222 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and depraved in them than in men. They prove themselves most 

 cruel, and when compared with normal women they are found 

 wanting in every attribute belonging to the latter. For example, 

 among women born with criminal tendencies there is a total want 

 of maternal affection, pity, and love ; they are excessively erotic 

 and revengeful, revenge among women naturally criminals being 

 one of the chief motives for crime. By a curious contrast in this 

 class a mawkish sentimentality, which is particularly apparent in 

 their letters, takes the place of real and strong sentiment. For 

 instance, Avelina wrote to her lover thus: "I am jealous of 

 Nature, which seems to madden us by its beauty. Dearest one, 

 don't you think that this beautiful weather is made for lovers 

 and speaks of love ? " Again : " How I wish the undertaking 

 which would render us free and happy were over " (the murder of 

 her husband) ; " I must succeed in it, as paradise is in view. The 

 turning of the path is full of roses." Lombroso concludes thus : 

 "Since these women are morally insane, and are wanting in all 

 noble and deep sentiments, they exchange them for exaggerated 

 sophistications, just as a coward boasts of a chimerical and ab- 

 surd courage in his discourses." 



Women born criminals are intelligent, and make up for their 

 weakness and want of physical power to satisfy their natural de- 

 pravity by having recourse to cunning in their fight against 

 society. But as a whole the type of the woman born to be a 

 criminal shows a great likeness to the type of men criminals, and 

 in the rare case of complete criminality women surpass men in 

 wickedness. Females who have become delinquents by accident 

 and the greater number of female criminals belong to this class 

 may be divided into two categories : the one represented by fe- 

 males born with only slight criminal tendencies, the other con- 

 taining delinquents who differ very slightly from normal women, 

 and who sometimes are nothing but ordinary women whose con- 

 dition in life has been such as to develop that fund of immorality 

 which is latent in every woman. Prof. Lombroso determines by 

 indubitable data the much-debated question of the affinity be- 

 tween prostitution and criminality, concluding that the psycho- 

 logical and anatomical identity between criminals and born pros- 

 titutes could not be more complete ; both being morally insane, by 

 a mathematic axiom they become equal. In drawing his conclu- 

 sions on women who have become prostitutes through circum- 

 stances Lombroso says that mentally these are more abnormal 

 than women who have become criminals by choice, because, ac- 

 cording to the theory of his school, prostitution and not crimi- 

 nality is the true degeneration of woman, innate female criminals 

 being rare and monstrous exceptions. He says : " Chastity is the 

 strongest feminine sentiment after maternity ; it is a sentiment 



