The Criminal

al Insen

f forbidden pleasures, and a terrible indifference." He goes on to tell of a parricide who remarked carelessly, in the course of conversation: "Take my father, for example; he was never ill up to the day of his death." "Scenes of heartrending despair are hardly ever witnessed among prisoners," observes Dr. Wey of Elmira; "their sleep is disturbed by no uneasy dreams, but is easy and sound; their appetites, also, are excellent."[54] "It is a most singular thing," remarks Mr. Davitt, "that I have met very few individuals in prison who gave evidence in appearance or talk of being truly miserable, no matter what the length of their sentence, amount of extra punishment, or contrast between their previous and their convict life may have been."[55] Mr. Davitt seems inclined to attribute this sinister contentment to a sort of heroic fortitude providentially implanted in the criminal breast. He refers, however, to one man who never s

religious sect who in Commonwealth days held "that heaven and all happiness consists in the acting of those things which are sin and wic

eculiarity is an invariable rule among these criminals.... I acquired the certainty that those who premeditate and commit crime in cold blood never experience moral remorse. I found also that those who manifest acute sorrow and real remorse after a criminal act, have committed that act either u

im. He saw a comrade and shouted to him, almost laughing-"Hallo! I've just been condemned to death." An Albanian, after having killed a traveller to rob him, lamented that the expense of the shot amounted to five paras; he had only found four paras on the victim; that was his one regret. An as

trustful creature as Helen Abercrombie, he was asked once. After a moment's reflection

sangfroid; he talked to his warders on the most various subjects, without reference, however, to his crime; read books from the prison library, and finally devoted himself to what he called the literary labours of his last hours. He had a taste for verse, and wrote a drama concerning his crime. "Death!" he often said to those around him; "I cannot fear it either as a soldier or as a philosopher. Yet it is overtaking me in my youth and strength. It is a terrible thing, but I am pr

ver their crimes, are about to pay the extreme forfeit for them. One criminal occupied his last hours with arranging his unpublished literary works; another gave lessons in hygiene to the warders; a third remarked

TE

with some pretensions to literary ability; Lacenaire is the type of them. Five died with indifference, an impassivity which recalls the insensibility of the brute or the unconsciousness of the madman. Eighteen went out of the world with a calm and resigned courage, often repentant, and prepared by the exhortations of the priest. They belonged to various social classes. Those of the lower classes were generally more sincere, and publicly avowed their guilt, holding themselves up as warnings to others; those belonging to the middle classes, anxious to leave behind a doubt as to their guilt, declared themselves innocent; others were silent. Of the 24 women, only 5 (abou

e penitence in six. He is careful to point out that precise statistics on this point are of no great value, unless they are associated with a very intimate knowledge of individual criminals; the assumed penitence is seldom real, and the real penitence is not obtrusive. Dostoieffsky, the most profound student of the human heart who has ever studied criminals intimately, has noted this fact-"In one prison there were men whom I had known

al in healthy children. The instinctive criminal is more distinctively marked by his continuance of the same practices throughout life. At Buenos Ayres a man killed his father in order to rob him, and not finding the money, he placed his mother's feet on the fire to make her confess that of which she was ignorant. Another, after killing an entire family, played with the corpses of the children by throwing them in the air and catching them alternately

is servant (1881) and threw the body before his enemy's door, solely in order to bring a false charge against the latter. A similar case occurred in Azamgarh five years later: a boy was murdered by his grandfather and uncle; they threw the body into a sugar-cane field, and then charged the owner with the crime. A still stranger story comes from the Mutha District: Randbir, a Jat, who had once been a thriving man in Randbirpur, fell int

ed him. Lord Gifford mentions an Australian woman of the Muliana tribe who admitted having killed and eaten two of her own children, who annoyed her by crying. (The Australian aborigines are, however, usually very tender to their children.) A Maori chief said to Mr. Tregear-"If I go out for a morning walk with my spear, and I see a man, and I push my spear through him, that isn't murder-that is 'killing.' But if I

ntelli

ct, lacking in forethought, astoundingly imprudent. On the other hand he is cunning, hypocritical, delighting in falsehood, even for its own sake, ab

ligence in 21 cases out of 500. He found that incendiaries and then murderers yielded the largest proportion of individuals with defective intelligence; then came vagabonds, sexual offenders, those convicted of assault, highwaymen, and those convic

