FIG. 14 AN EPILEPTIC BOY (see page 60)

Psychological Characteristics. The complete identity of epileptics, born criminals and the morally insane becomes evident as soon as we study their psychology.

Epilepsy, congenital criminality, and moral insanity alone are capable of comprising in one clinical form intellectual divergencies which range from genius to imbecility. In epileptics, this divergence is sometimes manifested in one and the same person in the space of twenty-four hours. An individual at one time afflicted with loss of will-power and amnesia, and incapable of formulating the simplest notion, will shortly afterwards give expression to original ideas and reason logically.

Contradictions and exaggerations of sentiment are salient characteristics of epileptics as of born criminals and the morally insane. Quarrelsome, suspicious, and cynical individuals suddenly become gentle, respectful, and affectionate. The cynic expresses religious sentiments, and the man who has brutally ill-treated his first wife, kneels before the second. An epileptic observed by Tonnini fancied himself at times to be Napoleon; at others, he would lick the ground like the humblest slave.

The extreme excitability manifested by born criminals is shared by epileptics. Distrustful, intolerant, and incapable of sincere attachment, a gesture or a look is sufficient to infuriate them and incite them to the most atrocious deeds.

Epilepsy has a disastrous effect on the character. It destroys the moral sense, causes irritability, alters the sensations through constant hallucinations and delusions, deadens the natural feelings or leads them into morbid channels.

Affection for Animals. The hatred frequently manifested by criminals and epileptics towards the members of their own families is in many cases accompanied by an extraordinary fondness for animals as is shown by the cases of Caligula, Commodus, Lacenaire, Rosas, Dr. Francia, and La Sola,—who preferred kittens to her own children. A morally insane individual known to my father would spend months in training dogs, horses, birds, geese, and other fowls. He was wont to remark that all animals were friendly to him as though they recognised in him one of their own kind. Dostoyevsky's fellow-convicts showed great fondness for a horse, an eagle, and a number of geese. They were so attached to a goat that they wanted to gild its horns.

FIG. 15 FERNANDO Epileptic (see page 60)

Somnambulism. This is a frequent characteristic of epileptics. Krafft-Ebing says:

"The seizure is often followed by a condition approaching somnambulism. The patient appears to have recovered consciousness, talks coherently, behaves in an orderly manner, and resumes his ordinary occupations. Yet he is not really conscious as is shown by the fact that, later he is entirely ignorant of what he has been doing during this stage. This peculiar state of mental daze may last a long time, sometimes during the whole interval between two seizures."

Many of the criminals observed by Dostoyevsky were given to gesticulating and talking agitatedly in their sleep.

Obscenity is a common characteristic. Kowalewsky (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1885) notes the resemblance between the reproductive act and the epileptic seizure, the tonic tension of the muscles, loss of consciousness and mydriasis in both cases, and remarks also on the frequency with which epileptic attacks are accompanied by sexual propensities.

The desire for sexual indulgence, like the taste for alcohol, is distinguished by the precocity peculiar to criminals and the morally insane. Precocious sexual instincts have been observed in children of four years, and in one case obscenity was manifested by an infant of one year.

Marro (Annali di Freniatria, 1890) describes a child of three years and ten months, who had exhibited signs of epilepsy from birth and was of a jealous, irascible disposition. He was in the habit of scratching and biting his brothers and sisters, knocking over the furniture, hiding things, and tearing his clothes, and when unable to hurt or annoy others, would vent his rage upon himself. If punished, he would continue his misdeeds in an underhand way.

Another child had been afflicted with convulsions from his earliest infancy, in consequence of which his character deteriorated, and while still a mere infant, he behaved with the utmost violence. He killed a cat, attempted to strangle his brother, and to set fire to the house.

Invulnerability, another characteristic common to criminals, has been observed by Tonnini in epileptics, whose wounds and injuries heal with astonishing rapidity, and he is inclined to regard this peculiarity in the light of a reversion to a stage of evolution, at which animals like lizards and salamanders were able to replace severed joints by new growths. This invulnerability is shared by all degenerates: epileptics, imbeciles, and the morally insane.

"One of these latter," says Tonnini, "tore out his moustache bodily and with it a large piece of skin. In a few days the wound was nearly healed."

Very characteristic is the almost automatic tendency to destroy animate and inanimate objects, which results in frequent wounding, suicides, and homicides. This desire to destroy is also common to children. Fernando P. (Fig. 15), an epileptic treated by my father, when enraged was in the habit of smashing all the furniture within his reach and throwing the pieces over a wall some twenty-five feet high.

Misdea, a regimental barber, to whom we shall refer later, roused to fury by dismissal from his post, broke four razors into small pieces with his teeth. Another epileptic, Piz... used to break all the crockery in his cell regularly every other day, "just to give vent to his feelings."

This tendency to destroy everything in the cell is common also to ordinary criminals.

Cases of Moral Insanity with Latent Epileptic Phenomena. The following cases, which were treated by my father and which were subject to careful observation and study, will serve to give a clear idea of the criminal form of epilepsy.

Subject: Giuliano Celestino, age 16. Yellow skin abundantly tattooed, absence of hair on face or body. Cranium: plagiocephaly on the left frontal and right parietal regions, obliquely-placed eyes, narrow forehead, prominent orbital arches, line of the mouth horizontal as in apes, lateral incisors of upper jaw resembling the canines with rugged margins, excessive zygomatic and maxillary development, tactile sensibility very obtuse, dolorific sensibility non-existent on the right, very obtuse on the left, rotular reflex action exaggerated on the right, very feeble on the left. Devoid of natural feeling. When asked if he was fond of his mother, he replied: "When she brings me cigars and money." When questioned concerning his crimes he showed neither shame nor confusion. On the contrary, he confessed with a smile that when only ten he had tried to kill his youngest brother, who was then an infant in the cradle, and when hindered by his mother, had struck and bitten her. His father was a drunkard afflicted with syphilis, and Giuliano had suffered from epilepsy from the age of seven. At this age he began to indulge in alcohol and self-abuse, and stole from his parents in order to buy sweets. He appears to have been subject to an ambulatory mania, which caused him to wander aimlessly about the country, and if kept within doors he would let himself down from the windows, climb up the chimney, or, failing in these attempts to escape, would break the furniture and attract the attention of the neighbours by his terrific yells. From the age of eight, despite his parents' efforts to apprentice him, he was always immediately dismissed by his employers. He ran away with a strolling company of acrobats, and later apprenticed himself to a butcher in order to revel in the horrors of the slaughter-house. At fifteen he was confined in a reformatory, where he twice attempted to escape and to set fire to the building, and was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. For the space of a few days, he appears to have suffered from epileptic attacks, although in a masked form, accompanied by various attempts at suicide. These were renewed every other month for a whole year. When asked what he would do for a living when released, he would reply laughingly that there was plenty of money in other people's pockets.

L... a morally insane subject, age 16, native of Turin, the son of an aged, but extremely respectable man. Height 1.50 m., weight, 46.2 kg., with abundant hair, and down on the forehead, incisors crowded together, excessive development of the canines, and exaggerated orbital angle of the frontal bone. He was entirely devoid of affection for his family, remarking cynically that he was fond of his father when he gave him money and did not worry him. Sometimes he kicked the poor old man and otherwise abused him. When unable to obtain money, he would smash all the furniture in the house, until, for the sake of economy, his family gave him what he wanted. In order to get a five-pound note from money-lenders he would sign promissory notes for ten times that amount. He changed his ideas from one hour to another. Sometimes he wanted to enter the army, at others to emigrate to France, etc. When only fourteen he frequented houses of ill-fame, where he played the bully.

Although this case may be regarded as a typical instance of moral insanity, there were apparently no symptoms of vertigo or convulsions. At the age of sixteen, however, while suffering from rheumatism, this subject tried to throw himself from the balcony of his bedroom at the same hour three nights running. After this he seems to have suffered from amnesia.

These frenzied attempts at self-destruction, which seem to have taken the place of the epileptic seizure, were related to my father casually by the boy's mother; but in other cases, similar incidents, although of the utmost importance to the criminologist, often pass unnoticed.

In the Actes du Congres d'Anthropologie, Angelucci describes another typical case of epileptic moral insanity. E. G. (brother a criminal epileptic, father a sufferer from cancer) was sentenced several times for assaulting people often without motive. Tattooed with the figure of a naked woman, microcephalous (39.2 cubic inches = 589 c.c.), having cranial and facial asymmetry, he was vain, deceitful, and violent, and made great show of scepticism although he wore a great many medals of the Virgin. This subject was over twenty-five when the first epileptic seizure took place.

The connection between epilepsy and crime is one of derivation rather than identity. Epilepsy represents the genus of which criminality and moral insanity are the species.

The born criminal is an epileptic, inasmuch as he possesses the anatomical, skeletal, physiognomical, psychological, and moral characteristics peculiar to the recognised form of epilepsy, and sometimes also its motorial phenomena, although at rare intervals. More frequently he exhibits its substitutes (vertigo, twitching, sialorrhea, emotional attacks). But the criminal epileptic possesses other characteristics peculiar to himself; in particular, that desire of evil for its own sake, which is unknown to ordinary epileptics. In view of this fact this form of epilepsy must be considered apart from the purely nervous anomaly, both in the clinical diagnosis and the methods of cure and social prophylaxis.

