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The ear, it is well known, is very sensitive to vasomotor changes, slight changes serving to affect the circulation visibly; so that in pale, nervous people a trifling emotion will cause the ears to blush. Galton tells us of a schoolmistress who judges of the fatigue of her pupils by the condition of their ears. If the ears are white, flabby, and pendent, she concludes that the children are very fatigued; if they are relaxed but red, that they are suffering, not from overwork, but from a struggle with their nervous systems, rarely under control at the age of fourteen or fifteen. If this kind of sensitiveness is not common among criminals, a few of neurotic temperament, as well as some lunatics, possess the power, rare among normal persons, of moving the ear. Frigerio notes movements of the superior and posterior muscles, especially when touched; in apes the transverse muscle also acts. Frigerio connects this power of movement with perpetual fear, always on the look-out; many of the criminals with this peculiarity were recidivists, and three of the lunatics had delusions of persecution.

The interest of these investigations, now so actively carried on, into the malformations of the pinna among criminals is obvious. A few ingenious persons have sought to explain some of them by the influence of the headgear, pulling of the ears, etc.; but on the whole it is generally recognised that they are congenital. The study of them, therefore, is of distinct value in enabling us to fix the natural relationships of the criminal man. There is still need for careful series of observations on criminals, the insane, epileptics, and idiots, and every such series should be controlled by a similar series of observations, by the same observer, on ordinary subjects.

The criminal nose has been measured and studied with great care and enthusiasm by Ottolenghi. He finds that the criminal nose in general is rectilinear, more rarely undulating, with horizontal base, of medium length, rather large and frequently deviating to one side, and he describes several varieties. Thus the typical thief's nose is rectilinear, often incurved, short, large, and often twisted, with lifted base. The sexual offender presents the most rectilinear nose, though he shows the undulating profile of nose more frequently than any other group of criminals, of medium length and rather large. Ottolenghi believes that his observations help to show, both in the skeleton and in life, an anatomical relationship between criminals against the person and epileptics and monomaniacs; also a relationship between thieves and sexual offenders and cretins. His observations are full and interesting, but the matter needs further investigation; the anthropological importance of the nose has scarcely yet been fully realised.

Most writers on criminals speak of the pallor of the skin; this has been noted at a very remote period by Polemon, l'Ingegneri, and other early physiognomists. Marro has found it in 14 per cent. of his criminals, as against 3 per cent. among the ordinary population. He considers that it is related to habitual cerebral congestion. Pallor is also caused by prolonged imprisonment, even under favourable circumstances. It is probable that the influence of this cause has not yet been eliminated with sufficient care.

Ottolenghi has investigated the wrinkles on the faces of 200 criminals as compared with 200 normal persons. He finds that they are much more frequent and much more marked in the criminal than in the non-criminal person, and this must have struck many persons who have seen a large number of criminals or photographs of criminals. The relative frequency is especially marked in zygomatic and genio-mental wrinkles, while the foreheads, even of youthful criminals, and when the face is in a state of repose, sometimes present a curiously marked and scored appearance. The precocity of these wrinkles is worthy of note. "We found young criminals of fourteen," Ottolenghi remarks, "with wrinkles more evident and marked than are met with in many normal men above thirty. It is these precocious wrinkles which give to young criminals that aspect of premature virility which Lombroso and Marro have already noticed." "It is worthy of note," he remarks also, "that the part of the face which, by the prevalence of wrinkles, shows more active expression in criminals as in other degenerated persons, is that corresponding to the region of the nose and mouth--that is to say, the less contemplative, more material, part of the face; and, in fact, we see that, with the exception of some murderers, who have a surly look and corrugated forehead, the typical delinquent presents habitually in the more rational and contemplative part of his face the least degree of active expression, this corresponding to his limited psychical sensibility."

The beard in criminals is usually scanty. As against 1.5 per cent. cases of absence of beard in normal persons, Marro found 13.9 per cent. in criminals, and a very large proportion having scanty beard. The largest proportion of full beards among criminals was found by Marro in sexual offenders.

