Chapter III: Criminal Anthropology (physical) (2)

Heart disease is common among criminals. Out of 54 examined by Flesch, 20 per cent. died of heart disease, 50 per cent. showed affections of the heart. Valvular insufficiency and cardiac atrophy seem to be remarkably prevalent. Penta found endarteritis and atheroma in 82 of his 184 instinctive criminals, _i.e._ 44 per cent., although many of them were young. The condition, he says, was diffused and pronounced; 20 of these 82 showed aortic insufficiency. It may be noted that arterial anomalies are extremely frequent. Thus Guerra found 14 arterial anomalies in his 18 criminals as against 4 in his 12 normal persons. Heart disease is also common among the insane. Its tendency to produce mental alterations has often been noted; pride, egotism, and an inclination to violence are found, especially (according to Witkowski) among those affected with ventricular hypertrophy; with aortic disease, neurotic and hysterical states; with mitral disease, melancholy and attacks of violence. This is not surprising when we remember the intimate connection that subsists normally between the heart and the brain, the vascular system forming, as it were, the basis of the brain.

The sexual organs in women criminals very frequently reveal pathological conditions. Undescended testis has been frequently found by one of the medical officers who answered my Questions. Unusual size of penis by another. It is interesting to note in this connection that Drs. Bourneville and Sollier found exaggerated development of the glans penis extremely common among the idiots at the Bicêtre, and that among 728 individuals examined they found no fewer than 262 presenting anomalies of the sexual organs, an enormous proportion when compared with the ordinary population.[29] Ottolenghi believes that “on the whole anomalies of the genital organs have in sexual offenders no small diagnostic importance, especially when united to other characters which distinguish them from the honest and from criminals in general--as the greater frequency of fair hair, of malformed ears, of bichromatism of the iris, of blue eyes, of twisted noses, of facial asymmetry, of voluminous lower jaws, and of various neuroses, especially epilepsy.”[30]

It may be noted here that Marro and Ottolenghi have recently studied metabolism in criminals. The chief point that comes out is an augmented elimination of phosphoric acid in the urine. The same has been observed in chronic alcoholism. These researches will, no doubt, be continued.[31]

§ 6. _Heredity._

The detailed study of criminal heredity and of criminal habit, or recidivism, scarcely forms part of criminal anthropology. It is an important branch of criminal sociology. But the facts of heredity form part of the evidence in favour of the reality of the criminal anthropologist’s conclusions, and it is not possible to ignore them here entirely. Moreover, the attitude of society towards the individual criminal and his peculiarities must be to some extent determined by our knowledge of criminal heredity.

The hereditary character of crime, and the organic penalties of natural law, were recognised even in remote antiquity. They were involved in the old Hebrew conception, which seems to have played a vital part in Hebrew life, of a God who visited the sins of the parents upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. We know also the story in Aristotle of the man who, when his son dragged him by his hair to the door, exclaimed--“Enough, enough, my son; I did not drag my father beyond this.” And Plutarch puts the doctrine of heredity in a shape that is both ancient and modern--“That which is engendered is made of the very substance of the generating being, so that he bears in him something which is very justly punished or recompensed for him, for this something is he.” Or again--“There is between the generating being and the generated a sort of hidden identity, capable of justly committing the second to all the consequences of an action committed by the first.”

There are two factors, it must be remembered, in criminal heredity, as we commonly use the expression. There is the element of innate disposition, and there is the element of contagion from social environment. Both these factors clearly had their part in Sbro ... who is regarded by Lombroso as the classical type of “moral insanity.” His grandfather had committed murder from jealousy; his father, condemned for rape, had killed a woman to test a gun. He in his turn killed his father and his brother. Practically, it is not always possible to disentangle these two factors; a bad home will usually mean something bad in the heredity in the strict sense. Frequently the one element alone, whether the heredity or the contagion, is not sufficient to determine the child in the direction of crime. A case given by Prosper Lucas seems to show this: “In November 1845 the Assize Court of the Seine condemned three members out of five of a family of thieves, the Robert family. This case presented a circumstance worthy of remark. The father had not found among all his children the disposition that he would have desired; he had to use force with his wife and the two younger children, who up to the last were rebellious to his infamous orders. The eldest daughter, on the other hand, followed, as if by instinct, her father’s example, and was as ardent and violent as he in attempting to bend the family to his odious tastes. But in one part of the family the instinct was lacking; they inherited from their mother.”

The influence of heredity, even in the strict sense of the word, in the production of criminals, does not always lie in the passing on of developed proclivities. Sometimes a generation of criminals is merely one stage in the progressive degeneration of a family. Sometimes crime seems to be the method by which the degenerating organism seeks to escape from an insane taint in the parents. Of the inmates of the Elmira Reformatory, 499, or 13.7 per cent., have been of insane or epileptic heredity. Of 233 prisoners at Auburn, New York, 23.03 per cent. were clearly of neurotic (insane, epileptic, etc.) origin; in reality many more. Virgilio found that 195 out of 266 criminals were affected by diseases that are usually hereditary. Rossi found 5 insane parents to 71 criminals, 6 insane brothers and sisters, and 14 cases of insanity among more distant relatives. Kock found morbid inheritance in 46 per cent. of criminals. Marro, who has examined the matter very carefully, found the proportion 77 per cent., and by taking into consideration a large range of abnormal characters in the parents, the proportion of criminals with bad heredity rose to 90 per cent. He found that an unusually large proportion of the parents had died from cerebro-spinal diseases, and from phthisis. Sichard, examining nearly 4000 German criminals in the prison of which he is Director, found an insane, epileptic, suicidal, and alcoholic heredity in 36.8 per cent. incendiaries, 32.2 per cent. thieves, 28.7 per cent. sexual offenders, 23.6 per cent. sharpers. Penta found among the parents of 184 criminals only 4 to 5 per cent. who were quite healthy.

