conflict with the law; and if he has no means of livelihood it is easy to see that he will find it difficult to avoid recommittal. In this respect the long-sentence prisoner resembles him, but in addition he has acquired habits in prison that are a hindrance to him outside. CHAPTER V THE PRISONER ON LIBERATION His condition--His need--Alleged persecution of ex-prisoners-- Discharged prisoners' aid societies--Work--Temptations--The discharged female offender--The attitude of women towards her--"Homes"--The women's objections to them--Pay--The religious atmosphere and the harmful associations--The effect of imprisonment. While in prison a man has been cut off from the life of the world. He has had no visits from his friends save once in three months, and as there is no newspaper which he is permitted to see, he is ignorant of any changes that may have occurred during the time of his incarceration. Those who have at any time been confined to the house by sickness may dimly appreciate his condition. Although they may have been visited by their friends; kept in touch with social movements in which they were interested; and generally helped to a knowledge of passing events of interest; they must have found something strange in the aspect of things when they were first allowed out. Even after a holiday it takes a man some little time to get the hang of his work. In the case of the liberated prisoner the difficulty is greatly aggravated. He may find that during his seclusion friends have died or have left the district, and if a first offender who feels the degradation he has brought on himself, he is likely to be sensitive as to the bearing of others towards him. He needs help; he dreads rebuff; and he does not know where to seek assistance. He may readily misinterpret the attitude of others towards him and imagine that men whom he has known are giving him the cold shoulder, when, in fact, they have not seen him. He has been shut off from the company of others, and he feels the need of fellowship with someone. He can always have that from those who, like himself, have been through the mill; and he may be led by them into further mischief. Our interference with the offender results in his removal, for a time, from the associations and habits to which he has been accustomed; to that extent the power over him of these associations and habits may be weakened; but no matter where we put him, we cannot hinder him from learning new habits, and these may or may not be useful to him on his liberation. The more powerful the influence of his later interests the less likely he is to seek to return to his old pursuits. The thing which no man can do without is fellowship or comradeship of some sort. He will seek it even although in the process he may be injured thereby; and it is because drink makes the company of some men more tolerable to each other that so many take it. It is not so much that they wish to get drunk; they could do that alone; and at first, at any rate, the drink is not taken merely to intoxicate, but largely to stimulate sociability. The person who has been pent up in an institution for a prolonged period has not learned habits of a sociable character, but quite the contrary; and when he gets out he knows that he will more easily become a part of good company if he takes drink, for thereby he will be set free from the feeling of restraint to which he has been subjected. There has been a great deal of talk about police persecution of liberated prisoners. In some cases the official zeal of a policeman may cause him to act towards an ex-prisoner with a harshness he does not intend, but in most cases the persecution only exists in the imagination of its subject. Few of us see all things as they are. We are influenced by our beliefs quite apart from their foundation in fact, and this is shown in all our actions. We see men believing in others in spite of evidence which we think ought to undeceive them; and people have been known to get married under a quite mistaken estimate of each other's character. So long as the discharged prisoner believes that the world is against him, that the hand of the representative of the law is raised to oppress him, his actions will be influenced by that belief; and he may be driven to despair as a consequence. I do not think that policemen generally have any ill-feeling towards offenders; but officially there is no encouragement for any personal feeling on their part, good or bad. Theirs is an unenviable position. We make no real attempt to investigate the cause of wrongdoing and to prevent crime by a rational method. Should a policeman interfere before an offence has been committed, the motive of his interference will as often as not be misinterpreted and he will be denounced as a busybody. In practice we encourage him to believe that it is his main duty to arrest offenders and he does his best to discharge this duty. It is too much to expect that between him and those whom he is set to hunt there can be any likelihood of mutual regard. As enemies each may have a respect for the other, but friendship and friendly help are out of the question. Unfortunately this fact has been left out of account in some recent proposals for the prevention of crime and the reformation of the offender. In connection with all the prisons there are discharged prisoners' aid societies, which seek to help those whose sentences have expired. The number of these societies is increasing; but in Glasgow, praiseworthy as are their efforts, they are quite unable to undertake the work that requires to be done. In practice the societies mainly consist of their officials, and these are few and hardworking. They try to get situations for discharged prisoners and to influence them towards a better way of living. Sometimes their efforts meet with success, but they have far too much to do. Their resources are small, and they are hampered by want of funds, but more by want of helpers. They struggle on valiantly in spite of discouragement, and do what lies in their power to prevent those with whom they come in contact from becoming worse than they otherwise would be. When a prisoner is liberated it is not always an easy matter for him to find work. The fact of his having been in prison is not a recommendation to anyone who would employ him. When work is found for him by the agents of one of the societies which help discharged prisoners, his position may be a somewhat difficult one. It is not every place where he can be employed without objection on the part of his fellow-workers. As men they recognise the need for charity and tolerance towards their neighbours, but prison has such an evil sound to them that they are prejudiced against the person who has been there. When this prejudice is overcome there is usually a reaction in the ex-prisoner's favour, resulting in conduct towards him that may be as embarrassing in its way as any springing from the prejudice against him. At the best he is liable to be placed in an atmosphere of suspicion that does not help him to do well. The consciousness that he has been degraded is harmful to his sense of self-respect, and altogether it is not easy for him to find suitable companionship. Wisdom would counsel him to avoid the company of those who have been associated with him in the conduct that led to his fall, but the counsels of wisdom are not always easy to follow. There are very many who are willing to give assistance to a man who seeks to turn over a new leaf, but they expect to direct him as to what shall be written on the next page. If censure and avoidance may irritate and hurt a man who has been convicted of wrongdoing, patronage may raise a spirit of opposition in him. He does not want to be looked down upon, whether with contempt or with compassion. Of course, he ought to be chastened by his affliction; he ought to be repentant and submissive; he ought to do what he is told; but it is not what ought to be that requires consideration if we would help him to do better, but what is. In spite of their vicious acts, it is never an evidence of wisdom to assume that vicious people are greater fools than others. That they behave foolishly, from the standpoint of their own and our interest, is quite true, and so apparent that it needs no emphasis. The question is, Do we, who are so much wiser than they, show that wisdom in our treatment of them? and the answer, evidenced by the result of our attitude towards them, furnishes no strong testimony in our favour. When a man has gone wrong it may be generally assumed that there is something in him that has made him unfit to resist the temptations incident to his position. If this assumption be correct it follows that we are not warranted in expecting from him the same power of resistance as others have shown. We are not justified in assuming that with proper assistance his character and powers may not improve, but it is hardly reasonable to expect conduct from him that would be more saintly than our own; and a great many disappointments are suffered by earnest people who seek to lift up the fallen, simply because they have expected too much. When efforts to help a man result in failure it is a safe working rule to assume that the fault is at least as much in the nature of the means employed as in the man. They may have been very good means, but they have not been applicable in the case; which is just to say that the result is the test of their suitability. This is all so obvious that in practice it is disregarded, and we persist in the foolish assumption that people on whom our patent pills fail to act are incorrigible; though the fact is that the offender is no more incorrigible than the reformer, and is sometimes not so stupid. The position of the man who has been in prison is not so bad as that of the woman who has been there. There can be no question that women less frequently break the laws than men. This may or may not be evidence of superior virtue on the part of women, but the fact itself makes the position of the woman who has fallen more difficult to retrieve. She is more conspicuous than the male offender, if only because there are fewer of her kind, and the attitude of women towards her is less tolerant than the attitude of men, either towards her or towards those of their own sex who have offended. Accordingly, when a woman once loses her reputation she is more liable than a man to accept the position and to sink under her disgrace; so that the fallen woman is regarded by many as the most degraded of beings, and her rescue has a fascination for those who seek to aid the worst. This conception is absurd, as everyone knows who has studied the subject with open eyes, but the question is one that cannot be faithfully dealt with here. The economic position of the woman who has broken away from the standards set by the law need not be, and often is not, worse than that she held before her revolt. It all depends on what she was and how she has rebelled. Vice as little as virtue determines the economic position of those who are subject to it. The transgressor by her transgression is cut off from her class, and she is in danger of failing to gain a footing in any other. She may, and in the majority of cases does, glide out of her folly as she has slipped into it; but when she is publicly branded her chances of recovery are less than those of a man. The attitude of men towards her may be insolent, but it is rarely so brutal as that of women; and it is no uncommon thing to find that the most effective help towards the restoration of a woman has been given by those among her male friends whose character would least bear scrutiny by a censor of morals. The attitude of her sex towards the woman who is down is generally one of hostility. Whether something of the instinct of self-preservation inspires this need not be here discussed; but it is abundantly clear that the woman whose fall has been publicly recognised cannot hope to resume anything like her old place, even if she were willing to seek it. Her recognition as a respectable woman is too frequently made contingent on her acceptance of a form of religion that enables her past to be always referred to, and herself held up as a brand plucked from the burning. In her attitude towards women she is affected by this knowledge, and their appeal to her loses in effect because of it. There is nothing more difficult than the treatment of these women. The prejudice against them is so strong that it is only here and there a family is willing to take in and look after one of them. Attempts are made to influence and direct such women as have no friends, by placing them in homes. No doubt the inmates are much better there than they would be if turned on the streets or living in common lodging-houses; but they do not commend themselves to those whom it is sought to rescue; for the majority of them will say quite frankly that it is "not good enough." They prefer to struggle along as best they may rather than submit to the life offered them. It always appears ungracious to criticise the work of those who are earnestly engaged in trying to help others, but it is fair that the view of those they seek to help should be presented. Their view may be a wrong one, but until it is altered it will affect their conduct; and it cannot be too emphatically insisted on that the opinions of those whom we seek to help should be considered, and when possible acted upon, if it is hoped to render effective aid. The first objection a girl makes to entering a rescue home is that she must bind herself to remain there for a prolonged period. She does not regard the home as a desirable place of residence, but as a step towards restoration to a decent position in the community. She objects to give her work for twelve months, say, getting no other pay than her board, clothing, and lodging, unless she remains in the institution for that time. She claims that she might as well be in prison. The girl is not concerned with the question whether the home pays others or not; she is concerned with the fact that it does not pay her. Loss of reputation hinders a girl from getting a situation, even when she is willing to drop her way of living and revert to steady work. People who pay well quite naturally prefer not to make an experiment and seek to have their money's worth, which implies not only an efficient, but a steady and reliable worker. The situations open to the penitent, therefore, are those which are worst paid. When she gains a character she may obtain more remunerative occupation elsewhere. She recognises that on account of her bad reputation she has to do more work for less money, but she does not so readily admit that it is just that it should be so. She thinks that it is one thing for an ordinary person to take advantage of her needs and to underpay her, while it is quite another thing for a Christian institution to keep her working for insufficient wages. In the home she has as hard work and almost as little liberty as she would have were she in prison. Her associates are girls like herself, with whom she can converse on a basis of equality and discourse on life from a similar standpoint. On the other hand, she is preached to, patronised by visitors, entertained in a very proper manner, and taught in a thousand indirect ways that she is different from them. If her associates do not help her to forget her past, neither do her teachers. They want to be kind, and try to be considerate; the effort is obvious. In a gentle way they may tell the girls what they think of them and how much need there is for their reformation, and they do not seem to see that they would come more closely in contact with those they seek to help if they would assume the things they express by word and attitude, and try to draw the girls out. The defect in the teacher is too often a habit of talking at his pupils. The girls are there to learn; the visitors to teach. Are they? What do the girls learn, and what do the visitors teach? That we are all sinners and our position a perilous one; that some of us have been found out and that the penalty should be accepted humbly as being for our good, and so on. If the formula is somewhat stereotyped that is not my fault. The girls who appear to submit most patiently are naturally regarded as most hopeful. What they think about it all does not appear to be considered of much importance. They are wrong or they would not be there; and yet a girl may make a mess of her life in one direction, and be none the less qualified to give a shrewd and useful opinion on the causes of her failure. If those who seek to teach them had less faith in their own doctrine and more desire to learn, they would become less ignorant and would teach to better purpose. Here and there some know this, and acting on the knowledge, are more successful than others who are equally pious, equally well-intentioned, but less well-informed. One quite recognises that it cannot be charged against the majority of these institutions that they make money by the girls. They are often carried on at a financial loss, for the cost is considerable; but reformatory work cannot be conducted on a commercial basis. It is in the nature of things that it should not pay its way in the narrow sense. The cost of adequate supervision prevents this. But to charge the cost of attempts at their reformation to the girls is to inflict at least an apparent injustice on them that is apt to rankle in their minds, and to drive away a number who would otherwise be helped--helped at a pecuniary loss to the home, but at a great benefit to the community. After all, they are earning their own living by their work. What they fail to do is to earn a living for those who govern them. In exchange for their work they are not permitted to spend their earnings as they please, but as it pleases those who have undertaken to look after them. There may be something to be said for the opinion that if one set of persons seek to direct the lives of another they should be prepared to pay for the privilege; but this subject of charity is one that needs examination. Some people have very quaint ideas regarding it. I remember a decent woman who rather prided herself on her goodness. Her husband had a small business, and she occasionally requisitioned the services of his younger apprentices for assistance at cleaning time. On such an afternoon a newsboy coming to the door, she got a _Citizen_ from him, gave him a penny, and received back the halfpenny of change. When he had gone she remarked to one of the apprentices--a boy with a genius for saying the right thing in the wrong place--"Puir boy, I just take the paper from him for charity." To which he replied, "Aye, but ye took the halfpenny back!" There was something to be said for both views, but the boy had the last word, and he soon found that his criticism had borne fruit; he was dismissed. In the home there is more of a religious atmosphere and less mechanical routine than in prison; but the religious atmosphere is as much objected to by