Moreover, the nervous anomaly, which in the case of criminals appears on the scene from time to time, accentuating the criminal tendency till it reaches the atavistic form and producing morbid complications which sometimes prove fatal, serves to point out the true nature of the disease and to emphasise the fact that while it is attenuated so far as motor attacks are concerned, it is aggravated on the other hand by criminal impulses, which render the patient semi-immune and permit him a longer and less troubled existence, but provoke a constant brain irritation, which clouds and disturbs his intellectual and moral nature.

In order better to understand these two forms of epilepsy, we must recall two analogous forms of another and equally multiform disease, tuberculosis in its forms of quick consumption and scrofula. The etiology is identical and the symptoms frequently alike, but while the latter proceeds very slowly and allows the patient a long life, the former is rapid and severs life in its prime.

In motory epilepsy, the irritation is manifested on a sudden, but leaves the mind healthy in the interval, although the attacks may lead to rapid dementia. In criminal epilepsy this irritation does not break out in violent seizures and is compatible with a long life, but it changes the whole physical and psychic complexion of the individual.

The epileptic origin of criminality explains many characteristics of the criminal, the genesis of which was previously obscure. Many of the moral and physical peculiarities of born criminals and the morally insane may be classed as professional characteristics acquired through the habit of evil-doing, especially the naso-labial and zygomatic wrinkles, cynical expression, tapering fingers, etc. Many anomalies also in the bones, hair, ears, eyes, and the monstrous development of the jaws and teeth, must be explained by arrested development in the fifth or sixth month of ultra-uterine existence, corresponding to the characteristics of inferior races by the usual law of ontogeny which recapitulates phylogeny. But there is a final series of anomalies, the origin of which was formerly wrapped in mystery: plagiocephaly, sclerosis, the thickening of the meninges, cranial asymmetry, and other changes in the cerebral layers, which can be explained only by a disease altering precociously the whole cerebral conformation, as is exactly the case in epilepsy.

The born criminal is an epileptic, not however afflicted with the common form of this disease, but with a special kind. The pathological basis, the etiology, and the anatomical and psychological characteristics are identical, but there are many differences. While in the ordinary form motor anomalies are very common, in the criminal form they are very rare, while in ordinary epilepsy the mental explosions are accompanied by unconsciousness, in the other form they are weakened and spread over the whole existence, and consciousness is, relatively speaking, preserved; and while, finally, the ordinary epileptic has not always the tendency to do evil for its own sake—nay, may even achieve holiness—in the hidden form the bent towards evil endures from birth to death. The perversity concentrated in one second in the motor attack, is attenuated in the second form, but spread over the whole existence. We have therefore an epilepsy sui generis, a variety of epilepsy which may be called criminal.

Thus the primitive idea of crime has become organic and complete. The criminal is only a diseased person, an epileptic, in whom the cerebral malady, begun in some cases during prenatal existence, or later, in consequence of some infection or cerebral poisoning, produces, together with certain signs of physical degeneration in the skull, face, teeth, and brain, a return to the early brutal egotism natural to primitive races, which manifests itself in homicide, theft, and other crimes.



CHAPTER III

THE INSANE CRIMINAL

GENERAL FORMS OF CRIMINAL LUNACY

Epileptic born criminals and the morally insane may be classed as lunatics under certain aspects, but only by the scientific observer and professional psychologist. Outside these two forms, there is an important series of offenders, who are not criminals from birth, but become such at a given moment of their lives, in consequence of an alteration of the brain, which completely upsets their moral nature and makes them unable to discriminate between right and wrong. They are really insane; that is, entirely without responsibility for their actions.

Nearly every class of mental derangement contributes a special form of crime.

The Idiot is prompted by paroxysms of rage to commit murderous attacks on his fellow-creatures. His exaggerated sexual propensities incite him to rape, and his childish delight at the sight of flames, to arson.

The Imbecile, or weak-minded individual, yields to his first impulse, or, dominated by the influence of others, becomes an accomplice in the hope of some trivial reward.

The victims of Melancholia are driven to suicide by suppressed grief, precordial agitation, or hallucinations. Sometimes the suicidal attempt is indirect and takes the form of the murder of some important personage or their own kin, in the hope that their own condemnation may follow, or it is to save those dear to them from the miseries of life.

Persons afflicted with General Paralysis frequently steal, in the belief that everything they see belongs to them, or because they are incapable of understanding the meaning of property. If accused of theft, they deny their guilt or assert that the stolen articles have been hidden on their persons by others. They are inclined to forgery and fraudulent bankruptcy, and when their misdeeds are brought home to them they show no shame. Unnatural sexual offences and crimes against the authorities are also common. While they are seldom guilty of murder, they frequently commit arson, through carelessness, or with the idea of destroying their homes because they think them too small, or wish to get rid of the vermin in them, such as rats.

The sufferer from Dementia forgets his promises, however serious they may be. Cerebral irritability often leads him to commit violent acts, homicide, etc.

In some cases, mental alienation is manifested in a mania for litigation, which urges the sufferer to offend statesmen, state lawyers, and judges.

A common symptom of Pellagra is the tendency to unpremeditated murder or suicide, without the slightest cause. The sight of water suggests drowning, in the form of murder or suicide.

Young persons at the approach of puberty and women subject to amenorrhea often exhibit a tendency to arson and crimes of an erotic nature. Similar tendencies are sometimes displayed during pregnancy, and an inclination to theft is not uncommon.

Maniacs are prone to satyriasis and bacchanalian excesses. They commit rape and indecent acts in public and often appropriate strange objects, hair or wearing apparel, with the idea of obtaining means to satisfy their vices, either because they are unconscious of doing wrong or because, like true megalomaniacs, they believe the stolen goods to be their own property. Sometimes a feverish activity prompts them to steal; "I felt a kind of uneasiness, a demon in my fingers," said one, "which forced me to move them and carry off something."

Monomaniacs, especially if subject to hallucinations, frequently manifest a tendency to homicide, either to escape imaginary persecutions or in obedience to equally imaginary injunctions. The same motives prompt them to commit special kinds of theft and arson. Na... (see Fig. 16) murdered his friend without any reason, after suffering from delusions for one year.

The characteristics of insane criminals are so marked that it is not difficult to distinguish them from habitual delinquents. They seldom show any fear of the penalty incurred nor do they try to escape. They take little trouble to hide their misdeeds, or to get rid of any clue. If poisoners, they leave poison about in their victim's room; if forgers, they take no trouble to make their signatures appear genuine; if thieves, they exhibit stolen goods in public, or appropriate them in the presence of witnesses. They frequently manifest unbounded rage and assault those present, entirely forgetting the stolen objects. Once their crime is accomplished, not only do they give themselves no trouble to hide it, but are prone to confess it immediately, and are eager to talk about it, saying with satisfaction that they feel relieved at what they have done, that they have obeyed the order of superior beings and consider their actions praiseworthy. They deny that they are insane, or if they admit it in some cases, it is only because they are persuaded to do so by their lawyers or fellow-prisoners. And even then, they are ready at the first opportunity to contradict the idea, eulogising and exaggerating their criminal acts.

A full confession in court is not uncommon, and in the case of impulsive monomaniacs, epileptics, and insane inebriates, the descriptions are full of characteristic expressions, showing what was the offender's state of mind when dominated by criminal frenzy.

Rom..., an impulsive monomaniac, who stabbed an acquaintance, felt "the blood rushing to his head, which seemed to be in flames."

Tixier narrates that, on seeing the old man he afterward murdered pass him on a country road, "something went to his head." Frequently such criminals are quick to give themselves up to justice.

Antecedents. Unlike the ordinary offender, insane criminals are often perfectly law-abiding up to the moment of the crime.

Motive. Perhaps the greatest difference between born criminals and insane criminals lies in the motive for the act, which in the case of the latter is not only entirely disproportionate to it, but nearly always absurd and depends far less on personal susceptibility.

Here are a few typical cases: A father fancies he hears a voice bidding him kill his favourite child. He goes home, has the little victim dressed in its best clothes and cuts off its head with perfect calmness. A lady, ignorant of horticulture, plants some flowers on her husband's grave. A day or two later, noticing that they are drooping, she imagines that the gardener has watered them with boiling water, and after reproaching him bitterly, wounds him with a pair of scissors.

These unfortunate beings frequently show perfect mental clearness before the crime and even in the act of striking the fatal blow; yet their action is purely instinctive and not prompted by passion or any other cause. Although such individuals appear to reason, can it be said that they are in full possession of their mental faculties? If they are, how shall we explain the wholesale destruction of those they hold most dear? A husband kills the wife to whom he is sincerely attached; a father, the son he loves most; or a mother, the infant at her breast.

Such an extraordinary phenomenon can only be explained by a sudden suspension of the intellectual and moral faculties and of the powers of the will.

