TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 99 



inquiries a large number of copies of photographs of heinous criminals. I may as 

 well say that I begged that the photographs should be furnished me without any 

 names attached to them, but simply classified in three groups, according to the 

 nature of the crime. The first group included murder, manslaughter, and burglary • 

 the second group included felony and forgery; and the third group referred to 

 sexual crimes. The photographs wore of criminals who had been sentenced to lon°- 

 terms of penal servitude. ° 



By familiarizing myself with the collection, and continually sorting the photo- 

 graphs in tentative ways, certain natural classes began to appear, some of which 

 are exceedingly well marked. It was also very evident that the three groups of 

 criminals contributed in very different proportions to the different physiognomic 



This is not the place to go further into details : indeed my inquiry is far from 

 complete. I merely quote my experiences in order to show the way in which ques- 

 tions of character, physiognomy, and temperament admit of being scientifically 

 approached, and to give an instance of the helpfulness of photography. If I had 

 had the profiles and the shape of the head as seen from above, my results would 

 have been much more instructive. Thus, to take a single instance, I have seen 

 many pencil studies in outline of selected criminal faces drawn by Dr. Clarke, the 

 accomplished and zealous medical officer of Pentonville Prison ; and in these sketches 

 a, certain very characteristic profile seemed to me conspicuously prevalent. I should 

 have been very glad of photographs to corroborate this. So, again, if I had had 

 photographic views of the head taken from above, I could have tested, anions 

 other matters, the truth of Professor Benedict's assertion about the abnormally 

 small size of the back of the head in criminals. 



I have thus far spoken of the characters and physiognomy of weD-marked 

 varieties of men : the Anthropologist has next to consider the life-history of those 

 varieties, and especially their tendency to perpetuate themselves, whether to dis- 

 place other varieties and to spread, or else to die out. In illustration of this, I will 

 proceed with what appears to be the history of the criminal class. Its perpetua- 

 tion by heredity is a question that deserves more careful investigation than it has 

 received ; but it is on many accounts more difficult to grapple with than it may at 

 farst sight appear to be. The vagrant habits of the criminal classes, their illegiti- 

 mate unions and extreme untruthfulness are among the difficulties. It is, howe°ver 

 easy to show that the criminal nature tends to be inherited ; while, on the other 

 , an . d ' ?* *! im P os siMe that women who spend a large portion of the best years of 

 their life in prison can contribute many children to the popidation. The true state 

 of the case appears to be that the criminal population receives steady accessions 

 from classes who, without having strongly marked criminal natures, do nevertheless 

 belong to a type of humanity that is exceedingly ill-suited to play a respectable 

 part in our modern civilization, though they are well suited to flourish under half- 

 savage conditions, being naturally both healthy and prolific. These persons are apt 

 to goto the bad; their daughters consort with criminals and become the parents 

 of criminals. An extraordinary example of this is given by the history of the 

 infamous Jukes family in America, whose pedigree has been made out, with extra- 

 ordinary care, during no less than seven generations, and is the subject of an elabo- 

 rate memoir printed in the thirty-first annual report of the Prison Association of 

 New York, 187G. It includes no less than 540 individuals of Jukes blood ; among 

 whom the number of persons who degraded into criminality, pauperism, or disease 

 is frightful to contemplate. 



It is difficult to summarize the results in a few plain figures, but I will state those 

 respecting the fifth generation, through the eldest of the five prolific daughters of 

 the man who is the common ancestor of the race. The total number of these was 

 123, of whom 88 came through an illegitimate granddaughter, and 85 through 

 legitimate grandchildren. Out of the 38, 16 have been in jail, 6 of them for 

 heinous offences, one of these having been committed no less than nine times • 

 11 others were paupers, or led openly disreputable lives ; 4 were notoriously intem- 

 perate ; the history of 3 had not been traced, and only 4 were known to have 

 done well. The great majority of the women con'soiled with criminals. As 



8* 