many of the girls as the mechanical routine. Both may be good for them from the standpoint of the theorist, but neither seems to result in the effect desired. In the prison there are fewer lectures and fewer visits to the inmates than in the home, and the life is more monotonous, but in the prison there is less opportunity for contamination. In both places the old and degraded, the young and the ignorant, may be confined, but in the prison they are separated. It is quite a mistake to imagine that the vice and degradation--that the state of morals--of a person can be estimated by her age and the number of her convictions. The old hand need not be so morally corrupt as the younger, though her experiences may have been more numerous and varied. A common statement of those who have been inmates of homes is that what they did not know when they went in they learned before they came out, and certainly they have opportunities of communicating their experiences and relating their adventures while they are in a home that they do not have while they are in prison. This is a thing that cannot be prevented so long as people live together. That many have been restored after passing through the homes is undoubtedly the case, but it does not follow that their restoration was due to their experience there. That many have not been improved, but have been the worse for their residence there, is not at all to be wondered at. Where a religious atmosphere has affected them favourably the disadvantages inherent to the establishment have been overcome. Where it has failed to effect a change in them for good the other associations tend to confirm them in evil. What effect, then, has imprisonment on those who undergo it? It usually improves their health physically, but impairs their mental capacity. The simple life favours the former; separation and destruction of the sense of initiative favour the latter. Many do not return after a first experience, and it is assumed that they have been deterred from wrongdoing by it; but there is absolutely no ground for this assumption. It may be justified in some cases, but in others there is no reason to suppose that the offender would have repeated his offence, even though he had never been sent to prison for it. Imperfectly as probation of offenders is worked, it has shown this. Indeed, the very imperfection of the method has shown it the more strongly, for so far from the offender having been taken away from the conditions which incited him to commit his transgression, he has been sent back to them, and in many cases has not again offended. It is not right to make assumptions when there is opportunity of examining the facts; and no enquiry has been made as to the effect of imprisonment in deterring those who have been in prison and have not returned for repeating their offence. A great many do return, and that is positive evidence that their imprisonment has not had a deterrent effect on them. Why do they return? In some cases they have found that prison is not such a horrible place after all, and that though the confinement is irksome the time passes; and at the expiry of their sentence they may do what they like. Many of them have to work hard and long to earn a living when outside, and they learn that they can pick up a living at less cost and have a better time, if they take the risk of being shut up now and again. They have been cut off from their habits, which may not have been a bad thing, and have acquired other habits which do not help them when they are liberated. They have been officially marked with disgrace, and to that extent rendered less able to secure employment and good company. They have been taught to be respectful and obedient, but they have lost, in a corresponding degree to their improvement in manners, their power to act for themselves. In some respects they are better, in others worse, than they were when they were taken in hand; and on the balance there is a distinct loss. Recent attempts at reformation have not taken into account the root causes of failure, and they fail to recognise that the longer a person is cut off from the main current of life in the community the less he is fitted to return to it. CHAPTER VI THE INEBRIATE HOME The need to find out why people do wrong before attempting to cure them--Enquiries as to inebriety--The inebriates--Official utterances--Cost and results--The grievance of the unreformed--The time limit of cure--The causes of failure--The fostering of old associations--The prospect of the future spree--The institution habit. It cannot be seriously contended that our methods of dealing with offenders make for their reform. It may be that some of those who do not return to prison have been checked in their career by the treatment they have received, but as a matter of fact, there are a great many people sent to prison who ought never to have been there at all. In my opinion it is beyond dispute that our methods result in the making of criminals; that in the majority of cases imprisonment not only does no good, but does positive and serious harm. It should not be forgotten, however, that there is no ground for supposing that the prison system is intended to reform those who come within its operation. It keeps them off the street for a time and prevents them from annoying those who are at liberty; but this cannot be done without financial cost to the community, and it is only done at a very serious loss in other respects. The same amount of money spent in helping them to do well as it costs to imprison them for doing ill, would prevent many of them from offending; but before this could be done more would require to be known regarding the individuals than the mere fact that they have offended against one or other of our laws. It is necessary not only to find out where and how the criminal has gone wrong, but also where and why we have gone wrong in our method of treating him. Profitable as it would be, no serious attempt has been made to do this. The most that is done is to admit the inefficacy of prison treatment and to devise some theoretical improvement on it. It seems easier for some people to reason _in vacuo_--in their own heads--than to examine the facts and face the consequences. Of late years the public has permitted one institution after another to be foisted on it at the bidding of people who have not shown even the most elementary knowledge of the subject with which they were dealing, and of faddists who want to regulate other men's lives by their own. Their opinion of the offender may be interesting and it may have a value different from what they place upon it; but it is not nearly as interesting, as helpful, or as valuable as the offender's own opinion of the cause of his fall and of his needs. The imprisonment and reimprisonment of the habitual offender had become a scandal. It was recognised that inebriety made men and women a danger and a nuisance to the family and their neighbours, but no greater a nuisance than the system by which we dealt with them. Everybody agreed that imprisonment made them no better. It made them abstainers only for the time they were in custody, but it did nothing to destroy the desire for drink. So an Act of Parliament was passed to enable them to be placed in an institution of another sort. If the prison failed to reform them, the Inebriate Homes have proved a more costly, a more ghastly failure. Instead of finding out the cause of the failure, a departmental committee, after examining anybody but those who had been in the homes, has recommended that further parliamentary powers should be granted to the committees managing them and courts sending inmates to them. The rational method of procedure would have been for intelligent and impartial persons to examine those cases which had been improved, and to estimate how far the improvement was due to the treatment received. This would not have been a difficult task, for the cases were few; and having accomplished it, it would have been equally profitable to examine the many cases of failure and to seek the causes of that failure. It is much easier, however, to collect the opinions of officials, of philanthropists, of those who are interested in prescribing for the conduct of others--in short, of people who are called authorities on a given subject, because nobody has been bold enough to challenge them--than to obtain the confidence and open the mouths of those whose wrongdoing it is sought to correct. It is a grotesque statement that the Inebriate Home failed because the wrong people were sent to it; also it is not true. It would be nearer the mark to say that the home failed because it was not suited for the treatment of inebriates. For after all, the very people for whom it was designed to afford treatment were among those sent there. The patients chosen for treatment in the Inebriate Home were carefully selected by a physician experienced in the treatment of mental diseases. Some of them were mentally affected as a consequence of their drunkenness, and there is room for supposing that some took to drink partly on account of a mental defect; but inebriety is not a physical disease, it is not a mental disease, although it may have some relationship to physical and mental diseases. It was because of its being a social disorder that the State undertook to consider these persons. This being so, each case could only be rationally considered in relation to the social condition of the inebriate. Information about the state of their various internal organs might be useful, but it could never replace in importance or interest information as to their social condition. The treatment failed because it was not adapted to the persons to be treated, but was adapted to the state of mind of those who, on the strength either of an academic qualification, or a belief in their fitness to judge people who are of a lower social condition, had prescribed a method without any real knowledge of the persons to whom they sought to apply it. The public pays too much attention to the utterances of those in authority, and it is difficult to avoid the habit of mistaking for knowledge what is only a different kind of ignorance from our own. A thing is not true because somebody says it; it may be true in spite of that; but it would repay the trouble were official utterances more closely scrutinised than they are. Zeal, honesty, integrity, may be present in the official, and he may be a very talented man as well, and yet he may lead matters into a sad mess. The less he is questioned, the more he is suffered to go on unchecked, the worse for him and for those whose servant he is. The good servant may become a very bad master. Then all official persons are not equally able. If a man has not wit, it is not likely to be developed in him by giving him a title or a uniform. If he has not much wisdom, he is not likely to become less foolish even though you place him in the seat of Solomon. The fact that a man holds a position is not proof of his fitness to fill it; and respect for an office makes it all the more incumbent on honest men to scrutinise and criticise the actions of the person who occupies it. Loyalty to the public service is too often confused with servility to those in the upper ranks, resulting in something very like a conspiracy to magnify their importance (which would be a small matter), and to induce the public to attach an undue weight to what they say, though their statements may appear foolish enough. All this is quite heterodox doctrine, and in practice will not tend to make a man's path smooth; but the orthodox method of assuming that the higher in authority a person is, the abler and wiser he must be, has not resulted so satisfactorily that it should escape challenge. The official reports of Girgenti Inebriate Home were a great deal more satisfactory than the results, and the home might have been in existence yet if the representatives of the public had not informed themselves of the real state of affairs. A few cures are put to its credit at a calamitous expense. The cost of keeping a woman there amounted to between twenty-five and thirty shillings per week, and the odds were proved to be against her being reformed after three years' treatment. In other words, the public were guaranteed that all persons sent to the home could be kept sober at a cost of from sixty-five to eighty pounds each per year, but they had no reason to believe that when this payment ceased on their part the patient would take her place in the community and remain a sober citizen. If she was not made better, did she become worse as a result of her treatment there? In some respects she did. You cannot meddle with the lives of others without result, for it is impossible to leave them as you find them. I remember being visited one morning by a woman who had left the home after a three years' stay there. She had been drinking before she called on me, and she had some complaints to make regarding her treatment there. The complaints were trifling in character, and were more in the nature of gossip than anything else. I told her that she had cost the community some £200 to keep her during the last three years, and they seemed to have made a bad bargain. I advised her to think a little less of her grievances and a little more of the comfort of her neighbours, and dismissed her with the usual censure and advice; but she had a case against the State, although she was not able to express it clearly. I would put it for her thus: "When you interfered with my life I had fallen into the habit of drinking, but in the main I earned my own living and meddled very little with others to their annoyance. I had my friends, whom your judgment might not approve, but between them and myself there were common ties. We sympathised with each other and helped each other. You undertook to reform my life, to break me of my bad habits, to make me more fit to earn my living without offending against your laws. You have ruled and governed me for three years. You put me in a home where my life was regulated for me; you gave me as companions people with whom I had never associated before; you compelled me to live in their company; you taught me nothing that I find of any use to me outside; you kept me from drinking. It may have been a poor pleasure, but it was the only one I had. You did not take the taste for it away, and you have given me nothing to replace it; and now I am three years older, and you turn me loose on the streets of the city to which I belong, and in which I am now through your action very much a stranger, and invite me to work for my living in competition with others. I could work and did work before you meddled with me; I could work yet, but I must have something to fill my life as well as work, and I have taken to drink again, because it is the only thing I know that meets the need I feel. I am worse off than I was before you started to reform me. Then I had friends, now I am alone; for they have gone their own way: some to death, all of them from me. There is nobody from whom I can have the sympathy and the help I once had. My friends had their faults and they knew mine; that was why we were friends. All you can offer me is patronage, advice, direction from people whom I don't know and who don't know me. The one thing that I want, which is fellowship, I have not got. You have taught me to depend on others. You have made me obey your rules, and now you set me free to make rules for myself, and leave me to drift back into the place where I was; to face the same difficulties, the same temptations, without the companionship of those who had grown into my life. You have taken three years from my life and you have given me nothing for it. Give me back my life or justify your interference with it by fitting me to become a better citizen than I was." This is something like what the woman appeared to feel and tried to say, and there is really no answer to it. It is not a wise proceeding to treat the lives of men and women as toys with which we can play, and throw them aside without practical regard for consequences when we are tired of the game. If we do not direct them, they will direct themselves, and the less fitted they are to do so the worse for us. I remember one woman who was an inmate of a home, but who had been employed on a farm outside under licence. Her behaviour was excellent; she was a good worker, although she had had over a hundred convictions for drunkenness before her admission to the home. She always had been a good worker in the intervals between the drinks. She conformed to the terms of the licence, whatever these were, and seemed to be a reformed character. I suggested to her that it was perfectly clear that, though she could not resist the temptations incident to life in the slums of a great city, she might continue for an indefinite period to live a useful life in the country. She replied, "As soon as my three years are up I am going back to the town," and she kept her promise, with the result that she went back to her drinking. In her case it was proved that she could behave for a long period when the only alternative presented to a regulated life outside an institution was a more rigidly regulated life inside an institution. She preferred the outside farm to the home, but she preferred the streets of the city to either, and her case raises the question whether it is advisable to withdraw all control from those like her. She did not require to be continually overlooked by officials in order that she should conform to the law. Her life was left under the inspection of the inhabitants of the district in which she worked, and it is quite conceivable that she might have been working there yet, if she had not known that the reward of restraining herself would be not so much a change in character, as freedom from any supervision when a fixed term had expired. The cause of the failure of the Inebriate Home did not lie in the character of the inmates or of the officials who were placed over them, but in the defect inherent in all institutions; the fact that the manner of living in them differs essentially from anything that obtains outside. They are all founded more or less on the military model, and the military model and the industrial model are different. Far more than most of us suspect we are the creatures of habit:--often of habit acquired slowly, gradually, and unconsciously. To remove ourselves from one place to another implies the breaking off from some habits, but it also implies the formation of others. It did not need the experience of the Inebriate Home to let us know that men might be removed from the opportunity of drinking for long periods and, on return to their former conditions, resume the habit. Years of imprisonment, where teetotalism is rigidly enforced and where the diet is of a non-stimulating character, did not make the men who were submitted to it abstain from drinking on their release. The objectionable habit can only be cured through being replaced by something which is