THE ARMY OF CHIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12955, 26 August 1905, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ARMY OF CHIME.

HOW TO DEAL WITH IT. BY I'KOI'KSsOK LOJIBKOSO, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF XCBIK. Tun nucleus of the army of crime is constituted by the terrible class of individuals, few in number, born criminal. The born criminal has many characteristics of physiognomy and mine] of the inferior races— j prognathism, deep and premature wrinkles like wounds, extraordinarily heavy jaws, retreating forehead, impulsiveness, cruelty, I and tattooing. And all that is joined with j lite specific signs of epilepsy, such ass asymmetry and intcrmittenee. Intelligence is not always lacking in them. Some even have been known with the lyrical gift. They ; arc, however, marked more by cunning than by genius. What constitutes their defect is not always the absence of the notion of j light and wrong. It is the moral sense, the ethical restraint of the highest order. They abandon themselves to their impulses, and are incapable of resisting their passions, : generally ignoble and further the more transitory that they burst forth with ex- | treme violence. They are always dominated j by vanity and vindictivencss. One of their characteristic, feelings is hate for hate's sake, hale without reason. Liars, they always end by believing what they have invented. CRIMINALS BY PASSION. Finally, there- are the delinquents that we can look upon as the irregulars or frauestireurs of the army of crime. They are those guilty by passion and guilty by opportunity. " Intelligence and morality in their case are of the highest order. Generally after the crime they repent, to the point sometimes of suicide. They never fall back into crime. While ill the case of the born criminal the cause of the crime is most often quite unimportant, in the case of criminals by passion it is very serious. The criminals of this class never lay a snare, they have no accomplices, and prepare no alibi. Most often they strike blindly and madly right and left, using for the moment a muscular force of which they were incapable the'moment before, ami will be incapable the moment after. I understand by criminals of opportunity, or criminaloids, a limited class oi born criminals, individuals aflliclcd with a. certain blindness of moral sense and feeling, and with a certain predisposition to crime, but moved to commit crime only phlognialioally, after a sufficiently long series oi more or less direct provocation, hesitating and recoiling, and finally acting under the stimulus of a crisis. Woman usually acts then at the instigation of her lover. Man has generally the perspective of a considerable gain, the acquisition of which is possible with impunity. '.Many criminals of opportunity, fai from repenting after their first misdeed—which is sufficient almost to prove the morbidness of their villainyrelapse, and frequently, and for causes more and more slight. We owe this development most of all to the penitentiary regime. Prisons are the true, breeding-places of crime. Criminals of opportunity thus become professional, hardened and' incurable criminals, distinguishable from the born criminal only by a less deplorable physiognomy and history. CAUSES OF CHIME. Heredity is an incontestable cause. Sichart lias calculated that of every 1000 epileptics, lunatics, ciimiuals, or drunkards who have normal children, 232 have offspring of one of the same classes as themselves. The proportion is 236 •■ for incendiaries, 228 for thieves, and 232 for swindlers. It is increased twofold if wo bring into account grandparents and collaterals. But there are numerous sources of crime that an energetic people can ultimately eradicate from its bosom, Here conies the question of economic causes. Where you have, riches capable of quickly attaining vast proportions you have an incitement to swindling and peculation, to offences against morality, to adulteration of goods, and that is the. product of the intense life of the great modem capitals, where the notions of power and honour of so many people are confounded. Then, in its turn, misery also leads to peculation and swindling, and then to burglary, incendiarism, and bandittage, which can often be looked upon merely as a perverted variety of the claim for economic compensation. Alcoholism, again, multiplies crime. It is equally well known that dimes against .decency are in general committed by persons iu a state of overfeeding, while other crimes, and in particular violent attempts upon life and property, are favoured by hunger, a .social product. As to the effects of education, we must recall what has been said of Voltaire—namely, that its importance is exaggerated, while at. the same time if is not sufficiently taken account of, On the one baud, the illiterate class presents the largest proportion of burglars, j pickpockets, nocturnal assailants, incendiaries, and infanticides, and the smallest pro- I portion of forgers. On the other hand, the semi-literate predominate among the abettors of murder, vendettas, and swindlers, and the literate among those guilty of pecu- j lation and the corruption of officials, of forgery and blackmail. Embezzlement, ; falsification, and abstraction of deeds are, naturally, we may say. special to those of the most cultivated class. The one thing is to be set- up against (be other. But it cannot be denied that the absence or insufficiency of family upbringing is a, fundamental cause of delinquency. There are also the influences of occupation. SOME REMEDIES. The distinctions we have established among the forms of crime, and the classification we' have sketched of the causes of crime, suggest clearly enough the suitable remedies. If is clear we can do nothing against the i influence of heredity, temperament, age, and ' sex, and that the classes of the born and the insane criminal are inherent in all social ■states. Nevertheless, in a country where, as ill England, asylums for dangerous lunatics keep lor life most of the criminal insane, and a notable proportion of the bom criminals, the individuals of those two classes can scarcely do more harm to society, and to maintain them society spends much, less than they would cost if they were shut up only temporarily on each successive arrest and conviction. As for the number of criminals of opportunity, it diminishes when for the first lapse they receive conditional freedom which keeps them out of prison, and which in consequence prevents many of them becoming professional criminals. To restrict still further the scope of this category, we must put great, weight upon schemes and institutions founded with a view to abandoned, unfortunate, and abnorj mal children. Further, there is the anti- | drink crusade, which attacks the very root of the evil by substituting for the abuse of wine and the use of spirits the taste for tea and coffee, and the brain stimulants of a higher order such as public spectacles. Finally, we must, recognise that private, associations, Governments, and religious bodies arc zealous\ rivals in the campaign. To that fad in great measure is due the | phenomenon presented by England, Scot- | land, and the Canton of Geneva, the only countries of Europe where to a constant growth of population corresponds a constant enormous diminution in serious crime, except as regards outrages upon decency, lighting and wounding in quarrels, and in England— Australia has considerably reduced its criminality without .strengthening the penal laws, always' too severe and often useless, and without multiplying gaols, which are useless and injurious. If lias gone to the root of the evil— namely, poverty, alcohol, and lack of education. The campaign against these scourges lias been conducted, not by a few philanthropists, but by a whole social body, more concerned in this mission than in military expenditure, an archaic folly with which the Old World is so much troubled in infecting ('tie new nations. What Australia has done in its light against crime Europe will do on that day, not far off, when she will have learned that a. preventative cure is a more economic and humane process of defending society against the wild fury of the criminal than extreme judicial or penal rigour, little Scared by the guilty, and a constant menace to the innocent— day when all the nations called civilised will resolve to limit their military charges in order to dedicate to the war upon crime a great portion of their material and moral resources. (Written for " Potential" Copyright, in I Great Britain and the United States. J^ l