Even when well-marked disease is absent in the parents, exhausting and debilitating influences, age at time of conception and overwork, may play a disastrous part. Dr. Langdon Down (_Mental Diseases of Childhood_) has shown how the same influences play a part in the production of idiocy; how, for instance, a man may during periods of strain and overwork conceive idiot children, and at other periods healthy children. Marro has made some interesting investigations into the ages of the father at the period of conception of criminals, as compared with ordinary persons and with the insane. He divided the fathers into three groups, according to age at conception: the first included those in the period of immaturity, which he reckoned as below 25 years of age; the second was the period of maturity from 26 to 40; the third from 41 onwards, the period of decadence. Plate VII. represents in a graphic form the percentage of fathers belonging to each period in various groups; the first column in each group representing the proportion of fathers belonging to the period of immaturity, the second those belonging to the period of maturity, the third those belonging to the period of decadence. It will be seen that the largest proportion of immature parents is among the class of thieves, although among the insane the proportion is still larger. More remarkable is the abnormally large proportion of criminals with parents belonging to the period of decadence. It is most marked among the murderers, 52.9 per cent. of whose fathers had passed the period of maturity; but it is very large also, exceeding the insane among those convicted of assault and wounding (not represented in the Plate), and among sharpers. Sexual offenders have the largest proportion of mature fathers, the smallest of youthful fathers. Suspecting that among idiots a very large proportion of elderly fathers would be found, I applied to Dr. Langdon Down, who has kindly gone through the notes of one thousand cases, and confirmed this suspicion. He finds that in 23 per cent. cases there has been a disparity of age of more than ten years at the birth of the idiot child, the father in nearly every case being the elder, and that in many cases this disparity has reached more than 25 years. It appears, then, Dr. Down adds, that the disparity of age is a factor in the production of idiocy. It may be added that the elderly parent, by dying and leaving his children young and unprotected, has also a social influence in the creation of criminals.

RELATION OF AGE OF PARENTS IN NORMAL PERSONS, THE INSANE AND CRIMINAL.]

It is interesting to compare these results with those of Korosi, Director of the Hungarian Statistical Bureau, on the ordinary population. He has investigated 24,000 cases, and found that the children of fathers below 20 are of feeble constitution; that fathers aged from 25 to 40 produce the strongest children, and that above 40 fathers tend to beget weak children. The most healthy children have a mother below the age of 35; the children born between 35 and 40 are 8 per cent. weaker; after 40, 10 per cent. weaker. The children born of old fathers and young mothers, it should, however, be added, are generally of strong constitution. If the parents are of the same age the children are less robust.

Such hereditary influences as these seem to have played a part in the production of that typical criminal by instinct, T. G. Wainewright, who appears to have had no criminals or lunatics among his ancestry. The often-quoted case of the criminal family, first mentioned by Despine in his _Psychologie Naturelle_, is interesting in this connection. Three brothers, the sons of one Jean Chrétien, had children and grandchildren as under--

{Jean-François, thief.
{Bénoît.
{Claire, thief.
Jean Joseph {Marie-Renée, thief.
{Marie-Rose, thief.
{Victor, thief.
{Victorine. ---- Victor, murderer.

{François, murderer.
Thomas {Martin, murderer ---- (son, thief).

Pierre--Jean-François, thief and murderer.

Nothing is told us of the man and his three sons who produced this awful brood, save that they were not themselves condemned criminals; but whatever the influence was, it existed in all three of the brothers, who each begat murderers and thieves. It is by subtle hereditary influences, as well as by the instinctive habits of a lifetime, that we must explain the influence of criminal contagion on men of honest life and clean record. M. Émile Gautier, a political prisoner with Prince Krapotkine and a number of French working-men in the great prison of Clairvaux, has recorded an experience which is of interest in this connection. “Out of fifty political prisoners,” he writes in his interesting and thoughtful impressions published in the _Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle_ in 1888, “belonging to the average, or even the _élite_, of the working-class population of a large town like Lyons, a good half-dozen will be found who feel themselves at home in prison, and go immediately towards the criminal-law prisoners, assuming at once, in virtue of I do not know what equivocal predestination, their language, their appearance, their habits, their mental dispositions, even the same negative morality, savagery, treachery, artfulness, rapacity, and unnatural vice.”

Alcoholism in either of the parents is one of the most fruitful causes of crime in the child. To the drunkenness of Jupiter when Vulcan was conceived the Romans attributed the deformity of that god; in the words of the old Latin poet:--

“Quis nescit crudo distentum nectare quondam
Indulsisse Jovem Junoni; atque inde creatum
Vulcanum turpem, coelique ex arce ruendum?”