of equal interest, has greater power, and enables the man to live his life without being a nuisance to his neighbours. When men or women are placed in association with one another, they have to find some common bond of interest. In every voluntary association this is recognised. Religion causes some to cut themselves off from the world and to devote their lives to its pursuit. Men differing in social positions, in age, in experience, in character, in temperament, join together to form a community. The one thing they have in common is their form of belief. They may differ as widely as possible in their views on other subjects, but these differences are not the thing that holds them together. They would rather tend of themselves to break up the association, since disagreement drives people apart. The differences are only tolerable because of the bond of agreement which is strong enough to compensate them. On this subject and around it they may talk. The experience of each will interest the other, will enlighten him, will at any rate be considered by him. The same is true of political associations. Differences there are amongst the members, but these differences cannot go beyond the point at which some common agreement balances them, without breaking up the association. Inebriate Homes and other reformatory institutions are not voluntary associations, but there can be no intercourse amongst their inmates that is not based on some experience common to them all. In the Inebriate Homes the common factor is inebriety. However much the inmates may differ in other respects, in this they are all alike: that they have indulged in drink to such an extent that the law has interfered to deal with them, and so the question that every newcomer has to face is, "Why are you here?" They are compelled to associate with one another, and they will get on the better together for each knowing something of the others' story. Scenes are recalled that had better be forgotten. Time spent in regretting the past while detailing its incident may result, and often does, in a repetition of the evils which are deplored. Better that the mind should dwell on something else than on the errors of time past. It is a common thing to see a man begin to tell a wild episode or experience of his earlier years, and to observe that beneath his expressions of criticism and regret there is a certain tone of satisfaction that he has been through it, and a lingering reminiscence of the enjoyment he has had in it. He condemns the folly, admits it was a mistake, and shows quite clearly that it was quite a pleasure at the time. Talking over the past brings it back and keeps the memory of it alive, and persistence in this course may cause that which has been regarded with disgust to become a thing that is desired, even a thing that is longed for. I remember a conversation with an inmate on the occasion of a visit I made to an Inebriate Home. I had known her as a habitual offender for years before her reformation was undertaken, and at this time she had been in the institution for more than a year. I congratulated her on the improvement in her appearance, and at the end of our talk she said, "It's a' quite true, I am better housed than I ever was. Ma meat is a' that a body could want, and I get it mair easily than I did ootside. The work's no o'er-hard, and the officials are kind. There are bits o' rows, of course, noo and then; whaur there are so many weemen you couldna expect onything else; but there's naething to complain of. The country's real bonny in the summer, but I get tired of the country. I am a toon bird like yoursel', doctor, and I weary for the streets." I suggested to her that since she was so well off and could be suited on the expiry of her term with a place where she would not have the same inducements to drink as she had had, she should make up her mind to keep away from the town; but she answered, "No; it's a' very nice and comfortable, but I wouldna gie a walk doon the Candleriggs for the haill o' it." Of course she ultimately had a walk down the Candleriggs, followed by a drive to prison; but it was quite apparent that this longing for her old haunts was the result of her failure to be impressed by interests that were equally absorbing, and that would become more powerful. Had such an interest developed in her, the Candleriggs would have been merely an empty sentiment. It would have occupied the position that "Bonnie Scotland" has in the minds of so many of the Scots who, having taken up their residence abroad, and having become absorbed in their affairs, stay there--afraid to return lest they lose even the sentiment. Just as in the religious community the members are stimulated to welldoing, in the reformatory the association of people whose common bond is their offence stimulates them to wrongdoing, or at least tends to hinder them from breaking off their old interests. Institutional life has points of difference from life outside, which cause the formation of habits that are detrimental to the inmates when they return to the community. They are lodged usually on the model of the barracks; though this does not apply to the lodging of prisoners in prison, as they have separate rooms. Outside an institution most people do not sleep in dormitories or live in common rooms. They may live and sleep in the same room, but the only lodging outside which is on the same model as the dormitory is the common lodging-house, and that is the last place to which anyone would desire that a reformed offender should go. In an institution division of labour is carried out for reasons of economy. The superintendent directs that different sets of people should perform different duties. Even if all the persons are changed at intervals from one set of duties to another, with a view to each inmate learning to do all parts of the work which is necessary in order that the place may be kept in proper condition, the habit formed is different from that of the housewife outside, who daily has to go over the whole round of her work. She is not responsible for doing a part, knowing that some other is responsible for some other part. Not only each part of the work engages her attention in its turn, but she is accountable for the whole; whether she does it well or ill is beside the point, which is, that there is nobody to rule her and no one whom she can hold accountable for her neglect. The habits of housekeeping acquired by the inmates of a home may tend to make them good servants, but they are certainly not the kind likely to make them more fit than they were to undertake the management of a house of their own; for they do not manage, they are managed. CHAPTER VII THE PREVENTION OF CRIMES ACT (1908) The Borstal experiment--Provisions for the "reformation of young offenders"--Is any diminution in the numbers of police expected?-- Preventive detention--The implied confession that penal servitude does not reform, and the insistence on it as a preliminary to reform--The prisoner detained at the discretion of the prison officials--The powers of the Secretary of State--The change under the statute--The necessary ignorance of the Secretary of State by reason of his other duties--The "committees"--The habits to be taught--The teaching of trades--The ignorance of trades on the part of those who design to teach them--The difficulty of teaching professions in institutions less than that of teaching trades--The vice of obedience taught--Intelligent co-operation and senseless subordination--The military man in the industrial community. Some few years ago the English Prison Commissioners began a modified system of treating certain offenders. Borstal Prison was set apart for the purpose, a staff was specially chosen, and young offenders were selected for experiment. It was a notable departure, and the authorities seem to have been satisfied with the results. Either they had power to undertake the experiment or they had not. In the former case there was no need for an Act of Parliament to give authority; in the latter case they must have been breaking the law. If they were within their powers there was nothing to hinder them from extending their beneficent work. That work would necessarily depend for its success on the experience and special ability of those who performed it. If the men in office in other prisons do not possess similar qualifications for the work no statute will confer them; but it may cause them to have duties placed upon them which they are not fitted to discharge. So long as the treatment had to be justified by its results, it would be fairly safe to assume that only those who could prove their fitness would direct it; now it needs as little of such justification for its continuance as do the Inebriate Homes. The Prevention of Crimes Act (1908) deals with the "Reformation of Young Offenders," and the "Detention of Habitual Criminals." The young offenders must be not less than sixteen and not more than twenty-one years of age; but the Secretary of State with the concurrence of Parliament may make an order including persons apparently under twenty-one, if they are not really over twenty-three years of age. The young offender must be convicted on indictment of an offence for which he is liable to penal servitude or imprisonment; and it must be apparent to the Court that he is of criminal habits or tendencies, or an associate of bad characters. The Court must consider any report by the Prison Commissioners as to the suitability of the offender for treatment in a Borstal Institution; and may send him there for not less than one and not more than three years. In Scotland the Secretary of State may apply the Act by Order, and may call the institution by any name he chooses. If a boy in a reformatory commit an offence for which a Court might send him to prison, he may instead be sent to a Borstal Institution, his sentence then superseding that in the reformatory school. The Secretary of State may transfer persons within the age limit from penal servitude to a Borstal Institution. The Secretary of State may establish Borstal Institutions, and may authorise the Prison Commissioners to acquire land, with the consent of the Treasury, and to erect or convert buildings for the purpose, the expense to be borne by the Exchequer. He may make regulations for the management of the institution, its visitation, the control of persons sent to it, and for their temporary detention before their removal to it. Subject to the regulations, the Prison Commissioners, if satisfied that the offender is reformed, may liberate him on licence at any time after he has served six months--in the case of a woman, after three months; and the licence will remain in force till the expiry of the sentence, unless it is revoked or forfeited earlier, in which case the offender may be arrested without warrant and taken back to the institution. Subject to regulations, the Prison Commissioners may revoke the licence at any time. If a licensed person escapes from supervision, or commits any breach of the conditions laid down in the licence, he thereby forfeits it; and the time between his forfeiture and failure to return is not computed in reckoning the time of his detention. The time during which he is on licence, and conforming to the conditions therein, counts as time served in the institution. Every person sentenced to detention in a Borstal Institution remains under the supervision of the Prison Commissioners for six months after his sentence has expired; but the Secretary of State may cancel this provision where he sees fit. The Prison Commissioners may grant a licence to any person under their supervision, and may recall it and place him in the institution if they think this necessary for his protection; but they may not detain him for more than three months, and they cannot detain him at all when six months have passed since his sentence expired. Young offenders detained in Borstal Institutions, if reported as incorrigible or as exercising a bad influence on the other inmates, may be removed to a prison to serve the remainder of their term, with or without hard labour, as the Secretary of State may decide. The person under licence must be placed under the supervision of some person or society willing to take charge of him, and named in the licence. Where a society has undertaken the assistance or supervision of persons discharged from the institution, the expenses incurred may be paid from public funds; but, curiously enough, the statute makes no reference to payment of persons willing to act as guardians. A person may be moved from one Borstal Institution to another, and from one part of the United Kingdom to another. He is to be "under such instruction and discipline as appears most conducive to his reformation and the repression of crime"--which is sufficiently vague. The only thing of any importance in this part of the Act is the provision for letting the offender out on licence. If it is used to board him out, some progress may be made; but if it is merely used to provide funds for some society of philanthropists to play with, there is little ground for the hope that it will do much for the offender. The second part of the Act is more peculiar than the first. It is designed to deal with the case of the habitual offender, and as originally drafted it provided for retaining him in custody, if the officials thought proper, for the rest of his life. This would have been nearly as certain a preventive as hanging him, and would have been much more costly. A consequence that might be expected to spring from the prevention of crime would be a diminution in the numbers of the police. It is their duty to arrest criminals, and if the criminals are shut up their occupation is gone. It is a striking fact that during all the discussions which took place on the measure, nobody suggested that as a result of its operation there would be any smaller number of policemen required. There was no likelihood of it; for crime will not be prevented to any great extent by the institution of "reformatories"--experience has shown that very clearly--but it will be diminished to some extent while the professionals are incarcerated. This has been tried and found insufficient and unsatisfactory. The new Act makes provision for the care of people who have been liberated from Borstal Institutions, and for the reformatory treatment of those who have become habituals after graduation in crime and in prison experience--neither of which qualifications makes it easier to deal with them. The "habitual criminal" of the statute is one who, between his attaining the age of sixteen years and his conviction of the crime charged against him, has had three previous convictions and is leading persistently a dishonest or criminal life. Such a person, after being sentenced to penal servitude, may be ordered to be detained on the expiration of that sentence for a period of not less than five and not more than ten years, at the discretion of the Court. The charge of being a habitual offender can only be tried after he pleads or has been found guilty of the crime for which he has been indicted, and seven days' notice must be given the offender of the intention to make such a charge. The Court has a right to admit evidence of character and repute on the question as to whether the accused is or is not leading persistently a dishonest or criminal life. The person sentenced to preventive detention may appeal against the sentence to a Court consisting of not less than three Judges of the High Court of Justiciary, in Scotland. The Secretary of State may, in the case of persons appearing to be habitual criminals and undergoing sentence of five years' penal servitude or upwards, transfer them, after three years of the term of penal servitude have expired, to preventive detention for the remainder of their sentence. Prisoners undergoing preventive detention shall be confined in any prison which the Secretary of State may set apart for the purpose, and shall be subject to the law in force with respect to penal servitude; provided that the rules applicable to convicts shall apply to them, subject to such modifications in the direction of a less rigorous treatment as the Secretary of State may prescribe. This means that the person convicted has to be dealt with by the same officers who have been dealing with him when he was called a convict prisoner. There is no reason to assume that their ability to make him better than he was will be increased because an Act of Parliament has been passed. A change of labels, however dexterous, does not alter the character nor will it change the atmosphere of the prison. "Prisoners undergoing preventive detention shall be subjected to such disciplinary and reformative influences, and shall be employed on such work as may be best fit to make them able and willing to earn an honest livelihood on discharge." This subsection is wide enough to include all reform. It implies that prisoners are not subjected to such disciplinary and reformative influence, and are not employed on such work as may be best fitted to make them able and willing to make an honest livelihood on discharge; but if this implication is justified, why should they not be placed under helpful conditions from the first day of their imprisonment? To one who is not a legislator it appears foolish to insist that offenders should be placed under conditions which do not fit them to live honestly outside prison, and that this process should be repeated until they have become habitual criminals, before it is ordered that steps shall be taken for their reform. What are the influences ordered by Parliament, and what is the work they have to be taught which will make them able and willing to earn an honest livelihood? Surely no Member of Parliament is credulous enough to believe that the influences and the work that will tend to make one man better will be suitable to all men. Even Members of Parliament do not all conform to the same rules, and there are as many differences among criminals as among legislators. "The Secretary of State shall appoint for every such prison or part of a prison so set apart a board of visitors, of whom not less than two shall be justices of the peace, with such powers and duties as he may prescribe by such prison rules as aforesaid." "The Secretary of State shall, once at least in every three years during which a person is detained in custody under a sentence of preventive detention, take into consideration the condition, history, and circumstances of that person, with a view to determining whether he should be placed out on licence, and if so on what conditions." "The Secretary of State may at any time discharge on licence a person undergoing preventive detention if satisfied that there is a reasonable probability that he will abstain from crime and lead a useful and industrious life, or that he is no longer capable of engaging in crime, or that for any other reason it is desirable to release him from confinement in prison. A person so discharged