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THE CRIMINOLOGY SERIES
EDITED BY IV. DOUGLAS MORRISON, M. A.

THE FEMALE OFFENDER

tfte Criminology Series.

EDITED BY W. DOUGLAS MORRISON.
Each, i2mo, cloth, $1.50.

POLITICAL CRIME. By Louis Proal. With an

Introduction by Prof. F. H. Giddings, of Columbia

University.

"At times the author's numerous illustrations, taken from various
countries and ages, show that the difficulty of maintaining absolute
rectitude in public affairs equals that of the rich man in his efforts to
enter the kingdom of heaven. But, on the other hand, his ultimate
conclusion is that, as the art of governing is one of the most noble, so
the actual exercise of the art is compatible with the loftiest standard of
integrity." — London Spectator.

THE FEMALE OFFENDER. By Prof. Caesar Lom-
broso and William Ferrero. Illustrated.

" There is no book of recent issue that bears such important rela-
tion to the great subject of criminology as this book." — New Haven
Leader.

CRIMINAL SOCIOLOGY. By Prof. E. Ferri.

" A most excellent and instructive work. ... It will well repay
perusal by all who have dealings of any nature with criminal classes,
and is of great importance to those who desire to inform themselves on
what is one of the great problems of the age."— Detroit Free Press.

OUR JUVENILE OFFENDERS. By W. Douglas
Morrison, author of " Jews under the Romans," etc.

In this volume Mr. Morrison deals with the extent and character
of juvenile crime. He shows the effect of sex and age on criminal
tendencies, and describes the geographical distribution of the juvenile
criminal population. Mr. Morrison has a vast amount of personal ex-
perience behind him, and his work derives additional interest from the
fact that he is dealing with a subject which he knows at first hand.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

THE

FEMALE OFFENDER

PROF. C^SAR LOMBROSO

AND

WILLIAM FERRERO

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
W. DOUGLAS MORRISON

HER MAJESTY'S PRISON, WANDSWORTH

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

D. APPLETQN AND COMPANY

1903

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DEC 3

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Authorized Edition.

INTRODUCTION.

It is generally recognised that the supreme if not the
exclusive object of criminal law and penal adminis-
tration is the protection of society. Unfortunately it
cannot be said at the present time that either criminal
law or penal administration is fulfilling this object. In
a recent comprehensive survey of criminal problems,
Professor von Liszt, a distinguished German jurist,
felt himself compelled to admit that our existing
penal systems are powerless against crime. Similar
expressions of opinion are of frequent occurrence
among eminent specialists in France, Italy, and else-
where ; and it is only because the question of crime
has recently fallen into the background in Great
Britain that the same confession of failure is not
heard with equal emphasis among ourselves.

In order to be satisfied that these grave allegations
are resting upon solid grounds of fact we have only
to look at the increase of criminal expenditure and
the growth of the habitual criminal population among
all civilised communities. As far as Great Britain
and the United States are concerned, the annual
official expenditure in connection with crime amounts

VI INTRODUCTION.

to an enormous sum. In Great Britain this expendi-
ture reaches a total of at least ten millions sterling
per annum, and according to a recent report of
the Ohio Board of State Charities, the citizens of
the United States spend an annual sum of fifty-
nine million dollars on judiciary, police, prisons, and
reformatories. What is the result of this vast annual
drain on the resources of the nation ? Are the people
getting an equivalent in the shape of a diminution
in the numbers of the criminal classes ? According
to all the evidence we possess, it is to be feared that
this is not the case. Here are the words of General
BrinkerhofT, President of the National Prison Congress,
as to the condition of affairs in the United States :
" Other questions which agitate the public and divide
parties are doubtless important. But the country can
live and prosper under free trade or protection, under
bimetallism or monometallism, under Democracy or
Republicanism, but it cannot survive a demoralised
people with crime in the ascendant. That crime is
on the increase out of proportion to the population
is indicated in many ways, but for the country as a
whole, the United States census is the most reliable
guide. Let us look at it by decades :

Year.
1850
i860

Prisoners.

6,737

19,086

Ratio to population,
I in 3,442
I in 1,647

1870
1880
189O

32,901
58,609
82,329

I in 1,171
I in 855
I in 757

This rate of increase in a few states, we are glad to
note, has not been maintained, and in one or two, for
the higher crimes, it has even decreased a trifle ; but,

INTRODUCTION. Vll

upon the whole, the swell has been continuous like a
tide that has no ebb."

