The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-09-07

dle-shaped pallets"
In commenting on the amazing table
of measurements which demonstrate
that there is little or no difference be-
tween the average" criminal and the
average" university student, at least
SO far as his head dimensions are con-
cerned, the English Investigation con-
cludes:
I'VE conclude that the convicted felon
has the same shape and girth of head
as oxford students but that in three
principal head diameters prison i'll
mates fall short of oxford university
students by l 1a to 2mm. Before draw
ing hasty conclusions, however, from
these small reported differences, two
facts must be remembered The one
is that heads of convicts are closely
cropped of hair a fact which necessar-
lily leads to a relative depreciation of
recorded head measurements; the other
is that the recorded differences Of ceph-
allie measurements between criminals
and oxford or Cambridge students are
not greater than similar differences be-
tween the respective students of these
two universities In breadth of head,
Cambridge exceeds Oxford to about the
same extent that oxford men exceed
criminals; but criminals and oxford men
are equally longer headed than the Cam
bridge men-index rs as against 1915.
III
third university by introducing tD Abb
erdeen undergraduates into the con-
'trast. the verdict is that prison inmates,
as a whole. approximate closer-in- head
measurements to the universities gen
orally, than do students of different
universities conform with each other in
this regard. In fact, the mean length.
breadth, height, index and circumfer-
ences of head. which are 1915, 1884,
1923 7S.S and 1926 respectively, in
Scottish undergraduates, all are re-
markably close to. and three out of five
are almost Identical with lengths and
head breadths of university students
and of convicts. duly corrected for age
and stature.
CLEARLY, in cephalic characters, crimi-
nails are> not conspicuously differentiated
from the we'll nourished well developed
university section of the upper middle
class; a section which in other respects
in education, in intelligence, and in ply
sique, as measured by stature-are the
most distantly removed from the criminal
classes. In mean head-length, there Is no
difference between criminals and Cam
bridge students: in mean head-breadth
there is only difference. and in head
height there is no difference between con-
victs and the University college staff; in
mean head-index, Oxford students. well
as the university staff are almost identical
with criminals. and in mean circumfer-
. ence of head, criminals and Scottish stu
dents correspond in q similarly close de-
gree. In fact. from knowledge only of
an undergraduates cephalic measure
ments. better judgment could be given
as to whether he were studying at an
English or Scottish university than pre-
diction could be made as to whether he
would eventually become university pro-
fessor or a convicted felon'
DR.. Goring has something intensely in
teresting to say about the enormous dis
crepancy in stature between the criminal
class and the law-abiding citizen.
I'VE have concluded, he says, that the
inferior stature and weight of criminals
Is the result of selection, and is not an
inbred criminal trait. A possibility, how