522 EDITORIAL COLLOQUY. 



the lower faculties of the spectators, may be the direct cause of a 

 new crop of victims for the gallows;' and he gives a multitude of 

 cases, in which romance-reading, gin-drinking, and so forth, have 

 been the parents of romance-readers, gin-drinkers, robbers, cum 

 mult is aliis, specimens of corrupt humanity." 



" If Mr. Coombe's opinions should ever be taken up by our 

 legislators, we shall, as a corollary from the above, have none but 

 posthumous trials; inasmuch as a criminal cannot be fairly con- 

 demned for offences, which are the result of congenital conformations 

 of certain organs of the brain. The child born of parents, who have 

 been sinners in any way, would in all cases, when convicted of 

 similar sins, have a fair ground for appeal against the judgment of 

 human laws, and for why ? he is not a voluntary agent in the act ; 

 he is impelled to it by his predominant organ of destructiveness, or 

 acquisitiveness, as the case may be. Thus I find that Mr. Coombe 

 gives an instance of a lady, who, during her pregnancy, had read the 

 Iliad with great interest, and what was the consequence ? why, that 

 her son was a second Achilles, and that his combative propensities 

 proved his ruin. Now in this case, who was the criminal, or rather 

 upon whom should punishment fall ? The intention of punishment is 

 to do what ? to expiate crime, or prevent crime ? Here the law, 

 supposing the Achilles was hung, was doubly in error according to 

 Mr. Coombe ; first, in punishing the youth at all, who was in fact 

 the victim of his mother's reading; and, secondly, that his execution 

 being attended, let us say by 15,000 people, would give birth to I 

 know not how many murderers. Thus Mr. Coombe says, that on 

 examining the heads of a considerable number of criminals, the con- 

 viction becomes irresistible that the individual was the victim of his 

 nature and external condition ; and that the causes which lead to 

 crime subsist independently of the will of the offender. Again, if the 

 real cause of human offences be excessive size and activity in the 

 organs of the animal propensities, it follows, that mere punishment 

 cannot put a stop to crime because it overlooks the cause, and leaves 

 it to operate with unabated energy, after the infliction has been 

 endured. Precisely, if it be so, but it is even worse than useless; 

 being unjust to the criminal, and injurious to society, upon phre- 

 nological reasoning, as Mr. Coombe himself remarks that the his- 

 tory of the world presents us with a regular succession of crimes and 

 punishment : and, at present, the series appears to be as far removed 