ly bright. If bright, it is usually in a narrow line and self-repeating. Like the cunning of the fox, his smartness displays itself in furthering his schemes, and personal gratification and comfort." "Many criminal illiterates," he remarks elsewhere, "are so densely stupid as to be unable to tell the right hand from the left." M. Joly, discussing the criminal's delight in ruse, adds: "Animals are of all living things fondest of ruse when their special instincts are in action. Idle and untrained children, resolved to deceive their teachers and to amuse themselves at all risks, are more rusé than their comrades at the head of the class. Women make use of ruse much more than men." I will quote, finally, on this point some words of Dr. A. Krauss[60]:-"The specialists say that criminals are more astute than intelligent. But what is this astuteness? It is an instinctive, innate faculty, which does not depend on real intelligence, and which is already found pre

e, however, by any means clear that he was what we should call an instinctive criminal. Vidocq, a clever criminal who became an equally successful police official, and wrote his interesting and instructive Memoirs, may not have been, a

AT

overnment. Valuable goods he carefully stowed away in some of his numerous warehouses; and when there was no market for them in England, through the apathy of the persons robbed, or the dangers to dishonest purchasers, he despatched them on board a ship of his own to Holland, where he employed a trustworthy agent. Like barbarian monarchs, he gave presents when he wished to express a desire for friendship and assistance; and in order that the recipients of these favours might not be compromised, he retained a staff of skilled artizans, who could so change the appearance of a snuff-box, a ring, or a watch, that not even the real owner could recognise it. When satisfied with the good service of any of his subordinates who might be in danger, he gave them posts in his own household, with money and clothing, and found employment for them in clipping and counterfeiting coin. He did not even restrict his operations to London, but, in imitation of other great conquerors and pillagers, or perhaps through the independent working of his own intellect, he divided England into districts, and assigned a gang to each; each had to account to him, as the counties of old to the king, for the revenue collected. And as a well-appointed army has its artillery, its cavalry, and its infantry, so among Jonathan Wild's retainers there was a special corps for robbing in church, another for various festivities in London, and a third with a peculiar aptitude for making the most of a country fair. The body-guards of a sovereign are usually chosen for their appearance, or for tried valour in the field. Wild's principle of selection was somewhat different. He considered that fidelity to himself was the first virtue in a follower, and that fidelity was certain only when there

Van

rtist and literary men, though, as Lombroso remarks, they decidedly excel them in this respect. The vanity of the artist and literary man marks the abnormal element, the tendency in them to degeneration. It reveals in them the weak points of a me

appeared in public generally wore a silver-hilted sword at his side; whilst Vaux and Hayward, heroes of a later day, were the best-dressed men on the pavē of London. Many of the Italian bandits go splendidly decorated, and the very gipsy robber has a feeling for the charms of dress; the cap alone of the Haram Pasha, a leader of the cannibal gipsy band which infested Hungary towards the conclusion of the last century, was adorned with gold

e (assassin) is the highest praise." This is universally true among every group of murderers or of thieves; the author of a large criminal transaction is regarded by all his fellows as a hero, and he looks down upo

imes which was brought up in evidence against her; Wainewright appears to have kept a diary of this kind which also fell into other hands; John Wilkes Booth, the shallow-brained young actor who killed President Lincoln, had, with his stagy patriotism, some of the characteristics of the instinctive criminals, showing themselves especially in his morbid vanity. The chief suffering he felt after the deed was to his vanity. He wrote in his diary: "I struck boldly, and not as the papers say; I walked with a firm step through thousands of his friends; was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his si

"insatiable and morbid self-esteem." He enjoyed the respect paid to him in prison, and insisted upon being treated as a gentleman. A prisoner concluded a letter to her accomplice, "Your Lucrezia Borgia." Sometimes the vanity of the criminal shows itself in the artistic or dramatic representati

remains respectful; "he is a king in the midst of his subjects; envious looks are cast at those privileged individuals who have succeeded in placing themselves near

ional Ins

This constitutional laziness is therefore one of the chief organic bases of crime. Make idleness impossible and you have done much to make the criminal impossible. It is not without reason that French criminals call themselves pègres (from pigritia), the idle. Lemaire, a notorious French criminal of the beginning of

ugh sometimes dressed outwardly as an ordinary man of the world), the criminal is capable of moments of

he world under the aspect of an immense gaol alternating with an immense brothel. And this is true. For them imprisonment is the normal condition. Liberty is their holiday, an occasional transitory hol