There is to-day no doubt whatever that chronic alcoholism as well as temporary intoxication at the time of conception modifies profoundly the brain and nervous system of both parent and offspring. Some of the most characteristic cases of instinctive criminality are solely or chiefly due to alcoholism in one of the parents. When insanity and alcoholism are combined in the parents, a rich and awful legacy of degeneration is left to the offspring. Thus, one among many instances, Morel quotes a case in which the father was alcoholic, the mother insane, and of the five children one committed suicide, two became convicts, one daughter was mad, and another semi-imbecile. Carefully-drawn statistics of the 4000 criminals who have passed through Elmira, New York, show drunkenness clearly existing in the parents in 38.7 per cent., and probably in 11.1 per cent. more. Out of seventy-one criminals whose ancestry Rossi was able to trace, in twenty the father was a drunkard, in eleven the mother. Marro found that on an average 41 per cent. of the criminals he examined had a drunken parent, as against 16 per cent. for normal persons.

Nor is it necessary that the alcoholism should be carried so far as to produce great obvious injury to the parent. The action of the poison may be slow and carried on from generation to generation. The fathers eat sour grapes; the children’s teeth are set on edge.

The relation of alcoholism to criminality is by no means so simple as is sometimes thought; alcoholism is an effect as well as a cause. It is part of a vicious circle. For a well-conditioned person of wholesome heredity to become an inebriate is not altogether an easy matter. It is facilitated by a predisposition, and alcoholism becomes thus a symptom as well as a cause of degeneration. The conclusions of Dr. Crothers, who has devoted considerable study to this subject, are worthy of attention. He believes that we do not sufficiently study the origin of inebriety. His conclusions are--(1) that inebriety is itself evidence of more or less unsoundness; (2) in a large proportion of cases it is only a sign of slow and insidious brain disease; (3) when crime is committed by inebriates, the probability of mental disease is very strong; (4) using spirits to procure intoxication for the purpose of committing crime is evidence of the most dangerous form of reasoning mania. The crime and the inebriety are only symptoms of disease and degeneration, “whose footprints can be traced back from stage to stage.”[32] It may be added that the danger of alcoholism, from the present point of view, lies not in any mysterious prompting to crime which it gives, but in the manner in which the poison lets loose the individual’s natural or morbid impulses, whatever these may be.

If we set aside these slow and subtle causes and symptoms of degeneration--causes which, while they may have long been recognised, are only now beginning to be understood--there is no doubt whatever that the criminal parent tends to produce a criminal child. There are, as Vidocq said, families in which crime is transmitted from generation to generation, and which seem to exist merely in order to prove the truth of the old proverb: _bon chien chasse de race_. The investigations at Elmira showed that in 51.8 per cent. the home was “positively bad,” and only “good” in 8.3 per cent. A large number of the criminals investigated by Rossi (_Studio sopra una Centuria di Criminali_) belonged to criminal families. Two typical examples may be given:--N. N., condemned for fraud and violence; father, alcoholic, convicted of fraud; mother, healthy; six brothers, died young; one brother, a monster; another brother, born with webbed fingers; another brother, highway-robber; another brother, convicted of wounding; two sisters, one insane, the other a prostitute. R. S., a thief, camorrista, convicted of wounding, etc; father, convicted of wounding; paternal uncle, a thief; mother, a drunkard, convicted for fraud and wounding; maternal grandfather, insane; maternal uncles, camorrista; one brother, pickpocket, who five times feigned madness; another brother, camorrista, convicted of fraud; another, thief; another, receiver; another, camorrista and thief; a sister, honest and healthy.

Sometimes the criminal tradition is carried on through many generations and with great skill, a kind of professional caste being formed. The Johnson family of counterfeiters in America is an example of this. The grandfather was a famous counterfeiter in his day; the next generation were well known to the police; in the third generation criminal audacity and skill appear to have reached a very high degree in seven brothers and sisters, one of them, especially, being considered one of the most expert counterfeiters of the day; he has spent a large part of his life in various prisons.

The so-called “Jukes” family of America is the largest criminal family known, and its history, which has been carefully studied, is full of instruction.[33] The ancestral breeding-place of this family was in a rocky inaccessible spot in the state of New York. Here they lived in log or stone houses, sleeping indiscriminately round the hearth in winter, like so many radii, with their feet to the fire. The ancestor of the family, a descendant of early Dutch settlers, was born here between 1720 and 1740. He is described as living the life of a backwoodsman, “a hunter and fisher, a hard drinker, jolly and companionable, averse to steady toil,” working by fits and starts. This intermittent work is characteristic of that primitive mode of life led among savages by the men always, if not by the women, and it is the mode of life which the instinctive criminal naturally adopts. This man lived to old age, when he became blind, and he left a numerous, more or less illegitimate, progeny. Two of his sons married two out of five more or less illegitimate sisters; these sisters were the “Jukes.” The descendants of these five sisters have been traced with varying completeness through five subsequent generations. The number of individuals thus traced reaches 709; the real aggregate is probably 1200. This vast family, while it has included a certain proportion of honest workers, has been on the whole a family of criminals and prostitutes, of vagabonds and paupers. Of all the men not twenty were skilled workmen, and ten of these learnt their trade in prison; 180 received out-door relief to the extent of an aggregate of 800 years; or, making allowances for the omissions in the record, 2300 years.[34] Of the 709 there were 76 criminals, committing 115 offences. The average of prostitution among the marriageable women down to the sixth generation was 52.40 per cent.; the normal average has been estimated at 1.66 per cent. There is no more instructive study in criminal heredity than that of the Jukes family.

