FOREWORD. 



The line of inquiry pursued by Mr. DUGDALE and briefly 

 recited in these pages, will aid all persons searching out the 

 preventable sources of crime and endeavoring to repress it. 

 Whoever carefully investigates the history of individual offenders 

 and traces out the careers of typical groups of the offending 

 classes, will recognize the practical bearings of this definite and 

 comprehensive study of the physical, mental and social circum- 

 stances under which they are nurtured. 



A departure downward, from virtue to vice and crime, is* 

 possible in the career of any youth; but the number of well-born 

 and well-trained children who thus fall is exceedingly small. 

 Habitual criminals spring almost exclusively from degenerating 

 stocks; their youth is spent amid the degrading surroundings of 

 physical and social defilement, with only a flickering of the 

 redeeming influence of virtuous aspiration. The career of of- 

 fenders so trained, at last becomes a reckless warfare against 

 society; and when the officers of justice overtake them and con- 

 sign them to prisons, the habits of vicious thought and criminal 

 action have acquired the strength and quality of instincts. 



The correctional discipline which is sought for in our prisons 

 and reformatories, although a necessary public duty, is vastly 

 more expensive and unsatisfactory than the application of pre- 

 ventive measures would be. These latter must be adjusted 

 within the bosom of society, and will be effective just in pro- 

 portion to the intelligence, health and active virtues of the people. 



In the progress of medical science the close study of healthful 

 as well as morbid conditions has resulted in defining the rules of 

 hygiene, which treats of the prevention and extinction of the 

 causes of disease. In like manner a search into the sources of 

 the habitually criminal classes reveals that out of the same social 



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