SPECIAL FORMS OF CRIMINAL INSANITY

ALCOHOLISM

In addition to these casual forms of lunacy, in which the individual is led to commit crime by a momentary alteration of his moral nature, we find other forms which might be called specific, because the criminal act forms the culminating point of the malady. The sufferers from these forms are less easily distinguished from ordinary criminals and normal persons than are the lunatics of whom we have just spoken. These mental diseases, which should be studied separately, are alcoholism, hysteria, and epilepsy.

It is well known that temporary drunkenness may transform an honest, peacable individual into a rowdy, a murderer, or a thief.

Gall narrates the case of a certain Petri, who manifested homicidal tendencies when excited by alcohol. Locatelli mentions a workman of thirty, who, when under the influence of drink, would smash everything around him and stab the companions who sought to restrain his drunken fury. Ladelci and Carmignani cite the case of a miner, who was repeatedly arrested for drunken brawls, and when reproved replied: "I cannot help it. As soon as I drink, I must start fighting."

Very characteristic is the case of a certain Papor... who was imprisoned for some time at Turin. His father was a drunkard and ill treated his wife. The son became a soldier, then an excise officer, fireman, and finally nurse in an infirmary, and was known as a respectable, temperate man. In 1876, he was transferred to the Island of Lipari, where malvoisie only costs 25 centimes a litre, and there he acquired a taste for wine, without, however, drinking to excess. But a year later, a change in the hospital regulations gave him longer hours of leisure, and he began to drink deeply. In 1881, while intoxicated, he accosted a sportsman and pretending to be a police officer, ordered him to give up his gun. At that moment he was arrested by a genuine constable and taken to the barracks, where he was sentenced, without any one's observing his drunken condition. After his release, he committed other offences of the same type, which were followed by confession and repentance.

Chronic Alcoholism. The phenomena developed by chronic inebriety are, however, still more important from the point of view of the criminologist than the immediate effects of alcohol on certain constitutions.

Physical and Functional Characteristics of Chronic Inebriety. The habitual drunkard rarely exhibits traces of congenital degeneracy, but frequently that of an acquired character, especially paresis, facial hemiparesis, slight exophthalmia (see Fig. 6), inequality of the pupils, insensibility to touch and pain, which is often unilateral, especially in the tongue, thermoanalgesia, hyperaesthesia, experienced at various points not corresponding to the nervous territories and modified spontaneously or by esthesiogenic agents (Grasset), alphalgesia (sensation of pain at contact with painless bodies), a deficiency of urea in the urine, out of proportion to the general state of nourishment, and a proneness of the symptoms to return after trauma, poisoning, agitation, or serious illness.

The gravest phenomena, however, are atrophy or degeneration in the liver, heart, stomach, seminal canaliculi, and central nervous system, which give rise to serious functional disturbances; most of all, in the digestion—as manifested by the characteristic gastric catarrh, matutinal vomit and cramp—and in the reproductive system, with resulting impotence.

Psychic Disturbances—Hallucinations. The most frequent and precocious symptoms are delusions and hallucinations, generally of a gloomy or even of a terrible nature, and extremely varied and fleeting, which, like dreams, in nearly every instance arise from recent and strong impressions. The most characteristic hallucinations are those which persuade the patient that he experiences the contact of disgusting vermin, corpses, or other horrible objects. He is gnawed by imaginary worms, burnt by matches, or persecuted by spies and the police.

FIG. 16 ITALIAN CRIMINAL A Case of Alcoholism (see page 82)

The strange pathological conditions resulting from chronic alcoholism give rise to other fearful hallucinations. Cutaneous anaesthesia and alcoholic anaphrodisia make the sufferers fancy they have lost the generative organs, nose, legs, etc.; dyspepsia, exhaustion, and paresis, that they have been poisoned or are being persecuted. The reaction following excessively prolonged stimuli causes furious lypemania and gloomy fancies. Sometimes chronic inebriates believe that they are accused of imaginary crimes and loaded with chains amid heaps of corpses. They implore mercy and try to kill themselves in order to escape from their shame; or they remain motionless, bewildered, and terrified. Not infrequently, because of the profound faith, which, unlike many other lunatics, they have in their hallucinations, they pass from melancholy broodings to a fit of mad energy, often of a homicidal or suicidal nature. They imagine they are struggling with thieves or wild beasts and hurl themselves from the window or rush naked through the streets, killing the first person that crosses their path. In some, this delirium of energy breaks out suddenly like an epileptic attack, which it resembles in its brevity and intensity. With hair standing on end, they rush about like savage beasts, grinding their teeth, biting, rending their clothes, or tearing up the sod, or hurling themselves from some height. These symptoms are preceded by vertigo, periodical cephalalgia, and flushing of the face, and are manifested more frequently by those who are already predisposed through trauma to the head, or through typhus or heredity, or after great agitation and prolonged fasting, and often bear no relation to the quantity of alcohol imbibed, which may be small, or to the general physical state; but depend on cerebral irritation caused by chronic alcoholism. The attacks may disappear in a few hours without leaving the slightest recollection in the mind of the patient (Krafft-Ebing, p. 182). They are, in short, a species of disguised epilepsy, and thus they may well be styled, since true alcoholic epilepsy is noted in many inebriates, specially in absinthe-drinkers.

Apathy. Another characteristic almost invariably found in inebriates who have committed a crime, is a strange apathy and indifference, a total lack of concern regarding their state—a trait common also to ordinary criminals, but in a less marked degree. They make themselves at home in prison without showing the faintest interest in their trial or in the offence which has caused their arrest, and only when brought before the judge do they rouse themselves for a moment from their lethargy.

A well-educated man, after a varied career as doctor, chemist, and clerk, during which time he had been constantly dismissed from his posts for drunkenness, met a policeman in the street and killed him, in the belief that the officer wanted to arrest him. When taken to prison, the first thing he did was to write to his mother begging her to send him some pomade. When interrogated, he informed the examining magistrate that the interrogatory was useless, since he had already chosen a fresh trade, that of photographer. It was only after several months of total abstinence in prison, that he began to come to his senses and to realise the gravity of his situation. (Tardieu, De la Folie, 1870.)

Contrast between Apathy and Impulsiveness. This apathy alternates with strange impulses, which, although strongly at variance with the patient's former habits, he is unable to control, even when he is aware that they are criminal.

Crimes peculiar to Inebriates. Since modification of the reproductive organs is a common cause of hallucinations, inebriate criminals frequently suffer from a species of erotic delirium, during which they murder those whom they believe guilty of offences against themselves—generally their wives or mistresses. This is partly owing to the sexual nature of their hallucinations and partly to the wretchedness of their homes, which are in such striking contrast to the rosy dreams inspired by alcohol and which tend to increase the melancholy natural to drunkards. They imagine they are being deceived and their impotence derided, the most innocent gestures being interpreted as deadly insults.

In the prison at Turin, my father had under observation two of these unfortunate beings, one a man of sixty and the other quite young. Both had murdered their wives with the most revolting cruelty, because they believed them to be unfaithful, although in reality both the women led blameless lives.

Course of the Disease. The continued abuse of alcohol ends at last in complete dementia or general pseudo-paralysis. The body is at first obese, but rapidly loses flesh, the skin becomes greasy and damp, owing to hypersecretion of the sebaceous and sudoriparous glands, and soils the garments. Memory becomes enfeebled, speech uncertain and defective (dysarthria), the association of ideas sluggish, sensibility blunted, perception confused, judgment erroneous, and every species of regular and continued application impossible. The earlier hallucinations reappear, but in a less vivid form and only at long intervals; then paralysis more or less rapidly becomes general and ends in death.

EPILEPSY

We have spoken of this disease in another chapter and have shown that the born criminal is in reality an epileptic, in whom the malady, instead of manifesting itself suddenly in strange muscular contortions or terrible spasms, develops slowly in continual brain irritation, which causes the individual thus affected to reproduce the ferocious egotism natural to primitive savages, irresistibly bent on harming others.

But besides these epileptics, who are morally insane from their birth and pass their lives in prisons and lunatic asylums, without any one being able to mark the exact boundary between their perversity and their irresponsibility; besides these individuals, whom society has a right, nay a moral obligation, to remove from its midst because they are ever a source of danger there are those who are afflicted with other forms of epilepsy;—forms in which irritation is manifested in seizures exactly similar to the typical convulsive fit, which they resemble also with regard to variation in intensity and duration. Generally speaking, they are likewise accompanied by complete loss of memory and consciousness, but in some cases there may be partial or complete consciousness, and yet the sufferer is not responsible for his actions. This variety of epilepsy, termed by Samt psychic epilepsy (epilepsy with psychic seizures), manifests itself at long intervals, sometimes only once, but more frequently twice or thrice in the course of a lifetime, and during the attack the personality of the individual undergoes a complete change.

The attack is described by Samt as follows: During the seizure, the individual behaves like a somnambulist. Sometimes he is dazed, mute, and immovable; at others, he talks incessantly; at still others, he goes on with his ordinary occupations, travelling, reading, and writing: but in every case his personality suffers a complete metamorphosis, his habits, actions, and even handwriting assume a different character. Sometimes he is seized by a mania for walking and tramps for miles; at others, he undertakes interminable railway journeys. Tissie (Les alienes voyageurs, 1887) cites cases of epileptics who travelled from Paris to Bombay, who covered 71 kilometres on foot, and who wandered unconscious for 31 months.