On the head the hair is usually, on the contrary, abundant. Marro has observed a notable proportion of woolly-haired persons, a character very rarely found in normal individuals. The same character has been noted among idiots. In contrast with what is found among the insane, baldness is very rare. Among criminal women remarkable abundance of hair is frequently noted, and it has sometimes formed their most characteristic physical feature, accompanied by an unusual development of fine hair on the face and body. Salsotto, who has given special attention to criminal women, finds a considerable distribution of hair between the pubes and the umbilicus in 10 per cent. of the forty women he examined as to this character; such distribution among normal women only occurring in 5 per cent. cases. Salsotto also found abundant hair in seven out of the forty around the anus, a part in normal women rarely supplied with hair. The excess of down on the face is found with special frequency in women guilty of infanticide. It is worth while pointing out that there are frequent anomalies in the development of hair among idiots. Some are hirsute over the entire body; 11 per cent. have continuous eye-brows.

In regard to colours, the proportion of dark-haired persons is considered greater among criminals than among the ordinary population in England, Italy, and Germany. An exception to this general rule in the case of sexual offenders appears to be well marked in Italy; though, so far as I have been able to ascertain, it has not been frequently observed in England. Marro associates the fair hair of sexual offenders with the precocious puberty of fair-haired women, as shown by the investigations of Professor Pagliani. The researches of Marro and Ottolenghi over a very considerable field give the following results for North Italy:--

Chestnut Hair. Fair. Black.

Normal persons 90.78 per cent. 9.22 per cent. Criminals 93.83 " 6.17 " Sexual offenders 81.85 " 16.67 " 1.48 per cent.

Ottolenghi notes that the prevailing fair colour is reddish.

Grey hair was found by Ottolenghi to be vastly more frequent at an early age among ordinary working men and peasants than among the 200 male criminals he examined: thus, between the ages of 30 to 33 it was 60 per cent. for the former, only 12 per cent. for the latter. This does not hold true for criminal women, who become grey more quickly than ordinary women. The male criminal in this respect resembles the epileptic, and especially the cretin, in whom grey hair is seldom seen. Baldness, Ottolenghi shows, is very rare, comparatively, in the criminal, in relation not only to the normal man but even to the epileptic and the cretin. In this respect the criminal differs greatly from the ordinary professional man, in whom baldness is frequently found.

It is interesting to compare these statistics of the hair of London criminals with a body of statistics concerning the colour of the hair of 1220 insane persons in the New Brunswick Asylum; although as the racial mixture is certainly not quite identical, and the nomenclature probably varies, no strict comparison is possible. Of these 1220 insane persons the hair of 1050 is described as "dark," "dark brown," "brown," while 170 have "light," "auburn," or "red" hair. One person in seven among the insane persons has fair hair, one in five among criminals; one person in fifty among the insane has red hair, one in 129 among the criminals; one in forty among the insane has auburn hair, one in 129 among the criminals. So that while the proportion of fair-haired is distinctly smaller among the insane, the proportion of red-haired and auburn-haired is very decidedly larger than among the criminals.

So far as exact evidence on the colour of the hair goes, it points chiefly to a relative deficiency of red-haired persons among criminals. This may perhaps be accounted for. There seems to be a lessened power of resistance to disease among persons of brilliant pigmentation. The extensive anthropological statistics of the American War showed a very marked inferiority on the part of fair persons. These statistics have been criticised by De Candolle, who believes, however, that even with deductions they may probably still be accepted. Our evidence as to the proportion of bright-haired people in lunatic asylums seems to point in this direction. These red-haired people, with their "sanguine" temperament of body, are peculiarly susceptible to zymotic disease; they take scarlet fever, for instance, very easily, and suffer from it severely. Among the manifold risks of a criminal life the brightly pigmented person, with his sensitive vascular system, seems to be soon eliminated.

