1 82 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



questionable. By this is not meant simply that 

 criminals are children of criminals^ but also that 

 they inherit such traits of physical and psychi- 

 cal constitution as naturally lead to crime. Ri- 

 bot says : " The heredity of the tendency to 

 thieving is so generally admitted that it would 

 be superfluous to bring together here facts which 

 abound in every record of judicial proceedings." 

 He cites as an illustration the genealogy of the 

 Chretien family from Dr. Despine's "Psychol- 

 ogic Naturelle." 



" The father had three sons : Pierre, Thomas, 

 and Jean-Baptiste. i. Pierre had a son, Jean- 

 Francois, who was condemned for life to hard 

 labour for robbery and murder. 2. Thomas had 

 two sons : (i) Francois, condemned to hard labour 

 for murder, and (2) Martin, condemned to death 

 for murder. Martin's son died in Cayenne, 

 whither he had been transported for robbery, 

 3. Jean-Baptiste had a son, Jean-Frangois, whose 

 wife was Marie Taure (belonging to a family 

 of incendiaries). This Jean-Frangois had seven 

 children : (i) Jean-Frangois, found guilty of sev- 

 eral robberies, died in prison ; (2) Benoist, fell 

 off a roof which he had scaled, and was killed ; 

 (3) X , nicknamed Clain, found guilty of sev- 

 eral robberies, died at the age of twenty-five ; 