Sometimes epilepsy is manifested only by the tendency to undertake purposeless journeys, as in the case of Ferretti and a certain M... who visited the Mahdi in Africa and from thence travelled aimlessly to Australia.

This ambulatory form of epilepsy is very common amongst lads of fourteen or fifteen. Scarcely a week passes without the police receiving information from parents that their son has disappeared from home with only a few pence in his pocket. The wanderer is discovered later, frequently in some small provincial town, which he has reached after tramping aimlessly for days, sleeping in barns, and living on charity. When questioned, the boy usually displays total ignorance regarding all that has happened to him during the interval.

Dr. Maccabruni in his Notes on Hidden Forms of Epilepsy, 1886, narrates the case of an epileptic, who during childhood received an injury to his skull. Later, he started out on a series of wanderings to Venice, Padua, Rome, Milan, Monaco, and Mentone. His journeys, especially those to distant parts, were undertaken in a state of unconsciousness and generally a short time before the commencement of a fit.

These attacks may last any length of time, from a few minutes to several months. In one of the cases observed by my father, the attack lasted a fortnight. The patient, a young officer with whom we were personally acquainted, was one of the quietest persons possible, but suddenly he was seized with a mania for writing innumerable letters, especially on stamped paper, in exaggeratedly large writing very different from his usual style. These letters, which were full of absurdities, were posted by the writer from the different towns he passed through on his aimless journeyings, which lasted a whole fortnight. During one of these seizures, he was arrested as a deserter and was unable to give any explanation of his conduct.

In this particular patient, the disease assumed the mild form of absurd letters and still more absurd journeys, but other individuals in the same state may commit criminal acts like homicide, equally without reason or gain to themselves. Once the fit is passed, these unfortunate individuals have generally no recollection of their past actions, and since in their normal state they are quiet, law-abiding persons, it is extremely difficult to trace back the deed to the right source, or to discover the disease, because they show no other symptoms of epilepsy, apart from the particular criminal act.

Samt describes a still more complicated form of this psychic seizure, in which the personality is altered without there being any loss of consciousness. In a case of this kind, a servant, after forty years of faithful service, murdered his old mistress during the night, having previously cut all the bell-wires to prevent communication with the other servants. He escaped with some valuables, but returned in a few days and gave himself up to the police, to whom he gave a detailed account of his crime without showing either horror or remorse. He was tried and condemned, and a few months later was again seized with epileptic fits during one of which he died. Samt, who saw him in this state, came to the conclusion that the murder had been committed during a similar seizure and he was able to prove that attacks of this kind are not necessarily accompanied by loss of consciousness.

As in the above case, these psychic attacks are sometimes accompanied by an insatiable thirst for blood, destruction and violence of all kinds, as well as by an extraordinary development of muscular strength with apparent lucidity of mind. They may last from a few minutes to half an hour, after which the patient falls into a sound sleep and forgets everything that has happened, or else retains only a vague recollection.

Such was the case of the epileptic Misdea, which first suggested to my father the idea of a link between crime and epilepsy. As this case has become famous in the annals of crime in Italy, it will perhaps be of interest to the reader. Misdea, the son of degenerate parents, manifested a series of typical epileptic anomalies—asymmetry, vaso-motor disturbances, impulsiveness, ferocity, etc. At the age of twenty, while serving in the army, for some trivial motive he suddenly attacked and killed his superior officer and eight or ten soldiers who tried to overpower him. Finally he was bound and placed in a cell, where he fell into a sound slumber and on awaking had entirely forgotten what he had done. He was condemned to death, but my father, who examined him medically, was able to prove conclusively that the crime had been committed during an attack of epilepsy.

The physical and psychic characters of this class of epileptic are those common to all non-criminal epileptics, and indeed we are justified in considering them insane rather than criminal, because, with the exception of the attack, which assumes this terrible form, they do not manifest criminal tendencies.

HYSTERIA

Hysteria is a disease allied to epilepsy, of which it appears to be a milder form, and is much more common among women than men in the ratio of twenty to one. The disease may frequently be traced to hereditary influences, similar to those found in epilepsy, transmitted by epileptic, neurotic, or inebriate parents, frequently also, to some traumatic or toxic influence, such as typhus, meningitis, a blow, a fall, or fright.

Physical Characteristics. These are fewer than in epileptics. The most common peculiarities are small, obliquely-placed eyes of timid glance, pale, elongated face, crowded or loosened teeth, nervous movements of the face and hands, facial asymmetry, and black hair.

Functional Characteristics. These are of great importance. Hysterical subjects manifest special sensibility to the contact of certain metals such as magnetised iron, copper, and gold. Characteristic symptoms are the insensibility of the larynx or the sensation of a foreign body in it (globus hystericus), neuralgic pains, which disappear with extreme suddenness, reappearing often on the side opposite that where they were first felt, the prevalence of sensory and motor anomalies on one side (hemianaesthesia), the confusion of different colours (dyschromatopsia); greater sensibility in certain parts of the body, such as the ovary and the breasts, which when subjected to pressure give rise to neuropathic phenomena (hysterogenous points); a sense of pleasure in the presence of pain, the abolition of pharyngeal reflex action, the absence of the sensation of warmth in certain parts of the body and a tendency to the so-called attacks of "hysterics." These characteristics, which are closely allied, if not precisely similar to those of epilepsy, are preceded by a number of premonitory symptoms—hallucinations, sudden change of character, contractions, laryngeal spasms, strabismus, frequent spitting, inordinate laughter or yawning, cardiac palpitations, loss of strength, trembling, anaesthesia and (just before the attack,) pains in some fixed spot, generally in the head, ovary, or nape of the neck.

Psychology. The psychological manifestations of hysterical subjects are of still greater interest and importance.

They show, on the whole, a fair amount of intelligence, although little power of concentration. In disposition they are profoundly egotistical and so preoccupied with their own persons that they will do anything to arouse attention and obtain notoriety. They are exceedingly impressionable, therefore easily roused to anger and cruelty, and are prone to take sudden and unreasonable likes and dislikes. They are fickle and easily swayed. They take special delight in slandering others, and when unable to excite public notice by unfounded accusations, to which they resort as a means of revenge, they embitter the lives of those around them by continual quarrels and dissensions.

Susceptibility to Suggestion. Of still greater importance for the criminologist is the facility with which hysterical women are dominated by hypnotic suggestion. Their wills become entirely subordinated to that of the hypnotiser, by whose influence they can be induced to believe that they have changed their sex so that they forthwith adopt habits of the opposite sex, or to entertain idees fixes—strange, impulsive, or even criminal ideas. They are, in fact, obedient automatons when under hypnotic influence, but they cannot be prevailed upon to perform acts contrary to their nature, to commit crimes or reveal secrets entrusted to them, if they are naturally upright.

Variability. Mobility of mood is a still more salient characteristic of hysteria. The subject passes with extraordinary rapidity from laughter to tears "like children," says Richet, "who laugh immoderately before their tears are dry."

"For one hour," says Sydenham, "they will be irascible and discontented; the next, they are cheerful and follow their friends about with all the signs of the old attachment."

Their sensibility is affected by the most trifling causes. A word will grieve them like some real misfortune. Their impulses are not lacking in intellectual control, but are followed by action with excessive rapidity. Although of such changeable disposition, they are subject to fixed ideas, to which they cling with a kind of cataleptic intensity. A woman will be dumb or motionless for months, on the pretext that speech or motion would injure her. But this is the only form of constancy they exhibit, otherwise they are indolent by nature. Sometimes they will show activity for a few days only to relapse again into idleness.

Erotomania. This is almost a pathognomonical symptom and is shown in hallucinations and nightmares of an erotic character, preceded by epigastric aura. This erotomania is so impulsive that hysterical women frequently engage in a liaison, from a desire of adventure or of experiencing sudden emotions. The criminality of the hysterical is always connected with the sexual functions.

Of twenty-one women found guilty of slander, nine made false accusations of rape, four accused their husbands of sexual violence, and one of sodomy. Such accusations, when made by minors, are generally full of disgusting details, which would be repugnant to any adult.

Mendacity. Another peculiarity of hysterical women is the irresistible tendency to lie, which leads them to utter senseless falsehoods just for the pleasure of deceiving and making believe. They sham suicide and sickness or write anonymous letters full of inventions. Many, from motives of spite or vanity, accuse servants of dishonesty, in order to revel in their disgrace and imprisonment. The favourite calumny, however, is always an accusation of indecent behaviour, sometimes made against their fathers and brothers, but generally against a priest or medical man. The accusations, in most cases, are so strange and fantastic as to be quite unworthy of belief, but sometimes, unfortunately, they obtain credence. The commonest method adopted for spreading these calumnies is by means of anonymous letters. In one case, a young girl of twenty-five belonging to a distinguished family, pestered a respectable priest with love-letters and shortly afterwards accused him of seduction. Another girl of eighteen informed the Attorney for the State that she had frequently been the victim of immoral priests and accused one of her female cousins of complicity. According to her story, while praying at church, a certain Abbot R... took her into the sacristy and entreated her to elope with him to Spain. She refused indignantly, and hoping to soften her, he twice stabbed himself in her presence, whereat she fainted, and on recovering consciousness, found the priest at her feet, begging forgiveness. She further accused the same cousin of having taken her to a convent, where she was seduced by a priest, the nuns acting as accomplices. A subsequent medical examination proved that no seduction had taken place and that she was suffering from hysteria.