y which is otherwise beyond his grasp, and alcohol is the stimulant which comes easiest to hand. When, as frequently happens, he is the child of alcoholic parents, the craving for drink soon obtains morbid intensity. Crime and drink are intimately bound together, although we must beware of too unreservedly setting down drink

frequently becomes a passion. Lauvergne tells of a band of criminals who played for two days without intermission. We hear of a French prisoner who gamble

e, writes:-"The facts which we came across during our prison life surpass all that the most frenzied imagination could invent. One must have been for long years in a prison, secluded from all higher influences and abandoned to one's own and that of a thousand convicts' imaginations, to come to the incredible state of mind which is witnessed among

s to be extremely rare. This is true even when love is the cause of the crime. The love, even when strong, remains rather brutal. When

ptical illusion, one is only struck by the smallness of the place, but when the eye succeeds in piercing the atmosphere, thick with a thousand vapours which are not inodorous, the size becomes manifest by the details which escape from the chaos. This is the moment of creation; everything clears up; the mist dissipates, becomes peopled and animated; there is movement, agitation, not of empty shadows but of substantial forms which cross and interlace in every direction. What beatitude! What a joyous life! Never for epicureans were so many felicities gathered together as here for those who love to wallow in mire. Around, rows of tables, on which, without their ever being cl

ed explosion is the anguished, convulsive manifestation of personality, an instinctive melancholy, a desire to affirm the degraded ego, an emotion which obscures the judgment. It is like a spasm, an access of epilepsy; the man who is buried alive and who suddenly awakes strikes in despair against his coffin-lid; he strives to push it back, to raise it; his reason convinces him of the uselessness of all his efforts, but reason has nothing to do with his convulsions. It must not be forgotten that nearly every manifestation of the personality of the prisoner is considered a crime; also that the question whether the manifestatio

fresh proof of a close relationship between the instinctive criminal and the epileptic. In England they appear to be rare in men, but, on the other hand, common in women who have, in prison language, "broken out." This wild fit of maniacal violence which from time to

their hands on. The younger they are the worse they behave. The most violent age, I think, is from seventeen to two or three and twenty;-indeed they are like fiends at that age very often." The medical officer told him that "4 per cent. of the whole of the prisoners, or 20 in 600, wer

ife in Prison, reproduces what she t

going to brea

won't think of any s

sure I

at f

that's what for. I shall break

ffended you or

out. It's so dull here.

'll go to the

o go to th

sheets and blankets are passed through or left in a heap in the cell; the guards are sent for, and ther

ially at the menstrual periods among the epileptic, the insane, and the imbecile. Thus Dr. H. Sutherland (West Riding Asylum Reports, vol. ii.), from observations on 500 inmates of the West Riding Asylum, remarks that in epileptic insanity the fits are generally increased in number, and the patients generally become excited at the catamenial period; while the mania exacerbations usually occur at this time. He notes the frequency of excitement

of Christianity, been associated with excesses. Among the men at Elmira, judging from the charts given by Dr. Wey, there is a tendency to insubordination in the autumn, and also in the spring. In Spanish prisons, it appears from Salilla

helped, and here I am. It wasn't my fault exactly, because I did try." A pickpocket said to Marro: "When I see any one pass with a watch in his pocket, even though I have no need of money, I feel a real need to take it." Dostoieffsky, giving a minute account of one of the convicts who was most feared, but who was sincerely devoted to him, says: "He sometimes stole from me, but it was always involuntary; he scarcely ever borrowed from me, so that what attracted him was not money or other interested motive." Once it was a Bible which he sold to obtain drink. "Probably he felt a strong desire for drink that day, and when he felt a strong desire for anything it had to be satisfied. I endeavoured to reproach him as he deserved, for I regretted

or instance, it has been said, "They are inveterate thieves, but they experience no sense of shame when they are discovered. They frequently say that they ca

Senti

e often sentimental, as revealed in the character of the tattoo marks. Two interesting examples of criminal sentiment have recently been recorded by Dr. Lindau. A German criminal (it is perhaps as well to note that he was a German), having murdered his sweetheart most cruelly, went back to her house to let out a canary which might suffer from want of food. Another, after having killed a woman, stayed behind to feed her child which was crying. Lacenaire, on the same day that he c

