1894.) Psychology. 537 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
The Recidivist.—In the September Forum there appeared an 
article on the topic “ Criminals not the victim of Heredity.” On sum- 
ming up, the writer comes to the conclusion that “a criminal is like 
any other man.” It is the purpose of the present writer to show, by 
unimpeachable and incontrovertible evidence, that this last statement 
is a grosserror. The Forum writer makes an indiscriminate use of the 
terms professional, habitual, and congenital criminal. A professional 
criminal is not, necessarily, a congenital criminal, nor is an habitual 
criminal necessarily a professional criminal. I presume that the writer 
of the article quoted above, means the recidivist all through his paper, 
and therefore will endeavor to prove that the congenital criminal and 
the recidivist is, anatomically and physiologically, entirely different 
from normal man in many respects. In this paper I do not wish to 
enter the domain of speculative psychology, nor do I intend to grapple 
with the grave problems now agitating sociologists and penologists, 
therefore will content myself with the introduction of facts and facts 
alone. The statement of the present writer that the recidivist is, ana- 
tomically and physiologically, an abnormal type of man, is not the 
conclusion of an hour or day, but is the rational deduction obtained 
from days, months, and years spent at the dissecting table and micro- 
scope, and in the study of the criminal, both in a state of freedom and 
when incarcerated. Thecriminal physiognomy is of so marked a type 
that most men are able to recognize it ata glance. I borrowed six 
photographs of criminals from Major Owen, Chief of Detectives, 
Louisville, Ky., for the purpose of illustrating an article on “ Criminal 
Anthropology,” (which article appeared in the N. F. Medical Record, 
Jan. 13), selecting them at random from some fifty or sixty other pho- 
tographs of criminals. Five of these photographs were recidivists, 
and one was an occasional criminal. These six photographs were 
shown to one hundred men with the following statement and request : 
“ Here are six criminals; five of them are habitual malefactors, and 
one of them is, comparatively speaking, an honest man—pick out the 
honest man.” Ninety-five men picked out the photograph of the 
occasional criminal without a second’s hesitation. The discriminating 
and exact Maudsley says: “All persons who have made criminals 
their study, recognize a distinct criminal class of beings, who "ea 
together in our large cities in a thieves quarter, giving themselves up 
