INSTINCTIVE CRIMINALITY. 293 



tlieir criminal tendencies from their ancestors. " Of 

 the inmates of the Elmira Reformatory 499, or 13.7 

 per cent., have been of insane or epileptic heredity. 

 Of 233 prisoners at Auburn, New York, 23.03 per 

 cent, were clearly of neurotic (insane, epileptic, &c.) 

 origin; in reality many more. . . . Eossi found five 

 insane parents in 7 1 criminals, six insane brothers and 

 sisters, and 14 cases of insanity among more distant 

 relatives. Kock found morbid inheritance in 46 per 

 cent, of criminals. Marro, who has examined the 

 matter very carefully, found the proportion 77 per 

 cent. . . . He found that an unusually large propor- 

 tion of the parents had died from cerebro-spinal 

 diseases and from phthisis. Sichard, examining nearly 

 4000 German criminals in the prison of which he 

 is director, found an insane, epileptic, suicidal, and 

 alcoholic heredity in 36.8 per cent, incendiaries, 32.2 

 per cent, thieves, 28.7 per cent, sexual offenders, 23.6 

 per cent, sharpers." * In Russia Dr. Pauline Tarnowsky 

 found a phthisical parentage in no less than 44 per 

 cent, of prostitutes, while epilepsy in the parents stood 

 at 6 per cent, t 



If further evidence were wanting of the close rela- 

 tionship existing between the insane and the criminal, 

 surely it is to be found in the fact that no less than 

 32 per cent, of all the persons convicted of wilful 

 murder in England and Wales during the ten years 

 1879-1888 were found insane, and that another 32 



Havelock Ellis, op. cit. 

 t Op. cit. 