TE

toieffsky, in his Recollections of the Dead-House, the part that animals play in the lives of prisoners. He describes at length the goat, the horse, the dogs, the ducks, the eagle. No one who has once read it may forget the history of the eagle. The eagle would not be tamed; solitary a

ands and fathers. In a great many cases wives have aided their guilty partners in their villainy, and the children too have taken a hand in it. But in as many all suggestions of the criminal's calling was left outside the front door. There was George Engles, the forger. His family lived quietly and respectably, mingled with the best of people, and were liked by all they met. George Leonidas Leslie, alias Howard, who was found dead near Yonkers, probably made away with by his pals, was a fine-look

the Prince of Thieves," on account of his great liberality; "it is a well-known fact that he has alwa

rary. When he met the governor the convict's face suddenly lighted up; he smiled largely, cap in hand, even to see him approach." Prince Krapotkine quotes and confirms the observations of Dr. Campbell, an experienced prison surgeon. By mild treatment, says Dr. Campbell, "with as much consideration as if they had been d

ess lies a point of departure for the moralisation of the criminal. What a ruined fund of fine feeling, for instance, was concealed in the young thief, recorded by Lombroso, who committed su

Rel

f any one sneezed, or any other very bad omen was observed, the start was postponed. If they heard a jackal, or the bray of the village donkey, their hearts were cheered; but a funeral or a snake turned them back. They were also very sup

the least criminal land in Europe) it is about 5. Naples is also the most religious city in Europe. "No other city," observes Garofalo,[68] "can boast of such frequent processions; no other, perhaps, is so zealous an observer of the practices of the church. But unfortunately-as an illustrious historian [Sismondi], speaking of the Italians of his day, wrote-'the murderer, still stained with the blood he has just shed, devoutly fasts, even while he is meditating a fresh assassination; the prostitute places the image of the Virgin near her bed, and recites her rosary devoutly before it; th

ly, it is especially the criminals by passion who are super

s poisoning her husband wrote to her accomplice:-"He is not well ... if God wished it. Oh, if God would have pity on us, how I would bless Him! When he complains [of the effects of the poison] I thank God in my heart." And he answers, "I will pray to Heaven to aid us." And she again, "He was ill yesterday. I thought that God was beginning His work. I have wept so much that it is not possible God should not have pity on my tears." Lombroso found 248

imitive emotional nature, with its instability and love of sentiment, easily finds what it needs. A French chaplain of experience and intelligence told M. Joly that he had "more satisfaction" with his prisoners than with people of the world. The Rev. E. Payson Hammond, who has conducted many missions to prisoners, finds very great aptitude for conversion among them. Of the convicts of the State Prison of Jefferson

ay, had the curiosity to look into thirty-three cellules, to observe the effect of the ceremony: three were reading the mass; one stood up, with covered head, looking at the a

or negatively as of no religion. The results were interesting: 1 was a thief, a rather ignorant person, whose chief reason for being an infidel was that his parents had "crammed religion down his throat." 2 an ex-soldier, a heavy drinker, and when asked why he had described himself as an atheist, "he said he only called himself mad;" he was actually insane. 3 a burglar, who said he meant that he never attended church because he had seen so much hypocrisy among professing Christians; in a few days he gave up the designation of atheist. 4 was a swindler, a great liar, and probably insane. 5 was a lad of nineteen, of very little intellect, who had deserted from the army; his father had been "a follower of Bradlaugh." 6 a German Jew, who frequented Christian churches, but not having been baptised, simply did not know how to describe himself. 7 an intemperate schoolmaster, charged with deserting his family; he meant that he had ceased to

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hieves

o. The most highly developed and the most widely extended slang of this kind is that used by habitual criminals. Every country has its own thieves' slang, but within the bounds of that country the slang is generally intelligible; the Lombard

a snatch near St. Paul's, was collared, lagged, and got this bit of seven stretch." That is a pickpocket's history of his arrest as narrated to Mr. Davitt. Here is the translation:-"As I was walking down a narrow alley in Whitechapel, I ran up against a drunken man, who had a gold watch-guard. I stole his watch, which

