CRIMINAL WOMAN. 221 



would be a common defect, as it is in those wlio are born delin- 

 quents. Irregularities of countenance are to be met with in a 

 greater degree in female assassins and poisoners than in infanti- 

 cides. The real criminal type is rarer among female than male 

 delinquents ; it is found more frequently among prostitutes, and 

 according to a still more precise study made by Tarnowsky, there 

 are more female murderers than thieves, while prostitutes are the 

 most numerous of all. 



" In short," as our author writes, " female criminals have less 

 typical faces, because they are less criminal than men, and women 

 in every degeneration present fewer digressions than men, be- 

 cause women being organically conservative preserve the average 

 type even in their moral aberrations ; besides which, beauty being 

 a supreme necessity for them, this overcomes all the attacks made 

 by moral degeneracy. Still, it can not be denied that when 

 wickedness is deep-rooted, then the general rule which stamps 

 crime with a type, conquers every obstacle, at least in civilized 

 races, and this is particularly the case with prostitutes, because 

 the latter recall the type of primitive woman much more than fe- 

 male criminals." 



The third part closes with a fine chapter on tattooing in 

 women, the tendency to tattoo being, according to Lombroso, an 

 infallible indication of criminal tendencies. 



The fourth and last part of the work is entitled The Biology 

 and Psychology of Female Criminals and Prostitutes. It is di- 

 vided into twelve chapters that are crowded with the most minute 

 and subtle researches. The first three treat of female criminals 

 and prostitutes in general ; the others make a separate study of 

 women born with criminal tendencies and those who have be- 

 come criminals through incidental causes, such as love ; suicides ; 

 women born with a natural inclination to prostitution ; women 

 who have become prostitutes through circumstances ; insane 

 criminals ; epileptic and hysterical delinquents. It is this portion 

 of the work that has required the greatest circumsj^ection. It is 

 so easy here to fall into errors in drawing conclusions from such 

 complicated and various data as presented themselves, and the 

 more, because the variety of subjects examined is very large. 

 Lombroso, in making a resume of the second chapter, observes 

 that fatness of the palm of the hand and irregularities in the 

 pupil of the eye are greater in prostitutes than in female crimi- 

 nals, but are never so marked as in male criminals. The reflec- 

 tions in the pupil of the eye in prostitutes are, however, duller 

 than in male criminals, this being accounted for by the direct 

 action of syphilis on the nervous centers. 



Few women are born with criminal tendencies, according to 

 Lombroso ; but when this is the case, criminality is more intense 



