96 THE JUKES. 



cause he cannot work. How many of our merchants retire from 

 business, preachers from their pulpits, lawyers from their offices, be- 

 cause ill health compels cessation from labor. Now, during the time 

 these gentlemen are recuperating, away from their professional 

 duties, be it one or more years, no one thinks of accusing them of 

 laziness ; we justly call them invalids of different degrees. But when 

 we cast our severe eye upon the criminal class, human beings who, in 

 many cases, have inherited or acquired deep-seated constitutional 

 diseases, we cease to reckon that disease with them will produce the 

 same inability for continuous labor which we admit to be true among 

 the worthy, and stigmatize their inaptitude for work as laziness. Now, 

 the word laziness explains nothing. It merely describes a state which 

 may be the result of any given twenty causes, or any combination 

 of these, the true explanation becoming as complex a problem as 

 human nature itself. But where we note the effect of physical and 

 mental disease on the ability to work, we have at least one tangible 

 and definite reason furnished to us for the laziness of the unbalanced, 

 and we can then appreciate that certain congenital mental deficien- 

 cies and hereditary diseases have the effect of depriving the man of 

 the power of sustained energy and account for those cases where 

 " indolence is stronger than all the passions." 



We find in table XII. that 79.40 per cent of the criminals ex- 

 amined have never learned a trade ; and while it is true that physical 

 disease does not account for all the inaptitude of criminals, it does 

 account for a great deal. As was said in the " Jukes," * one of the 

 most conspicuous of the characteristics of the criminal is that, if he 

 does work, he adopts some kind of intermittent industry which 

 requires no special training. This view is sustained by the list of 

 occupations on page 97. 



» See " Jukes," p. 59. 



