THE RELATIONS OF SEX TO CRIME. 733 



not particularly important as factors in the grave class of crime now 

 under consideration. So far as it relates to parents, these emotions 

 may be excluded. Other emotions must in parricide be called into 

 action. But, in poisoning and crimes affecting others beyond parental 

 relation, I believe the purely sexual emotion is the main ingredient in 

 the motive. M. Quetelet states that adultery, domestic quarrels, and 

 jealousy, cause nearly an equal number of poisoning in both sexes ; 

 but in murder the number of women by the husbands exceeds the num- 

 ber of husbands by the wives. In poisoning, with the ratio of 91 to 

 100, for all motives and against unspecified persons, we perceive that 

 when the crime is brought within the domestic circle and against per- 

 sons bearing a very close relation to women and narrowed down to 

 these motives, all differences between the sexes disappear. This is 

 brought out in order to make clear the fact that women are not worse 

 than men, but tliat under conditions favorable to their more restricted 

 sphere of activities, and from motives operating in the direction of 

 their peculiar psychical traits, they will equal men in the perpetration 

 of those crimes suited to their strength. Crime, as it relates to men 

 and is perpetrated by them, conforms in an equal manner to their phys- 

 ical and mental characteristics, and exists in a ratio with the sphere of 

 their activities. While a difference of morality may exist between the 

 sexes, it is not equal to explain the constantly varying ratios of the 

 sexes, to crime. Whatever the differences of morality may be, it is not 

 sufiicient to create any difference in the tendency to crime, when the 

 crime conforms to the conditions just stated. The abnormal action of 

 mental sexual traits is more often met with among women than among 

 men. M. Prosper Despine assigns great importance to the moral per- 

 versions which accompany tlie hysterical tendency in women, and re- 

 gards it as one of the marked characteristics of sex in crime. Hysteria 

 in its myriad forms, when it disturbs cerebral function, appears to be 

 a perversion of the emotional faculties. An offense committed during 

 an attack of hysterical insanity is. not of course a crime, as I am here 

 studying it ; but it is a grave question, to what extent may the crim- 

 inal habit grow out of the perversion of morals which may attend the 

 hysterical state of mind? In the course of two years' acquaintance 

 with criminal female convicts, I became impressed with the fact that 

 nearly every one of them gave evidence of possessing hysterical ten- 

 dencies. In connection with this tendency, another significant fact 

 was observed the power to control the expression of the feelings and 

 emotions was much less in them than in the average woman. Women 

 who ai-e liable to attacks of hysterical perversion of the emotions are 

 usually under the direct influence of the diseased action but a short 

 time, so that the possibility of criminal attempts at such times is com- 

 paratively limited. It is not therefore the presence of an actual attack 

 of hysteria which promotes the tendency to crime; but the impaired 

 control over the desires and emotions which coexists with the hyst(?ri- 



