Che Conservative *
CRIMINALS AND THE INSANE.
BY Sill FHANCIB GAT/TON.
Criminality , though not very various
in its development , is extremely com
plex in its origin ; nevertheless certain
general conclusions are arrived at by
the best writers on the subject , among
whom Prosper Despine is one of the
most instructive. The ideal criminal
has marked peculiarities of char
acter : his conscience is almost
deficient , his instincts are vicious ,
his power of self-control is very weak ,
and he usually detests continuous labor.
The absence of self-control is due to un
governable temper , to passion , or to
mere imbecility , and the conditions that
determine the particular description of
crime are the character of the instincts
and of the temptation.
The deficiency of conscience in crimi
nals , as shown by the absence of gen
uine remorse for their guilt , astonishes
all who first become familiar with the
details of prison , life. Scenes of heart
rending despair are hardly ever wit
nessed among prisoners ; their sleep is
broken by no uneasy dreams on the
contrary it is easy and sound ; they have
also excellent appetites. But hypocrisy
is a very common vice ; and all my in
formation agrees as to the utter un-
truthfuluess of criminals , however
plausible their statements may be.
We must guard ourselves against
looking upon' vicious instincts as perver
sions , inasmuch as they may be strictly
in accordance with the healthy nature
of the man , and , being trausniissable by
inheritance , may become the normal
characteristics of a healthy race , just as
the sheep dog , the retriever , the pointer ,
and the bull dog , have their several in
stincts. There can be no greater pop
ular error than the supposition that
natural instinct is a perfectly trust
worthy guide , for there are striking
contradictious to such an opinion in in
dividuals of every description of animal.
The most that we are entitled to say in
any case is , that the prevalent instincts
of each race are trustworthy , not those
of every individual. But even this is
saying too much , because when the con
ditions under which the race is living
have recently been changed , some
instincts which were adapted to
the old state of tilings are sure to be
fallacious guides to conduct in the new
one. A man who is counted as an atro
cious criminal in England , and is pun
ished as such by English law in socia
self-defence , may nevertheless have
acted in strict accordance with instincts
that are laudable in less civilized societ
ies. The ideal criminal is , unhappily
for him , deficient in qualities that are
capable of restraining his unkindly or
inconvenient instincts ; ho has neither
sympathy for others nor the sense o
duty , both of which lie at the base of
conscience ; nor has ho sufficient self
control to accommodate himself to the
ociety in which he has to live , and so to
iromoto his own aolus'ii interests in the
eng run. Ho cannot bo preserved from
criminal misadventure , either by altru-
stic sentiments or by intelligently ego-
stic ones.
The perpetuation of the criminal class
) y heredity is a question difficult to
grapple with on many accounts. Their
vagrant habits , their illegitimate unions ,
and extreme uutruthfuluess , are among
the difficulties of the investigation. It
is , however , easy to show that the crim
inal nature tends to be inherited ; while ,
on the other hand , it is impossible that
women who spend a large portion of the
best years of their life in prison can con
tribute many children to the population.
The true state of the case appears to be
that the criminal population receives
steady accessions from those , who , with
out having strongly marked criminal
natures , do nevertheless belong to a type
of humanity that is exceedingly ill
suited to play a respectable part in our
modern civilization , though it is well
suited to flourish under half savage con
ditions , being naturally both healthy
and prolific. These persons are apt to
go to the bad ; their daughters consort
with criminals and become the parents
of criminals. An extraordinary exam
ple of this is afforded by the history of
the infamous Jukes family in America ,
whose pedigree has been made out , with
extraordinary care , during no less than
seven generations , and is the subject of
an elaborate memoir printed in the
Thirty-first Annual Report of the Prison
Association of New York , 1876. It in
cludes no less than 540 individuals of
Jukes blood , of whom a frightful num
ber degraded into criminality , pauper
ism or disease.
It is difficult to summarize the results
in a few plain figures , but I will state
those respecting the fifth generation
through the eldest of the five prolific
daughters of the man who is the common
ancestor of the race. The total number
of these was 128 , of whom thirty-eight
came through an illegitimate grand
daughter , and eighty-five through legit
imate grandchildren. Out of the thirty-
eight sixteen have been in jail , six of
them for heinous offences , one of these
having been committed no less than
nine times ; eleven others led openly dis
reputable lives or were paupers ; four
were notoriously intemperate ; the his
tory of three had not been traced , and
only four are known to have done well
The great majority of the women con
sorted with criminals. As to the eighty
five legitimate descendantsthey were less
flagrantly bad , for only five of them har
been in jail , and only thirteen others hac
been paupers. Now the ancestor of al
this mischief , who was born about the
year 1780 , is described as having been a
jolly companionable man , a hunter , am
a fisher , averse to steady labor , bu
working hard and idling by turns , and
who had numerous illegitimate children
vhose issue has not been traced. He
vas , in fact , a somewhat good speci-
nen of a half-savage , without any sor-
ously criminal instincts. The girls
vero apparently attractive , marrying
early and sometimes not badly ; but the
gypsy -like character of the race was unsuited -
suited to success in a civilized country.
So the descendants went to the bad , and
such hereditary moral weaknesses as
they may have had , rose to the surface
and worked their mischief without
check. Cohabiting with criminals , and
icing extremely prolific , the result was
; he production of a stock exceeding 500
in number , of a prevalent criminal typo.
Through disease and intemperance the
breed is now rapidly diminishing ;
the infant mortality has of late been
horrible , but fortunately the women of
the present generation bear usually but
few children , and many of them are
altogether childless.
The funny pa
HOG WIT NOT pers of Spain , with
ORIGINAL
WITH SPAIN. great unanimity ,
represent the
Americans as hogs. Pictures of porkers
dressed in the stars and stripes of the
flag of the republic , and having faces
representing the president and leading
military and naval heroes of the United
States are common in all the pictorial
facetiousness of Spain. But even the
idea of ridiculing persons as pigs was
plagiarized. For at a dinner given in Phil
adelphia , in 1798 , at which Governor
Mifflin was present , a roasted pig became
the representative of Louis XVI , and the
dinner being on the anniversary of the
murder of that sovereign , the pig's head
was severed from the body , then carried
round to each of the convives , who after
placing the liberty on his own head , pro
nounced the word tyrant and gave the
poor little grunter's head a chop with
his knife.
But in 1788 , only ton years previous ,
Philadelphia had erected a triumphal
arch to Louis XVI and inscribed it :
Merendo memores facit. His merit
makes us remember him.
Oh i e f Justice
NEBRASKA'S FIRST
FernlsOn W a S
SUPREME COURT.01b
appointed , by
President Pierce , from the state of Mich
igan ; Judge Hardiu from Georgia ; and
Judge Bradley from Indiana. The two
latter returned to their respective states.
But Chief Justice Ferguson remained a
Nebraskan , represented the territory in
congress and died at Bellovue.
FROUDE ON COLONIZATION.
If there bo one lesson which history
clearly teaches , it is this : That free
nations cannot govern subject provinces.
If they are unwilling or unable to ad
mit their dependencies to share their
own constitutions , the constitution it
self will fall in pieces from mere incom
petence for its duties. Froude's 'Coesar' .