§ 7. _Tattooing._

The practice of tattooing is very common among criminals, and is frequently carried to an extraordinary extent, twenty or thirty designs being occasionally found on the same subject. Lombroso was the first to point out the full biological and psychical significance of this practice.

Alborghetti found 15 per cent. of the inmates of the prison at Bergamo tattooed. Lombroso examined 100 children at the reformatory at Turin, and found 40 of them tattooed. Among 235 other youthful criminals he found 32 per cent. tattooed. Among the ordinary population tattooed children are very rarely seen. Rossi found 23 tattooed among the 100 criminals whom he has so carefully studied. Lacassagne among 800 convicted French soldiers found 40 per cent. tattooed.[35]

The designs vary in character, but certain emblems are frequently repeated. Tardieu out of 160 designs found 20 relating to love, 20 to war, 8 to religion, 8 to occupation, 6 to obscene practices.

Dr. Greaves, the medical officer of Derby Prison, has kindly noted details of the tattoo marks observed on the prisoners received there during three months. Out of 555 persons admitted, 41 (40 men and one woman) were tattooed; _i.e._, 7.3 per cent. The tattooed individuals were chiefly soldiers, with a few miners and sailors. The favourite devices were flags, ships, anchors, female figures, bracelets, and initials. There were two inscriptions, “Love” and “Jesus wept”; and among the less common devices were a crucifix, Maltese crosses, a ballet girl, a mermaid, and Chinese flower-pots. The most numerous and complex figures were all found on soldiers.

The designs most frequently found by Rossi among his 23 tattooed criminals were--portrait of mistress or nude woman (8); initials, either of self, mistress, or friend (9); a transfixed heart, an emblem sometimes of love, sometimes of vengeance (5); flowers, comets, swords, serpents, etc.

Tattooed inscriptions, as noted by Lacassagne, who has given special attention to this matter, are frequently characteristic of the criminal’s mental attitude; here are a few of the commonest: “Son of misfortune,” “No luck,” “Death to unfaithful women,” “Vengeance,” “Son of disgrace,” “Born under an unlucky star,” “Child of joy,” “The past has deceived me.”

The favourite position for tattooing, among the ordinary population, is the front of the forearm; to a less degree the shoulders, the chest (especially sailors), or the fingers. All who are tattooed on the back or the sexual organs (according to Lombroso) have without exception either been among the Pacific islands or sojourned in a prison. The greater number of tattooed criminals are naturally found among recidivists and instinctive criminals, especially those who have committed crimes against the person. The fewest are found among swindlers and forgers, the most intelligent class of criminals. There is evidence that criminals frequently refrain from tattooing themselves because they know these marks form an easy method of recognition in the hands of the police. It appears that, in Italy at all events, the connection between tattoo marks and crime has been of late recognised by the common soldiers. In 1848 the soldiers of the Piedmontese army considered tattooing a mark of virility. Recently, when Lombroso asked a soldier why he was not tattooed, he replied: “Because those are the things that lead to the galleys;” and an army doctor assured Lombroso that tattooed men were considered _a priori_ as bad soldiers.

Right arm of G., French thief, etc., expelled from France, and wandered in Africa and Australia. (Lombroso.)

M. J., French sailor and deserter; the nature of his crime is unknown. (Lombroso.)]

The causes that produce tattooing are doubtless of a complex kind. Religion, formerly and still among some races a chief cause of the practice, was up to 1688 practised at Bethlehem by the Christian pilgrims, and still survives at Loretto. Of 102 tattooed criminals, 31 bore religious emblems. Vengeance frequently leads to it among criminals, and among the feebler ones the spirit of imitation. Idleness often explains it among prisoners, shepherds, and sailors.[36] Vanity is almost as powerful a cause among criminals as among savages. “The more one is tattooed,” said a Neapolitan soldier to Rossi, “the more one is esteemed and feared by one’s companions, because it shows greater progress in the path of crime.” Higher emotions always play a considerable part; and recollections of childhood and the memory of loved friends are thus recorded. Lacassagne attributes considerable importance to tattooing as a species of heraldry used by uneducated people, analogous to the banners and seals of corporations. Erotic passion is a very frequent--probably the most frequent--cause of tattooing. All sorts of symbols of love, from the initials of the loved one to the grossest emblems of unnatural passion, are very common. The tattoo designs among prostitutes are usually of this character; and such emblems are common among pæderasts and tribades. Among savages nudity is of course one of the predisposing causes, and the same cause acts among sailors and prostitutes. Lombroso attaches prime importance to atavism. In the strict sense of the word, however, I doubt very much whether we can legitimately accept the atavistic explanation. The criminal is exposed to many of the influences which lead the savage to adopt the practice, the chief of which have been already enumerated; this is a sufficient explanation of the similarity of habit, and it seems scarcely accurate to describe it as atavism. It is better described as a survival. “I regard it,” Lacassagne well says in his instructive work, _Les Tatouages_, “as the uninterrupted and successive transformation of an instinct. The construction and material expression of metaphor and emblematic language were first adopted by the most elevated classes, who had no other means of communicating or materialising their thoughts. Little by little this method took refuge with those lower classes who have as yet no better means of expressing what they feel and experience. It is in these classes also that vanity, or the need of approbation, predominates, and this has a marked influence in maintaining the custom.”

