The Criminal

, with harsh or scanty hair, and a pointed head, li

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θο? συνοχωκ?τε

λ?ν, ψεδν? δ'

include many sayings which prove the remote period at which men began to perceive the organic peculiarities which separate the criminal man from the average man. There are some proverbs of this character, such as those indicating the widespread dislike of the red-haired, for which no solid justification has yet been found; but among various races, and in

ho examined Socrates' face judged that the philosopher was brutal, sensuous, and inclined to drunkenness; and Socrates declared to his disciples that such, although he had overcome it, was his natural disposition. He was himself a p

e shape of the head and the mental disposition, and he recognised the hereditary character of vicious and criminal instincts. Galen, who inaugurated the experimental study of the brain, adopted the views of Aristotle, and pointed out the influence of the ab

r was left, then and long after, to the physiognomists, of whom Polemon may be taken as a distinguished example, and these were ready to supply the most elaborate physical signs to correspond to any vicious or criminal disposition. Polemon wrote of the criminal that he was of pallid complexion, with long hair, large ears, and small eyes, and he proceeded to give the characteristics of various classes of criminals, his observations often showing keen insight. This pseudo-science was pass

tudy of criminal anthropology, at the beginning of the present century we reach Gall, a very great figure in the his

facial and cranial characteristics reached by modern criminal anthropologists. Thus, in 1820, he wrote:-"I have often been impressed in criminals, and especially in those of

er. Lavater believed in the homogeneity of the human organism, but he was not a man of science, and he had been content to study the surface of the body; Gall, with true scientific instinct, tried to get to the root of the matter; fol

s and in prisons, as well as among the ordinary population, and he foresaw the extent of the applications of the science he was opening up to medicine and to law, to morality and to education. While his work extended far beyond the borders of what we should now call criminal anthropology,[13] he devoted much attention to the problems of the criminal organisation, and even to its varieties, many of his observations according well with the results of recent investigation. More than this, following Galen and Diderot (who had written, fifty years earlier, "The evil-doer

ported by a large body of evidence. The influence of dubious phrenological doctrines hardened into a system somewhat impairs the value of Lauvergne's Les For?ats (1841), which seems to have been the first book of any importance devoted entirely to the study of convict nature, physical, moral, and intellectual. Lauvergne, who was the chief medical officer to the hospital for convicts at Toulon, appears to h

cences (1857), chiefly developed this aspect of criminality, and his influence is still strong among French students of the criminal. Morel regarded crime as one of the forms taken on by degeneration in the individual or the family; and degeneration he defined as "a morbid deviation from the normal type of humanity." The causes of degeneration which he recognised were intoxications, famines, social environment, industries, unhealthy occupations, poverty, heredity, pathological transformations, moral causes. "My principal aim," he says, "has been the study of these

he said, "has yet occupied himself with the insanity of the sane;" he considered the criminal as "morally mad," and therefore irresponsible. Maudsley, from an opposite philosophic standpoint, came to very similar conclusions. Without bringing any fresh contribution of importance, he re-affirmed emphatically the conclusions already reached. Speaking in his Responsibility in Mental Disease (1872) of instinctive criminals, he remarks, "It is a matter of observation that this criminal class constitutes a degenerate or morbid variety of mankind, marked by peculiarly low physical and mental characteristics." Like Despine, he drew from this the conclusion, since widely accepted, that the criminal, being morally insane and usually incurable

ve dangerous to society. About the same time, also (in 1870), J. Bruce Thomson, Resident-Surgeon to the General Prison for Scotland at Perth, published in the Journal of Mental Science a summary of his observations on over 5000 prisoners. From the decisiveness of his utterances and the large number of prisoners of whom he was able to speak, this summary gave a stimulus to the study of the criminal throughout Europe. Thomson enumerated some of the physical characteristics of the instinctive criminal now generally recognised, pointed out the semi-imbecility prevalent among the juvenile criminals under his observation, the frequency of accumulated morbid appearances at post-mortem examinations, and the large proportion of cases at Perth needing treatment for mental diseases soon after admission, "apparently from congenital causes." Thomson's facts and opinions were too curtly, and, probably, too emphatically stated. Dr. Nicolson, writing also in the same journal from 1873 to 1875, dealt with the

this respect Italy remains true to traditions that are two thousand years old; in the sixteenth century Italy was still the centre of studies in penal law, and, to keep to modern times, it is enough to mention the great names of Beccaria, and, still more recently, Romagnosi. It was under the auspices of Beltrani-Scalia, well known in conn