In another case, a girl of sixteen, the daughter of an Italian general, complained to her father that a certain lieutenant, her neighbour at table, had used indecent language to her. Shortly afterwards, a shower of anonymous letters troubled the peace of the household—declarations of love addressed to the girl's mother and threats to the daughter. It was discovered that the girl herself was the writer of all these letters.

Anonymous letter-writing is so common among hysterical persons, that it may be considered a pathognomonical characteristic. The handwriting is of a peculiar character, or rather it shows a peculiar tendency to vary from excessive size to extreme smallness, a characteristic we have noticed in epileptics.

Delirium. Hysterical, like epileptic, subjects often suffer from melancholia or monomaniacal delirium. Indeed, according to Morel, this symptom is more frequent when the other morbid phenomena are absent.

Psychic hysteria, like epilepsy, may exist unaccompanied by the characteristic hysterical attack, and then, as is the case with epilepsy, it is most dangerous to society.

In conclusion, although up to the present, medical men have been disposed to consider hysteria as a disease distinct from epilepsy, careful study of this malady inclined my father to class it as a variation of epilepsy, prevalent among women, who in this disease, as in many others, manifest an attenuated form.



CHAPTER IV

CRIMINALOIDS

We have seen how, owing to disease, alcoholism and epilepsy, physically and psychically degenerate individuals make their appearance in a community of normal persons. But a large proportion of the crimes committed cannot be attributed to lunatics, epileptics, or the morally insane, nor do all criminals show that aggregate of atavistic and morbid characters,—the cruelty and bestial insensibility of the savage, the impulsiveness of the epileptic, the licentiousness, delusions, and impetuosity of the madman,—which we find united in the born criminal.

According to statistics obtained by my father, the share contributed to the sum total of criminality by this latter type is only 33%, which appears to be a magic figure for the criminal, since it corresponds to the percentage of the histological anomaly discovered by Roncoroni and to that of all important anomalies, including those of the field of vision. But besides this percentage of born criminals, doomed even before birth to a career of crime, whom all educational efforts fail to redeem and who therefore should be segregated at once; besides the epileptic, hysterical, and inebriate lunatics and those insane from alcoholisation, of whom we have already spoken, there remain a number of criminals, amounting to a full half, in whom the virus is, so to speak, attenuated, who, although they are epileptoids, suffer from a milder form of the disease, so that without some adequate cause (causa criminis) criminality is not manifested. The inhibitory centres are somewhat obtuse, but not altogether absent, so that a healthy environment, careful training, habits of industry, the inculcation of moral and humane sentiments may prevent these individuals from yielding to dishonest impulses, provided always that no special temptation to sin comes in their path.

We have said that education is not sufficient to convert a criminal into an honest man. Conversely, trials and difficulties and the want of education are powerless to make a criminal of an honest individual. Hypnotism, the most powerful means of suggestion possible, cannot induce a good man to commit a crime during the hypnotic sleep, but vicious training has an enormous influence on weak natures, who are candidates for good or evil according to circumstances. Such individuals were classified by my father as criminaloids.

Physical Characteristics. Criminaloids have no special skeletal, anatomical, or functional peculiarities. As the criminaloid represents a milder type of the born criminal, he may possess the same physical defects in the skull, hair, beard, ears, eyes, teeth, lips, joints, hands, and feet, as well as all the sensory anomalies, lessened sensibility to touch and pain, hyper-sensibility to the magnet and barometrical variations, etc.; but all these anomalies are never found in the same proportion as in born criminals; that is, criminaloids never manifest the aggregate of physical and psychic peculiarities which distinguish born criminals and the morally insane. On the other hand, we find in criminaloids certain characteristics, such as premature greyness and baldness, etc., which are never exhibited by the born criminal. The real distinction between the criminaloid and the born criminal is psychological rather than physical.

Psychological Characteristics. The difference between born criminals and criminaloids becomes apparent directly on considering the age at which the latter enter on their anti-social career and the motives which cause them to adopt it. While the born criminal begins to perpetrate crimes from the very cradle, so to speak, and always for very trivial motives, the criminaloid commits his initial offence later in life and always for some adequate reason.

A criminal of this attenuated type, a certain Salvador, without cranial or facial anomalies, had led an honest life for many years, but on returning home after a prolonged absence on business, he found his house ransacked by his wife, who had deserted him. From that time he seems to have deliberately adopted a career of dishonesty, as the leader of a band of thieves.

In another case, an engraver who showed no pathological anomalies, except excessive frontal sinuses, was ordered by a society to strike a medal for them. This happened to be exactly similar to a coin current in his country and the coincidence incited him to the making of counterfeit coin.

But the most characteristic case, which aroused much interest in its time, is that of Olivo. He was a man of handsome appearance, with normal olfactory acuteness and sensibility to touch and pain. He had, however, inherited from neurotic and insane forebears secondary epileptic phenomena, which subsequently developed into convulsive epilepsy, and certain indications of degeneracy (facial and cranial asymmetry, abnormal capillary vortices and length of arm, scotoma in the field of vision and exaggerated tendinous reflex action). Up to the age of thirty he led an irreproachable life; in fact, he was scrupulous to excess, and this, coupled with pronounced conceit and stinginess, was his only fault. He married a woman of common origin, who was not really depraved, but she was coarse and unfaithful, and, worst of all in his eyes, unscrupulous and wasteful. These defects, and her habits of lying and trickery embittered the poor man's existence. One night, feeling very ill, probably owing to an approaching seizure, he appealed to his wife for assistance and received an unfeeling reply, whereupon he sprang out of bed, picked up a knife and stabbed her. Afterwards he fell into a deep sleep. In order to obliterate all traces of the crime, he cut the corpse into small pieces, packed it into a portmanteau and threw it into the sea. Two months later, when he was arrested, he immediately made a full confession, showing deep repentance and sincere attachment to his victim, whose merits he celebrated in a poem of his own composition. At the trial, he made no attempt to defend himself; during the hearing of evidence, which appeared greatly to agitate him, he was seized with an epileptic fit. He was absolved by the jury and returned to his former peaceful occupation of bookkeeper, nor did he again come into conflict with the law.

Reluctance to Commit Crimes. Another trait characteristic of criminaloids is the hesitation they show before committing a crime, especially the first time, when it is not done, as in the above mentioned case, during an epileptic seizure.

Feuerbach's fine collection contains a description of the brothers Kleinroth, whose father cruelly ill-treated and starved his wife and family while lavishing his money on low women and their bastards. The sons were unwilling to run away and leave the invalid mother to bear the brunt of her husband's fury, and while they were in this terrible situation, a certain individual offered to assassinate their tormentor. After great hesitation this offer was accepted; when arrested, the youths immediately confessed their complicity and manifested deep repentance.

Confession. The criminaloid is easily induced to confess his misdeed.

A certain C... on returning from abroad, found his former mistress married to his father. The pair resumed their liaison, but after a time, fearing a scandal, the woman threatened to drown herself unless her lover could find some means of adjusting matters on a satisfactory basis. C..., who disliked his father, poisoned him and disappeared with the widow taking with him a few valuables belonging to his father. A year later, the woman having died meanwhile, he returned home and made full confession, first to his sister and subsequently in court.

Moral Sense—Intelligence. In the place of a weak, clouded, or unbalanced mind and that cynicism and absence of moral sense and natural feelings which distinguish born criminals of the most elevated type and even geniuses, criminaloids generally possess lucidity and balance of mind and may show themselves worthy of guiding the destinies of a nation. The men implicated in the French Panama Scandal and the case of the Banca Romana (Bank of Rome) are instances. When under a cloud of disgrace, instead of that insensibility, cynicism, or levity common to true criminals, they show deep sorrow, shame, and remorse, which not infrequently result in serious illness or death. Their natural affections and other sentiments are normal.

It is notorious, too, that as soon as accusations were made against those implicated in the French Panama Scandal and the affair of the Bank of Rome, the greater number became ill and two died suddenly at the end of the trial.

Unlike born criminals, criminaloids manifest deep repugnance towards common offenders. They demand solitary confinement and forego exercise, the only recreation prison life affords, in order to avoid all contact with their fellow-prisoners.