Tattooing is exceedingly rare among women. Out of 300 women criminals at Turin, Gamba found only five tattooed. Soresina, who examined 1000 prostitutes at Milan, did not find one tattooed. Lombroso, out of 200 criminal women, found only one tattooed; she came from Chioggia, was an adultress who had killed her lover from jealousy, and she had associated much with sailors.[37]

Among the insane tattooing does not seem always to be uncommon. In the lunatic asylum at Ancona, we learn from Dr. Riva,[38] out of 184 men and 147 women no fewer than 16.30 per cent. of the former, and 6.80 of the latter, were tattooed. It is worthy of note that it was chiefly among the more severe and incurable cases of mental degeneration (dementia, alcoholism, epilepsy, congenital mental weakness) that these signs were found. In character and position they differed from those usually found among criminals, by being exclusively worked on the arms and hands, and consisting only of religious symbols, especially the Madonna of Loretto.

§ 8. _Motor Activity._

Extraordinary and ape-like agility has frequently been noted among criminals. Every one is familiar with the daring feats of agility by which prisoners frequently escape scatheless from the hands of their guardians. This characteristic appears to be sometimes favoured by unusual length of arm. A thief, incendiary, violator, and murderer, examined by Marandon de Monthyel, showed little abnormal or criminal in his physical character, except an extraordinary agility.

Left-handedness has, by instinct or from accurate observation, been regarded with disfavour in the proverbial sayings of many nations. It is decidedly common among criminals. Examining 81 normal persons, Marro found 70 right-handed, 7 left-handed, and 4 ambidextrous. Examining 190 working-men, he only found 6 left-handed. Altogether the proportion of normal left-handed and ambidextrous persons was 6.2 per cent. Among criminals, on the other hand, with the single exception of highwaymen, the proportion of left-handed and ambidextrous persons was in every case higher. Among 40 assassins in 17.5 per cent.; among 7 incendiaries in 28.5 per cent.; among 44 burglars in 18.1 percent. This corresponds with a greater sensory obtuseness, which has also been observed on the right side among criminals. It is also interesting to note the ambidextrous tendency among children, savages, and idiots.

With the dynamometer, also, there appears to be a slightly greater prevalence of excess of the left hand over the right, judging from Marro’s experiences. It may be of interest to note here that among normal persons the proportion in which the left hand is stronger than the right is by no means small. Thus at the International Exhibition in London in 1884 observations made under Mr. Galton’s superintendence on 400 male adults--artisans, clerks, professional men, etc.--between the ages of twenty-three and twenty-six, showed that in 253 cases the right hand was stronger than the left in squeezing power; in 147 the left was stronger; in 28 both hands were equal. If we divide the individuals thus examined according to occupation the results vary curiously. Of 18 chemists, in 12 the right hand was stronger, in 5 the left, in 1 both were equal. Of 9 carpenters and joiners, in 4 the right hand was stronger, in 3 the left, in 2 both were equal. Of 87 clerks, in 52 the right hand was stronger, in 29 the left, in 6 both were equal. Of 9 medical men, in 5 the right hand was stronger, in 4 the left. Of 7 clergymen and ministers, in 3 the right hand was stronger, in 3 the left, in 1 both were equal. The high proportion of right-handed squeezers among the chemists is no doubt due to the effects of occupation, to the constant practice of gripping heavy bottles with the right hand. Occupation also, no doubt, among the carpenters and joiners, favours squeezing power in the left hand. The factor of occupation is less obvious among clerks, but would no doubt favour the right hand, and among these the proportion keeps very close to the average among the 400. The doctors are almost as left-handed in this respect as the carpenters, though the result can scarcely be influenced by occupation; while the clergymen, who are certainly most free from the influence of occupation in this respect, are the most left-handed of all, although here the figures are too small to allow of any very reliable results.

It seems that sufficient care has not yet been taken to determine what constitutes left-handedness. The relative strength of the two hands is not enough to decide this, for mancinism, or left-sidedness, is a matter of relative skill as well as of relative strength. It is quite possible for a person to be left-handed in some respects, right-handed in others; thus (as happens to be the case with the present writer) he may be right-handed in regard to all those actions which are exercised habitually and socially, or which are the result of training, and left-handed in all other respects. In such a case there appears to be a natural tendency to left-sidedness, which is controlled and concealed by training, but which takes every opportunity to assert itself in more unguarded directions. It appears to me that the act of throwing a stone, an act requiring delicate nervous adjustment as well as muscular force, and which is not subjected to the influence of artificial training, is for practical purposes the most convenient and accurate test for determining left-handedness. This was the test adopted by Clapham and Clarke; they found that 6 per cent. of the 500 criminals examined were left-handed.[39]

