CRIMINALS AND INCAPABLES. 95 



backbone, of which they were a probable example. 

 We have not to go far to find in our everyday ex- 

 perience of life that out of a family whose members 

 are most of them docile, yielding to discipline, and 

 capable of affection and self-sacrifice, one or two, 

 perhaps, seem by nature to be wanting in these 

 qualities. Such sporadic cases are only to be ex- 

 plained on the ground that imperfections in their 

 ancestry have cropped up in the new generation, for 

 the criminal taint is a fact to be observed and 

 accounted for like any so-called physical peculiarity 

 of form or feature. It follows, too, that we are bound 

 to look with the greatest pity and commiseration 

 upon the inveterate criminal as upon a person 

 diseased, and that we should use our best endeavour 

 to prevent the recurrence or continued permanence of 

 such a type. 



Segregation of the Criminal an Ultimate and Effectual 

 Resort. 



We, therefore, come face to face with the necessity 

 for practical action on our own part if we would fulfil 

 our obligations to those who will come after us. As 

 Pike remarks, 1 " Perpetual imprisonment of the irre- 

 claimable imprisonment not only nominally but 



1 " A History of Crime in England," vol. ii., pp. 579, 580. 