In the United Kingdom it is impossible to estimate
the movement of the criminal population by a refer-
ence to the number of persons detained in prisons and
convict establishments on a given day. Owing to
the growing practice of committing juveniles to in-
dustrial institutions of all sorts ; owing to the substi-
tution of fines for imprisonment ; and owing to the
shortening of sentences, the prison population of
Great Britain has not increased in the same manner as
in the United States. But when the value of existing
methods of penal administration is tested by the
growth of the habitual offender we are confronted
with a similar record of disastrous failure.

Why are our penal methods so helpless and dis-
comfited in face of the criminal population ? Why
do the combined efforts of legislators, judges, police,
and prisons produce so few practical results ? Is it
because the social disease with which these agencies
are grappling is beyond the reach of human skill, and
will continue to rage with unabated virulence so
long as social life exists ? This deduction is hardly
warranted by the facts. The failure of existing
methods of criminal legislation and administration
is not to be accepted as a proof that the organised
forces of society are face to face with an incurable
disease in the body politic. All that the failure of
our present methods succeeds in establishing is the
immediate and imperative necessity of placing our
whole penal system upon a more rational foundation.

The collapse of penal legislation is to be accounted

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

for on the ground that it proceeds upon principles
which are not resting on the facts of social experience.
It is assumed, for instance, in every criminal code that
the only remedy, or almost the only remedy, against
the criminal population is the fear of punishment.
As far as the average member of the community is
concerned, it is not to be denied that the fear of penal
consequences may exercise a salutary effect on his
impulses and resolves at some critical moment in his
career. To what extent the dread of coming into
collision with the criminal law determines the course
of human action is in the nature of things impossible
to estimate. In any case it may safely be accepted
that the ordinary man — that is to say, the man who
habitually lives under ordinary social and biological
conditions — is on critical occasions deterred from
entertaining certain kinds of anti-social ideas by
an apprehension that the practice of them will be
followed by public indignation and public punish-
ment.

If the criminal population was composed of
ordinary men it is possible that the purely punitive
principles on which the penal code reposes would
constitute an efficient check on the tendency to
crime. But is it a fact that the criminal population
is composed of ordinary men ? Is there any evidence
to show that the great army of offenders who are
passing through our prisons, penitentiaries, and penal
servitude establishments in a ceaseless stream is made
up of the same elements as the law-abiding sections
of the community ? On the contrary, there is every
reason to believe that vast numbers of the criminal

INTRODUCTION. IX

population do not live under ordinary social and
biological conditions. It is indeed a certainty that
a high percentage of them live under anomalous
biological and social conditions. And it is these
anomalous conditions acting upon the offender either
independently or, as is more often the case, in com-
bination which make him what he is.

Penal laws pay exceedingly little attention to this
cardinal and dominating fact. These laws assume
that the criminal is existing under the same set of
conditions as an ordinary man. They are framed
and administered on this hypothesis ; and they fail
in their operation because this hypothesis is funda-
mentally false. It is perfectly evident that a legis-
lative and administrative system which is drawn up
to meet one set of conditions will not be successful if
in practice it is called upon to cope with a totally
different set. A patient suffering from an attack
of typhoid fever cannot be subjected to the same
regimen, to the same dietary, to the same exercise
as another person in the enjoyment of ordinary
health. The regimen to which the patient is sub-
jected must be suited to the anomalous condition in
which he happens to be placed. Criminal codes to
be effective must act upon precisely the same prin-
ciple. They must be constructed so as to cope with
the social and individual conditions which distinguish
the bulk of the criminal population, and it is because
they are not constituted upon this principle that these
enactments are so heloless in the contest with crime.

The impotence of criminal legislation is also due
to another circumstance. It follows from the falla-

X INTRODUCTION.

clous principle that the offender is an ordinary man,
that each offender must be dealt with on exactly the
same footing if he has committed the same offence.
On this principle all offenders convicted of the same
offences must be subjected to the same length of
sentence, the same penal treatment, the same punitive
regulations in every shape and form. This idea finds
expression from time to time in popular outcries
against the inequality of sentences. It is seen in
the newspapers that one person is sentenced to six
months' imprisonment for an offence of the same
nature and gravity as another person who is only
sentenced to six days. The offences are in all
essential respects the same, but the sentences are
absurdly different. It is immediately assumed that
there has been some miscarriage of justice, and a
great deal of popular indignation is the result. In
many cases there can be no doubt that the popular
instinct is right. Existing methods of penal
treatment do not admit of the application to
any great extent of sentences of unequal length
for offences of a similar character. Our penitentiary
systems are based upon the principle of uniformity
of treatment for all offenders. In this respect they
resemble our penal laws and are like them equally
barren of good results. As long, therefore, as we
have almost exactly the same kind of prison treat-
ment for all sorts and conditions of offenders, so long
will public opinion be to a large extent justified in
protesting against the unequal duration of sentences
for offences of a similar nature and gravity.