o run after. From Scotland we borrow duds for clothes, and from the Hebrew shoful for base coin. Purely of native manufacture, however, and entirely artificial, are the two classes of rhyming and back-slang which mingle with cant to make a whole. By the former, any word that rhymes with the one you mean to use is put in its place, and gradually becomes accepted. This has the merit of unintelligibility when it is desired not to let chance passers-by know of what we are speaking, which naturally occurs not seldom in the days of detectives and plain-clothes constables. Suppose I have 'touched' (i.e., been successful in some robbery), and feel inclined for some relaxation in company with my sweetheart (or one of them), I might address her thus-'Come, cows and kisses, put the battle of the Nile on your Barnet Fair, and a rogue and villain in your sky-rocket; call a flounder and dab with a tidy Charing Cross, and we'll go for a Bushey Park along the frog and toad into the live eels.' This would apparently be but a pendant to the celebrated bit of nonsense extemporised by Foote, but, as a matter of fact, to a master or mistress of rhyming slang it would at once be understood as-'Come, missus, put a tile (hat) on your hair, and a shilling in your pocket; call a cab with a tidy horse, and we'll go for a lark along the road into the fields.' And the second class of manufactured slang is that largely patronised by costermongers. It is called back-slang, and simply consists of spelling (more or less accurately) words backwards. Thus-'Hi, yob! kool that enif elrig with the

ly everything is degraded, sometimes with coarse and fantastic wit. "While the imagination of the poet gives a soul to animate objects," remarks M. Joly, "the imagination of the criminal transforms living forms into things, assimilates man to animals." Thus the skin for them is leather, the face un mufle, the mouth un bec, the arm un aileron. The body is called the cor

onths' hard labour is more pleasantly described as getting thirteen clean shirts, one being served out in prison each week. The tread-wheel again is more politely called the everlasting staircase, or the wheel of life, or the vertical care-grinder. Penal servitude is dignified with the appellation of

gnated by its most salient qualities from the criminal point of view. Thus the advocate becomes the blanchisseur or imbiancatore (washerman); the juge d'instruction, the curicux or the père sondeur; the sermon, l'ennuyeuse or tediosa; the purse is la santa; the court, la juste. "The guillotin

nth, and to other minute points. A prostitute is the h?tel du besoin, a Louis-quinze, and also the bourre-de-soie, in allusion, it is said, to murmured offers

to be pregnant (enfanter); moulin à vent = derrière; pape = verre de rhum (Rome); veronique = lanterne (verre); vert-de-gris = absinthe (play on vert and verre, with allusion to its deleterious properties); demoiselle du Pont-neuf (that all may go over) = prostitute; apaier = to assassinate; boire dans la grande tasse = to drown oneself; a knife

grand Jablo, Jablochoff's electric lamps having been the first used to illuminate Paris. A coup de Raguse is a defection, in allusion to the Duke of Ragusa

s = ces Messieurs = the police; chand = marchand; lubre = lugubre; abs = absinthe; avoi

h in Italian; German and English in French; Italian and Romany in English. "Hebrew, or rather Yiddish," Lombroso observes, "supplies the half of Dutch slang, and nearly a fourth of German, in which

y of synonyms for certain words. Thus Cougnet and Righini found 17 words for warders or police; 9 for the act of sodomy; 7 for plunder. Frenc

ortion is permanent. Its tendency is, however, to die out. The m

TE

son Insc

ere is no vanity here, and it is an instinct from which no individual, whatever his degree of culture, is exempt; it is indeed scarcely distinguishable from the instinct which leads to the production of heroic works of art. The expression must vary with the individual. I knew a room, the residence of a long succession of medical students during certain weeks of seclusion involved by hos

ions, his coarse satires and imprecations, his bitter reflections, his judgments of life, are all recorded in these prison inscriptions on whitewashed walls, cell doors, margins of books, tin knives, and the bottoms of skilly cans and dinner tins. In Italy they have been studied in reference to their psychological significance with characteristic thoroughness by Lombroso; and in England Mr. Horsley and Mr. Davitt have recorded a considerable number.[71] The Italian inscriptions, on the whole, are marked by a greater preponderance of the sentimental, reflective, and imprecatory elements; the English are generally very practical and material, dealing with food que

xploits, probably the work of old hands, a

e boning the swag. 7 stretch, 186

10 and a ticket. Put away by a M

g" (i.e., committed for trial

ched" (i.e., James and Racker having gone out to commit till

ng years have

ng years I h

a bloke in

g his tic

he seven ye

to Van Die

my friends a

with the dark

and introduced Van Diemen's Land

, and dissatisfaction with its quality

y dinner, oc

tton and three

to the pint

me from s

month then

feed of

and steak, P

k than we

boys, down

ay, Soup

a pot o

s an Italian philosopher, "but

tell the pa

d harmles

grog and e

the bloom

s himself acquainted with seven of the prisons he characterise

ick shins and gr

ll laggs as go

ood toke and

bad grub but

looming bad pla

day gives four

rst of the lot

gging there's no

n Irishman, but two-thirds of the pris

ental, religious, moral, didactic, and refl

reake, yet may b

e with "Good-bye, Lucy dear," wri

ye, Luc

om you for se

Jon

austic school had

ear is lik

e few sigh

ll find amo

Alfred

by no means rare, as the f

inutile; io la stima s

ne I. e

er Italia

ol who believes in the l

entiment, and in an Italian illu

pay for it with bitter tears. Never believe in the love of men: for them love is a pastime. When you have sacrificed for them honour, family,

