Without reference to conflicting theories it will be well to study carefully and soberly the forms of insanity which are known to lead frequently to the commission of crime.

SPECIAL FORMS OF INSANITY IN THEIR RELATION TO CRIME.*

Crime may result from defective development as well as from disease of the mind. From a practical standpoint it matters little whether the symptoms exhibited in a given case, or the actions committed, are due to improper growth of brain (and mind) or to actual disease of a brain that was once normal. Both forms are morbid in the sense that they indicate a departure from the normal. But as the brain and the men

Fig. 25.-Ravachol: asymmetry of face, deviation of nose, slight growth of beard, and firmly set jaws.

tal faculties are not fully developed until the age of puberty has been long passed, we must also include the consideration of those crimes which are the result of unripe judgment rather than of disease; but as a matter of fact very few youthful persons are guilty of violent or wrong acts unless they bear the germs of impending insanity or the traces of a tainted family record.

Persons cannot be held responsible for criminal acts

1. If they have not yet attained the age at which they can be expected to realize the full import of their actions, although they may appear to be capable of such development later

on.

2. If they give evidence of arrested or defective development of the brain (idiocy and imbecility). 3. If they exhibit evidence of such disease of the mind as affects. the fully developed brain, or of conditions of degeneration that become apparent only after body and mind have matured.

4. If at the time of the commission of crime they were in an unconscious condition or in a state of altered consciousness.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDREN.

The law of every land concedes that a child cannot be held responsible for criminal actions: its judgment is defective, and it does not between the habitual criminal and the insane. The annexed faces will suffice to prove the existence of the insane type among criminals; but if any reader will take the trouble to consult Byrnes's Professional Criminals of America, he will find that the majority of those habitual criminals exhibit few, if any, signs of degeneracy. For the present there is still a wide gap between criminality and insanity. The entire question is cleverly dealt with in the book by Havelock Ellis entitled The Criminal. The conclusions of the Italian school of criminology are also criticised in the work of Baer and in the monograph of Hirsch.

*For a fuller account of each form the reader is referred to Dr. Hamilton's article in this volume.

realize its relations to the other elements of the social organism; it may be able to discriminate between right and wrong in certain concrete instances, but of the abstract principle of right and wrong it has no conception. The early acquisition of such knowledge is, however, the main object of all training.

The limit of childhood is fixed differently in various countries. In this country responsibility begins with the fourteenth year. Lord Hale demanded that a normal individual should have the understanding "as ordinarily a child of fourteen years hath." Austria adheres to the same

limit, while Germany exacts full responsibility after the completion of the twelfth year; in France there is no well-defined age-limit, and children under ten are not infrequently brought to court and sentenced. In all civilized countries there is a tendency, however, to extend the limit; in France to the age of sixteen years or thereabout, and in other countries even up to the age of eighteen years. This is quite in keeping with the efforts at criminal reform, and special reformatory institutions have been established at different places for the care and reform of youthful delinquents. Among the general average of youthful criminals not a few show signs of a bad inheritance.

The statistics of early crimes are quite appalling, showing the need of special legislation; according to Krafft-Ebing the average number of criminals under sixteen years in Prussia varies between 5085 and 9225. A very few only of these youthful criminals are examined with reference to their mental condition; if such an examination were made it is safe to say that a very large number would give undoubted evidence of defective inheritance, or of deficient mental and moral training in early years. And this deficiency in training is often in direct relation to the mental peculiarities of parents. Several of the worst cases at the Elmira Reformatory have been boys who were supposed to be of normal mental development, even bright; yet their descent from hysterical and epileptic stock, and the poor training which neurotic parents gave them, were

Figs. 28 to 33.-Selections from sketches made by Dr. Vaus Clarke of Woking Prison, and reproduced in Ellis' book.

Fig. 28.-Dock laborer, aged 18: assault and robbery. Fig. 29.-Farm laborer, aged 38: horsethief. Fig. 30.-Laborer, aged 21: robbery with violence. Fig. 31.-Puddler, aged 21: wounding. Fig. 32. Cook and steward: larceny. Fig. 33.-Age 25: robbery with violence. All but one (Fig. 31) had been previously convicted.

Fig. A.-Aged 37 years; killed Dr. Lloyd, asylum physician; in love with Mary Anderson; declared "insane and responsible (!); life sentence. Characteristic pose of body. Fig. B.-Aged 50 years; insane ancestry; impulses to kill his children; murdered a policeman without cause. Hallucinations and delusions; "can talk with mice, birds," etc.; melancholy countenance.

Fig. C.-Aged 26 years; murder in the first degree; sentence commuted to life imprisonment; one term at reformatory; insane ancestry. Is depressed: delusions of persecution; massive jaws; dolichocephalic; exophthalmos; coronal suture depressed.

Fig. D.-Aged (?); shot at a female church-organist. Hallucinations of hearing caused act. Insanity not recognized on trial. Says he is "Duke of Sussex and Earl of Beauharnais."