Ottolenghi has recently investigated the anatomical mancinism of criminals. At the suggestion of Lombroso, he has measured with Bertillon’s instruments, which give the maximum of precision, the length of the hands, the middle fingers, and the feet in 100 criminals and 50 normal persons. Differences of less than a millimetre he disregarded. He found that while the right hand was longer in 14 per cent. of the normal persons, it was so in only 5 per cent. of the criminals generally, and in none of the thieves and pickpockets. In 35 per cent. of the pickpockets the left hand was longer as against 11 per cent. in the normal persons. Very similar results came out in regard to the fingers. In 38 per cent. of the normal persons the right foot was longer, in only 27 per cent. of the criminals; in this respect, however, the pickpockets (35 per cent.) most nearly approach the normal, while those convicted of wounding, who in regard to the hand are nearest to the normal, are in this respect farthest from the normal. In 15 per cent. of the normal persons the left foot was longer, in 35 per cent. of the criminals, including 55 per cent. of the cases for wounding, and in 56 per cent. of the sexual offenders. It should be added that this anatomical mancinism is not necessarily related with motor mancinism.[40]

Anomalies of the tendon reflex of the knee are very common among criminals; they are either exaggerated or, very frequently, absent. Lombroso found feeble tendon reflexes especially common among thieves, and a very large proportion of exaggerated tendon reflexes among sexual offenders. Marro also found the highest proportion of exaggerated reflexes (the enormous proportion of 40 per cent.) among sexual offenders. There was an alcoholic or insane parentage among 79 per cent. of those with exaggerated reflexes.

§ 9. _Physical Sensibility._

The extent to which tattooing is carried out among criminals, sometimes not sparing parts so sensitive as the sexual organs, which are rarely touched even in extensive tattooing among barbarous races, serves to show the deficient sensibility of criminals to pain.[41] The physical insensibility of the criminal has indeed been observed by every one who is familiar with prisons. In this respect the instinctive criminal resembles the idiot to whom, as Galton remarks, pain is “a welcome surprise.” He may even be compared with many lower races, such as those Maoris who did not hesitate to chop off a toe or two, in order to be able to wear European boots. Dr. Felkin found the maximum distance at which two points of a compass could be distinguished at the tip of the tongue was in an average European 1.1 mm., in a Soudanese 2.6 mm., in a negro 3 mm.

Lauvergne mentions a convict, imprisoned for life, who smiled with pleasure when, moxas having been applied to him, he saw his skin burning and heard it crack. Sbro ... (who killed his brother and his father), Lombroso’s favourite typical case of “moral insanity,” was found by Tamburini and Seppilli to be without perception of pain when tested with a needle. Other criminals have been found very deficient in sensibility to the electric current. Dr. Nicolson remarked: “They are comparatively free from that agitation and tremulousness which are so apt to arise under circumstances involving suspense and painful foreboding. The prisoner with the knowledge of a probable flogging on the morrow, instead of giving way to restlessness and anxiety, maintains a calm and stolid behaviour.” It is not uncommon to read in the newspapers of criminals who hold out their hands to be handcuffed without the slightest trembling, and who eat heartily on the eve of execution, or even while the jury above are still deliberating on their fate.

One of Rossi’s hundred criminals received when a child his father’s blows “as caresses,” and he was able to walk with a dislocated foot from Genoa to Novi (some thirty miles); another wounded himself severely and declared that it gave him no pain. Dr. Penta, in the course of his elaborate researches, found that the majority of his 184 instinctive criminals at Santo Stefano were insensible to the pain of punctures, burns, cuts, and even grave surgical operations. “I have extirpated tumours,” he remarks, “of considerable size, in the back and the neck, without the necessity of producing anæsthesia, and without causing pain; in a case of feigned epilepsy ammonia to the nose caused no reflex phenomenon, and deep puncture and burning of the skin produced no painful contraction.”

This insensibility shows itself also in disvulnerability, or rapid recovery from wounds, first pointed out by Benedikt, which appears to be a frequently observed phenomenon among criminals; thus it had been noticed by several of the medical officers of prisons who answered my Questions.[42] In this respect the instinctive criminal resembles the lower animals as well as the lower races of man; among the Egyptians, Chinese, and Annamites, and other races, wounds heal much more rapidly than in Europe. Thus Mr. Tregear remarks:--“I have seen a Maori speared with a big rafting-spear (an iron-shod pole thicker than the wrist), the point driven through the breast, just under the collar-bone, and coming out at the back. In a week’s time he walked fifteen miles, crossing a mountain range, the wound being healed.”[43] Benedikt speaks of a brigand who, in a revolt of prisoners, had several vertebræ broken; all his wounds healed, and the giant of former days became a dwarf, but he could work at the forge with a heavy hammer with all his old vigour. Lombroso knew a thief whose frontal bone was cloven laterally with a hatchet; in fifteen days he was cured without any relapse. He speaks also of a murderer who, when working as a mason, was reproved for some fault; he threw himself from the third storey into the court; every one supposed he was killed, but he got up, smiling, and asked to be allowed to continue work. A pregnant woman performed on herself Cæsarean section with a kitchen knife, subsequently killing the child; she recovered without dressings and without fever. We hear also of a criminal with a fractured rib and pleurisy who could hew wood and travel in a cart over rough mountain roads. “Individuals who possess this quality,” Lombroso remarks, “consider themselves privileged, and treat with contempt those who appear delicate and sensitive. It is a pleasure to such men to torment others whom they regard as inferior beings.”

