A Plea for the Criminal

and aggressive hostility towards society. Their presence in society is regarded as a menace to human life, and no moral improvement is expected to result from t

of the wrong-doer was generally the satisfaction that he sought. As civilization has advanced, criminals have become more numerous; but they have taken to crime by more gradual steps. Society, too, has deprived the individual of the right of wreaking his own vengeance, and has erected institutions for the purpose of determining guilt and apportioning punishmen

es. The former have noticed the failure of repressive methods, such as flogging and other penal severities, and have in despair been led to advocate that the only possible remedy is that of extermination. The latter have discove

the deepest depths of vice and villainy. The careful subjective study-the truly humane study-of the criminal, has shown that all theories which would declare any man to be incapable of improvement, are to be condemned absolutely. The possibilities of reform exist in every case, and the probabilities are never to be denied. None can gainsay this statement nor can it be termed extravagant, for with the imperfect machinery now in use results are being attained which justify every syllable of it. Yet in the face of these results, the "exterminators" st

true light of science it will lead us to discover that the criminal is best got rid of by converting him into a usefu

ssification of the unfit he places all those persons who, on account of mental, moral or physical defect, constitute a burden to society. These are, principally, the epileptic, the pauper, the insane and the criminal. These either will not, or cannot support themselves adequately and legitimate

rease during the past twenty years has been so great and so disproportionate as to make the cost of their maintenance become an increasingly heavier one for the i

ate of increase is to be found in the methods adopted larg

m among the ranks of the fit? Another question is this: Since the use of preventives is available to both sections alike, the Doctor accounts for the supposed natural disproportion by assuming that the better classes restrain themselves. Is he right? Using the word "restrain" in its absolute sense we beg leave for most emphatic doubt. In an enquiry such as this is, the only factor of any real importance as accounting for a diminished birth-rate, is the use of preventives. If this method is confined to the better classes, we m

er the female permanently sterile without having any deleterious effect upon her health. Absolutely no result follows, he assures us, but sterility. If the wives of all defectives were operated upon in this way, Dr Chapple assures us that the problem concerning the defective would speedily be solved and society would be the happier and wealthier in every way. The proposal might give something of a shock to

e made the statement that it was a matter of common observation that the criminal was among those who had the largest families, did he know then that the criminal rarely married? It cannot be said that the criminal's wife is as rare as the Great Auk's egg, but Havelock Ellis states that "among men criminals the cel

ch value, but it certainly conveyed the impression that the

were murderers, 142 were beggars, 64 lived on charity. Among their women 181 lived disreputable lives, and in 75 years this family cost their country ￡250

e's Case

stimated

initely tr

f crimin

victed of

f beggar

ing alms hous

imates

iewed 75 y

ate ￡250,0

ne lines of statistics establishes the identity betw

old Dutch back-woodsman who lived in a rocky part of the State of New York and who is known to criminologists as "Max Jukes." My authority for declaring that there were five female ancestresses during the period reviewed as against one, stated to be the case by Dr Chapple, is Mr R. L. Dugdale, who made a close personal i

strike us as evidence of an exceedingly prosperous birth-rate. If there had been another thousand descendants it would not allow for an

, hunting, robbery, and intermittent work. They lived in a rocky, inaccessible region in the lake country of the State of New York. Their criminals were able, with a considerable measure of success, to defy the police, and travellers very rarely approached the vicinity of their habitat. Some drifted into the towns and villages. A proportion of these supported themselves by honest ind

n in which marriage and co-habitation was the rule. Of their women 52 per cent. were disreputable; but Dugdale refuses to call them prostitutes, but rather harlots, indicating that

ample of the rate of natural increase that may be expected of a criminal family, we will examine and compare the conditions of life existing among the "Jukes" and the

orrison of Wandsworth Prison, England, declares that the most criminal age is reached between the

ge the obligations which an organized society lays upon him. This refusal extends practically throughout the social order, and neither is it confined to this order, but extends also to the moral order and is shown in a total disregard for the matrimonial state. The youth gives way to natural appetites and associates himself with women of low repute. He is of wandering habits, works, when he does work, but intermittently, is restless, and totally disinclined towards matrimony. Socially, industrially and morally he is unstable. It is these conditions of his life which so contrast him with that species of criminality which the "Jukes" family pre

