THE PROBLEM OF VICE AND CRIME 



177 



children, ranging from ten to seventeen years of 

 age, most of whom had been taken with arms in 

 their hands behind the barricades. 'This exami- 

 nation,' he says, 'has confirmed me in my previous 

 convictions' as to the baneful effects produced by 

 alcohol, not only in the individuals who use this 

 detestable drink to excess, but also in their de- 

 scendants. On their depraved physiognomy is 

 impressed the threefold stamp of physical, intel- 

 lectual, and moral degeneracy.' " ^ Dr. Elam, after 

 describing the effects of inebriety on the indi- 

 vidual using alcohol, says : " All this, fearful as 

 it is, would be comparatively of trifling impor- 

 tance, did the punishment descend only on the 

 individual concerned, and terminate there. Un- 

 fortunately this is not so, for there is no phase 

 of humanity in which hereditary influence is so 

 marked and characteristic as in this. The chil- 

 dren unquestionably do suffer for or from the 

 sins of the parent, even unto untold generations. 

 And thus the evil spreads from the individual to 

 the family, from family to community and to the 

 population at large, which is endangered in its 

 highest interests by the presence and contact of 

 2i 'morbid variety' m its midst." ^ Erasmus Dar- 



1 Heredity, Ribot, p. 87. 



^A Physician^ s Problems, Elam, pp. 108, 109. 



N 



