CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY. 653 



This view was emphasized by M. Roiilet, who said he depended largely 

 npou the physioguouiy of the child, to which was added the reports of 

 its conduct. But he declared that during the early infancy there was 

 almost always an absence of discernment. He pleaded for precise 

 detail, close and accurate investigation, and report among the doctors 

 in order to determine the exact nature and degree of capability ; and 

 this, he said, was the mission of the anthropologist, who was destined 

 to establish the differential diagnosis of the infant and determine 

 whether it was a natural-born criminal or not, so as to apply the proper 

 measures, whether it be the house of correction, or a simple education. 



M. Roulet was a lawyer before the court of appeals of Paris, was 

 secretary of the French union for the defense and the tutelage of infants 

 in moral danger. He said that he had defended during the mouth of 

 October more thau four hundred infants before the tribunal of Seine; 

 infants who were arrested in Paris for insiguiiicant offenses, as vaga- 

 bondage, begging, and little thefts. He had always pleaded that they 

 were without discernment ; that they should be acquitted of the crime, 

 but that the state should have charge of their education. If the infant 

 was acquitted, he demanded that it should be confided to the French 

 Union for the Saving of Infants. Under the operation of this society, 

 the infant was placed in the country and watched over by charitable 

 ladies. If the infant was still evilly disposed, he demanded of the 

 tribunal that he should be sent to the house of correction until he was 

 20 years of age, where he became the veritable ward of the state- 

 The society of the French Union for the Saving of Infants had been 

 organized in 1887. It was in close relation with the police and with the 

 magistrates and courts: it had sought and obtained their confidence, 

 and there were now remitted into its care a great many children who 

 otherwise must be sent to prison, there to be swallowed up for all time 

 in the everlasting whirlpool of crime. He asked the aid of some 

 anthropologist, who was at the same time an anthro})ometrician, to visit 

 the Palais de Justice each morning, and go with him through the crowd 

 of arrested children and make the necessary scientific examination 

 that could be perpetuated in the form of statistics ; and to this response 

 Dr. Manouvrier promised his assistance by making that appointment 

 for each morning. Their rendezvous would be at the anthropometric 

 laboratory of M. Bertillon. 



M. Eschaneur, a Protestant pastor, declared the problem of saving 

 and regeneration of the infant could be brought about only by love. 



Dr. Brouardel gave an interesting description of the physical and 

 mental state of the gamins of Paris, so bright and intelligent during 

 their infancy, but which, as has been observed by Lorraine and Tarde, 

 early present the phenomena of a singular degradation. Near their 

 fifteenth year their development was arrested, and a sort of physical 

 decay was produced which led to sexual debasement and perversion, 

 although it did not exclude certain intellectual aptitudes. Some 



