The St. Johns herald., 1896-01-11
A STUDY OF TATTOOING.
Extent Of It's Practice Among the
 Criminal Classes.
Some Interesting Facts Regarding the Tendency of Certain Glasses In the Employment of This
 Peculiar Art.


 The French scientific journal, Archives d'Anthropologie Crilninelle, prints a curious and interesting study of tattooing in its relation to criminals and other outcasts, vagabonds, and the insane. The article is made up partly of extracts from a recently published German work on the subject and part ly from the studies of anthropologists in various countries, especially in Italy, France and Germany. Some persons have thought that the habit of submitting to the tattooing process, not unusual among criminals and rare among persons of regular and reputable life, was evidence of the close relation of the criminal to the primitive savage, in fact, an effect of atavism. There have been many attempts also to trace a relation between the subjects de- picted in tattoo upon the bodies of criminals and others and their mental and moral characteristics. The con- clusions of the article are not favorable to those theories.
 Although an examination of crimina.s in many prisons seems to indicate a decided taste for tattooing among them, the belief of the compiler of the article is that the fact that a man is tattooed cannot be taken as indicating anything as to the category to which he belongs. It is believed that the frequency of tattooing among any class of men is isdetermined by external rather than internal causes. No anthropolog- ical analogy is found in the tattooed designs, though the subjects of tattoo ing upon the persons of prisoners agree with the views and customs of persons belonging to their social grade. Tat tooed persons do not have marked criminal characteristics, and ordinarily they are not dangerous or insensible to good. Lines without color made in prison by the prisoner upon himself seem to indicate morbid psychic ex- citement. ColOred tattooing is valu- able aid in reconstructing the past of a prisoner and for the identification of criminals, though not so good for the latter purpose as anthropometrics.
 The facts and figures that precede these conclusions are of the most curi- ous sort. Tattooing seems to be com mon among the lowest class of women of loose lives. One student of the sub- ject examined eight hundred of these women, and found that ten per cent. of them were tattooed. Names and initials of lovers were common marks. sAol c. <La to signify that the affection was eternal. Hearts pierced with a dagger were common. as, indeed, they are up- on tattooed men. The breast and fore arm are favorite places for tSttooing with both women and men. There is conjecture that women of weak will and vagabond habits submit to tattoo ing oftener than others, and its prev alence among women of loose lives is ascribed to their association with crim- inals.
 It has been found that considerable proportion of the insane poor are tat tooed. They exhibit curious variety of subjects, allegorical, cratic, re- hgious and conventional, but the stu 0SnIo O4 buC SuOJCCI 1ldNC AOb UCCA able to discover that the hallucina- tions of the mad have any relation to the tattoo marks that they bear. Favorite subjects are woman's head and bust, soldiers, clasped hands, which is probably masonic sign; stars, comets, boot with spur, Christ cruci- fed, an altar with candles, the sun, animals and mathematical figures.
 The article does not refer to the &C., cepted belief that tattooing is com moner among sailors than among men in other occupations, though some sta tistics of the former occupations of tattooed criminals show a large propor- ton of sailors. There is no special reference to the elaboratcly tattoocd men and women that exhibit them selves in dime museums on this side of the water, or to the fact that men have been found tattooed almost from head to foot with masonic emblems. There is no reference, either, to the fact that the enforced idleness of some prisoners and of sailors on long voyages probably leads them to resort to tattooing as a means of killing time.