Social Position and Culture of the Criminaloid. Criminaloids, as we have seen, are recruited from all ranks of society and strike every note in the scale of criminality, from petty larceny to complicated and premeditated murder, from minting spurious coins to compassing gigantic frauds, which inflict incalculable damage upon the community. The magnitude of a crime does not imply greater criminality on the part of its author, but rather that he is a man of brilliant endowments, whose culture and talents multiply his opportunities and means for evil. In all cases where opportunity plays an important part, the crime must necessarily be committed by individuals exposed to special temptations: cashiers who handle other people's money, which they may be tempted to spend with the illusory idea of being able later to replace what they have taken, officials and public men, who possess a certain amount of power and an apparent impunity, and bankers who are entrusted with wealth belonging to others, of which in that capacity they are accustomed to make use. Thus is explained why men of great talent and only slight criminal tendencies have taken part in gigantic frauds, such as the affairs of the Bank of Rome and the French Panama Canal.

A characteristic case is that of Lord S——, First Lord of the Treasury, who committed forgeries to the extent of half a million sterling. "No torture," he writes, "would be an adequate punishment for my crime. Step by step, I have become the author of innumerable misdeeds and ruined more than ten thousand families. With less talent and greater uprightness, I might be now what I once was, an honest man. Now remorse is in vain."

In Lord S—— we find united all the characteristics of the criminaloid: repentance, the desire to confess, irreproachable antecedents, a strong incentive to dishonesty, and great intelligence.

Although the damage inflicted on society by this man was probably far greater than any evil wrought by a vulgar born criminal could have been, his criminality is nevertheless of an attenuated type. The mischief he wrought owed its gravity, not to the intensity of his criminal tendencies, but to his remarkable talents, which increased his power for evil as for good.

In this category of criminals must be inscribed those clever swindlers, who set the whole world talking of their exploits: Madame Humbert, Lemoine, and the cobbler-captain of Koepenick.

Sometimes, especially in political or commercial criminals, we find cases of an auto-illusion, of which the author of the crime is as much a victim as the public. Sometimes it is some device or mechanism which an inventor is convinced he has invented or is about to invent, an enterprise, in which the promoter imagines he will gain enormous wealth. Sometimes it is a trick in which the cupidity of the victims and their readiness to swallow promises of large and immediate profits play as important a part as the ability of the swindler. Sometimes it is a gigantic hoax, in which the deviser himself becomes keenly interested and for the carrying out of which he spends as much talent and energy as would suffice, if employed honestly, to acquire considerable wealth; but the swindler delights in his ingenious fraud as though he were taking part in some thrilling drama.

A typical instance is that of a certain C... who was imprisoned about twenty years ago for defrauding a woman. My father undertook to cure him while in prison and was able to follow him in his subsequent career. This C... was a young man of good family, intelligent, honest, and a good linguist. His countenance was pleasing and bore no trace of precocious criminality. At the age of twenty he developed an unrestrained love of gambling and in order to indulge this vice, promised to marry a rich woman considerably older than himself, from whom he borrowed large sums, on the understanding that they should be paid back. However, shortly afterwards, he fell in love with a young girl and married her. His ex-fiancee brought legal action against him and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. During this time he shrank from seeing anybody and refused to exercise in order to avoid all contact with his fellow-prisoners. He showed great affection for his wife and declared his intention of turning over a new leaf. The offence he had committed, however seemed to cause him little or no regret, because, as he said, he would never have continued the deception had not his victim shown such willingness to be gulled. From prison he went to London, where lack of funds caused him to perpetrate another swindle, but this time he was able to escape to Naples. Here for twelve years, he worked honestly in a large hotel, but once again a pressing need of money made him engage in a third fraud of considerable importance, for which he is still undergoing imprisonment.

HABITUAL CRIMINALS

The degrading influence of prison life and contact with vulgar criminals, or the abuse of alcohol, to which better natures frequently have recourse in order to stifle the pangs of conscience, may cause criminaloids who have committed their initial offences with repugnance and hesitation, to develop later into habitual criminals,—that is, individuals who regard systematic violation of the law in the light of an ordinary trade or occupation and commit their offences with indifference.

Physically, habitual criminals do not resemble born criminals, but they exhibit some of the characteristics of those offenders from whom their ranks are recruited, besides, in a more marked degree, certain acquired characters, like sinister wrinkles and a shifty and sneaking look.

Psychologically, criminaloids tend to resemble born criminals, whose habits, tastes, slang, tattooing, orgies, idleness, etc., they gradually develop, in the same way as old couples, living isolated in the country, adopt identical habits, gestures, and tone of voice.

The type of criminaloid, who develops into an habitual criminal is well illustrated by the case of Eyraud, who in conjunction with Gabrielle Bompard, murdered Gouffre and packed the corpse in a trunk. Through his marked weakness for women, Eyraud became successively a deserter, a thief, and a murderer. He certainly possessed a few of the characteristics peculiar to degenerates—long, projecting ears, excessive development, amounting to asymmetry, of the left frontal sinus, prognathism, exaggerated brachycephaly, and the span of the arms exceeding the total height, but he had not the general criminal type, his teeth were regular, beard abundant, and hair scanty.

His psychology corresponds exactly to his physical individuality. During infancy and youth, he showed nothing abnormal, except an unusual predominance of the sexual instincts. He exhibited no signs of that love of evil for its own sake, so characteristic of criminals, above all, of murderers. According to all accounts, he was a jovial individual, fond of making merry, but at the same time, brusque and violent and easily roused to passionate fury. His extreme susceptibility to the attractions of the opposite sex made him regardless of all moral considerations. In order to gratify this weakness, he became a deserter, dissipated all the money he had earned in a distillery and as a dealer in skins, and finally committed murder. At his trial, it was shown that before his escape to America, he had attempted to kill a woman who refused to leave her husband for him. He became violently enamoured of his accomplice, Gabrielle Bompard, to whom, like many criminaloids, he was attracted by reason of her greater depravity.

The extreme levity displayed by Eyraud seems to be the strongest link between him and the born criminal. He passed with extraordinary facility from gaiety to melancholy. His intellect was well developed, he spoke three or four languages, and was successful in most things he undertook, though he seems to have been incapable of remaining constant to anything for long. As a business man he wasted his capital, and even in the execution of his crimes he showed frivolity and incoherence. At Lyons, he hired a carriage, in which he placed the corpse of Gouffre and after driving about the streets with Gabrielle Bompard like a madman, left the body of his victim in a spot near which people were constantly passing.

Eyraud appears to have been a dissolute criminaloid whose unbridled passions and connection with Gabrielle Bompard caused him to develop into an habitual criminal. This diagnosis is confirmed by the absence of morbid heredity.

It would be futile to cite a long series of cases, in which, although the details may vary, we always find the same phenomenon, the gradual development of a criminaloid into a criminal. It will suffice to name a large class of criminals, in whom this phenomenon may often be observed—the brigands common to Spain and Italy.

These outlaws, and particularly their leaders, notwithstanding the gravity of their offences, are seldom born criminals, nor do they (except in rare cases) begin their career at a very early age. They possess, moreover, good qualities[3] and are capable of affection, generosity, and chivalry, which explains why their memories are cherished by the common people long after good and law-abiding men have been forgotten.

The brigand Mandrin, known as the "Smuggler General" is remembered with love and affection in Dauphine and other regions of France, Switzerland, and Savoy; and this feeling is easy to understand, since he was the enemy of the "fermiers generaux," who, in the eighteenth century, leased from the French Government the right to levy excise duties, and sorely oppressed the people.

Louis Mandrin, who in early life showed no signs of perversity nor possessed criminal traits, became a bandit, because he had been unjustly treated by these same "fermiers generaux" who refused him payment for work done. He became the chief of a small band of smugglers and spread terror among excise officers and gendarmes. He used to bring smuggled goods openly into the vicinity of villages and towns and invite the people to buy them, and the buying and selling went on without either gendarmes' or excise officers' daring to interfere. The Administration of the "fermiers generaux" promulgated a terrible edict against all purchasers of contraband goods; whereupon Mandrin, who was not without a sense of humour, declared he would force the Administration itself to buy the merchandise, and from time to time he would oblige the excise officers to buy smuggled wares at a fair price.



FIG. 18 CRIMINAL GIRL

FIG. 19 THE BRIGAND SALOMONE

The brigand Gasparone (Fig. 20), whose memory is still held in great esteem by Sicilians, was an individual of much the same disposition.

JURIDICAL CRIMINALS

This category comprises individuals who break the law, not because of any natural depravity, nor owing to distressing circumstances, but by mere accident. They may be divided into two classes:

First, the authors of accidental misdeeds, such as involuntary homicide or arson, who are not considered criminal by public opinion or by anthropologists, but who are obliged by the law to make compensation for the damage caused. Naturally, this class of law-breaker is in no way distinguishable, physically or psychically, from normal individuals, except that he is generally lacking in prudence, care, and forethought.

Second, the authors of offences, which do not cause any damage socially, nor are they considered criminal by the general public, but have been deemed such by the law, in obedience to some dominating opinion or prejudice. Bad language, seditious writings, atheism, drunkenness, evasion of customs, and any violation of petty by-laws come under this head. Instances of such offences are too well known to need citation. They may best be summed up in the words of an American judge, who pointed out how easy it would be to sentence the most honest citizen of the Republic to imprisonment for a hundred years and fines exceeding a thousand dollars for breaking a number of petty local regulations against spitting, drinking, disrobing near a window, swearing, opening places of amusement on Sunday, or employing persons on certain days or under certain conditions prohibited by the law, etc.

