Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1897-02-18
GAMES OF CRIMINALS.
How Those Doomed to Confinement Be
hind the Bars Amuse Themselves.

Mario Carara, a disciple of Cesare
Lombroso, the Italian expert in Grim
inal anthropoiogy, has made a special
study Of the sports that criminals en-
gage in. The innocent games Of child
hood in the case of criminals, are
tinctured with cruelty, and sometimes
accompanied by homicide Criminals
skip the rope, but part OF the game is
to trip up the jumper and let him fail
heavily upon the stone pavement.
Criminals play leap frog, but the OBJ
ject Of the game is that he who makes
the black" shall rise suddenly and
violently just as the frog mounts and
throw him to the ground.
The criminals play blindman's buff,
but the man with the bandaged eyes
carries a handkerchief bearing in one
corner a jagged stone, a piece of hard
sharpened wood or bit OF iron. With
this weapon he strikes those whom he
pursues. Another remarkable form OF
this game is for the blinded one to be
struck by one or another OF his COM
panions if ne fails to name the one
that touches him The penalty is not
the innocent one of the children's
game, but a blow so severe thai a ply
stefan has often to be called in after
the game is over, and occasionally the
sufferer is disabled for some time.
1t has been found in those Italian re
fOTmatOries where prisoners are not
kept in solitary confinement that pris
oners' games are often accompanied
with bloodshed, and that it is almost
impossible to prevent cruelties. This
is especially true where prisoners WI
together, for they secrete tools and use
them as weapons in brutal sports.
In one of these games the player has
in each hand a stick, having fixed in
the end keen metallic point. He
interweaves his arms, revolving the
sticks with rapidity, and the game is
for another prisoner to thrust his head
between between the arms and en-
deavOr to follow the revolutions Of the
sticks without being wounded. 1t US
ually happens that he receives fifteen
or sixteen wounds and comes out wiCA
a bleeding ear, while now and then
Mortal wounds are received.
The victim in another game has his
eyes bandaged and places his palm
upon a table, with fingers spread fan
like Another criminal repeatedly
strikes between the fingers with q
pointed instrument. If he wounds q
oT,0 7o1n n
woe to the man who refuses the eX-
change. The game is danger Gus, al
though the criminals assert that the
wounds to the fingers are not deep CIR
severe. because. as they say, the metal
i points are snort and do not pene-
t.. tie far-a grim form of philosophy.
The sport of criminals is accompan-
led by characteristic craft. This is
specially shown in the methods which
the newcomer is initiated into prison
life. The novice is conducted into an
improvised court chamber, where the
judges are his fellow prisoners. He is
placed on a stand and gravely tried
on a pretended charge, and he has
barely been condemned when the stand
is suddenly drawn away, so that he is
thrown violently upon She earth.
Many games necessarily imply re-
sistance to pain as an absolute condi-
ton of success. For example, there is
the game of needles" One of the
PLAYERS places his closed fists upon the
table, holding steadily two needles,
one in each hand, the points being
slightly exposed. 1t is the game then
for a companion to strike with his own
fists those of the other, and it becomes
a question of endurance between the
one pricked with the needles and the
one the one whose fists are beaten by
the others knuckles. There are con-
tests in which fingers and hands are
wounded, and the scars are an hon
orable distinction.
The characteristic feature of all
these games, which are the recreation
exclusively of criminals in prison, is
the love Of combat. IT, as is held by
experts, sports are the means of work
ing off the superfiuous activity of life,
it is evident that superfiuous activity
in the case of prisoners, is especially
powerful It has been noted in the
case of prisoners that there is a pre-
valence of great agility and Iitheness,
which Professor Lombroso considers
a negative evidence of mental weak
ness, since it testifes to a greater de-
velopment Of the notorial centers at
the expense of the other cerebral CEN
tiers. But usually this physical energy
is not properly used in the ordinary
life Of the criminal, and finds outlet
and enjoyment in sport.
Another characteristic of the games
Of criminals is the admiration shown
for physical force, manifested in the
docility with which the vanquished in
such sports submit to the brutality of
the victors-a thing observed among
savages.
Finally, the insensibility to pain ex-
hibited in the sports of criminals
proves that such men are less acute in
their physical senses as we'll as less
sensitive to the pains of others. since
what seems to others uselessly cruel
is only the usual thing with criminals.