Though loud in their complaints of trivial ailments, they are often unconscious of severe illness. At Chatham, in 1888, a prisoner dropped down dead on returning from labour; both lungs were found in an early stage of pneumonia, and death was probably due to syncope; he had made no complaints to any one. Prisoners will inflict severe injuries on themselves in order to gain some very trifling object. At Chatham, in 1871-72, 841 voluntary wounds or contusions are recorded; 27 prisoners voluntarily fractured a limb, and 17 of them had to submit to amputation; 62 tried to mutilate themselves, and 101 produced wounds by means of corrosive substances. Lombroso found the general sensibility decreased in 38 out of 66. Working with Du-Bois Reymond’s electrical apparatus, in conjunction with Marro, he found the sensibility of the criminals much inferior to that of the normal persons examined. Swindlers possessed much greater sensibility than murderers and thieves. Marro found sensibility, measured by an esthesiometer, most obtuse in murderers and incendiaries. Similar results were obtained by Ramlot, in reference to tactile sensibility; he examined 103 criminals and 27 normal persons, and found obtusity in 44 per cent. of the former, and in only 29 per cent. of the latter.[44] It should be noted that cases of excessive sensibility, due either to extreme pusillanimity, or to some morbid condition of the skin or brain, are also found among criminals.

The eyesight of criminals was found by Bono to be superior to the normal. He examined 190 youthful delinquents, and compared them with over 100 youths of similar age in an agricultural institute, the examination in all cases being made under the same conditions. The visual acuity of 49 per cent. of the criminals was superior to 1.5 Snellen; only 31 per cent. of the honest youths possessed an equal acuteness.

Ottolenghi obtained similar results.[45] He examined 100 criminals with Snellen’s types in the open air, using various precautions to ensure uniformity and accuracy. The results were--

Visus (average) for 82 thieves = 1.8
" " 18 homicides = 2.2
" " 100 criminals = 2.0

In one of the homicides sight was exceedingly keen (V = 3). He examined 15 warders, between the ages of 27 and 45, under the same conditions, and found vision = 1.5. Further observations on this point are needed, as previous observers (Bielakoff, for instance) have found the sight of criminals inferior to the normal. If Ottolenghi’s results are confirmed by extended observation, there is an interesting analogy on this point between criminals and many lower races. Thus examinations by Seggel in 1881 yielded the following results--

Terra del Fuegians V = 5
Nubians V = 3
Georgians V = 1¾

while among German and Russian soldiers the average varied between 1⅖ and 0.95.

Ottolenghi also found colour-blindness very rare; he met with one case (green-blindness) among 460 criminals tested with Holmgren’s wools. This result also corresponds with examinations of lower races, such as Samoyeds, Lapps, Esquimaux, Nubians, etc. It should be added that this result also needs confirmation, as it does not correspond with other observations. Thus Holmgren found that colour-blindness existed in 5.60 per cent. of 321 criminals, while among 32,000 of the ordinary population the proportion was scarcely 3.25 per cent. Dyschromatopsia has been found common, a fact of great significance, since this disorder is so frequently connected with grave disturbance of the nervous system.

The healthiness of eye in criminals, if confirmed, may be compared with a similar condition in imbeciles. In a study of twenty young adult male imbeciles of a minor degree than idiocy, Dr. Oliver found vision normal and colour perception apparently normal, and the eyes singularly free from the slight morbid changes so common in the eye. This condition, “which is shown by a proper balance of muscular action, a persistence of congenital hypermetropia, and an abnormally healthy appearance of the eye-ground (presenting a picture that is almost identical to the one seen during infantile existence), may be considered as significant of a type of unused, healthy, adult human eye.”[46]

The hearing of criminals is relatively obtuse, and they are prone to disease of the ear. Thus Dr. Gradenigo, at the request of Lombroso, undertook a series of researches into the matter,[47] in 110 instinctive and occasional criminals. Of the 82 criminal men he examined, 55 (67.3 per cent.) proved to be inferior to the normal. Of these 82, there were 40 who were instinctive criminals, and of these 29 (72.5 per cent.) had defective hearing. Of the 28 women, 15 (53.5 per cent.) possessed hearing inferior to the normal. Four of the women, however, possessed hearing much superior to the normal average.[48] Gradenigo found that the defective hearing was due in the great majority of cases to inflammatory affections of the middle and internal ear. He found no constant relation between defective hearing and obtusity of touch, taste, and smell, frequently found among criminals.

Ottolenghi has examined the olfactory acuteness of 80 instinctive criminals (50 men and 30 women) and 50 normal persons of the middle and lower classes. He constructed a kind of osmometer consisting of twelve acqueous solutions of essence of cloves, contained in similar bottles in similar quantities. The solutions were graduated from 1/50000 to 1/100.[49] Beginning with the weakest solution he noted when olfactory sensation commenced; and he also used the method of Nichols and Bailey, inviting the subject to arrange the bottles in order of intensity. The result, unlike what he had expected, was to show distinctly that the olfactory sense is less developed in the criminal than in the normal person, and slightly less in the criminal women than in the criminal men. Among normal persons (as Nichols and Bailey had previously found) the olfactory sense of women is less keen than that of men. Among the 80 criminals, 8 (6 men and 2 women) possessed no olfactory sensibility; in 2 of these there was entire absence of perception, in 6 absence of specific sensation.

