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Miscellanea 
(2) "femmes villageoises illettrees," (3) "femmes voleuseset prostituees." As the author admits, 
between the murderesses and thieves the difterence in the average measurements is insignificant 
and, we would add, is in every case within the limits of the probable error due to random sampling. 
But, says the author, " ce qu'il vous saute aux yeux " is the difterence in length, breadth, and 
circumference of head between non-criminal peasant women and women of the criminal class. 
As a matter of fact what strikes the attention particulai'ly is the precisely similar difference, in 
an opposite direction, between non-criminal peasant women and women of the educated class : 
and, the question arises, is not this difference due to the same cause in both cases 1 We note, 
from the records, that of the 160 individuals measured, five were of illegitimate parentage, and 
13 were orphans from birth ; and these, combined with the fact that 70°/^ of the parents of the 
remainder were debauched with drink, suggest the provisional proposition that the descending 
scale of head measurements, from "les femmes instruites" at one extreme to "les femmes 
homicides " at the other, may be related to an increasing scale of poverty, and is more likely an 
expression of defective nutrition, during the early years of life and growth, than of inherited 
criminal diathesis. 
The facts of heredity are interesting and suggestive, although we look in vain for the evidence 
in support of the alleged inheritance of a criminal type which the author contends is contained 
therein. We note from the rec(jrds of these facts that 134 criminal children had 12 criminal 
parents, that seven criminal lunatics had two parents who were insane and two who were epileptic, 
and that 141 criminal children had 12 parents who died of phthisis. Now, while these figures 
suggest the existence of a positive correlation in the direct parental inheritance of criminality, 
insanity, and phthisis, their proportions are not in conformity with the plausible hypothesis in 
the mind of the author, that insanity and phthisis in one generation may influence the appear- 
ance of criminality in the next. In fact, from the evidence of the records, the only condition 
that might seem likely to give rise to physical degenerative changes associated with a criminal 
diathesis in the descendants, is parental alcoholism. The records give for the parents of "homi- 
cides," 71''/„ alcoholic ; for the parents of non-criminal peasant women, 16°/„ alcoholic. How- 
ever, in view of the fact, that the majority of the homicidal women were also themselves 
alcoholic, the significance of this alcoholism in the parents is somewhat modified. What we 
want to know is, not the relative incidence of alcoholism in the parents of criminal and non- 
criminal children, but its relative incidence amongst the parents of alcoholic children who are, or 
are not, criminal as well. 
Of the value of the stigmata of degeneration, quoted as proof of the existence of a criminal 
type, we have only space here to say that the objection to this kind of observation, so popular 
with criminologists of the old school, is that no one can precisely define what it is that is being 
observed ; and that the error due to any unconscious bias in the observer may be so large as to 
render the value of such evidence entirely nugatory. That the criminal women were found to 
have ten times as many stigmata as the women who were not criminal may seem to be conclusive 
evidence that ought to tell. Scientifically, however, such evidence is unfruitful and leaves the 
mind cold and unconvinced. 
We wish we had more space in which to discuss some other points in this interesting book. 
But we have already strayed from our chief purpose which is to congratulate Dr Pauline Tarnowsky 
on her work and to recommend it to the attention of biometricians. 
Britai?i's Blot* is the title of a book dealing with " Recidivism " — a general term including all 
kinds of Habitual Criminality and Habitual Petty Delinquency. The meaning of this figurative 
title is given in the introduction of the book. " The fiice of Society," writes the author, " is 
mottled all over by the actions of its law breakers and transgressors, and on this mottled area 
* G. F. Sutherland, M.D., F.R.S.E.: W. Green and Sons, Edinburgh. 