on licence may be discharged on probation, and on condition that he be placed under the supervision or authority of any society or person named in the licence who may be willing to take charge of the case, or of such other conditions as may be specified in the licence. The Directors of Convict Prisons shall report periodically to the Secretary of State on the conduct and industry of persons undergoing preventive detention, and their prospects and probable behaviour on release, and for this purpose shall be assisted by a committee at each prison in which such persons are detained, consisting of such members of the board of visitors and such other persons of either sex as the Secretary of State may from time to time appoint. Every such committee shall hold meetings at such intervals of not more than six months as may be prescribed, for the purpose of personally interviewing persons undergoing preventive detention in the prison, and preparing reports embodying such information respecting them as may be necessary for the assistance of the Directors, and may at any other time hold such other meetings and make such special reports respecting particular cases, as they may think necessary." A licence may be in such form, and may contain such conditions as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is the figure who has all power over the person sentenced to preventive detention; but the Act does not give him any power that he did not before possess. The Secretary of State has always held and used a dispensing power regarding the sentences passed on prisoners. He has not only remitted sentences, but he has imposed conditions while granting a remission. The Act does not even limit his power, for as the representative of the King he may liberate anybody if he sees fit. What the Act does is to set up machinery whereby the Secretary of State may be moved. Hitherto some personal interest must have been taken by him in a case before the exercise of the Royal prerogative would be recommended by him, for he would require to be prepared to justify his action if questioned in Parliament. The Act alters all that in so far as it applies and makes matter of routine what was exceptional. The Secretary for Scotland is the head of all the departments of administration, and being the head of all, is not likely to know, intimately, much about any of them. He has his parliamentary duties to attend to, and the more they press on him the more administrative work must he leave to the permanent heads of the departments. One Secretary of State may obtain, and may deserve, a better reputation for administrative capacity than another; but it is absolutely impossible to expect any one man to know intimately the details of the work of all the departments. He is responsible for education, for instance, but what can he know personally of the educational needs of a boy in the east end of Glasgow? Yet he prescribes for the education of all boys, as though it were easier to know about thousands than about one. As head of the Local Government Board, he has to state what amount of relief should be given to poor people in different parts of Scotland, what amount in grant should be given to distress committees, and what kind of work the unemployed should do. He never is a man who has had any experimental acquaintance with poverty, or who knows by experience what distress is entailed in a working-class family by dull trade; and manual labour has not been his occupation. Yet it is not the representatives of these people who instruct him. It is the Board of which he is the head, and whose members, however able they may be, are less in contact with those for whom they prescribe than he is. He is head of the prisons department, and he may now and then visit a prison; but even a Secretary of State, one might go further and say, especially a Secretary of State, cannot gain much intimate knowledge of prisons and prisoners from a casual visit. He has too many things to do, and the man who has too many things to do seldom does anything. He leaves that to his assistants. If Solomon undertook and tried to do as many things as a Secretary of State is supposed to do, he would lose his reputation for wisdom in a week; but he wouldn't be Solomon if he tried; and so the Secretary of State, on the advice he receives, has to determine the fate of the prisoner who is under sentence of preventive detention. Once in three years every such person has to come under his notice. This can only be done through reports. These reports have to be made by the committee set up under the Act, which committee is appointed by the Secretary for Scotland. It would be too much to expect that he should know the local circumstances in every case, and the men appointed may only be those recommended to him by his officials. That these will be men of good repute there need be no doubt, but there is no reason to suppose that they will be the men best fitted to represent the public, or most likely to have an intimate acquaintance with the conditions under which the prisoners have lived. If the officials had themselves shown any aptitude for dealing with prisoners in a reformatory way, there might be some reason for assuming that their nominees would be persons whose experience of life and the character of whose abilities would be of such a nature as to fit them for the work they are supposed to undertake. Men of ideas, especially if the ideas are not officially approved, are not at all likely to find themselves nominated for such work. They would cause trouble, and it is better that things should not be done than that Israel should be disturbed. The committee have to meet at intervals for the purpose of personally interviewing those who are under their care; and the value of their reports will depend on the intimacy of the knowledge they gain regarding the persons interviewed and on its accuracy. Apparently they need not meet more frequently than once in six months. Such a provision is too nakedly absurd to deserve discussion. Apparently they have to report to the Prison Commissioners, who report to the Secretary of State. The position is therefore something like this--that prisoners after they have served prolonged periods in prison may be transferred to another part of the establishment in order to be reformed. In their new quarters the treatment they receive is to be less rigorous than it has been. The influences under which they have to be brought are described but not defined. The officers may be the same as those who were called warders in the other part of the prison, but they may have a new name--perhaps a new uniform. If the person satisfies the Secretary of State, whom he will never see and who knows nothing about him personally, that he is a reformed character, he may be liberated on licence; and he may seek election to the ranks of the licensed once in three years. His conduct and record will then be considered. What will determine the character of the record obviously is the impression he makes on those who come into contact with him. That is to say, he will mainly depend on the report of the warder, for after all, does he not know most about the man? He certainly sees more of him than does any other body. A form will be devised which he will regularly fill in. Government institutions are notable for forms. It will provide for a record of the prisoner's conduct, behaviour, intelligence, and all sorts of things, and will no doubt be as ingenious a production as any of the numerous specimens which result from our practice of government by clerk. The warder will report to the head warder, who will report to the Governor. The Medical Officer will report as to the health of the person, and all the reports will go on to the Prison Commissioners, and from them to some clerk in the Scottish Office, who has satisfactorily passed a Civil Service examination on the Boundaries of the Russian Empire, the death of Rizzio, or some such important educational subject, and who has never had any opportunity to know anything about prisoners save what can be learned from books, reports, and an occasional visit to prison. The reports will be carefully checked, weighed, and summarised, and the Secretary of State will sign the order made for him. It is perfectly obvious that the higher up in the official scale one goes, the less intimate knowledge of the lives of prisoners, of the social conditions under which they lived outside, and of their needs, can you reasonably expect to find as things are at present arranged. The man who has the best chance to get a licence under the Act is the man who can dodge best. All our experience points to the fact; and it is not uncommon for the most objectionable character, by subservience and sycophancy, to impress favourably those who have the dispensing of privileges, and this is not confined to prisons or prisoners. When a prisoner is liberated on licence from a place of preventive detention and placed under the supervision or authority of a society or person, the society or person has to report in accordance with regulations to be made to the Secretary of State, on the conduct and circumstances of the licensee. The licence may be revoked at any time by the Secretary of State, when the person licensed must return to prison. If the person under licence escapes from the supervision of those under whom he has been placed, or if he breaks any conditions of the licence, he forfeits it altogether, and may be brought before a court of summary jurisdiction and charged with breach of licence, and on proof be sent back to the place of preventive detention. The time during which a person is out on licence is treated as a part of the term of detention to which he has been sentenced; unless he has failed to return after his licence has been revoked, in which case the time during which he may have been said to have escaped does not count as reducing the term of his sentence. The conditions of licence may be withdrawn at any time by the Secretary of State, and the person licensed be set absolutely free; but in any case, after he has been out on licence for five years the power to detain him lapses, provided he has observed the conditions of his licence during that time. In both the Borstal and the Preventive Detention Institution it is intended to teach the inmates habits and pursuits that will be useful to them in the world outside. What these are will altogether depend on what is to happen to them on liberation. No institution has yet been devised that even remotely resembles anything like the life that its inmates have to anticipate. A great deal has been written about the advisability of teaching trades to persons in institutions, but the writers are never themselves artisans, and if they had any practical knowledge of the subject they would not write; there would be nothing to write about. More goes to the learning of a trade than the handling of the tools. Men have not merely to learn how to do a thing, but how to do it in association with other workers. They learn the trade not from the lectures of a teacher or the instructions of a foreman, but from watching the work of others, and imitating or avoiding their methods, as seems most suitable. Take the two best tradesmen in almost any workshop, and you will find that they set about their work each in a different way--each in the way he has found best suited to himself. The apprentices learn from them; and the lad or man who wants to learn a trade, is ill-advised indeed if he goes to a workshop where there are as many apprentices as journeymen. It used to be said that the first year of a joiner's apprenticeship was served in sweeping the shavings and in boiling men's "cans"; and there was a good deal of truth in the statement. The best tradesmen I have known spent the first part of their apprenticeship knocking about the workshop, fetching and carrying for others, and unconsciously receiving impressions and gaining knowledge. The worst I have ever known were one or two whom the foreman thought, when they entered on their apprenticeship, to be too old for him to put to such work, and who were chained to the bench right away. In an institution where it is undertaken to teach lads or men trades, not only are the conditions less favourable than those outside, but they are actually opposed to them. In fact, you have a company composed almost entirely of apprentices. There are no journeymen. There is only a foreman in the shape of the instructor; and as the longer he is there the more out of touch he is with the changes in method that have taken place amongst his fellow-tradesmen outside, he is only capable of telling his apprentices how he would do the thing, which in a workshop they might do better by following a plan more suitable to them. If he has to overlook their work they cannot be overlooking his; and while he is criticising their efforts and keeping them in order he cannot be showing them an example. Every tradesman and every employer knows that it is an important question, not only whether a man has served his apprenticeship, but where he has served it. Of course, under the most favourable conditions some men do not become good tradesmen; they may have gone to the wrong occupation for them; but there are conditions that are generally more favourable than others for the production of capable workmen, and these conditions cannot possibly exist in an institution. Exceptions trained there may turn out passable workmen and may find work outside, but the result of trying to teach trades in an institution will be that at considerable expense you will increase the number of bad tradesmen; and there are plenty. I do not say that nothing can be taught in an institution. Many things are learned there. The whole point is that they are not the things that make for efficiency outside. It is easily seen how a man who has not himself been trained in a handicraft may believe that it can be taught as well in one place as another, although if you consider his own occupation and suggest that his profession too might be taught anywhere, he will readily see objections. The people who are notably interested in prison reform are largely drawn from the professional classes and from the well-to-do. It may be quite possible to teach a prisoner or the inmate of a reformatory to acquire the habits and the manners of an independent gentleman. Of the feasibility of the proposal, were it ever made, I am not qualified to speak; but, as an observer, one cannot help seeing that many of them have already acquired the habit of doing as little useful work for themselves as possible, and of expending a good deal of energy in directions that are not socially productive. The clergyman would reject as impracticable any proposal to train the reformed in an institution for entry into his profession; and yet abundance of quiet and of time for study could be obtained there, and there does not seem to be anything to hinder the teaching of theology, of literature, or of philosophy, from taking place within its walls. There is, of course, the question of brains. It is a great mistake to assume that brains are the monopoly of any class, or that they play a more prominent part in the work of professional men than in that of others. So far as the training is concerned, there is no ground for assuming that selected inmates of reformatory institutions could not be had who are as well qualified by natural endowments to receive instruction of an academic character, in as large numbers, as others who would be fitted to receive instruction in the working of wood or of metal. Of course there are other reasons why ministers should not be trained in prison. There is the question of moral character; and though reformed desperadoes have become noble beings before now, I do not think that even the most enthusiastic evangelist would consider it safe to assume that a man who has failed to conform to the laws of the community is a safe person to train for the ministry. This question of character would not be so generally admitted against any proposal to train the inmates of a reformatory institution as lawyers; but although a man might acquire all the useful information and general knowledge that are required for examination as a preliminary to admit him to the study of the laws of his country; although he might master the text-books and become learned in the records of legal decisions quite as well in a prison as in a lodging outside; no lawyer would admit that thereby he could qualify to practise his profession. He would insist that there is something more required in his experience than the mere knowledge of the laws and of case-books. Being a lawyer, he could set out at length what that something is. So there is something that marks off the man who has been trained under the artificial conditions which exist in an institution from the man who has been trained outside. I knew of a blacksmith who was a very useful tradesman while he remained in the institution where he had learned that trade. He obtained work outside on several occasions, but he lost it always, not through any misconduct on his part, but through sheer inefficiency. Some things he could do, but most things he could not do; and his employers found him an unprofitable servant, partly because of his limitations and partly because his methods impaired the efficiency of those with whom he worked. In my day I have served an apprenticeship both to a handicraft and to medicine, and I have no doubt whatever that it would have been as easy for me to train for my medical qualification in prison as to have qualified myself as an artisan in an institution. It is assumed that what the offender needs is above all to be trained in habits of obedience, as though that were not what he has always been taught when in any prison; and much good our training has done him. I know as little about military affairs as the military men who are appointed to manage prisons and prisoners know about the duties they undertake when they are appointed, but I do know something about the worship of discipline. Discipline means not knowing more than the man above you, no matter how difficult it may be to know less. There must always be twice as much wisdom and truth in anything the superior officer does or says as there is in the actions or words of his inferiors; and it is insubordination to behave in ignorance or in contempt of this great principle. At school we were taught a story about a man named William Tell, regarding which the later critics dispute the accuracy. It seems that a high military personage called Gessler set his cap upon the top of a pole in the market-place and commanded the people to bow down to it. Tell refused to do so, and was seized and compelled to enter on a test of his skill in archery; and so on. Whether the story about Tell is true or not, there can be no doubt about the cap; in one form or other it is still a symbol of authority, to be saluted with respect by the common people. In Scotland we had a song about Rab