The Roanoke daily times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1895-1897, 1896-12-01
CRIMINAL TENDENCIES.
Entire Families Frequently Follow Their
Parents Example
New York Herald

(New I ork Herald
The hcreditability of crime has long
been IL problem that has exercised the
miuds of sociologists and criminolopists
of all countries. 1t is commended by some
scientists that when II child develops
criminal proclivities the fact is due not
or not ut least so much, to an Inherently
defective brain as to the tainted atmos-
phcre in which it is reared; that con-
science, the moral sense, to quote the
words of DR.. II. S Williams in Il recent
essay upon the subject, reflects the indi-
vidual environment during the period of
Elasticity, when conscience is forming
that is, in childhood and adolescence.
DIR. Williams contends that there are
good, rs we'll us bad tendencies in every
body, and that in the great majority of
cases criminals have failed to better
themselves simply because they were hu
man and could not rise superior to the
surroundings amid which they were born
and brought up.
There is good deal of logic in this ar
gument, which is that adopted by many
thinkers who have made n special study
OF this important subject But there is
equal logic in the dissertations of others
who claim that habitual criminulitv NAV
he, and in many notable cases is. n form
o! moral degeneracy, that is Inherited like
certain bodily diseases and drunkenness
This latter contention has just received
striking confirmation from Prof peli-
mann, of Bonn Univers ity, Germany.
Prof. Pellman has made profound study
of drunkenness, it's cuuses and effects
With infinite labor and perseverance he
has taken bad eases of persons addicted
to inehriety in different PARTS of his coun
try, and traced the habit back through
many generations, until he has been able
to present tabulated biographies of hun
dreds descended from some original
drunkard.
Prof. Pcllman now comes forward with
the account of II German Jane Cakebread,
in the person of Frau Ada Jurke, VINO
was born in the year of 1140 and who. it
is to be hoped, will forever hold her un-
enviable record as the transmitter of de.
pravity to more than 700 of her dies.
cendantS.
Frau Ada Jurlle was sixty years of age
when she paid her debt to nature" and
for the last forty years of her inglorous
life was II drunkard, Il thief, and tramp
Her descendants have numbered S34, of
whom iO9 have been traced by Prof. Pell-
man in local records from youth to death
OF the i00 he found that 100 were born
out of wedlock. There were 142 beggars
and I'll more who lived from charity OF
the women, ISL lived disreputable lives
Seventy-siN members of the family We're
cOnvictS, of whom seven were sentenced
for murder. The remainder were more
or less addicted to excessive tipping
Altogether the German savunt esti.
mates that Frau Ada Jurke and her de.
scendants have cost the State-that is,
the taX-payers-no less than 1925. 600, 600
for maintenance, etc.
This monumental instance of inherent
depracity is certainly il strong argument
in favor of those who assert that, however
uneNceptionable the environment of n
child may be, ana whatever advantages
of precept and example it may enjoy, the
faint of vice transmitted to it through
successive generations will inevitably
manifest itself ut some period or other of
its career.