ecially in the formation of crystals, and before entering the University he had published two books of a somewhat evolutionary character. While a student he was led, by the combined study of ancient religions and of medicine, to the subject of mental diseases. He began with studies on cretinism in Lombardy and Liguria, his conclusions being afterwards adopted by Virchow and others. In the eventful year of 1859 he became first a soldier, and afterwards a military surgeon. In 1862 he was in charge of the department of mental diseases at Pavia University, and he initiated there an institution for the insane, a psychiatric museum, and a series of researches in the application of exact methods to the study of insanity. This last attempt was at the time received with general derision; it was said that he was studying madness with a yard measure; but his methods gradually made progr

he Italian, in some respects a kindred spirit. And Darwin's Origin of Species, published in 1859, supplied, for the first time, an indispensable biological basis, and furnished that atavistic key of which Lombroso was tempted to make at first so much use, sometimes, it must be added, so much abuse. These circumstances combined to render possible, for the first time

sions, lacking in critical faculty and in balance. Thus he was led at the beginning to over-estimate the atavistic element in the criminal, and at a later date he has pressed too strongly the epileptic affinities of crime. His weaknesses have never been spared rough handling from friendly or unfriendly hands. Thus Mantegazza, while recognising his ingegno potentemente apostolico e geniale, denies that Lombroso possesses any of the qualities of a scientific investigator, and Dr. Napoleone Colajanni, who, from the socialistic left of the movement, has, in his Sociologia Criminale (1889-90) and elsewhere, bestowed much elaborate and often valuable criticism on the centre, compares Lombroso's indiscriminate collection of facts to Charles IX.'s famous order on St. Bartholomew's eve: "Kill them all; God will know His own." But his work has been so rich, so laborious, so various; it has

head of criminal sociologists. Garofalo, a Neapolitan lawyer, accepting generally the conclusions reached by Lombroso and Ferri, has become the most distinguished jurist of the movement, the pioneer in that reform of law through the methods of natural science which must eventually become so fruitful. His Criminologie (the new and enlarged edition is written in French) is marked by luminous yet careful generalisation, and it contains many suggestions

awing conclusions impart great value to his work. His exactness and impartiality have been admired even by those whose instincts and training have led them to dread the invasions of this department of science. Dr. Marro has made interesting contributions to the differentiation of various criminal types, and he has brought out very clearly the disastrous tendency to degeneration among the children of parents who have passed middle age. Other Italian studies, among many that might be mentioned, are Virgilio's, dating

ress, that of Rome, was not, however, actually held until 1885. It was attended by all the most distinguished criminal anthropologists, criminal sociologists, and jurists of the "positive" school, chiefly Italian,

oraine is the most comprehensive introduction for those who would go down to the città dolente by a rose-strewn path. Lacassagne, the eminent medico-legal expert of Lyons, and editor of the valuable Archives de l'Anthropologie Criminelle, stands perhaps at the head of French criminal anthropologists, although beyond his monograph, Les Tatouages, he has published little. The judicial qualities of his mind, and his power of expressing just and large conceptions in felicitous and memorab

ho began with investigations into criminal psychology, has since done much solid work in criminal anthropology. Flesch made important observations on the morbid pathology of criminals; Benedikt, known in connection with various interesting investigations in criminal anthropology, began in 1879 with a remarkable study of the criminal brain, in which he observed frequent confluence of the fissures, as among some lower races, and also an additional convolution in the front

sterdam, represents the new spirit of

s, the results of criminal anthropology have been received and discussed with interest and sympathy, and various researches have been carried on. Professor Héger and Dr. Semal of Mons should also be named her

ing book, La Vida Penal en Espa?a, gives a very vivid picture of life in the Spanish prisons), and at Lisbon Bernardo Lucas. D'Azevedo Castello Branco, sub-director of Lisbon p

nality, which has rapidly reached a second edition, thus showing the interest generally felt in these studies, and some other workers, witness to the progress made in this country. On the initiative of Dr. del Drago, with influential coadjutors, a society for the promotion of criminal anthropology was founded in Buenos Ayres

he legal side, Dimitri Drill is engaged on a great work, of which one volume only is published at present, in which he deals thoroughly with the organic factors of crime, and with the social applications of criminal anthropology. The Russians seem to be characteristically audacious in their applications of the new science, and there is in Russia a feeling, not merely against imprisoning criminals, but

s a great future before it, represents, from the scientific and practical standpoint, the movement of reform in matters that relate to the criminal. It maintains that criminality and the repression of crime must be regarded as much from the social as from the legal point of view. It endeavours to establish this principle and its consequences in the science of criminal law as well as in penal legislation. The association already numbers between three and four hundred members, and includes well-known representatives from twenty-one different countries in Europe and America. England is among the least well represented of all; the English members rank in number with the Portuguese, Servian, and Argentine members. Germany is more than twenty times better represented.[15] No interest was felt in England in the International Congress of Criminal Anthropology recently held in Paris. At this Congress official delegates came from all parts of the civilised world, from Russia to Hawaii, but although there were two from the United States, there was not one from Great Britain. When some twelve months since I issued a series of Questions, dealing with