ionately to her accomplice in

lio dal cuo

o ieri sera

itto ava

iostro e s

mio cuore e

e mia vene era

calamaio po

tà ti prego d

o, A

, mio

, mio

il mi

ti m

86

ion is a pathetic recoll

God my ba

on its fat

girl, lay

rass growin

nument a thief wrote this inscri

stealing in this world, Goes to steal in another

uity in solitude are some insc

I walked round th

cks in th

s, 150 red tile

d moral exhortation

to do it, then after you have don

rls; it's no

ty, turn your heart

all. Give

here-took the pledge for 2

th, It is goo

master, the devil

he Devil, then you wi

ions supply a more d

s ruined by those rascally j

the imprecations, crude erotic aspirations, and perverse instincts which occupy

di galera. A morte le gafe [warders] e tutti le spie, a morte il capo-gua

stella, quand

he hanno volontà di farsi infilzare e non possono e tanti p... ch

l membro in una f... od in un culo. Eppure sono già 22 mesi che m

an in a religious book, and is translated

otti che l'hanno ch... Menatevi una volta l'uccello al mio gusto, che io me la meno al vostro, e

al Literatu

what we should expect from that sentimentalism which has already been noted. But among the favourite prison novelists Alexandre Dumas is facile princeps. We must not seek to explain this by finding in Dumas a response to specific criminal instincts. In this matter prisoners are at one with a very large body of non-prisoners, with George Sand, Tolsto?, and Rossetti at their head. It is the universally human quality in the prolific novelist, the anodyne of his entrancing and unflagging interest, the satisfaction which he offer

very distinct influence in the production of young criminals.[72] Tropmann, a notorious French murderer, was influenced by novels. The famous criminal Lacenaire, who glorified himself and was glorified by others, has had an influence in the production of crime down to our own day. After every celebrated or startling crime, some weak-minded and impressionable persons

always of a rude character, often affected or boastful, but not seldom vigorous or pathetic. A criminal has been known to declaim from the scaffold a poem on his

s a translation, was he

lowly, slowly, watching the prison, the sentinels turn. Within these walls are sadness and terror. Without are life, gold, and liberty.... But the b

lready given. Mr. Davitt has a chapter on "Prison 'Poets,'" but what he has to say of them is not encouraging, although he tells us that Portsmo

morning I left

ades we did cry

well as that with

the vain froth of a nauseous life. The following extract is fairly characteristic:-"It appears to us that the time requireth not the hand of genius to give it a gusto for the tastes and feelings of what are called the lower orders,-rather the reverse! We want more macaroni and champagne, less boxing and bull beef. Now, Mr. Drama [Hazlitt] of the London seems determined to show his readers that his stomach is hearty-that he can relish bread and cheese and porter, which certainly are very fine things in the country, and-when we can get nothing else-and so far, all this is

the civilisation is more primitive, and the level of criminality much higher. In the Canti Siculi of the able and enthusiastic folklorist, Pitré, there are twenty-seven which he describes as Prison Songs; with others rather similar

ita mia, ca

tro di te co

capo a quel ch

e far perd

fratelli e qua

overing his victim with capsicums (peperoni), wrote verses which, says Lombroso, "would not be unworthy of Laura's sweet singer." In such a case as that of Corsica, we must, however, be very cautious how we use the word "criminal." In that land barbarous conceptions still rule; a child is brought up from its earliest days in an atmosphere of robbery and bloodshed; what in a more civilised country we call "crime" is there to a large extent the normal social state. It is in Corsica that a parish may vote

ve a poem by Lebiez, the young murderer spoken of in

enfant restes fr

apprêté par

les os et la

noms grecs

et froid de mes

e viens d

h! reviens trom

à ma c

de fois ta bou

aisers de

is mots de ta bou

eurs d'éga

ne peux répondr

est close

passant, de sa

s charmes

ur nons, qui cr

pendant de

bonheur, et be

ainsi que

s le soir, apre e

ille sil

e monde et, tout

sers plus

qui passe ... alo

t aux coups

crois lire en trem

tour viend

amiable and gay. I am taken for a wild fellow, who mocks at everything; but if they knew my character thoroughly, if they were aware that when I laugh and joke I have just come out of a solitude of despair and tears!