But, apart from the considerations which have just

INTRODUCTION. XI

been mentioned, the principle of equality of sentences,
as far as their mere duration is concerned, is funda-
mentally erroneous. The duration and nature of
sentences, as well as the duration and nature of prison
treatment, must be adjusted to the character of the
offender as well as to the character of the offence.
In other words, judicial sentences and disciplinary
treatment must be determined by the social and
biological conditions of the offender quite as much as
by the offence he has committed. In certain cases
this principle is acted upon now, but if penal methods
are to be made of greater social utility, it is a prin-
ciple which must be much more extensively applied.

The principle of adjusting penal treatment to
the social and biological condition of the offender
is acted on, for instance, in the case of children. A
theft committed by a child of twelve is not dealt with
by our judges and magistrates in the same manner
as a theft of precisely the same kind by a person of
mature years. In the one case the juvenile is perhaps
dismissed with an admonition, or if his parental con-
ditions are defective, he is ordered to be detained in
an industrial or reformatory school. In the other
case the offender of mature years is usually committed
to prison. But according to the maxim that the
punishment should be adjusted to the crime, both
these offenders should be sentenced to exactly the
same form of penal treatment. Again, in the case of
offences committed by adults, if the one offender is a
man and the other a woman the sentences are not
the same, although the offence may be precisely the
same. Or again, in the case of offences committed

Xll INTRODUCTION.

by men the sentences are not the same if the one is
discovered to be feeble-minded and the other is in pos-
session of his senses. In all these instances justice
works upon the maxim : Si duo faciunt idem, non est
idem. It sets aside the notion that two offences of
equal gravity are to be dealt with by awarding the
same amount of punishment to both. In such
circumstances equality would be gained at the
expense of justice.

The principle that punishment should be adjusted
to the condition of the offender as well as to the
nature of the offence is distinctly laid down by Ben-
tham. " It is further to be observed," he says, " that
owing to the different manners and degrees in which
persons under different circumstances are affected by
the same exciting cause, a punishment which is the
same in name will not always either really produce,
or even so much as appear to others to produce, in
two different persons the same degree of pain. There-
fore, that the quantity actually inflicted on each
individual offender may correspond to the quantity
intended for similar offenders in general, the several
circumstances influencing sensibility ought always to
be taken into account." As he says elsewhere,
" These circumstances cannot be fully provided for
by the legislator ; but as the existence of them in
every sort of case is capable of being ascertained,
and the degree in which they take place is capable of
being measured, provision may be made for them by
the judge or other executive magistrate to whom the
se\ eral individuals that happen to be concerned may
be made known." In both these passages Bentham

INTRODUCTION. Xlll

makes it perfectly plain that in penal legislation and
administration other circumstances must be taken
into account besides the actual offence ; and the cir-
cumstances to which he alludes are what we have
already described as the social and biological condi-
tions of the offender.

The question therefore arises, What are these con-
ditions, and how are they to be ascertained ? What
these conditions are and how they can be ascertained
can easily be got at by an examination of the delin-
quent population in our penitentiary establishments
of various kinds. Let us look first at social con-
ditions. In the sixteenth Year Book of the New
York State Reformatory a very excellent account
is given of the social antecedents of the in-
mates. According to the returns 2,550, or 52*6
per cent., of the inmates came from homes which
were positively bad, and only 373, or J'6 per cent,
came from homes which were positively good. It
is also stated that 1,998, or 41*1 per cent., of the
population left home before or soon after reaching the
age of fourteen, and in a total population of 4,859 it is
recorded that only 69, or 1 and a fraction per cent,
were surrounded by wholesome influences at the time
of their lapse into crime. When we come to look at
the social condition of juveniles committed to Re-
formatory Schools in England we are confronted
with a very similar set of results. According to the
returns for 1892, in a total of 1,085 juveniles com-
mitted to these institutions, only 425 were living
under the control of both parents. All the others
had only one parent, or had one or both parents in

XIV INTRODUCTION.

prison, or had been deserted by their parents alto-
gether. The social condition of the juvenile popula-
tion in the prisons of our large cities is equally as bad.
In a high percentage of cases they have either no
homes or no parents, and are without skilled occupa-
tion in any shape.

