South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1913-08-15

/ The researches of DR.. Goddard and his
associates in the Training School for De
/ fectives, at Vineland, y. j., have led to
/ the interesting discovery that the un-
usually large percentage of defective and
feeble minded children found in that sec
ton of New Jersey may be traced very
| largely to colony of paupers and de-
generates who for years have picked up
preca riouS livelihood in the pine barrens
of that part of the State and who have
come TO be known as 1.-The Pineys." Ig
norant, clannish and low in the scale of
civilization. there has been among them
much inbreedmg as a result of consan-
guineous matings.
Commenting upon the investigations OF
Or. Goddard and others, DIR. Davenport
saws in his book In view of the GER
tainty that all of the children of two feeble
minded parents will be defective, how
great is the folly. yes, the crime, of let
ting two such persons marry 1t has
happened many times that keepers of
poorhOuses have let feeble minded women
in their charge go to marry a half-witted
farmer. in order to relieve the town of
the burden of maintaining her. Some
years later both she and her husband
come TO the poorhouse as permanent in
habitants and bring half dozen imbecile
children TO be permanent charge on the
community. Surely there is no economy
in this"
August brahms. for many years the
resident chaplain of the California State
prison, at San Quentin, published a book
called THE Criminal" with commenda-
tory introduction written by Cesare LON
broso, the famous criminologiSt and pro
fesSor of psychiatry in the University of
Turino. Italy. In that work Mr. brahms
said -
"Of hereditary insanity and epilepsy
at the Elmira Reformatory. New York,
the total ancestry among inmates thus
calculated averaged IL per cent; drunk
enneSs was clearly traced 10 ancestral
sources in 37.6 per cent and doubtful in
II per cent. At Auburn Penitentiary,
New York. 1908 per cent of the inmates
were of neurotic stock Moro found 90
per cent of morbid inheritance from
parents on the whole among the criminals
ne examined Mr.. Dugdale found ont
OF 233 offenders in the New York prison
11.16 per cent were of criminal families.
OBI per cent were of pauper stock. 42.49
per cent of incorporate and one out of
every four born of neurotic parentage in
one or both. Sichard. Director of Prisons
in Germany. concluded that out of sew.
oral thousand prisoners examined in the
prisons in that country some form of in
herited neuroticiSm or suicidal tendency
prevailed among thieves 20 the extent of
2S.7 per cent: sexual offenders. 23.6 per
cent, and among inceadiaries, 36.S per
cent.
Tie heredity of the tendency of thiev-
ing. says Ribot, Is so generally admitted
that it would be superfluous to bring to-
Sether facts which abound in every record
Of judicial proceedings In the House
Of Detention at Perth DIR. Thompson
found 100 prisoners belonging only To
fifty families Vergilio ascertained that
1 out of 266 criminals were affected
By hereditary faint"
In an interesting chapter on The Geo
graphical Distribution of Unbeatable
Traits" DR.. Davenport calls attention to
the frequent illustrations found in isolated
localities where intermarriage has been
the rule rather than the exception, thus
tepSi-- - narnats'ata defects in the germ