Roryson's Bonnet, but "It wasna the bonnet, but the heid that was in it," that was the real subject of the ditty. Discipline pays no regard to the head that is in the cap. The cap is the thing, though it may be placed on a pole. Everybody knows that the old cap of knowledge in fairy tales has no longer an existence, and that absence of what is called brains will not be compensated for by any covering of the skull, whatever pretence may be made to the contrary. Of the virtue of obedience we hear a good deal, and if we look around us we will see evidences that it may be no virtue at all, but a vice. In one of the best known of his poems Tennyson describes the soldiers: "Theirs not to reason why: Theirs not to make reply"; and there are many who think it a noble thing to teach a man not to use the brains he has, and to die rather than show disrespect to his superior by questioning his competence. This may be a military virtue, but it is a civil vice. If it did not work outside so badly in practice, it might be allowed to pass unquestioned; but one has only to look around to see the result of its application. The men who come under its operation are not rendered more efficient citizens thereby, but are hindered by the training they have undergone from obtaining employment in industrial life. Subordination there must be before there can be combined action on the part of men for any purposes, but there need not be senseless subordination. In any iron-work, for instance, where men work together, they each take their own and other men's lives in their hands daily. When they are acting in concert a false step, a careless act, on the part of anyone, may bring injury or death on himself and others; and they know this and behave accordingly, or no work would be possible. For the inefficient person there is no room, and when serious work has to be done Gessler's cap has no place; there is only room for William Tell. Men discharged from the army find difficulty in obtaining employment. It is not that they are worse men than their neighbours. It is because they have received the wrong kind of training. Employers do not prefer others to them from any absence of patriotism, but from a desire for efficiency. They cannot afford in industrial occupations to have people about them who have learned that it is "theirs not to reason why." They prefer those who have been taught to use all the sense they have in dealing with their work. In short, the person who during the most formative years of his life has been employed industrially, makes a better workman than the man who during these years has been taught to wait for the word of command before he does anything. Yet we have people going all over the country trying to convince their fellow-citizens that there is no salvation for us unless all young men are subjected to a period of military training, apparently in ignorance of the fact that those who have had that training have difficulty in competing industrially with those who have none. It may be true for other reasons, for purposes of defence, that we ought to learn to shoot, though for my part I believe that most men are more likely to be sick sometime in their lives than to be engaged in fighting with people of whom they know nothing. That would seem to be an argument for their being taught how to preserve and care for their own rather than how to destroy somebody else's health; but Gessler's cap is still in the market-place, and it is rude to say anything about it. Yet it is not the bonnet, but the head that is in it, that matters in the long run. CHAPTER VIII THE FAMILY AS MODEL The basis of the family not necessarily a blood tie--Adoption--The head and the centre of the family--The feeling of joint responsibility--The black sheep--Companionship and sympathy necessities in life--Reform only possible when these are found-- "Conversion" only temporary in default of force of new interests--The one way in which reform is made permanent. One great mistake made by those who consider social problems is that they either regard man apart from his surroundings or as one of a mass, instead of as a member of a family or group. Family life is the common form of social life, and whatever its defects, it is the form that is likely to persist without very great modification. The family is based on marriage, and the parties married are not one in blood, though the children of the marriage are. The family tie, therefore, is not solely a blood tie. The members are brought up in a sense of mutual obligation and in the knowledge of their interdependence. Occasionally adoption is a means of entering a family. When a person is adopted early in life, it is difficult to perceive any difference in the tie that binds him and the other members of the family. There is another and a temporary adoption which is much more frequent than is generally imagined, and the existence of which prevents a great many lads and more girls from becoming destitute and from drifting into evil courses. In Glasgow there are many young persons who, having no relatives of their own with whom they can live, or the relatives being unwilling to take them in, obtain lodgings and help from others. In the case of the girls, they pay a portion of their earnings to the common treasury and give their services in aid of the work of the household, being treated in all essential respects as members of the family. Many of them are not earning a wage sufficient to enable them to pay for lodgings at the ordinary rate; and it is this arrangement that explains why so many who are in receipt of small wages are able to live respectably, and do so. Attempts have been made to provide hostels for such wage-earners, on this very ground that their income is insufficient to enable them to hire a room with attendance; and the hostels are frankly admitted to require charitable aid for their upkeep, though they are in their management institutional; that is to say, they aim at economy by the subdivision of labour. It never seems to have occurred to those who appeal for funds to establish such places that the girls in the majority of cases have solved the problem for themselves, by what I have called, and what practically is, a kind of adoption; and that their solution is the correct one--that the minority who have failed to obtain adoption can be better helped by securing it for them, if necessary by subsidy, than by bringing them together in an institution. A good many jokes have been made as to who is the head of a household--the man or the wife; and the question is occasionally a subject of dispute; but in the family authority tends to adjust itself. It can only exist when there is mutual toleration and respect. Each member may be acutely conscious of the shortcomings of the other and may discuss them freely, but they all tend to unite against outside criticism, and if they are aware of each other's demerits, they are equally sharp to recognise qualities which help to their advancement. So that while one member may be the head of the family, another may be the centre of the family. It is not always either the father or the mother that exercises most influence in the family council. These matters are determined by circumstances, and when there is discord and disunion it is almost invariably due to a disregard of natural aptitudes and tendencies in the children, and to an insistence on parental rights in the narrow sense. The enforcement of mutual responsibility implies the recognition of mutual power. The community in which we live is mainly made up of families. Yet men are considered as individuals, legislated for, and supervised as though this were not the case; and the authorities, instead of working through the family on the individual, contrive to raise the family feeling against them. The State is not an aggregation of men, but an aggregation of families; and when men are considered in the mass they are considered without relation to their usual surroundings. It has been pointed out that the crowd takes on characters different from the individuals composing it, but it is quite wrong to imagine that men have ordinarily to be regarded as units in a crowd. Attempts are made to supervise men in masses; that is what takes place in institutions. Individuals are supervised in certain circumstances outside, but they are best supervised in conjunction and in co-operation with the members of the family of which for a time they form a part. If every family has not its black sheep, in most cases it has some one of its members whose capacity is not equal to that of the others. In some of the cases the direction in which the weakness is shown is one that leads to breaches of the law. There are many children in every city who are a great trial to their parents, and there are parents who sorely try the patience and resources of their children. There are families who spend care and effort to prevent one of their members from becoming worse than he is and in endeavouring to lead him into better courses; but the community does nothing to help them in their efforts until they drop their burden or are compelled to relinquish it, when the authorities promptly proceed to apply official methods of treatment. We have reached the point where it actually pays the family financially to disclaim responsibility, for the State will do all (even though it does it badly) or will do nothing. It would be cheaper in every sense to help those who are trying to bear their responsibility--who are willing, though their circumstances make them unable--than to do as we have done; and acting on the ignorant assumption of our own knowledge, wait until evil has developed so far as to be unbearable and then put the evil-doer through our machinery. Unless the offender is brought into sympathetic contact with someone in the community, who will enable him to resist temptation and encourage him in welldoing, he never does reform. There are people who attribute the change in their conduct to a conversion, sudden or otherwise, towards religion. The more sudden the change in their mental outlook the greater danger they are in; for the severing of an evil connection, though a necessary step, is not all that is required. In a community such as ours a man cannot stand alone. He cannot forsake his company and his accustomed pursuits and become a hermit, living the life of an early Christian sent into the wilderness. He has to remain in the world and live out his life there. He must not only be converted from his former courses, but turned to better courses. He cannot get on without company. He cannot even earn his living alone; and the great advantage the convert has in our place and time is the assurance that he will be supported by others of like mind with him. They will find work for him and fellowship, and they fill his time very full; but only in so far as good comradeship is established between him and others is he likely to remain steadfast. Comradeship deeper than the sharing of a common theological dogma and a common emotionalism is the only security for his reformation. To the man whose life has been passed in sordid surroundings, whose work has been monotonous and laborious, and whose pleasures have been gross, the more emotional the form in which the religious appeal is presented the greater its chance of success. He becomes filled with the spirit--a different kind of spirit from that which has hitherto influenced his actions--but the result is an excitement and an exaltation as pronounced as any he felt in the days of his iniquity. No one can listen to the convert at the street corner without being struck by the fact that while he is detailing and perhaps magnifying the nuisance he was before his regeneration, he is as much excited and makes as much noise as he did in those days. In some cases his public behaviour makes little difference to his neighbours, for he is no quieter than he was; though, instead of sending them to hell as he did in his wrath, he now tells them that they are going there. Of course there is a world of difference both to them and to him as a result of the change in his outlook. His conduct is improved, if his manner is not; but every period of exaltation is liable to be followed by one of depression, and this is the danger to which his emotionalism exposes him. The best way to prevent a man from falling back into his old habits is to keep him too busy in the formation of new ones to have any time to turn his attention to the past. We hear it commonly said that the way to hell is paved with good intentions, but just as truly the way to heaven may be paved with bad. If men are distracted from doing the good they intend by something less worthy, they are as often prevented from doing the evil they had concerted through something interposing and claiming their interest. Religion, then, may be a very potent influence in starting a man on a new course of conduct, and its spirit may inspire him to continue in the way of welldoing; but his perseverance will depend far more than he thinks on his adaptation to the company of the religious, and his interest in their work and their lives. Almost as little will the love of good keep him from the world, the flesh, and the devil, as the love of evil will make him a criminal. For the most part men are not wicked because they prefer evil to good, but because they have come under the influence of evil associations which appeal to something in them. The man at the street corner who speaks about serving God is, at any rate, logical when he talks about having served the devil; but in those old bad days he did not consider the devil at all. He did what pleased him best, quite apart from any desire to have the approval of the Prince of Darkness. It is only after his conversion that he discovers that all his life he had been serving Satan without recognising him, and it is equally possible, surely, for men to serve God without recognising the fact. It is just as possible for a man to do good and to live well, without thinking of anything beyond his pleasure in doing so, as to live wickedly from the same reason. In both cases the fellowship of others has a great deal to do with the matter. There is only one method by which a prisoner is reformed, and that is through the sympathetic guidance and assistance of some person or persons between whom and him there is a common interest. An employer engages an ex-prisoner and shows that he really desires him to do well. He must not patronise him, but he has to impress in some way the person he would help with the idea that he believes in him. He has to revive in him a feeling of self-respect. How is this done? There is no convenient formula. The man whose manner attracts one may repel others. Religion, which most powerfully influences some, shows no power to attract many; and the man who will be deaf to one form of appeal may respond to another. It is simply foolish to assume that because our attempts to correct a man have failed he is incorrigible. All we can say is that we have failed because we have not been dealing with him in a way suited to him. Sometimes it is an old acquaintance or a fellow-workman that impresses him and leads him to a new interest in life. Whoever moves him, and however it may be done, it is only a new interest that will expel the old. It never is what a man is taught, but what he learns, that moves him. CHAPTER IX ALTERNATIVES TO IMPRISONMENT What is required--The case of the minor offenders--The incidence of fines--The prevention of drunkenness--Clubs--Probation of offenders-- Its partial application--Defects in its administration--The false position of the probation officer--Guardians required--Case of young girl--The plea of want of power--Old and destitute offenders--Prison and poorhouse. If the present methods of treatment mainly result in the liberation of men and women from prison in a condition that makes it difficult for them to do well--sometimes more difficult than it was before they were sent there--it follows (1) that no one should be sent to prison if there is any other means to protect the public from him; and further (2) that no one should be liberated from prison unless the community has some guarantee that it will not suffer from him. In short, what happens to the prisoner in prison is of secondary importance to the public. Of primary importance is, what is likely to happen to them when he comes out. The first consideration should be: How can you deal with people who have offended so as to avoid making them worse and to ensure that they will behave better? Unfortunately, one main concern of many is how they can make the culprit suffer. One of the effects of retributive punishment is to make those who undergo it less fit, physically or mentally, than they were before its infliction. We must make up our minds whether we really desire to correct the offender or not, and if we seek his correction we must be prepared to throw overboard theories and practices which obstruct that end, whether they are old or new. An examination of the reports of the Prison Commissioners for Scotland will suggest to anyone that a good deal might be done to diminish the number of committals to prison. According to the last report published (1910), there were 46,466 receptions of prisoners under sentence. As some were in prison more than once during the year, the number of individuals represented is probably about 23,000, and of these 9775 were in for the first time. Their sentences ranged from under one day to two years. There were 39,036 sentences of a month or less, and of these 22,696 were seven days or less; 7949 of that number being of three days or less. These people have not much time to get accustomed to their quarters before they are liberated; and if there were the means, there is neither the time nor the opportunity to make any thorough enquiry into their dispositions and way of living, with a view to help them. As for the nature of their offences, there were 14,644 committals for breach of peace, disorderly conduct, etc.; 12,274 for drunkenness; 1982 for obscene language, etc.; and nearly all these are offences inferring drunkenness. Where did they get the drink? Apparently it was not from the public-houses, for from the tables it does not appear that anyone was sent to prison for breach of certificate. If the source of supply could be discovered and cut off, or at any rate made to flow less freely, it seems obvious that there would be a much smaller prison population. But is there any good purpose served by sending people to prison for a few days? It is true the streets are rid of them, but such as are habituals go out simply revived by the rest and keen as ever for drink. I say the habituals, for time and again these return with sentences of two, three, five, or seven days. As for the casual offender, it would be far better to let him off, when he cannot pay a fine, than to send him to prison, thereby causing him to lose his employment and bringing him to bad company. In 1909 over 40,000 were sent to prison in