Although persons who commit these acts are often in no wise distinguishable from ordinary individuals, both criminals and criminaloids are more often guilty of such offences than are normal persons, who instinctively avoid coming into conflict with the law.

The difficulty of judging these misdeeds lies in the necessity for careful weighing of the motive which gives rise to them, whether, that is, they have been unwittingly committed by an honest individual, or whether they are but an item in the long list of offences perpetrated by a criminal. This differential diagnosis should be based principally on the antecedents of the offender.

To this group belong also the authors of more serious infractions of the law that are not generally considered such at the time, or in the district in which they take place. Misdeeds of this nature are: thefts of fuel in rural districts, poaching, the petty dishonesty current in commerce and in certain professions, and in countries where secret societies like the camorra at Naples and the mafia in Sicily, exist, a connection with such organisations, which to a certain extent is necessary in self-defence. Such, too, are theft and homicide during revolutions, insurrections, wars, and the conquest and exploitation of new territories and mines.

Rochefort and Whitman have pointed out that during the gold-fever in Australia and California there was an enormous increase in crime. Individuals of good antecedents engaged in deadly struggles for the possession of the most valuable territories, and unbridled orgies followed these bloody affrays.

During the expedition of Europeans to China in 1900, looting was carried on by soldiers of previously blameless career.

CRIMINALS OF PASSION

This type of criminal, if indeed such he may be called, represents the antithesis of the common offender, whose evil acts are the outcome of his ferocious and egotistical impulses, whereas criminals from passion are urged to violate the law by a pure spirit of altruism. In fact, they stand in no relation whatsoever to ordinary delinquents, and it is only by a legislative compromise that they are classed together. They represent the ultra-violet ray of the criminal spectrum, of which the vulgar criminal represents the ultra-red. Not only are they free from the egotism, insensibility, laziness, and lack of moral sense peculiar to the ordinary criminal, but their abnormality consists in the excessive development of noble qualities, sensibility, altruism, integrity, affection, which if carried to an extreme, may result in actions forbidden by law, or worse still, dangerous to society.

Physical Characteristics. These, too, are in complete contrast to those of the born criminal. The countenance is frequently handsome, with lofty forehead, serene and gentle expression, and the beard is abundant. The sensibility is extremely acute; there is a high degree of excitability and exaggerated reflex action, all characteristics of the normal (or rather hypernormal) individual, from whom nothing distinguishes the criminal of passion except the anti-social effects of his action.

Psychology. Here, as in all physical characteristics, criminals of passion are scarcely distinguishable from their fellow-men, except that we find in an excessive degree those qualities we consider peculiar to good and holy persons—love, honour, noble ambitions, patriotism. In fact, the motive of the crime is always adequate, frequently noble, and sometimes sublime. Love prompts certain natures to kill those who insult their beloved ones or are the cause of their dishonour and, in some cases, even the object of their affection who proves unfaithful. Crimes of this character are the murder by brothers of the man who dishonours their sister, the murder of an infant by its unmarried mother, the murder of an unfaithful wife by her husband. Sometimes the motive is a patriotic one, as in the cases of Charlotte Corday, Orsini Sand, and Caserio (Fig. 21) all of whom had been persons of gentle disposition and blameless conduct up to the moment of their crimes.

This class of offender not infrequently commits suicide after his crime, or, if this is prevented, he seeks to expiate it by long years of remorse and self-inflicted martyrdom.

The deed is almost always unpremeditated and committed publicly, without accomplices and with the simplest means at hand—be they nails, teeth, scissors, or a stick. The previous career is always blameless.

Cumano, Verano, Guglielmotti, Harry, Curti, Milani, Brenner, Mari, Zucca, Bechis, Bouley, Tacco, Berruto and Sand, and Camicia, Vinci, and Leoni (these last three women), all attacked their victims single-handed and in public.

In the case of Chalanton, the woman he had rescued by marriage from a low life, not content with betraying her benefactor, covered him in public with abuse and persecuted him with anonymous accusations. His demand for a separation was unsuccessful and at last, finding himself, in spite of his integrity, involved in a scandalous action, in which his wife figured as a go-between, and tormented by public curiosity and the implacable questionings of reporters, he murdered the cause of all his misfortunes. Another murderer, Del Prete, was prompted to kill his victim, an old woman with a reputation for witchcraft, because he believed she had caused the illness of his mother, to whom he was greatly attached.

The motive for the crime is generally a serious one and in most cases immediately precedes it. Bouley committed his crime only a few hours after receiving the news which prompted it; Bounin, Bechis, and Verano, only a few minutes; Milani, twenty-four hours, Zucca eight hours; Curti, a few days. Thus the crime is seldom premeditated, or if so, for only a short space of time, never for months or years.

FIG. 21 BRIGAND CASERIO (see page 119)

Homicide forms 91% of the criminality of this group of offenders. There is a certain proportion also of infanticide, owing to the prevailing prejudice which condemns immorality more harshly when the results are evident. Arson and theft form only 2%. Such cases are however possible. A young girl, whom my father had under observation in prison, seeing her family in dire poverty, committed arson in order to get the insurance money.

In another case a woman of refinement, education, and of gentle disposition, who had fallen from prosperity into extreme want, stole in order to pay her son's school-fees. When arrested, she refused to give her name so that the lad should not be dishonoured, and her identity might never have been discovered had she not been recognised by a lawyer in court. She died of a broken heart a few days after her trial.



PART II

CRIME, ITS ORIGIN, CAUSE, AND CURE



CHAPTER I

ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF CRIME

In order to determine the origin of actions which we call criminal, we shall be forced to hark back to a very remote period in the history of the human race. In all the epochs of which records exist, we find traces of criminal actions. In fact, if we study minutely the customs of savage peoples, past and present, we find that many acts that are now considered criminal by civilised nations were legitimate in former times, and are to-day reputed such among primitive races.

According to Pictet the Latin word crimen is derived from the Sanscrit karman, which signifies action corresponding to kri to do. This is contradicted by Vanicek who derives it from kru, to hear, croemen (accusation). At any rate, the Sanscrit word apaz, which means sin, corresponds to apas, work (opus), the Latin facinus derives from facere, and culpa according to Pictet and Pott, from the Sanscrit kalp, to do or execute. The Latin word fur (thief) which Vanicek derives from bahr, to carry, the Hebrew ganav and the Sanscrit sten only signify to put aside, to hide, to cover (gonav). The Greek word peirao from which pirate is derived, signifies to risk; the Greek chleptein to hide or steal, is derived from the Sanscrit harp-hlap to hide and steal (Vanicek).

In India, from Ceylon to the Himalayas, infanticide is sanctified by religion, not only among the more barbarous races, but also among the Rajputs, the nobles, who think themselves dishonoured if one of their daughters remains unmarried. The inhabitants of the Island of Tikopia, kill more male children than female, a fact that accounts for their practice of polygamy.

Marco Polo speaks of the infanticide practised in Japan and China, which was then, as it is now, a means of regulating the population. The same practice—common to Bushmen, Hottentots, Fijians, also existed among the natives of Hawaii and America. In the Island of Tahiti, according to the testimony of missionaries, two thirds of the children born are destroyed by their parents.

"Amongst the Guaranys," says D'Azara, "mothers kill a large proportion of their female infants, in order that the survivors may be more highly valued." (Travels in America, 1835.)

The Carthaginians had originally the custom of offering the noblest and most beautiful children to Kronos (Moloch), but later victims were always bought and bred for the purpose. After their defeat at the hand of Agathokles they sacrificed two hundred children belonging to the noblest Carthaginian families, in order to appease the Divine wrath.

Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cretans, Cypriotes, Rhodians, and Persians had similar practices.

Among the Lydians, the sacred courtesans were so numerous and wealthy that their contributions to the Mausoleum of Alyattes exceeded those of the artists and merchants combined (Herodotus, Book I.); in Armenia (Strabo XII.) the priestesses alone were permitted to practise polyandry, and in Media, a woman boasting of five husbands was greatly honoured, which shows that polyandry was not only allowed, but esteemed.

In Thibet, the eldest male of a family shares his wife with his brothers, the whole family live in the bride's house and the children inherit from her. Among the Todas, the wife espouses all her husband's younger brothers as they attain their majority, and they in their turn become the husbands of her younger sisters (Short).

Among the Nairs, a noble negro caste of Malabar, it is customary for one woman to have five or six husbands, the maximum number allowed being ten.

In Egypt, the business of thief was a recognised one. Those who wished to exercise this calling inscribed their names on a public tablet, collected all the stolen goods in one spot and restored them to their owners in exchange for a certain coin. The ancient Germans encouraged the youthful portion of the population to make raids on the property of neighbouring peoples, so that they should not develop habits of idleness. Thucydides states that the Greeks, as well as the barbarous peoples inhabiting the islands and along the coasts, were pirates, and the calling was a noble one.

