The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1890-06-15

Students OF human nature will find full of in
terest a book just issued by Scribner & We'll
ford, of New York. 1t is an American reprint
of IIavelock Ellis's "The Criminal" and be-
longs to the Contemporary Science" series.
1t deals with a subject whose literature in the
English language is small. II examines crimi-
nails scientifically, and its three hundred and
odd pages are full of matter of unusual interest
AS the preface states, it is an attempt to pre-
sent critical summary of the results of the
science now commonly called criminal anthro-
pology, and this it does clearly, forcibly, and
succinctly. 1t gives mass of significant facts,
drawn from great variety of sources, of the
physical, mental, and moral peculiarities of
criminals, and its deductions enforce strongly
the need of more enlightened methods in deal
ing with crime and those who commit it,
Criminals are divided in several classes, such
as political criminals, criminals by passion, or
those who become such in resenting grievous
injuries in temporary fits of anger; insane crimi-
nails, the instructive criminal, the occasional
criminal, and the professional criminal. or
nearly all these classes large percentage have
an unmistakable taint of insanity. Nearly
hundred persons every year in England are
sent to prison to be found insane on admission.
The hanging of persons who are afterward gen.
orally regarded as insane has always been and
is still carried on there. In Germany DR.. Rech-
ter has shown that out of LA lunatics who were,
as was afterward shown, at the date of their
crimes in the highest degree insane, only thirty
eight were recognized as insane before the
Judge. The insane criminal is only criminal
in the sense that an infant or an animal is that
performs some noXious act.
AS striking instance of the criminal by in
failing stock, the case of Thomas Wainwright,
the English essayist, who wrote under the name of
James Weathercock, is given. His crimes ranged
from forgery to assassination, he having poi
soned several people with strychnine. He was
a man of many sentimentalities and super-refne-
ments; he hated all vulgarity and 'sordid in
stncts." His tastes were sensual in every re-
spect. Notwithstanding his means, they were
not sufficient to satisfy his desires for luxurious
food and drinks, for fine perfumes, for large
Jewels to wear. He and his wife poisoned his
uncle secured the latter's fortune, and spent it.
Then they poisoned the wife's step-mother,
gaining little by it: and later one of the wifes
step-sisters met similar fate. Her life had
been insured for 100000, but suspicion was
aroused and the insurance not paid. The
couple then fled to France, where Wainwright
poisoned, at Boulogne, man in whose house
they lived and from whom he had secured a
large loan. Wainwright was later lured to Eng
land, tried and convicted on the charge of
forgery, and sentenced to transportation. The
only thing that CALLED him was being placed in
irons in the hold of the ship. ''They thought
me desperado,' he wrote. ''Me, the com
pauion of poets. artists. musicians, and philoso-
phers desperate! You will smile at this-no,
l think you will feel for the man, educated and
reared as a gentleman, now the mate of vulgar
rut1ians and country pumpkins" Wainwright
presented perfect picture of the instructive
criminal in his most highly developed state. At
one time in his life he was on the verge of in
sanity if not actually insane. The occasional
s,
mally constituted person. His sensual instincts
need not be much stronger than usual. Weak
ness is his chief characteristic. Occasional
crime is one of the commonest forms; it is that
for whose existence and development society is
most directly responsible.
The occasional criminal is the one who deyel-
opsinto the habitual criminal. AS illustrating
this NJ. Jolly is quoted as giving the experience
of the police concerning the thefts that take
place in the great Paris shops: "This is the be-
ginning. From the gallery one sees woman
rich or well-to-do-who buys a certain number
of objects and pays for them, but without ask
ing permission she takes some little, almost in
significant object--a little ribbon to fasten par
eel, a more cOmmodous paper bag. No one will
see that she is stealing; no one will think of
speaking to her or disturbing her. But she is
observed, or even watched, for one expects to
see her again some time after taking as she
walks along say flower worth twenty-five cen
times little later she will take an article of
greater value, and henceforth she will take for
the pleasure OF taking. Another time woman
who had no intention of stealing, but whose con-
science is probably elastic, grows impatient at
the delay in attending to her wants. 1t is, let
us suppose purse worth ninety-five centimes,
and the shopman is busy with purchasers of more
expensive objects. Suddenly the woman ner-
vously yields to a swift temptation; she does not
wish to wait longer, but instead of replacing the
purse on the counter she slips it into her pocket
and turns on her heel without paying. From
that moment she is lost: she will come back to
steal but she will steal Intentionally and delb-
erately."
The secret preliminary criminal history
is given of two educated young men, of ap-
parently good lives, who astounded their friends
one day by committing an atrocious murder for
money. One of these histories is reproduced
/. His employer is obliged to dismiss him on
account of misconduct with servant girl. g
He writes untruthful letters to his family
describing habits of work which do not exist
g. lie acquires eXtravagant habits of specua-
tion on the Stock Exchange. 4. He speculates
with the savings which two girls had en-
trusted to him for investment. 5. To obtain
money from his father, to whom he talks of
establishing himself, he forges letters. 6, He
embezzles various sums of money by an aggra-
waited pen of the same process. Z. He steals a
watch from his paramour's rooms s. He steals
money from the same. 9. He decides on the
murder of the old mliwoman with whom he
had had business, and whose savings as he
knows, are considerable. Such are the slow
steps by which the occasional criminal becomes
the habitual or professional criminal. The lines
which separate these from each other, or both
from the instructive criminal, are often faint
or imperceptible.
Passing briefly over the writings of the
ancinnts Innnhinn the nhNsical NM ntnlL