irs de la Petite et de la Grande Roquette, gives us specimens and a facsimile page of one of these, the Tam-Ta

e Ex

ur-major, press

une maigr

égalait s

ent besoin d'un p

et B

a Société Agricole de France, de se servir des oreilles de Transp

s esgourdes, leur grandeur, leur système d'aération prometten

ns, besides original contributions and the news of the Reformatory, a summary of general news; and by its tone and its method of selection, it compares favourably, as it has been said, with many newspapers publis

hich was a robin hopping in search of food for her young. But as she hopped about the sky seemed to grow darker. I knew that a storm was approaching, and when it came I saw the robin cling to the tree for shelter. But the wind was fierce, and it tore her from the branch, and in spite of all her efforts it bore her away out over the ocean, farther and farther from the land, till at last, when its energy was spent, its fury gone, it left her on the ocean with no land in sight to guide her to her home; and as she flew she thought of her little ones at home, and of her mate. She thought she was flying to them, but every little effort was taking her farther away, though she knew it not. When at last s

ginary Conversation between two Members of the Casuistry Class"-i

he member of our class who said that

ished at your question. I rather t

very curio

ved to be logical. You say that imprisonment f

involuntary subjection of one

to passion and to other qualiti

e

lavery as a state in which one's actions are regulated by som

think

ery, we will discuss whether life in prison is sla

r violatin

that men steal, for i

ubte

ident, so I daresay you

t will enable them to live more comf

in feelings-such as laziness, love of

l,

ot these feelings

ink

gs regulate his c

eems

ct is regulated by some power othe

aid you have c

you a

an from stealing is emancip

you ar

on for wrong-doing is a

e man has been sent to p

is, as it appears to me, the triumphing of the spirit or better part of man over the flesh or weake

ugh he lose fortune or life by doing so, is freer than the one who allows his conduct to be regulated by fear, malice, or other passion

s, it need scarcely be said, indicates a far higher moral level than the vacu

generally named at the head of these, and with good reason, as he has himself supplied the evidence by which he must be counted a criminal. But Villon was a poet, and a great poet; his crimes never degraded his a

e is, however, rare among great sculptors; on the other hand it has been, as Lombroso points out, very common among painters; nu

epted, produced one of the most valuable and interesting records of the eighteenth century, and at the same time a most complete and com

t he excels in delicate passages of vague and mystic reverie, in sudden lines of poignant emotion. His style, a curious mixture of simplicity and obscurity, is studded with words borrowed from the criminal's argot. His latest volume[75] contains poems which well show his curious power of expressing the most delicate nuances of sentiment side by side with the crudest, most una

se fleuri

e le

us ce

ont e

lant sur

bi

ong

de c

Samsons s

Phili

ez bi

au d

isible d

tour

?ur,

on a

t leurs pau

n brui

ili

pe au

t ou bien

un s

it si

croit

de ce cirq

s d'a

pré

s mal

ir si j'a

v?u

ci

oiera

res, bons v

vagab

s en

ers, m

hilosoph

enon

ible

ire est

nificance of this remarkable poem, it is necessary to state that Verlaine's imprisonment was due to an attempt on the life of his comrade in sexual perver

e concludi

mort, vous.

vec qui l

lle irré

ainsi batt

rien croire.

parmi les

disent son

grand péch

assé br?l

eines et m

yonne et

eur toujour

ce triom

nt sans fr

r jamais

n c?ur qui

miracule

ute-phil

trie et

ns donc! tu

ch the acute Lauvergne called Satanic, and which, in its extreme form, he believed to announce the monstrous alliance of the most eminent faculty of man, genius, with the most pronounced tendencies to crime. M.