his statement that criminals have the largest families, is en

may well ask whether he has not set himse

oceeded to his result. His assumption that the better classes use preventive means which the inferior classes do not use, is open to challenge; that there might exist among the inferior classes causes peculiar to these classes which militate against their increasing naturally, he has failed to

aracteristically unproductive, and that, among male criminals, the celibates are in a large majority. As, from these reasons, t

ity. It is the conditions of the home life which make the drunkard's child a criminal, and the same applies with equal force to the pauper's child. So that, if drastic measures are to be taken with these classes, surely such measures will proceed gradually from the mean to the extreme, and severe measures will not be employed until milder ones have failed. Where the question is one of

a physical, rather than

be invariably transmitted? That, in short, a criminally defective ancestry is an invariable cause producing a criminal descent. (Note.-By criminally defective ancestry we mean the ancestry from which cr

as tubo-ligature were seriously discussed, for surely so drastic a remedy would never be employed except under the most positive conditions, that is to say, that thi

ive ancestry invariably convey to its offspring a taint disposing it towards crime? Or c

ring a physical defect which will make it difficult for him to adapt himself to the conditions of the society in which he is placed. This difficulty become

is family has revealed the fact that among the comparatively few criminals who are parents they do not all transmit a taint or def

rmatives anything like so rapidly as we reach our particular and exclusive negatives. The negative is often obvious, the affirmative generally remote. It may be that by cross marriages the element of virility, necessary to maintain criminality, is sustained: but if that were so it would be expected that pauperism would necessarily result from consanguineous marriages which is not so far the case as to indicate cause and effect. A more plausible suggestion is that in consanguineous marriages there is a tendency for the family ties to be reunited and the family ideal restored. Such, of course, effectively disposes of criminality. Of the three grandsons of Ada Jukes, who were themselves the sons of h

more exact. Of the 75 per cent. we must find out whether their heredity or their environment was the cause of their being criminal. Dugdale's observations led him to conclude that heredity is a latent cause which requires e

rough an hereditary taint, can a proposal be accepted which would not only prevent the birth of the hereditar

a drunken ancestry. The proportion of these is about 33 per cent. of the whole. The impossibility of the success of Dr Chapple's remedy is very apparent from the insurmountable difficulties that would be experience

ase a taint is not transmitted from parent to child. Its sphere of effectiveness is restricted by the very circumstances of the case, and even within that restricted spher

a drastic conclusion enquiry might have been made to discover whether there might not exist a remedy which would be a remedy in the truest sense. That is a remedy which would, while it would prevent the transmission of the taint, yet it would not interfere with reproduction. Such a remedy would be in fact a method for the reformation of the criminal, for if the criminal were reformed the problem would be solved. If he were transformed into a

als it does not mean that these men are incapable of reform; but they are RESISTING reform; and no one can tell when or whether the most obstinate of these will surrender his will to the dictates of conscience and commence a life of reform. The possibility is always an open question. No better testimony can be brought forward than that of Mr Z. R. Brockway, late Superintendent of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Mr Brockway is one of the pioneers in reformatory work and is considered the greatest living authority upon the subject. Some 10,000 felons have passed through their hands. Speaking at the F

gree of public protection from crimes.... Mr F. Ammetybock, Director of the Penitentiary of Vridsloselille, Denmark, added:-I would not dare charge as incorrigible one of the 3,000 criminals who have been confided to my care.... During my career as a prison officer, I have seen many criminals who offered, humanly speaking, characteristi

view of the matter as to demand his elimination by death, but none of these men, eminent criminologists as they may be, have studied reformatory science experimentally. Mr Brockway's testimony should be taken a

r of those

d earned absol

conduct and maintained

well until t

al Executive Clem

Europe by

86 pe

ry for violation of p

returned

ondence while on parole

ve returned

10 p

cent. of reforms, there were only 9 persons (or 2 per cent. of

system in vogue at the Elmira Reformatory will be described in a later chapter, and there it will be shown that the methods employed are upon a most scientific basis and that the results obtained cannot fail to satisfy the most exacting. It will be seen that by a "reformed" man is meant a man who can and will adapt himself to the conditions of society; a man sound in mind, healthy in body, industrious and honest in habit. Concerning this man's progeny, what have we to fear? It i