default of paying a fine. Time to pay fines benefits many, but there are those who are too poor to be helped by it. At present a fine is imposed as an alternative to imprisonment; and as the public is only assured of the culprit's behaviour for so many days, positive gain, financially and otherwise, would result from placing him in bond outside a prison. At present, if the fine is not paid, the absurd condition of affairs is this: that a person fined in, say, twenty shillings or twenty days may disappear and not pay the fine in the time allowed him; three months after he may be found, arrested, and sent to prison for this failure to pay. The sentence of the court amounted to this: that if he paid twenty shillings he would be at liberty to do as he pleased, but if he failed to pay he would have his liberty restricted for twenty days at the public expense; they to be secure from misconduct on his part during that time. He has behaved for three times that period at no expense to the public; why, then, should their hospitality be forced on him? As long as people will behave outside prison there is no sense in sending them inside. Whether they are likely to behave can only be discovered after a more exhaustive and a different kind of enquiry than has hitherto been made in each case. Minor offences form the great majority of our committals, and drunkenness is an element in most of the cases. If a man does not get drink to excess he will not become drunk. Persons and premises are licensed for the convenience of the public, and it is not for the public convenience that anyone should be allowed to have a practically unlimited supply of liquor. One of the troubles of the man that takes drink is that he is not in a state to appreciate his own condition, and he is apt to imagine that he is much more sober than he is. No respectable publican wants to make men drunk; but he wants to make money out of his business, and beyond certain limits he cannot be more particular than his neighbours. It is sometimes very difficult to say when a man is drunk, but it is easy to tell when he is not sober, and he is not entitled to the benefit of any doubt that may exist. It ought to be the business of the vendor to refuse drink to a man who has evidently had as much as is good for him. He may make mistakes, but they will be on the right side if he has to pay for them. The very desire to prevent men being supplied with drink to excess has resulted in making the law, with regard to the supply of drink to intoxicated persons, something very like a dead letter. I have known a man to be convicted for being drunk and incapable at a police court, and though it was shown that he left a public-house in that condition after having had several drinks there, when the publican was brought to the same court on a subsequent date, to answer a charge of breach of certificate in respect that he had supplied drink to a man who was drunk, the charge was found not proven. The fine for such a breach of certificate would not have been nearly so great as the cost of defending the charge; but a conviction would have resulted in the endorsement of the licence, and might have caused its withdrawal. Now as the man depended on the licence for his livelihood, this was practically a sentence of death. In these cases the magistrates are exceedingly unwilling to convict and in consequence charges are seldom made. If the penalty inflicted in the police court did not result in a larger penalty imposed by the licensing court, there would be less difficulty in dealing with the licence holders; and if drunkenness is to be prevented they must be dealt with. Of course a man may get drunk in a private house or in a club; making it more difficult for him to become intoxicated in a public-house would not prevent that; but even so, it would tend to keep the streets free from disorder; and if a man will take more drink than he can carry, it is alike better for his own health and for the public convenience that he should do it in private. There have been many complaints about clubs during recent years, and that some of them are vile places there can be no question. The evidence given in the court as to how these objectionable places have been conducted shows their character quite clearly, but in the worst cases the very fact that such evidence was in possession of the authorities is a grave reflection on their competence to suppress disorder. In some cases the clubs were little better than dens of thieves, to which half-intoxicated persons were lured to be robbed by people whose character was well known to the police. Raiding them avails little, but warning off those who would enter might avail much. Men in uniform placed at the doors would act as a sign to warn the unwary. The knave preys on the fool. Warn off his prey and he will starve. If through a subsidence or otherwise there is a hole in a street into which a man might stumble and break his leg, the place is barricaded off and a watchman placed there to warn the careless. Nobody would think of leaving the trap open, even though a sufficient ambulance service were provided to carry off the injured. When a place that is known to be a trap for the foolish is discovered, on the same principle it might be profitable to warn those who would enter it, rather than to wait until they had suffered loss and then seek to seize and convict those who had robbed them. There are more ways of closing an ill-conducted club than by withdrawing its licence; but after all has been said, most of the drunkenness that disgraces our streets has not resulted from the consumption of drink either in private houses or in clubs, in spite of what the trade may say to the contrary. Indignation against clubs on the part of liquor-sellers is not due to zeal for temperance, but springs from jealousy of their own monopoly. They seem to think that men should not take drink unless they are permitted to make a profit in the process; and it is just this question of profit that lies at the root of any effective dealing with the matter. Our attempts to punish the drunkards are often ludicrous. It might not be so ridiculous to try to get at those who make a profit off the drunkard. He makes a loss; we make a loss; someone has profited. We punish him; we punish ourselves; neither of us are profited at all. There is surely something wrong here. Those who are incapable of taking care of themselves, or who are disorderly in their conduct through drink, when taken into custody by the police, might quite profitably be permitted to go home when they are sober, unless their conduct is becoming a habit; in which case some other method of dealing with them requires to be considered. The disgrace of arrest will appeal as effectively to any person with a sense of shame as proceedings before a magistrate would do. When a fine--the cost of the trouble he has caused--has been inflicted on such an offender, time for payment should always be allowed. A man will never earn money in prison to pay the costs of his prosecution, but if allowed to go about his business he may do so. Even if he can only earn his living without paying a fine, behaving himself the while, he has done more than it would have been possible for him to do in prison. There has been a strong tendency of late years to deal with persons coming before the courts for the first time, even when the charge is regarded as a serious one, in some other way than by sending them to prison. They are put on probation for a period, and if nothing is known against them for that time they are discharged. Probation rightly managed would solve the problem of their treatment in the great majority of cases. Imperfect as the method employed at present is, many have been benefited because under it they have escaped imprisonment. It is most commonly adopted in the case of those who have committed offences against property; yet if the principle on which it can be justified--the principle of substituting correction for punishment--were intelligently recognised, it would be applied in all cases, no matter what the offence; provided the offender was regarded as a suitable subject on consideration of his history and character. At present the offence more than the offender determines the sentence; and there is a greater likelihood of a person who has committed a petty offence being put on probation, than there would be if in the eye of the law the offence he had committed were regarded more seriously. The process is popularly described as giving the offender another chance. It is a loose expression, which may mean anything. It sometimes does mean giving him another chance to offend, and that is all. It is intended to give him another chance to behave; and this assumes that he has already had the chance; an assumption that is not always warranted if the facts were considered. Clearly it is of no advantage to the public that an offender should have a chance of again committing a breach of the law; and if he is to be liberated from custody, it would be a reasonable proceeding to see that he is placed under such conditions as would make it easier for him to obey than to break the law. Putting him on probation ought not to mean returning him to the conditions under which he failed to resist temptation. Rather should it imply placing him under less unfavourable conditions of life. What is actually done amounts to this, that the offender, instead of being sentenced, on conviction, to imprisonment, is ordered to appear in court after so many months, in order that his case may be disposed of; and is allowed to be at liberty provided he consents to live under certain conditions prescribed by the court, his conduct to be reported on by a probation officer, whose duty it is to give him such counsel and aid as is possible without expense to the rates. The probation officer may be a police official; not necessarily a police officer, but under the control of the police. Now if there is one thing that is more clear than another in Glasgow and other urban areas in the West of Scotland, it is that the poorer classes are suspicious of the police and the machinery of the law that masquerades in the name of justice--for it is a burlesque of justice to examine only one side of a case; to decide how far the individual is to blame for offending against the laws of the community, without making any enquiry into the question how far the community is to blame for inducing the offence; and this is felt, if it is not clearly expressed, by all who are liable to transgress. A tacit conspiracy against the officers of the law is not only apparent in the case of the poorer classes, but in the case of all classes, when they are brought into conflict with it. The old Roman father who sacrificed his son to the laws, and whom we were asked to admire for his heroism when we were at school, is not a common phenomenon. He has left few descendants, which is probably a good thing. Now the father strives to shield his son; the sister puts the best face on her brother's conduct; and the neighbours would far rather condone the fault of the culprit than expose his misdeeds. They feel that our methods are wrong whenever they come intimately in contact with them, and they obey their instincts and feelings; that is all. They can see that it is wrong, that it is foolish, to interfere with a man to make him worse, no matter under what pretence, when they know the man; although they will readily admit that you must punish the offender whom they do not know. So the probation officer may be misled into a wrong report regarding the person under his charge when that person behaves pretty much the same as he did before he was first arrested, the conditions under which he is living not having undergone any material change. The probation officer has his hands full, having quite a number of people to visit and report upon daily. These people being widely separated from one another geographically, he is merely discharging the duties of an inspector; and he cannot give individuals the attention their cases may require in order to their improvement. Before a prisoner is discharged from the criminal lunatic department, the authorities see that an approved guardian is provided for him outside. The conditions on which he is allowed to be free are distinctly laid down, and the guardian is given the same authority over him outside as the attendants had when he was inside. If he breaks through any of the conditions imposed on him the guardian may report his misconduct, when he is liable to be brought back within the walls of the department. The same thing may happen if complaints of his behaviour are made by neighbours or associates. He has to be visited at intervals by some citizen of known character and integrity, whose duty it is to certify that the patient is fit to be free; and at unexpected times a medical officer from the department may call and see him, his guardian, and others, in order that there may be a reasonable security for the public. It has been said that there is too much fuss made over these cases, but I doubt it. The public security is the first consideration, and there has seldom been any cause given for complaint on the part of the prisoner so liberated. He is not set free and left to return to the associations to which he has reacted badly in the past. He is not left to struggle for existence and probably to fall under the struggle. He is placed under conditions which make it easier for him to do well than to do ill; and if he will not conform, his rebellion is checked at the beginning. It is not the duty of his guardians and visitors merely to look for evidences of his evil tendency. They have to help him to do well. These guardians are usually people who, for some reason, have a friendly interest in the man whose care they undertake. They are not paid for their work--though they should be, if necessary, as it costs less to keep a man outside than to keep him inside a lunatic asylum, and it is better to pay people who have a personal interest in the subject of their care than to pay those who have only an official interest in the persons with whom they deal. Contrast this state of affairs with probation as it is worked. In the one case the guardian is carefully selected and is not appointed to act, however willing he may be, if there is not ground for assuming that he is also able. In the other case it is assumed that the guardians who have failed to exercise supervision over the offender will be better able to do so when the culprit has appeared before a magistrate. In both cases there are official visits to the prisoner discharged on licence, and in the case of the offender on probation these visits are more frequent. In so far as the officer can do so, he tries to help the wrongdoer; but if he has many under his charge the best will in the world cannot enable him to do more than a little for each. This little is as much as is required in many cases; and, imperfect as it is, the practice of the probation system has been justified by a certain amount of success. Where it has failed has been in those cases where the conditions laid down have been of such a character that the offender is morally unable to conform to them. I do not suggest that the conditions were in themselves unreasonable, or that the standard of behaviour demanded has been too high judged by the needs of the community, but only that the demand made on the offender was greater than his circumstances permitted him to meet. X 32 was a girl under fifteen years of age, rather big for her years, judged by the standard of the district in which she was brought up. She was employed as a message-girl and stole money from her employers. In the aggregate she appropriated a considerable sum before she was found out. She was put on probation, broke her bond, and was sent to a reformatory. Two questions arose from her conduct. (1) Why did she steal? and (2) Why did she break her bond? As to the first question, the answer was quite apparent. She wanted little things which she could not get and she took the money to get them. Her peculations were not observed and they increased. Indeed, on one occasion she spent such a large sum of money in treating a party of school friends, that it is difficult to understand why the tradesman who executed her order did so at all, seeing what she was. It is one of the commonest things for young people to help themselves to things that are not their own. It is rarely considered thieving except they take money, or goods to sell; but dishonest appropriation of property is so common, not as a continued practice, but as an incident in the lives of young people, that I question if one of those who read this has not at some time or another in his or her life been guilty of it. This is too frequently forgotten, and if it were remembered as it ought to be children would be treated more wisely than hitherto has been done. The girl in question was the eldest daughter of respectable working people. Her conduct shocked them; but they were unfit to direct her, for during the day her father was out working, and her mother had as much as she could do to attend to her household and to care for her younger children. The girl was sent back on probation to this home; a respectable home, but a home where, in the nature of things, she could not receive the care and guidance she required, having developed this propensity; and she broke her bond simply because she was placed under conditions where there was no reasonable probability of her keeping it. Accordingly she was sent to a reformatory, at a cost to the community much greater than would have been incurred had she been boarded out with the consent of her parents under the care of some respectable person in the country, where she could have been freed from the associations that had proved unsuitable to her. Money may be had, through channels provided by Parliament, for placing people in institutions, reformatory and otherwise; while the statutes do not provide for expenditure in the way suggested. Accordingly the reason assigned for not doing things which obviously might be done with profit is, that there are no powers, enabling them to act in the way suggested, in the hands of the officials. This, if it is an excuse for inaction, is not a valid one everywhere. When the parents of a child are willing to surrender their rights as guardians on cause being shown, and to allow the young person who has offended to be placed under control of some suitable person, all the power required is in the hands of the judge. It is recognised that parents, however respectable, may not be able to give their children such attention as they may require should they contract certain diseases; and there is seldom any difficulty in inducing them to have their ailing child removed to an infirmary for treatment. On the contrary, there are more who seek such treatment for their children than can be accommodated. For want of a better term, what we may call a moral ailment in a young person may as