Ottolenghi has also investigated the sense of taste in criminals.[50] He examined 60 instinctive criminals, 20 occasional criminals, 20 normal persons of the lower class, 50 students and professional men, 20 criminal women and 20 normal women, all healthy and robust, and for the most part between the ages of twenty and fifty. The three test substances used were sulphate of strychnia, saccharine, and common salt; various precautions (attention to uniformity of amount of solution used, temperature of solution, cleanliness of mouth, etc.) were adopted in order to make a series of experiments, full of practical difficulties, as reliable as possible. From these experiments, it appeared that the sense of taste is more developed in the normal man than in the criminal, and more developed in the occasional criminal than in the instinctive criminal. He found gustatory obtuseness in 38.3 per cent. of the instinctive criminals, in 25 per cent. of the lower class men examined, and in 14 per cent. of the professional men. The criminal women also showed a larger proportion of gustatory obtuseness than the normal women. He noted, however, that the women who passed as normal, but who were given to vice and prostitution, showed an even larger percentage of gustatory obtuseness than criminal women. The defect in gustatory acuteness seemed to him generally to be rather of a qualitative than quantitative character. The generic excitation was produced in a large number of cases as soon as in the normal person, but the specific sensation was very retarded. The subject was conscious of a taste, but could not tell of what kind it was; that is to say, the defect was situated centrally, in the cerebral cortex, rather than in the sensorial apparatus.

It is worthy of note that criminals begin to use tobacco at an early age. Thus among a population which normally begins to smoke before the age of thirty only in the proportion of 14 per cent. (and the insane 7.2 per cent.), 22 per cent. of criminals smoke before the age of thirty, and nearly all (279 out of 300 males and 32 out of 32 women) before entering prison. Venturi[51] found tobacco used by 14.3 per cent. of normal men, 1.5 of normal women; 45.8 of criminal men, 15.9 of criminal women. Marambat[52] concluded that the love of tobacco was the first passion that rooted itself in the youthful criminal. Out of 603 juvenile delinquents, between the ages of eight and fifteen, 51 per cent. had acquired the custom of using tobacco before their detention.

Lombroso notes that the sensibility of criminals to the weather appears to be greater than that of the ordinary population. He found it in 29 out of 112. There were 9 who became quarrelsome shortly before storms, and one of these remarked that his companions always foretold bad weather when he sought to quarrel. Dostoieffsky observed that quarrels and disturbances were particularly common among the convicts in the spring. What is true of the Russian prisoners in Siberia seems also to be true of American prisoners at New York. From some tables given by Dr. Wey of Elmira it appears that marks for bad conduct are specially numerous in the spring, and also, to some extent, in the autumn.

_Vaso-motor Sensibility._--Inability to blush has always been considered the accompaniment of crime and shamelessness. Blushing is also very rare among idiots and savages; the Spaniards used to say of the South American Indians: “How can one trust men who do not know how to blush?” From the investigations of Amadei, Tonnini, and Bergesio, it appears that if we compare lunatics and criminals, twice as many of the latter are incapable of blushing. Pasini, in his examinations of women, noted blushing in 21 per cent. of murderers, 20 per cent. of poisoners, 18 per cent. of infanticides, and only 10 per cent. of thieves. It was not at the mention of their offences that they blushed, but when questioned concerning their menstrual functions. Out of 130 criminal women examined by Salsotto, 50 blushed when spoken to concerning their offences. Dr. Andronico of Messina communicated to Lombroso some interesting, though too general, observations concerning the prostitutes and young female criminals in prison under his charge. “Among the inscribed prostitutes,” he remarks, “none blushed when questioned concerning their occupation. I have seen some of them blush when reproached for unnatural practices. I have noted that female homicides narrate their deeds ingenuously and without blushing; those who have poisoned their husbands blush, but partially. Among female prisoners condemned for theft, blushing shows itself first on the ears, then on the face; those who are condemned for excitation to prostitution do not blush.”

In order to test the vaso-motor reactions of the criminal to various thoughts and emotions, Lombroso made a series of very interesting experiments, during the course of a year, with the sphygmograph and with Mosso’s ingenious and valuable instrument, the plethysmograph. With the sphygmograph (or, rather, the hydrosphygmograph) he observed the degree of excitement produced on various individuals by the sight of wine, cigars, food, money, and photographs of nude women. The plethysmograph is a delicate instrument for measuring mental excitement, depending on the fact that the slightest emotion causes an alteration in the amount of blood present in any part of the body.[53] With the plethysmograph Lombroso found that the strongest impressions (superior to the normal) were produced by cowardice, fear of the judge, some favourite mode of excitement (wine or women), but above all, by vanity. It is not, however, easy to generalise from his observations; it is necessary for such observations to be carried on during a long period on a great number of persons, normal as well as criminal, and to be carefully controlled. They are of very great interest, for they enable us to penetrate into the most secret recesses of the mind, and to measure the force of the motives that move it. It is to be hoped that they will be conducted on a much larger scale than they have hitherto been.

All these researches into the physical sensibilities of the criminal are of the first importance, and it is necessary that they should be greatly extended and carefully checked. So far they nearly all converge to show that the criminal is markedly deficient in physical sensibility. On this physical insensibility rests that moral insensibility, or psychical analgesia, as it has been called, which is, as we shall see, the criminal’s most fundamental mental characteristic.