438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of the continuance of the congenital criminal. He has always 

 existed; his presence is apprehended just in proportion to the 

 sensitiveness of the public conscience. Morrison, in his instruct- 

 ive book, says, in regard to the confirmed vagabond and criminal, 

 that " most of them are not adapted to the conditions of existence 

 which prevail in a free society. Some of them might have passed 

 through life fairly well in a more primitive stage of social devel- 

 opment, as, for example, in the days of slavery or serfdom; but 

 they are manifestly out of place in an age of unrestricted free- 

 dom, when a man may work or remain idle just as he chooses. 

 . . . All men are not fitted for freedom, and, so long as society 

 acts on the supposition that they are, it will never get rid of the 

 incorrigible criminal." 



The persistence of those acts which, as society has evolved, 

 have been deemed criminal, are acts natural to all animals. In 

 the decalogue half the commandments, significantly grouped to- 

 gether, refer to acts and impulses inherent in the animal king- 

 dom, from the lowest to the highest. Murder and adultery, of 

 course ; ..covetousness precedes the act of stealing ; theft, in its 

 various forms, from the simplest act to stock- watering ; and 

 lying, from the deceptive behavior of a bird to the lies embodied 

 in the advertisements of the modern newspaper are all part and 

 parcel of man's inheritance. 



Dr. Bruch Thomson, Surgeon of the General Prison, Scotland, 

 says, "Habitual criminals are without moral sense are true 

 moral imbeciles." Carl Vogt advanced the idea that certain cases 

 of congenital idiocy were evidences of reversion. Let one spend 

 a few hours only in the worst wards of an asylum for the feeble- 

 minded, and attentively study the movements and desires, the 

 wanton mischief, the shocking impulses which animate these un- 

 fortunate creatures, and he is forced to admit the possibility of 

 such a condition. 



Whatever view prevails does not concern us at present. The 

 important truth to realize is that overwhelming and incontestable 

 evidence shows that the criminal, as a type, not only exists, but 

 that his criminal taints are transmitted, and that this transmis- 

 sion may run through many generations. It is proved by volu- 

 minous evidence, easily accessible, that children are born crimi- 

 nals. They are, as Dr. Fletcher says, not only reared, nurtured, 

 and instructed in it, but the habit becomes a new force a second 

 nature superinduced upon their original natural depravity. In 

 speaking of this class he says, " These communities of crime, 

 we know, have no respect for the laws of marriage, are regard- 

 less of the rules of consanguinity, and, connecting themselves only 

 with those of their own nature and habits, they must beget a 

 depraved and criminal class, hereditarily disposed to crime." 