readily defy the resources of the parents as any physical ailment could do; and there are many parents who recognise the fact and would welcome assistance; but instead of helping them we are content to wait until the offender gets worse, and then to free the parent from all sense of responsibility and to make his position more painful than it need be by placing the culprit in one of our institutions. We may hope our action will do good, but the hope is not founded on experience. There is no law that hinders the community from assisting the needy among its numbers, although there may be no provision of funds specifically for this purpose. Whatever may be the case elsewhere, in Glasgow want of money is not the reason why things are not done. We have a large fund called the Common Good of the Corporation. Of late years it has been swollen by profits on the city's tramways to such an extent that a bonus, under the name of a reduction of rates, amounting to some £40,000 in one year, has been divided among the ratepayers. From this same fund banquets are provided; receptions are paid for; medals are supplied to magistrates; and all sorts of expenditure are defrayed for which there is no authority to rate. A small sum relatively is granted in aid of scientific and charitable organisations, and about £500 is contributed to assist discharged prisoners. If money can be had to defray the cost of food, drinks, and cigars, for those who are quite able to pay for them themselves, and that without any special Act of Parliament, surely it could also be had to prevent offenders becoming hardened in their offences, and to assist those who are willing to undertake the work of guiding and training them in right ways of living. Doubtless the money will be found when it is realised that it is at least as important to the city that people should be kept out of prison and helped to do well, as it is that the eminent and notable among the citizens should occasionally be treated from the corporation funds. How many could be assisted in this manner it is impossible to say, but so far as can be judged a large proportion of those dealt with might be so assisted at comparatively little cost. Whether the number be large or small, however, it should be clearly understood that, the money being there, if they are not helped, it is not for want of power nor for want of means, but for some other reason. There are many things which the law does not enjoin on the corporation; but there are many others that are worthy which it does not prohibit those who are willing from doing; and if our officials are to be encouraged to believe that they must do nothing to help those who need assistance unless they get an Act of Parliament authorising them to do it, we need not wonder if our rate of progress is slow. The safe rule is to do the thing that needs doing, so long as there is not a positive injunction against doing it. This will cause trouble, no doubt, to the person who follows such a course of action; but I do not believe that any public official who acts on this principle will fail to receive public support and encouragement so long as he seeks to help people to help themselves, whatever view those in authority may take of his actions. We are too much bound by precedent. Appropriate action is sometimes checked by the consideration that the thing proposed has never been done before. Of course that is no reason for not doing it now; but it takes the place of a reason in far too many cases. More interest is taken in proposals for dealing with the habitual offender than in any others, although nobody is a habitual to begin with. He is supposed to be the dangerous person. He is a professional plunderer; the villain of the piece. But habitual offenders are not all great criminals. There are those who live by stealing, having become more or less expert at the business; but there are many offenders who, having become careless and drunken, or who, being physically or mentally a little below the ordinary standard of their class, are incapable of keeping a job even if they got it. They are more a nuisance than a danger to their fellow-citizens. This army of destitute persons should be dealt with by the destitution authorities. Taken singly they are not difficult to control and direct, and it would be cheaper and more profitable to have them planted out in the country than to allow them to herd together in the cities, to be successful neither in honest nor dishonest work, and serving as tools and touts for the more skilful rogues. The most helpless among them are the aged and infirm, some of whom have only become submerged late in life, and all of whom are quite unable to extricate themselves from the morass into which they have fallen. Now they are in the prison; now in the poorhouse. When they can avoid either of these institutions they live in lodging-houses or on the streets, where their misery is a reproach to our civilisation. They are not interesting; they are only disgusting; and it has been proposed to shut them up in the poorhouse, because they go in and out too frequently. Yet something might be learned from their point of view. They are sent to prison because they commit petty offences. They are quite unfit to conform to the rules of that institution and are not improved by residence there. For a few days they are kept off the streets, but nobody pretends that this could not be done more effectively and at less cost. If they prefer the prison to the poorhouse, as is sometimes alleged, they do not prefer the prison to the miserable and haphazard existence they drag out when free; and as a matter of fact, when the weather becomes suddenly severe or their ailments become more insistent, it is the parish, not the police, to which they apply. They hope to be sent to a hospital. When they recover sufficiently they are out again. May this not afford a presumption that there is something wrong with the poorhouse? Is it reasonable to assume that, having experienced all the bitterness and hardship due to their poverty and destitution--that knowing they will be subjected to hunger, rough usage, and exposure--they prefer to suffer these rather than trust to the tender mercy officially meted out to them, and that they do this through sheer cussedness? For my part, I do not believe that they are such fools. If they prefer to forage for themselves, knowing the difficulty of doing so, rather than live in the poorhouse, it is because, after balancing the advantage and disadvantage, they have found that anything is better for them than life in that glorious institution. To anyone who has lived there, there is no ground for surprise that they should adopt this conclusion. In the prison a man may have too much privacy. In the poorhouse there is none at all. The inmates having nothing in common but their misfortune, poverty, and destitution, are housed together and live a barrack life. Some attempt is made to classify them, as though you could sort out people, in ignorance of their temperaments and tastes, by their record as disclosed to an inspector. In our own experience people sort out themselves. In any church or club you get people of the same age and of similar good character. They can all be civil to one another if they meet occasionally, but set any half-dozen of them to live together with no relief from each other's company, and there will be rebellion inside a week. In the poorhouse the inmates have to suffer one another during the whole time of their stay. Some of them rebel and leave the place, even though they know that they will be more uncomfortable outside. They at least have a change of discomfort. Surely the money spent in chasing them and in keeping them would yield a better return if they were boarded out in comfortable surroundings, where during the few remaining years of their pilgrimage they might get fresh air and some space to move about in. Their very feebleness makes their custody less difficult, and it is no profit to them or to us to make it more arduous than it need be. If it be objected that this would be treating them better than the "deserving poor," that is only to remind us of the shameful way in which we have neglected those to whom we give that name. The "deserving poor" are the uncomplaining poor; and so long as they do not complain their deserts are likely to be disregarded, even when quoted as a reproach to those whose behaviour has attracted our censure. CHAPTER X THE BETTER WAY The offender who has become reckless--If not killed they must be kept--The failure of the institution--Boarding out--At present they are boarded out on liberation, but without supervision--Guardians may be found when they are sought for--The result of boarding out children--The insane boarded out--Unconditional liberation has failed--Conditional liberation with suitable provision has not been tried--No system of dealing with men, but only a method--No necessity for the formation of the habitual offender--The one principle in penology. If our courts of first instance were places where more exhaustive enquiries took place and greater consideration were given to the needs of the cases coming before them; if the aged and destitute were cared for and prevented from offending; if minor offenders were either liberated on their own promise of good behaviour or that of their friends; if people were put on probation under conditions that gave them a favourable chance of conforming to the laws; there would still be a number to whom such treatment could not be applied. There are some people who are not fit to be at liberty. They are so reckless of their own interests and the interests of others that, when uncontrolled, they become a danger. Some of them are insane, and the lunacy authority should attend to them. Others, through indulging their temper, are in the way of becoming insane; but their mental unsoundness is not so marked as to cause the lunacy specialists to certify them. That is no reason why it should not be recognised. At present they annoy those around them with more or less impunity until they attain to the ideal standard of insanity, in the process of their graduation paying visits to the prison. There is no reason why they should not be dealt with from the beginning. There is only precedent taking the place of reason. They are unfit to be at liberty without supervision, because they are not capable of self-control; but many of them could be trained in the habit. At present they are allowed to run wild for a time and then severely put down. Their life alternates between periods of riot and periods of repression, and their natural unsteadiness is intensified. If they knew that the period of riot had definitely ceased--that they were not again to be allowed to do what they liked if it implied harm to others--they would set about to control the temper that is in danger of finally controlling them. They boast of being able to stand our punishments, and even invite them; they might as easily be trained to qualify for our rewards had we any to offer. They may be brutal and sometimes are, though brutality is no longer a common characteristic of prisoners in prison; but it does not follow that, bad as some of them may appear, they are incorrigible. Their conduct and reputation make it difficult to obtain guardianship for them. What can be done with them? If they are liberated at any time they are a menace to the safety and the comfort of the citizens. It is because some writers have recognised this that they suggest the lethal chamber as a suitable place for them. It is a bold thing to propose the wholesale killing of other people except in name of war, and if there were any danger of the proposal being adopted it is not at all likely that it would be made. It is designed to shock us, and it fails to do so because we think we know that it will not bear discussion. As a matter of fact, at present we destroy the lives of these people in another way. Instead of curing them of their evil propensities we twist them still further, and kill any sense of public spirit in them as effectively in the process as we could do if we suffocated them. If they were put in the lethal chamber that would be an end to them. As it is, we have to set apart respectable citizens, not to make them better, but simply to watch them marking time before engaging in another period of disturbance. If they are not killed they must be kept. We have got past the killing stage. It is time we adopted a more rational way of keeping them. Either they have to get out some day, or they have to be imprisoned till their death. In the latter case we need not trouble about them beyond seeing that they are not harshly treated, and that those over them do not develop in some degree the qualities condemned in the prisoner; but if they have to come out again it behooves us to see that they are not set free in a condition that makes them less able to conform to our laws than they were when we took them in hand. Otherwise all we have gained by their incarceration is the privilege of keeping them at our expense. As all institutions have this in common, that the longer a man lives in them the less he is fitted to live outside, it follows that the shorter time a prisoner is cut off from the ordinary life in the community the less chance there is of his developing habits which will be useless to him on his return. The system of shutting people up for longer or shorter periods, and then turning them loose without supervision of a helpful kind and without provision for their living a decent life outside, is quite indefensible and has utterly failed in practice. A prison ought merely to be a place of detention, in which offenders are placed till some proper provision is made for their supervision and means of livelihood in the community. If this were recognised existing institutions would be transformed. Those who refuse by their actions to obey the law of the community, and to live therein without danger to their neighbours, would as at present be put in prison; but they would not be let out except on promise to remain on probation under the supervision of some person or persons until they had satisfied, not an institution official, but the public opinion of the district in which they were placed, that the restrictions put on their liberty could safely be withdrawn. The prison in which they would be placed would not be a reformatory institution where all sorts of futile experiments might be made, but simply a place of detention in which they would be required each to attend on himself until he made up his mind to accept the greater degree of liberty implied in life outside. The door of his cell would be opened to let him out when he reached this conclusion; but it would not be opened to let him out, as at present, to play a game of hare and hounds with the police. Alike in the case of the young offender and the old, the only safety for the citizens and the only chance of reformation for the culprit lie in his being boarded out under proper care and guardianship in the community. The proper guardian for one person would not be proper for another. At present the same set of guardians--the prison officials--look after all kinds of people who have offended. The first objection which proposals such as these meet is that it cannot be done. There are a great many people who use this expression when their meaning really is that they cannot do it. There is a difference. Not only can offenders be boarded out, but they are and always have been boarded out. Whenever a man leaves prison he has to board himself out. I do not propose to let loose on the community any more offenders than are let loose at present. Indeed, I do not propose to let any of them loose at all, but simply to do for them, in their own interest and that of their neighbours, what they are doing for themselves to the great loss of us all. When any one of them does reform at present it is only by one way; either he has the necessary supervision from the friends religion has brought him, or an employer has taken an interest in him, or a fellow-workman has given him help, or some friendly hand has guided him. In no case do we give the guardian any control over him; in no case do we pay the guardian for time and work spent. I propose that we should give the power and the pay which are at present given to official persons in prison to unofficial persons outside prisons; in the reasonable hope that the money would be better expended, and in the full assurance that the results would not be worse. Where are the guardians to be found? They are to be found in all parts of the country when search is made for them. The thing cannot be done wholesale. I do not suggest that the prisons should be emptied in a day. I merely indicate a mark to be aimed at and plead for an effective interference in place of the present ineffective interference. Putting it another way, are there no cases in which this procedure could be adopted? There are many; there are no cases in which it could not be adopted if you had the guardians looked out, but that takes time. It would be foolish, even if it were possible, to wait until you could treat every offender before treating any. It would be wise to begin and treat as many as possible in this way at once. It is not a question of finding so many thousand men to look after so many thousand; it is merely the question of finding one man to guide and supervise another man, the people in the district being the critics and the judges of his success. At one time, in this part of Scotland, the children of paupers and of criminals, and the orphans of the poor, were brought up in numbers in the poorhouse. They acquired characters in common that marked them off from children outside. When they grew out of childhood, and were turned out in the world to work and to live, many of them gravitated back to the institution or to the prison. It occurred to someone that what these children required was proper parents; and one was boarded out with a family here, and another with a family there, at less cost to the parish than had been incurred in keeping them in the poorhouse. Thousands of children during the last generation have been boarded out in this fashion to their great advantage in every respect; and their after-conduct has been as good--they have been as decent and law-abiding citizens--as the children of any other class in the community. This moral and social gain has been accomplished at less financial cost than that incurred by bringing them up in institutions. It was said that the institution child had been handicapped because of the stigma of pauperism, but the boarded-out child is equally a pauper in respect that he is supported by the rates. The fact is that the stigma from which the poorhouse child suffered was not the stigma of pauperism, but the stigma of institutionalism. When the public conscience was stirred regarding the treatment of the insane, great buildings were erected and lavish provision was made for the lunatic. To these places