the evil that Dr Chapple has proposed to eradicate, and it doe

e kept in captivity because his resistance to reformatory di

ly disposed children effectually removed but he is himself tran

addell, who writes the preface of the "Fertility of the Unfit," is so alarmed as to declare that "our civilization is in imminent peril of being swamped by the increasingly disproportionate progeny of t

ut to show that the cause of the natural increase of the criminal is NOT to be found in biological truth, neither is our society i

is to be found in sociological and not in biological truth. A

es to the author, "As to tubo-ligature, or the

the present shrinking from maternity so widespread, is it not highly probable that the measure would be greatly abused? Thousands as the Doctor himself says would avail themselves of it to-morrow, and for the simple reason that they wish to escape from the responsi

and from other enquiries it is most evident that

that she does. This is but to acknowledge the morality, or at least the necessity for the use of preventives and does nothing less than to charge the

e evil to which Dr Chapple's remedy would run, is one in which the moral sentiment of society

ponsibilities. In the latter case it is performed at the will of the woman who thus shows that she has conquered the maternal instinct, and as such she is

e of preventives was having a most injurious ef

and Nature are both

according to Her terrible manner. If they are in an extremity and find that our social system makes it impossible for them to

ly intensify the evil i

et the mission of life be the enjoyment of pleasure; shrink from the marriage that might be a burden, and dissolve the happy marriage should indications of future burdens present themselves. He would have us compelled to take our betrothed to a medical board and sh

r tubo-ligature would meet the cases of these defectives seems very uncertain. The information which the Doctor gives us, for th

sons, of whom five married. The only healthy member left five children, three were childless and one

ve persons the one sane member only has a fam

diot, one a dement (suicidal), one repeatedly insane. These three are scarcely lik

epileptics and one imbecile-scarcely like

e have three children, one exci

y of mutes and s

hird generation "family now extinct." No indic

rsons accounted for. Seven died in infancy of convulsions. Epilepsy, scrofula, and idiocy can claim o

een are dead. The total number of living descendants, representing no less than the third generation of seven families, is but thirty-nine. These figures can scarcely be q

later stage in life in each successive generation (Mercier). In the first case the family dies out, in the second case it reco

very is hopeless. Very slowly perhaps, but very exactly-never making a mistake, and in her slown

lso that alcoholism in the parents conveys a predisposition to the child. The hereditary cases are therefore to be divided amongst all these causes. In what proportion it would be difficult to estimate; but very few persons in whom epilepsy has developed marry, and as 75 per cent. of the cases are said to begin under the age of 20 years, and very few after 25 years (cases of hereditary epilepsy have been known to develop at so late an age as 65 and 70 years) it limits the number of epileptics who marry to a very narrow margin. For even these

t mal often escapes observation Dr Chapple's method would only apply to those cases of the marriage of persons who were afflicted with the major form of epilepsy, which means that perhaps not more than 10 per cent. of the nu

broken fortunes of their parents. Very large sums are spent in relieving the necessities (often in providing the luxuries) of the undeserving poor, but this fact should not be made the basis of a charge against the deserving but helpless poor. My own acquaintance with the poorest parts of one of our largest cities leads me to believe that very little charity ever reaches the truly deserving poor. They battle on and keep their sad condition as far from public observation as possible. The undeserving are very clamorous. These two incidents are by no means uncommon, they are fairly typical. (a) I was called one night to baptise a dying child. The mother stated

visability of applying for an old age pension and proceeded to fill in her papers. When she discovered that she was t

average age of the rich is 35 years, of the well-to-do 20.6 years, of the poor only 13.2 years. These statistics are supposed to hold good for all large towns. The average life of the pauper (that is the vicious pauper) will be shorter still seeing that in his idle, vicious life the parent refuses to acknowledge his responsibilities towards his children and makes no effort to save them from perishing through want and proper healthful conditions. The numbers of the pauper may increase, but it is seen then that they do not live to any great length of life. The paup