The science of physiognomy is still in a vague and rudimentary condition, although the art has long been practised with more or less success. There are, for instance, a large number of proverbs in which some of the most recent results reached by the criminal anthropologists of to-day were long ages back crystallised by the popular intelligence. Such are the Roman saying, "Little beard and little colour; there is nothing worse under heaven;" the French, "God preserve me from the beardless man;" the Tuscan, "Salute from afar the beardless man and the bearded woman;" the Venetian, "Trust not the woman with a man's voice."

Many of the old physiognomists, especially the two greatest, Dalla Porta and Lavater, tell us how they immediately recognised criminals, although they sometimes ludicrously failed; and Lavater once mistook the portrait of an executed assassin for Herder's. A criminal anthropologist of to-day, Professor Enrico Ferri, declares that out of several hundred soldiers whom he examined, he found one, and one only, whom his face declared to be a murderer; he was told that this man had, in fact, been found guilty of murder. Garofalo, the Neapolitan jurist, observes that he is scarcely deceived twice out of ten times. Nor is this acuteness of perception by any means confined to skilled observers. It is very commonly found among women. Many persons, on first meeting an individual, are conscious of an unfavourable impression which they succeed in out-living, but which is subsequently justified. Sometimes the revealing glance is found, perhaps with a shock of horror, in a face already familiar. It is a mistake to attempt to stifle such instinctive impressions as irrational. They are part of the organised experiences of the race, and, subject to intellectual control, they are legitimate guides to conduct.

Beautiful faces, it is well known, are rarely found among criminals. The prejudice against the ugly and also against the deformed is not without sound foundation. What Hepworth Dixon wrote in 1850 on this point is still of general application in all civilised countries:--"The population of Millbank is always numerous and always changing; but its character remains substantially the same. Year after year the visitor might drop in and see no difference. There is a certain monotony and family likeness in the criminal countenance which is at once repulsive and interesting. No person can be long in the habit of seeing masses of criminals together without being struck with the sameness of their appearance. A handsome face is a thing rarely seen in a prison; and never in a person who has been a law-breaker from childhood. Well-formed heads, round and massive, denoting intellectual power, may be seen occasionally, but a pleasing, well-formed face, never."

?mile Gautier, who was with Prince Krapotkine in the Lyons prison, remarks that he is not acquainted with the anatomical peculiarities of criminals, but that he knows that prisoners are not like the rest of the world. "Their cringing and timid ways, the mobility and cunning of their looks, a something feline about them, something cowardly, humble, suppliant, and crushed, makes them a class apart. One would say, dogs who had been whipped; hardly, here and there, a few energetic and brutal heads of rebels."

A curious fixed look of the eye has often been considered a characteristic mark of, more especially, the instinctive criminal, a mark which cannot be disguised. "I do not need to see the whole of a criminal's face," said Vidocq, "to recognise him as such; it is enough for me to catch his eye." Lombroso finds that the eyes of assassins resemble those of the feline animals at the moment of ambush or struggle; he has often observed it when the man has been making a muscular effort, as in compressing a dynamometer. Sometimes this feline and ferocious glance alternates with a gentle, almost feminine gaze; this combination giving them a strange power of fascination which has often been exercised on women.

Insistence on the feline aspect is very frequent among those who describe criminals. Thus, for instance, Professor Sergi:--"I have had occasion lately to observe a homicide, aged fifteen, who three months before committing this murder had attempted another, and at another time showed his ferocious nature by attacking a cow with a bill-hook and wounding it in several places. He has been condemned to eleven years' imprisonment, is well developed for his age, and apparently has no morphological abnormalities, but he is prognathous, his nose is depressed, and all the lower part of the face, from the upper jaw down, has a savage cast. What most distinguishes him is his look; his eye is cruel and feline in the true sense of the word. Reserved, taciturn, even when he was free, now that he is in prison he has the appearance of a wild beast, the glance of a tiger."

