SUPERSTITION AND CRIME. 221 



is settled by a people of Finnish origin, the majority of whom have 

 been baptized and call themselves orthodox Christians, while the 

 remainder are still nominally as well as really heathen. When they 

 take an oath it is administered by a pope or priest, and a Russian 

 jurist, J. W. Mjeshtshaninov, describes the method employed by 

 them to forswear themselves with safety. When called upon to take an 

 oath, the witness raises the right hand with the index finger extended ; 

 he then lays the left hand in the palm of the right hand with the 

 index finger pointing downward, and by a crisscross combination 

 of the other fingers, which probably works as a charm, the whole 

 body is converted into a conductor, so that the oath entering through 

 the index finger of the right hand passes through the index finger 

 of the left hand into the earth like an electric current. The wit- 

 ness thus feels himself discharged of the binding influence of the 

 oath, and may give false testimony without laying perjury upon 

 his soul. 



The superstitions which encourage ignorant people to commit 

 crime are handed down from generation to generation, and have in 

 most cases a purely local character. In other words, the charms and 

 sorceries and other magical arts employed to produce the same re- 

 sults differ in different places, and unless the judges are familiar with 

 these various forms of superstition they will be unable to understand 

 the exact nature of the offenses with which they have to deal, and 

 their efforts to detect and punish violations of the law will be greatly 

 hampered and sometimes completely thwarted. 



The subject here discussed has not only a speculative interest for 

 ethnographers and students of folklore, but also, as already indicated, 

 a practical importance for criminal lawyers and courts of justice in 

 the Old World and even in the United States. The tide of immigra- 

 tion that has recently set in from the east and south of Europe has 

 brought to our shores an immense number of persons strongly in- 

 fected with the delusions which we have attempted to describe. Acts 

 which would seem at first sight to have their origin in impulses of 

 cruelty and brutality are found on closer investigation to be due to 

 crass ignorance and credulity, and, although the ultimate motives are 

 usually utterly selfish, there are rare instances in which the per- 

 petrators of such deeds are thoroughly disinterested and altruistic, 

 and do the most revolting things, not from greed of gain, but 

 solely for the public good. In cases of this kind the most effect- 

 ive preventive of wrongdoing is not judicial punishment but 

 intellectual enlightenment. 



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