parmi les

ma vie et j

me sur moi s

ne puis qu

vraiment n

or robbery, law courts, men hanging from the gallows, women, mostly nude, with huge or pendent breasts, men or women in extravagantly perverse sexual attitudes-these are the visions which come to the criminal in prison, and to which he seeks, by such means as may be within his reach, to give artistic expression

nse of the word, adding nothing, suppressing nothing; and these drawings have therefore a remarkable family likeness. If there is any great artist of whom they ever remind us it is Ostade, with his perpetual research of the mean and degraded, physically and morally, in humanity. Dr. Laurent draws special attention to a design which appears to represent some winged angel of hope; there is something in the bold, predaceous face of this vulgar fairy, in the coarse firm attitude, so suggestive of the things that alone have left a firm impress on the artist's mind, that is very pathetic. In one of those designs only is it possible to catch a glimpse of the ideal; it is the figure of a woman by a

pt it. To be successful here involves some judgment, delicacy, an

imagination, or distinct science of form and composition, is a group of nude women in extravagant attitudes, which Dr. Laurent reproduces; he says nothing of the artist, except that he was probably a Saint Anthony by necessity, who, in this scene as of a Sabbath of witches, has given expression to the dreams that tormented him. It is a genuine piece of fantastic art, and seems to recall certain designs of the Belgian art

iminal P

at all events as a trifle. He has a practical and empirical way of his own of regarding the matter, as Dostoieffsky remarks, and excuses these accidents by his destiny, by fate. "What contributes to justify the criminal in his own eyes is that he is quite certain that the public opinion of the class in which he was born and lives will acquit him; he is sure that he will not be judged definitely lost unless his crime is against

r, for the criminal to take so lofty a standpoint as this; more usually he bases the justification for his own existence on the vices of respectable society-"the ignorance and cupidity of the public," as one prisoner expressed it-that he is shrewd enough to perceive; "it is a game of rogue catch rogue," a convict told Mr. Davitt. A youthful French brigand in the days of Charles IX., as he impassively ascended the scaffold, declared that he was innocent, because he had never rob

at three-fourths of the social virtues are cowardly vices, I thought that an open assault on a rich man would be less ignoble than the cautious combinations of fraud." J. G. Wainewright, when in prison, said to a visitor: "Sir, you city men enter upon your speculations and take the chances of them. Some of your speculations succeed, and some fail. Mine happen to have failed." An Italian thief, one Rosati, said: "I am proud of my deeds; I have never taken small sums; to attack such large sums I consider a speculation rather than a theft." Another Italian thief said that there were two kinds of justice in the world: natural justice,

s it at every turn. "Who doesn't deserve the galleys?" was a remark often heard by Dr. Lauvergne

à la s

tu qui s

ns crainte

us les gen

ce to their own. So the man in prison feels indulgence for his own offence and contempt for his more cautious brother outside who continues to retain the respect of society, feelings whic

elieve me, if you have nothing to eat, and you meet with something, you would be a fool not to take it." "That is a good counsel, but here is a difficulty: what I have taken in this way, ought I to return it?" "No. The observance of the law would subject you to a fast too severe; you are a great fool if you do not

contention that there is any such thing as honesty in the world at all." This man, who had a considerable acquaintance with literature and philosophy, maintained soberly that "thieving was an honourable pursuit," and that religion, law, patriotism, and bodily disease were the real and only enemies of humanity. "Religion," he would observe, "robbed the soul of its independence, while so

ll be decorated with medals and crosses. This man here was a public thief; but I am only a private robber; if I had been a public one I should not have been here." Again: "Why are those who wear coarse breeches treated in one way, and those who are dressed finely and wear yellow gloves treated in another? Why are the first called thieves while the others are said to have committed undue appropriation? Have not both classes broken the commandment which says simply 'Thou shalt not steal'?" In a confession made to Gisquet, the prefect of police, a different standpoint is taken up; the criminal justifies himself, not on moral grounds, but as a man of the world: "You regret the robbery that I have committed, and you

is not one-tenth are in prison, so that we enjoy nine years of freedom against one of prison. Besides, where is the working man who is not sometimes without work? For

at people talk of, are things to which one soon gets accu

ense of others, who clothe us, feed us, and warm

tention in prison we think out

e I should have been sent to a central prison, where I should have met some old hands, who would hav

ed. They do not consider that many have secret resources, and that most of them are clever enough to get on without ever having anything to do with justice." This man, it is clea

them are diaphanous and transparent. The vulgar sand which you tread under foot becomes brilliant crystal when it has passed through the furnace. The dregs may become useful if you know how to employ them; to tread them under foot with indifference and without thought is to undermine the foundations of society and to fill it with volcanoes.