thousands were sent for treatment. By and by it became manifest that in many cases their latter condition was worse than their first. They were better housed, better fed, better clothed, and better cared for; they were protected from the cruelty of the wicked and the neglect of the thoughtless; but they acquired evil habits from each other, and they infected some of their attendants with their vices. Here and there suitable guardians were found for one and another of those whose insanity was not of such a kind as to make it necessary in the public interest that they should be confined to an institution; and now, in Scotland, between five and six thousand are boarded out. That in some cases mistakes are made no one denies; but the cases are few, and on the balance there has been an enormous advantage to everyone concerned. It has become apparent that not only the inmates of institutions acquire peculiarities which mark them off from persons living outside, but the officials who live in these places also tend to develop eccentricities, and there are proposals made with the object of preventing them from living in; the idea being that the more they are brought in contact with life outside the less they are likely to become narrowed in their views and their habits, and the better they will be able to do their work in such a way as would commend itself to the public whom they serve. If people can be had who are willing for a consideration to take charge of lunatics, and to fulfil their charge to the satisfaction of the public, it is not unreasonable to suppose that on suitable terms guardians could be found for persons who have offended against the laws, and who cannot be expected to refrain from offending if returned to the surroundings which have contributed to their wrongdoing. The criminal may be presumed to have a greater sense of responsibility than the insane person, and to be more able to take a rational view of his position. In any case, it should never be forgotten that so far as the public is concerned there are only two ways of it; unless, indeed, we are prepared to kill the criminals or to immure them for life. They must either be liberated, as at present, without provision being made for their welldoing, and without guarantees being taken for their good behaviour, even if opportunities were provided; or they must be liberated on condition that they remain under some form of supervision and guardianship. Unconditional liberation has ended in disaster to all concerned. Conditional liberation can only be expected to produce good results if the conditions are reasonable. They must confer in every case the maximum amount of liberty consistent with the security of the public; and the final judges must be the public themselves. The offender should work out his own salvation, and show that he deserves to have all restrictions removed before they are removed. If he is merely required to do so under highly artificial conditions within the walls of an institution, he will soon learn how to get round the officials there. His conduct in the institution can afford no means for judging what his behaviour will be outside under entirely different conditions. Inside he has no choice but to obey. Outside he has to think and act for himself, and has opportunities of acquiring new interests and of learning habits which are likely to persist because they are those of his fellow-citizens who are free. All sorts of systems have had their trial in dealing with the offender. It has always been recognised that it was necessary to remove him from the place where he had offended. He has been transported to other lands, there to begin a new life; but the conditions under which the operation was carried out were appalling. He has been placed in association with other offenders, and left, with very little supervision, to become worse or make others worse. He has been placed in solitary confinement; cut off from company of any sort; with the result of wrecking his mind as well as his body. At present he is separated from his fellows, but he has no opportunity to come in contact with healthy social life. One system has broken down after another. All systems have failed to deal with him satisfactorily. There can be no system, but only a method; and that, the method adopted by the physician in dealing with his patient. When he has satisfied himself that the man who comes to him for advice is suffering from a certain disease, he enquires into the past history, the habits and pursuits, and the social condition of the patient; and on the information gained considers his treatment. The course of conduct prescribed for one person may be quite unsuitable for another, although both suffer from the same complaint; and the wise physician knows that he cannot leave out of account the opinion of the patient himself as to what should be done. It is just so with the offender. In many cases he is best able to tell what should be done for him; and provided it is not something that would result in harm to the community there is no reason why his opinion should not be considered, but every reason why it should. The expert may know a good deal about the offender, but it has been proved over and over again that he does not know how to reform him; for he has been given ample opportunity, and his prescriptions have ended in failure. The official person is apt to imagine that he and his methods should be above criticism. His office has been magnified for so long that he honestly believes it is necessary that it should be maintained in the interests of the public. No institution can be created which will not result in the formation of vested interests in its continuance; and yet every institution must be judged by its results, and not by the opinions of those who are set to manage it. With the improvement in the social condition of the people; with an increase in the minimum standard of living; with the abolition, or even the mitigation, of destitution, the whole complexion of things would be altered. That changes in these directions will occur there is every reason to suppose, but meanwhile many fall by the way and many take the opportunity to grasp an advantage to the loss of their neighbours. Under any social condition offences may occur. Whatever laws we make there may always be law-breakers. A man may become possessed by jealousy or wrath and injure his neighbour, or from envy or greed may rob him, but he can only acquire the habit of doing so with our permission. If he is checked at the beginning and placed under control, he will not acquire that habit. Our present methods have not prevented the growth of the habitual offender, and they have not been designed to help those who have gone wrong to reform. The great defect in all our systems is that they are not based on a recognition of social conditions as they exist. Most men can and do behave under supervision, and that supervision in many cases could be made as effective outside an institution as inside one. Men prefer a greater to a lesser degree of liberty. At present they have more than one choice. They may conform to our laws and go free; or they may break our laws in the knowledge that if they are caught, on payment of a penalty either in money or in time, they may resume their wrongdoing once more. The habitual offender continues to offend because he prefers to risk imprisonment and live in his own way rather than accept the humdrum, peaceful life of his law-abiding neighbour. When he finds that there is no question of pay in the matter, but that he is simply offered the choice of good behaviour outside of prison, or incarceration within a prison, he will begin to review his position. There is only one principle in penology that is worth any consideration; it is to find out why a man does wrong, and make it not worth his while. There is nothing to be gained by assuming that individual peculiarities may be disregarded, and there is everything to be lost thereby. If we would make the best of him we should restrict the liberty of the offender as little as possible consistent with the well-being of the community, and enlarge it gradually as reason is shown for doing so. We cannot injure him without injuring ourselves, and we ought to set about to make the best rather than the worst of him. THE END INDEX INDEX A Adolescence, 131 Adoption, 304 Agents for the poor, 204 Alien, criminal, 100 -- immigrant, 98 Ancestors, difficulty of tracing, 19 Apprenticeship in institutions, 297-300 Assistance to parents, 120, 125, 307 Averages, 15 B Blind alley occupations, 130 Boarding out of children, 334 Boarding out or boarding in, 336 Boys' amusements, 121-30 Boys and adventure, 126 Boys and theft, 124 Boy labour, 130 Boy, rebellious, 118 Boy recreation, 128 Boy Scouts, 128 Boy trader, 133 Boy, truant, 119 C Cases, illustrative, 26, 27, 29, 33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 42, 54, 59, 71, 74, 77, 80, 81, 92, 104, 118, 119, 143, 144, 145, 146, 151, 152, 155, 201, 254 Cells, police, 195 Cells, prison, 222 Cells, punishment, 233 Centralisation of prison management, 210 Chaplains, prison, 218, 233 Charity, 268 Chastity and general conduct, 158 Children's courts, 122, 125 Children, cruelty to, 56 Churches and the immigrant, 97 Civil prisoners, 254 Civil servants, ability of, 214 Compulsory feeding in prison, 245 Concealment of pregnancy, 155-7 Conduct, loose, in some districts, 157 Confinement, solitary, 229-31, 337 Control of prostitutes, 159 Conversion, 307 Convicts, 255 Courts, children's, 122, 125 Courts, higher, 206-9 Courts, police, 198-203 Crime and character, 8 Crime and city life, 109, 110 Crime and social inequalities, 103 Crime and vice, 10 Crime and women's wages, 149 Crime in relation to drink consumed, 62 Criminal, alien, 100 Criminal class, 11 Criminal, habitual, 11 Criminal, indictments, 207 Criminal lunatics, supervision of, 320 Criminal, notorious, 12 Criminal statistics, 14 Criminals and offenders, 7 Criminals, conduct of, modified in prison, 5, 6 Criminology, pseudo-, science of, 13, 14 D Dancing clubs, 142 Deaths in prison, 251 Debt, imprisonment for, 254 Defective and the police, 37 Defects of probation system, 317-24 Density of population and crime, 79 Destitute child, the, 74 Destitute, dilemma of the, 72 Destitution, 68, 69, 70 Destitution and theft, 70 Destitution through age, 74 Diet in police cells, 196 Diet, prison, 223-4 Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies, 261 Discharged prisoners and police, 260 Discharged prisoners and their helpers, 262 Discharged prisoners, demands on, 263 Discipline, 301 Doctor and patient, 245 Domestic servants, 153-5 Drink and child neglect, 56 Drink and crimes against the person, 53 Drink and cruelty, 54 Drink and malicious mischief, 58 Drink and passion, 54 Drink and personality, 53 Drink and petty offences, 52 Drink and poverty, 68 Drink and the professional thief, 60 Drink and pugnacity, 54 Drink and sexual offences, 56 Drink and social condition, 64 Drink and social evils, 51 Drink and theft, 59 Drink inducing assault, 54-5 Drinking clubs, 315 Drink in the country, 62 Drink in the town, 63 Duration of control for young offenders, 286 E Education and quackery, 162 Exercise in prison, 242 Executioner and surgeon, 171 Exemplary punishment, 135, 179 Expiation, 178 F Faculty and its exercise, 22 Faculty and position, 20 Fallen women, 263-4 Family history, 21 Family life, 304 Family responsibility, 307 Feeding, compulsory, 245-9 Fellowship, 88, 115-6, 308-10 Fines, 176-8, 317 Fit, the, and the unfit, 19 Flogging, 171 Football, 129 G Gambling and theft, 105 Gambling, prosecutions for, 108 Gambling, the Church and, 107 Gambling, the Press and, 107 Girl of the slums, 148 Girls and sexual offences, 151 Government by clerk, 295 Gratuities to prisoners, 231 Gulf between visitor and prisoner, 236 H Habits formed in prison, 259 Habitual criminal, 288 Habituals under license, 296 Heredity, 17-23 Heredity and original sin, 22 Hire-purchase trading, 254 Homes for Offenders, association in, 269 Homes for Women, 265 Hooliganism, 135 Hospitals, prison, 243 I Imitativeness of girls, 148 Immigrant, alien, 98 Imprisonment, effect of, 269-70 Incorrigible and incurable, the, 168 Inebriate Homes and their inmates, 272-3 Inebriate Homes, defect of, 278 Inebriate Homes, failure of, 275 Information, official, 47 Insane, boarding out of, 335 Insanity and drink, 34 Insanity and embezzlement, 29 Insanity and fire-raising, 26 Insanity and murder, 31-3 Insanity and responsibility, 24 Insanity and theft, 26 Insanity, crimes suggestive of, 31 Insanity escaping notice, 28 Insanity inducing crime, 26 Insanity resulting from criminal indulgence, 33 Institution and family life, 283 Institution habits, 282 Institution, stigma of, 335 Institutions, common interests of inmates of, 279 Institutions, military model of, 279 Interest, personal, 48 J Jealousy and crime, 145-7 Jury, Scottish, 209 K Knowledge and experience, 138 L Labour, limitation of hours of, 131 Law, administration of, 113 Law and conduct, 8 Law and locality, 9 Law, the, and the poor, 85 Law, ignorance of, 90 Law, inability to obey, 90 Law, respect for, 181, 319 Lectures in prison, 241 Lethal chamber, 168, 330 Liberation, conditional, 336 Liberation, prisoner on, 258 Liberation, unconditional, 336 Library, prison, 240 Licensing, 314-316 License, spirit, penalties for breach of, 314 M Medical man and prisoners, 5 Medical officer, prison, 218, 251 Medicine and quackery, 162 Mental defect and destitution, 37 Mental defect and responsibility, 36 Mental defect resulting from indulgence, 39 Mental defect and theft, 37 Mental development, unequal, 35, 132 Mentally defective, 35 Mental faculty and social stress, 36 Mental incapacity and child neglect, 56 Method, practical, 337 Migration of town workers, 87 Migration from the country, 96 Minor offences, 312 Murder and the death sentence, 31 Murder, the element of accident in, 32 O Obedience, 301 Obscene language, 92 Occupations, blind alley, 130 Offenders, first, 9 Offenders, guardianship of, 333 Offenders, habitual, 287 Offenders, minor habitual, 313, 327 Offenders, occasional, 313 Officials, public supervision of, 113, 212, 249 Official utterances, 275 Overcrowding, 79, 80 Overcrowding and assaults, 83 Overcrowding and increase of regulations, 88 Overcrowding and sexual offences, 82 P Pain and vitality, 175 Parent and child, 119, 120, 123 Parents, assistance to, 125 Parliament, helplessness of, 111 Paternity in concealment cases, 157 Paupers, boarding out of, 334 Penalties, 178 Penalties, inequality of, 176, 177 Penalties, multiplication of, 88 Permanent officials, 113, 212, 249, 274 Pernicious literature, 126, 127 Personal service, 115 Physical defect and crime, 41 Pleas of insanity, 32, 208 Pleas, special, 208 Police and the defective, 37 Police and discharged prisoners, 260 Police and local conditions, 191 Police and military models, 190 Police and public, 189 Police casualty surgeon, 197 Police cells, 195, 196 Police courts, 91, 198-202 Police court assessors, 200 Police courts, country, 90, 206 Police courts, summary work of, 202, 203 Police, difficulties of, 195 Police, duties of City, 91 Police efficiency, 191 Police force inspection, 190 Police judges, 198-203 Police judges, appeals from, 199 Police, multifarious duties of, 189 Police pay, 190 Police persecution, 260 Police prosecutors, 198 Police station, 194 Police, transference of, 192 Political action, 111, 112 Poor, the, and the law, 84 Poverty and crime, 67, 78 Poverty and crime against the person, 82 Poverty and drink, 68 Poverty, the praise of, 108 Preventive Detention Committees, 293 Preventive detention, rules for, 289 Prevention of Crimes Act, 1908, 284 Prison and military government, 4 Prison and poorhouse, 327 Prison, assaults in, 232 Prison cells, 222 Prison chaplain, 218, 233 Prison clothing, 224 Prison Commission, 211 Prison, deaths in, 251 Prison diet, 223-4 Prison exercise, 242 Prison, general plan of, 221 Prison governor, 217, 231 Prison habits, 259 Prison hospitals, 243 Prisons, inspectors of, 211 Prison lectures, 241 Prison library, 240 Prison matron, 217, 225 Prison medical officer, 218, 251 Prison offences, 232 Prisons, Parliamentary supervision of, 212 Prison, proper function of, 332 Prison punishments, 232 Prison routine, 220 Prison rules, 213 Prison Visiting Committee, 215-7 Prison warders, 219 Prison work, 226 Prison workshops, 228 Prisoner and doctor, 244 Prisoners and enquirers, 45 Prisoners and their friends, 47 Prisoners and police persecution, 260 Prisoners and recreation, 241-2 Prisoners and religion, 238 Prisoners and religious visitors, 235 Prisoners and visitors, 45, 235, 252 Prisoner's attitude towards visitor, 236 Prisoners, civil, 254 Prisoners, classification of, 5 Prisoners, common characters of, 11, 13 Prisoners' complaints, 233 Prisoners' gratuities, 231 Prisoners, ideals presented to, 237 Prisoners, insane, 24 Prisoners' language, 46 Prisoner on liberation, 258 Prisoners, sick, 244 Prisoners' statements, 44-7 Prisoners under death sentence, 167 Prisoners untried, 252 Prisoners, visits to, 45, 231, 235, 252-3 Probation of offenders, 317 Probation system, 318 Procurator Fiscal, 207 Property, supervision of, 110 Punishment, arbitrary, 172 Punishment, capital, 167-70 Punishment cells, 233 Punishment, corporal, 170 Punishment, deterrent, 179 Punishment in the past, 164 Punishment of children, 174 Punishment, retributive, 165 Q Quackery, 163 R Recreation, public, 86 Reform, the only method of, 337 Religious atmosphere, 269 Religious visitors, 235 Right and wrong, 138 S Secretary of State and prisoner, 291 Secretary of State, multiplicity of duties of, 292 Self-deceit in criminals, 106 Senile changes and crime, 139 Sentences, short and long, 257 Servant, domestic, temptations of, 154 Service, domestic, conditions of, 153 Sexes, attraction by opposite, 141 Sexes, relative position of, 140 Sheriff Courts, 203-6 Sheriffs, 203-6 Sick prisoners, 244 Slum, the, 82-5 Social ambition and dishonesty, 104 Social inequalities and crime, 103 Social intercourse, 87 Social jealousy and distrust, 104 Social opinion and conduct, 182 Social questions, quackery in, 163 Social stress and mental faculty, 36 Spirit of the crowd, 136 Statistics, criminal, 11-4 Street trading, 133 Subordination, 302 Supervision of permanent officials, 113, 212, 249, 274 System of probation, 317 T Theft and malicious mischief, 58 Trades, teaching of, 297 Treatment, rational principles of, 164 U Unemployed workmen, decadence of, 73 Untried prisoners, 252 V Vice and crime, 10 Visitors' attitude towards prisoners, 236 Visitors, religious, 235 Visits to prisoners, 45, 235, 252 W Warders, assaults on, 232 Warrior and worker, 166 Widows and orphans, 112 Women and bigamy, 159 Women and theft from the person, 144 Women and standard of living, 150 Women as decoy, 145 Women as wage earners, 149 Women, fallen, 263-4 Women offenders, 144, 263 Women offenders, help for, 264 Women offenders, position of, 265 Y Young offenders and license, 286 Young offenders, incorrigible, 287 Young offenders, reform of, 284