TYPICAL CRIMINALS. 545 



'' broad " type, but, on the other hand, he comes from a province 

 of Germany where that type is dominant. 



To complete the experiment, I submitted these portraits to a 

 number of gentlemen, and to no two of them at the same time, for 

 their opinions of the cases. The informal committee represented 

 the different professions which might be expected to fit men for 

 observation, for there was a lawyer, a physician, a railway presi- 

 dent, a criminal judge, and a college professor. Each of them is 

 eminent in his special field. The committee was manifestly handi- 

 capped by the shorn head, the prison dress, and the lack of the 

 accessories of masculine ornamentation, such as collars and cravats. 

 The committee was asked to name the crimes, and to group the 

 men according to their criminal record. Each opinion differed 

 from the other, and all were wide of the mark. The shrewd lawyer 

 thought the accidental criminal " might be guilty of anything." 

 It was only the college professor, the last man of the company from 

 whom anything might properly be expected, who was able to select 

 the worst two cases with the remark, " These men are degenerates." 

 But while the committee was at work on the photographs the -vvTiter 

 was at work on the committee, and actually discovered more 

 anomalies of organization in these distinguished citizens than are 

 apparent in the criminals. After this remark it is necessary to 

 withhold their names, though some of them are men of national 

 reputation. 



It is time to reassert with increasing emphasis the personal 

 responsibility of the individual, and to insist upon the enthrone- 

 ment and guidance of conscience. There are certainly social and 

 economic reasons for crime, some of which the writer has pointed 

 out elsewhere, but the chief fact in human life is the power of self- 

 determination. The chief causes of crime, outside of personal and 

 moral degradation, are psychical and not physical. The reader of 

 history can not fail to have noted that relation of prevalent ideas 

 to conduct which is so conspicuous in human affairs. The scenes 

 of blood and desolation characteristic of the Erench Revolution 

 are directly traceable to the doctrines which prepared the way for 

 anarchy, but not for rational freedom. 



We have had our attention directed to the contagion of suicide 

 which has marked the last half decade. But Lecky tells us that 

 suicide was made practically unknown in the civilized world by the 

 spread of Christianity and its beliefs in the dignity and sanctity 

 of man. The present contagion will disappear not as the result 

 of food, or raiment, or houses, or any other material good, but by 

 a revival of practical faith in the human soul and its capacity, in 

 human righteousness and its obligation. 



TOL. LTI — 43 



