HERITABLE BASIS OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY 91 
minded according to the latter was 29 per cent and according to 
the former 57 per cent. Hauck and Sisson’s studies of 201 boys 
and girls of the Idaho Industrial Training School show 24.6 per 
cent of feeble-mindedness among the boys, and 35.3 per cent of 
feeble-mindedness among the girls. In their study of young 
repeated offenders Drs. Spaulding and Healy found epilepsy or 
mental deficiency in 245 out of 668 cases in which a thorough 
study could be made; 152 cases showed moral defect in a preced- 
ing generation often combined with a psychopathic or neuro- 
pathic inheritance. Of the transmission of criminal traits as such 
the authors could find little evidence. An individual study of 
fifteen cases in which a peculiarly criminal inheritance was sug- 
gested convinced the authors that “various physical or mental 
factors are the real inheritance, and that criminalism may be 
implanted on these in successive generations.’ All told, the 
indirect influence of heredity on criminalism appears to be that 
in 35 per cent there is predominantly a transmission of mental or 
physical defect, and that in 9 per cent such inheritance is partly 
responsible. This makes a total of 44 per cent in which bad 
heredity is indirectly responsible for crime. 
The percentage of mental defect reported among juvenile 
malefactors naturally varies greatly in different groups, according 
to the basis upon which they are selected, and the kinds of tests 
applied. Travis, in his book on The Young Malefactor attributes 
the chief causes for juvenile delinquency to unfortunate environ- 
mental influences. While recognizing the importance of bad 
heredity, Travis opposes the views of the Italian positive school 
in claiming that ‘‘there are no stigmata of either crime or types of 
crime, but only of abnormality or degeneration. . . . A study of 
the delinquent with respect to his physical, mental and ethical 
conditions, shows that at least 90 per cent and probably 98 per 
cent of first court offenders are normal.” 
With due appreciation of the value of Travis’ studies of the 
various factors which contribute to juvenile delinquency, and 
without opposing his contention that these offenders fail to show 
the physical stigmata of the so-called ‘born criminal,” I am by 