Amongst Spartans, as is well known, theft was allowed, but the unlucky marauder who was caught in the act, was punished, not for the deed itself, but for his want of skill. In East Africa, according to Burton (First Footsteps in East Africa, p. 176), robbery is considered honourable. In Caramanza (Portuguese Guinea) in Africa, side by side with the peaceful rice-cultivating Bagnous dwell the Balantes who subsist upon the chase and the spoils of their raids. While they kill the individual who presumes to steal in his native village, they encourage depredations upon the other tribes (Revue d' Anthropologie, 1874). The cleverest thieves are greatly esteemed, are paid for instructing boys in their profession, and are chosen to lead the expeditions.

In India the tribe Zakka Khel is devoted to this dishonest calling, and at birth every male child is consecrated to thievish practices by a peculiar ceremony, in which the new-born infant is passed through a breach in the wall of his father's house, whilst the words "Become a thief" are chanted three times in chorus. Amongst the ancient Germans, according to Tacitus, thefts perpetrated outside the boundary of the tribe itself were by no means infamous. In the midst of a great assembly, the chief called upon those he wished to follow him; they showed their willingness by rising to their feet amid the applause of the crowd. Those who refused to take part were looked upon as deserters and traitors (Spencer, Principles of Ethics, 1895). Among the Comanches (Muelhausen, Diary of a Journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific) no man was considered worthy of being numbered among the warriors of the tribe, unless he had taken part in some successful pillaging expedition. The cleverest thieves were the most respected members of the tribe. No Patagonian is deemed worthy of a wife unless he has graduated in the art of despoiling a stranger (Snow, Two Years' Cruise round Tierra del Fuego). Among the Kukis (Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal) skill in stealing is the most esteemed talent. In Mongolia (Gilmour, Among the Mongols), thieves are regarded as respectable members of the community, provided they steal cleverly and escape detection.

CRIMINALITY IN CHILDREN

The criminal instincts common to primitive savages would be found proportionally in nearly all children, if they were not influenced by moral training and example. This does not mean that without educative restraints, all children would develop into criminals. According to the observations made by Prof. Mario Carrara at Cagliari, the bands of neglected children who run wild in the streets of the Sardinian capital and are addicted to thievish practices and more serious vices, spontaneously correct themselves of these habits as soon as they have arrived at puberty.

This fact, that the germs of moral insanity and criminality are found normally in mankind in the first stages of his existence, in the same way as forms considered monstrous when exhibited by adults, frequently exist in the foetus, is such a simple and common phenomenon that it eluded notice until it was demonstrated clearly by observers like Moreau, Perez, and Bain. The child, like certain adults, whose abnormality consists in a lack of moral sense, represents what is known to alienists as a morally insane being and to criminologists as a born criminal, and it certainly resembles these types in its impetuous violence.

Perez (Psychologie de l'enfant, 2d ed., 1882) remarks on the frequency and precocity of anger in children:

"During the first two months, it manifests by movements of the eyebrows and hands undoubted fits of temper when undergoing any distasteful process, such as washing or when deprived of any object it takes a fancy to. At the age of one, it goes to the length of striking those who incur its displeasure, of breaking plates or throwing them at persons it dislikes, exactly like savages."

Moreau (De l'Homicide chez les enfants, 1882) cites numerous cases of children who fly into a passion if their wishes are not complied with immediately. In one instance observed by him a very intelligent child of eight, when reproved, even in the mildest manner by his parents or strangers, would give way to violent anger, snatching up the nearest weapon, or if he found himself unable to take revenge, would break anything he could lay his hands on.

A baby girl showed an extremely violent temper, but became of gentle disposition after she had reached the age of two (Perez). Another, observed by the same author, when only eleven months old, flew into a towering rage, because she was unable to pull off her grandfather's nose. Yet another, at the age of two, tried to bite another child who had a doll like her own, and she was so much affected by her anger that she was ill for three days afterwards.

Nino Bixio, when a boy of seven (Vita, Guerzoni, 1880) on seeing his teacher laugh because he had written his exercise on office letter-paper, threw the inkstand at the man's face. This boy was literally the terror of the school, on account of the violence he displayed at the slightest offence.

Infants of seven or eight months have been known to scratch at any attempt to withdraw the breast from them, and to retaliate when slapped.

A backward and slightly hydrocephalous boy whom my father had under observation, began at the age of six to show violent irritation at the slightest reproof or correction. If he was able to strike the person who had annoyed him, his rage cooled immediately; if not, he would scream incessantly and bite his hands with gestures similar to those often witnessed in caged bears who have been teased and cannot retaliate.

The above cases show that the desire for revenge is extremely common and precocious in children. Anger is an elementary instinct innate in human beings. It should be guided and restrained, but can never be extirpated.

Children are quite devoid of moral sense during the first months or first years of their existence. Good and evil in their estimation are what is allowed and what is forbidden by their elders, but they are incapable of judging independently of the moral value of an action.

"Lying and disobedience are very wrong," said a boy to Perez, "because they displease mother." Everything he was accustomed to was right and necessary.

A child does not grasp abstract ideas of justice, or the rights of property, until he has been deprived of some possession. He is prone to detest injustice, especially when he is the victim. Injustice, in his estimation, is the discord between a habitual mode of treatment and an accidental one. When subjected to altered conditions, he shows complete uncertainty. A child placed under Perez's care modified his ways according to each new arrival. He began ordering his companions about and refused to obey any one but Perez.

Affection is very slightly developed in children. Their fancy is easily caught by a pleasing exterior or by anything that contributes to their amusement; like domestic animals that they enjoy teasing and pulling about, and they exhibit great antipathy to unfamiliar objects that inspire them with fear. Up to the age of seven or even after, they show very little real attachment to anybody. Even their mothers, whom they appear to love, are speedily forgotten after a short separation.

In conclusion, children manifest a great many of the impulses we have observed in criminals; anger, a spirit of revenge, idleness, volubility and lack of affection.

We have also pointed out that many actions considered criminal in civilised communities, are normal and legitimate practices among primitive races. It is evident, therefore, that such actions are natural to the early stages, both of social evolution and individual psychic development.

In view of these facts, it is not strange that civilised communities should produce a certain percentage of adults who commit actions reputed injurious to society and punishable by law. It is only an atavistic phenomenon, the return to a former state. In the criminal, moreover, the phenomenon is accompanied by others also natural to a primitive stage of evolution. These have already been referred to in the first chapter, which contains a description of many strange practices common to delinquents, and evidently of primitive origin—tattooing, cruel games, love of orgies, a peculiar slang resembling in certain features the languages of primitive peoples, and the use of hieroglyphics and pictography.

FIG. 22 TERRA-COTTA BOWLS Designed by a Criminal (see page 135)

The artistic manifestations of the criminal show the same characteristics. In spite of the thousands of years which separate him from prehistoric savages, his art is a faithful reproduction of the first, crude artistic attempts of primitive races. The museum of criminal anthropology created by my father contains numerous specimens of criminal art, stones shaped to resemble human figures, like those found in Australia, rude pottery covered with designs that recall Egyptian decorations (Fig. 22) or scenes fashioned in terra-cotta (Fig. 23) that resemble the grotesque creations of children or savages.

The criminal is an atavistic being, a relic of a vanished race. This is by no means an uncommon occurrence in nature. Atavism, the reversion to a former state, is the first feeble indication of the reaction opposed by nature to the perturbing causes which seek to alter her delicate mechanism. Under certain unfavourable conditions, cold or poor soil, the common oak will develop characteristics of the oak of the Quaternary period. The dog left to run wild in the forest will in a few generations revert to the type of his original wolf-like progenitor, and the cultivated garden roses when neglected show a tendency to reassume the form of the original dog-rose. Under special conditions produced by alcohol, chloroform, heat, or injuries, ants, dogs, and pigeons become irritable and savage like their wild ancestors.

This tendency to alter under special conditions is common to human beings, in whom hunger, syphilis, trauma, and, still more frequently, morbid conditions inherited from insane, criminal, or diseased progenitors, or the abuse of nerve poisons, such as alcohol, tobacco, or morphine, cause various alterations, of which criminality—that is, a return to the characteristics peculiar to primitive savages—is in reality the least serious, because it represents a less advanced stage than other forms of cerebral alteration.

The aetiology of crime, therefore, mingles with that of all kinds of degeneration: rickets, deafness, monstrosity, hairiness, and cretinism, of which crime is only a variation. It has, however, always been regarded as a thing apart, owing to a general instinctive repugnance to admit that a phenomenon, whose extrinsications are so extensive and penetrate every fibre of social life, derives, in fact, from the same causes as socially insignificant forms like rickets, sterility, etc. But this repugnance is really only a sensory illusion, like many others of widely diverse nature.

FIG. 23 ART PRODUCTION FROM PRISON (see page 135)

FIG. 24 A COMBAT BETWEEN BRIGANDS AND GENDARMES Designed by a Criminal (see page 135)

Pathological Origin of Crime. The atavistic origin of crime is certainly one of the most important discoveries of criminal anthropology, but it is important only theoretically, since it merely explains the phenomenon. Anthropologists soon realised how necessary it was to supplement this discovery by that of the origin, or causes which call forth in certain individuals these atavistic or criminal instincts, for it is the immediate causes that constitute the practical nucleus of the problem and it is their removal that renders possible the cure of the disease.