An interesting point in connection with the criminal physiognomy is that it is to a large extent independent of nationality. The German criminal is not very unlike the Italian, nor is the French unlike the English criminal. M. Joly remarks, "I should say that in M. A. Bertillon's office I was shown nearly sixty photographs of Irish, English, and American thieves. It would have been difficult in many cases to discern the Anglo-Saxon rather than any other physiognomy."

It is very interesting to compare this concluding remark with some observations made by Dr. Langdon Down, who has carefully studied and endeavoured to classify the facial characteristics of idiots. Dr. Down finds a resemblance between feeble-minded children and the various ethnic types of the human family; he specially refers both to a Mongolian and a Negroid type. Just as Professor Lombroso finds the Mongolian type most common among his criminals, so Dr. Down finds it most common among his idiots: "more than 10 per cent. of congenital feeble-minded children are typical Mongols. Their resemblance is infinitely greater to one another than to the members of their own families." Their characteristics are very marked: the hair is brownish , straight, and sparse, the face flat and broad, the cheeks rounded and widened laterally, the eyes obliquely placed, and the fissure between the eyelids very narrow, the forehead wrinkled transversely, the lips large and thick, the nose small, the skin tawny. In Dr. Down's Negroid type of idiot there are characteristic cheek-bones, prominent eyes, puffy lips, retreating chins, woolly but not black hair, and no pigmentation of skin. These points of resemblance are of considerable interest if we are of opinion that the instinctive criminal is best defined as a moral idiot.

In the Middle Ages there was a law by which, when two persons were suspected of a crime, the ugliest was to be selected for punishment. At the present day judges are, consciously or unconsciously, influenced by physiognomy, and ordinary human beings, who also in a humble way sit in judgment on their fellows, are influenced in the same manner. The modern criminal anthropologists, with all their minute and patient investigations, have not yet, however, succeeded in making criminal physiognomy a very exact science, and the more criminal amongst us may still find consolation in the reflection that there are no unfailing criteria by which our crimes may be read upon our faces.

Notwithstanding their agility and spasmodic activity, the muscular system of criminals is generally feeble. Such few observations as have yet been made show that muscular anomalies are found with remarkable frequency. Thus the investigations of Guerra on the bodies of 12 normal persons and 18 criminals, showed 11 anomalous muscular conditions in the latter as against 5 in the former.

Lacassagne some years ago pointed out the remarkable length of the extended arms . Although many observers refer to this peculiarity, and in many isolated cases it is marked and doubtless connected with the agility of criminals, as among some lower races and the apes, I am not acquainted with any extended series of observations in which criminals and normal persons are fairly compared in this respect. Marro's series, although the normal persons are in too small number, as he himself points out, is as reliable as any, and does not in the average show any preponderance of long-armed individuals among criminals. There is, however, reason to believe that individuals with exceptionally long arms are more often met with among criminals.

"Among the inmates of the Elmira Reformatory," remarks Dr. H. Wey, "the greatest physical deficiency and least resistive power is found in the respiratory apparatus. Pigeon-breasts, imperfectly developed chests, and stooping shoulders abound. During a period of eight years, with 26 deaths, 13, or 50 per cent., were from diseases of the chest, not including affections of the heart."

In his answers to my Questions a prison surgeon remarks, "Many men have large nipples and large well-marked areolae. This is often very remarkable." I am not aware that this has been noticed by any other observer, and the point deserves further examination.

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 Bic?tre, 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. 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."

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.

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 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.

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.

Pierre--Jean-Fran?ois, thief and murderer.

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-- that inebriety is itself evidence of more or less unsoundness; in a large proportion of cases it is only a sign of slow and insidious brain disease; when crime is committed by inebriates, the probability of mental disease is very strong; 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." 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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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.

The designs most frequently found by Rossi among his 23 tattooed criminals were--portrait of mistress or nude woman ; initials, either of self, mistress, or friend ; a transfixed heart, an emblem sometimes of love, sometimes of vengeance ; 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."

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.

Among the insane tattooing does not seem always to be uncommon. In the lunatic asylum at Ancona, we learn from Dr. Riva, 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 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.

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.

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