zi8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



CRIMINAL WOMAN. 



BY Miss HELEN ZIMMERN. 



E school of criminal anthropologists is making great strides 

 in Italy. New works are continually pouring from the 

 press which record the observations of students of this modern 

 science, all of them striving to establish the data on which to base 

 the phenomena of crime and degeneration. The world-famed 

 name of Prof. Cesare Lombroso constantly appears on new works, 

 which are fresh guides to science. La Donna Delinquente 

 (Criminal Woman) is the title of his latest book, which is a joint 

 work written together with one of his pupils, Prof. G. Ferrero. 

 This book completes his previous admirable study entitled 

 L' Uomo Delinquente (Criminal Man). This new study on abnor- 

 mal woman is a very important work, which offered much greater 

 difficulties in the way of research and observation than that on 

 man. Indeed, Lombroso writes in his preface : " The chief results 

 of our first investigations were in opposition to the usual prem- 

 ises ; even individual and partial observations seemed to clash ; 

 so that if one wished to be logical one was obliged to hesitate as 

 to definite conclusions. We were, however, faithful to the maxim 

 that we have always pursued ; we followed facts blindly, even 

 when they appeared to contradict each other and seemed taking 

 a false turning. And we were not wrong : in the end the facts 

 which seemed most opposed, fitted into their places like the pieces 

 of a mosaic and formed a uniform and perfect design, although at 

 first it seemed as if we were groping in the dark and that it was 

 difficult to collect them. When at last we reached the desired 

 goal, we tasted the bitter delight of the hunter who seizes his 

 prey after scouring rocks and precipices, and feels the joy of his 

 success redoubled by the losses and fatigues his conquest has 

 cost him." 



In this quotation is given truly the keynote to the whole vol- 

 ume. It explains to the reader what difficulties the authors have 

 had to surmount, in order to draw a precise and certain conclu- 

 sion, and to determine the characteristics of female criminals, 

 just as other similar works written by modern savants define 

 those of male offenders. The work is divided into four principal 

 parts: 1. Normal Woman. 2. Female Crime. 3. Pathological 

 and Anthropometrical Anatomy of Female Criminals and Pros- 

 titutes. 4. Biology and Psychology of Female Delinquents and 

 Prostitutes. The first part is full of observations on normal 

 women, and is a contrast to the second, which treats of female 

 criminals in all their different changes of organism and mental 

 attitude. In the section devoted to normal women, Lombroso 