Instances such as these — and they might be multi-
plied a hundredfold — make it quite plain that it is
useless attempting to deal with the offence without
looking at the same time at the social conditions
of the offender. In the majority of cases the offence
is the natural and almost inevitable product of these
social conditions. Up to the age of sixteen the
magistrates and judges in England are empowered
by law to take these adverse circumstances into
account, and to send the offender to a school instead
of committing him to prison. But after the age of
sixteen has been passed our penal legislation makes
absolutely no provision for the unhappy juvenile
bereft of paternal support and paternal counsel at the
most critical period of his existence. Imprisonment
is its only remedy. But as imprisonment does no-
thing to remove the adverse social circumstances
which have turned the juvenile into a criminal, it has
absolutely no effect in preventing him from continuing
to pursue a career of crime. As long as the condi-
tions which produce the offender remain he will
continue to offend, and as long as Penal law shuts its
eyes to this transparent fact it is doomed to impo-
tence as a weapon against crime.

The criminal, as we have said, is a product of
anomalous biological conditions as well as adverse

INTRODUCTION. XV

social circumstances. Dr. Lombroso's distinctive merit
consists in the fact that he has devoted a laborious
life to the examination of these biological or, as he
prefers to call them, anthropological anomalies.
Criminal anthropology, as he has termed his investi-
gations, is really an inquiry on scientific principles
into the physical, mental, and pathological charac-
teristics of the criminal population. The present
volume is an example of the method in which these
inquiries are conducted. It is a translation of that
portion of Dr. Lombroso's La Donna Delinquent z which
deals with the female criminal. Dr. Lombroso had
predecessors in France in such men as Morel, Legrand
du Saulle, Brierre de Boismont, and Prosper Despine ;
and in England in Pritchard, Thomson and Dr. Nicol-
son. But he has surpassed all these writers in covering
a wider field of investigation, in imparting a more
systematic character to his inquiries, and in the prac-
tical conclusions which he draws from them. Dr.
Lombroso proceeds from the principle that there is
an intimate co-relation between bodily and mental
conditions and processes. In accordance with this
principle he commences with an examination of the
physical characteristics and peculiarities of the criminal
offender. As a result of this examination he finds
that the criminal population as a whole, but the
habitual criminal in particular, is to be distinguished
from the average member of the community by a
much higher percentage of physical anomalies. These
anomalies consist of malformations in the skull and
brain and face. The organs of sense are also the
seat of many anomalies, such as abnormal develop-

XVI INTRODUCTION.

ment of the ear, abnormalities of the eye and its
protecting organs, abnormalities of the nose, such as
a total absence or defective development of the
bony skeleton ; abnormalities of the mouth, such as
hare-lip, high palate, and malformations of the teeth
and tongue. The criminal population also exhibits a
considerable percentage of anomalies connected with
the limbs, such as excessive development of the arms
or defective development of the legs. We have also
sexual peculiarities, such as femininism in men, mas-
culism in women, and infantilism in both. Where a
considerable number of deep-seated physical anomalies
are found in combination in the same individual, we
usually see that they are accompanied by nervous and
mental anomalies of a more or less morbid character.
These mental anomalies are visible among the criminal
population in an absence of moral sensibility, in
general instability of character, in excessive vanity,
excessive irritability, a love of revenge, and, as far as
habits are concerned, a descent to customs and plea-
sures akin in their nature to the orgies of uncivilised
tribes. In short, the habitual criminal is a product,
according to Dr. Lombroso, of pathological and ata-
vistic anomalies ; he stands midway between the
lunatic and the savage ; and he represents a special
type of the human race.

It is almost needless to remark that Dr. Lombroscs
doctrine of criminal atavism and the criminal type has
provoked a considerable amount of opposition and
controversy. It is impossible in the space at our com-
mand to examine the question in detail. The most
weighty objection to the doctrine of a distinctively

INTRODUCTION. XV11

criminal type is to be found in the circumstance that
the mental and physical peculiarities which are said to
be characteristic of the criminal are in reality common
to him with the lunatic, the epileptic, the alcoholic,
the prostitute, the habitual pauper. The criminal is
only one branch of a decadent stem ; he is only one
member of a family group ; his abnormalities are not
peculiar to himself; they have a common origin, and
he shares them in common with the degenerate type
of which he furnishes an example.

Let us give a few instances of the ratio of de-
generacy among the criminal population of Great
Britain and the United States. Among the inmates
of the New York State Reformatory 12 per cent
were descended from insane or epileptic parents, 38
per cent were the children of drunken parents, and
4 per cent, were the children of pauper parents. In
England suicide is five times more prevalent among
the prison population than among the general com-
munity, insanity is twenty-eight times more prevalent.
According to a census taken of the English convict
establishments in 1873 it was found that 30 male
convicts per thousand were suffering from weak mind,
insanity, or epilepsy. It was also found that 109 per
thousand were suffering from scrofula and chronic
diseases of the lungs and heart, and that 231 per
thousand were afflicted with congenital or acquired
deformities and defects. In Scotland 33 per cent, of
the cases of insanity occur among offenders who have
been in prison before, and in England 41 per cent, of
the cases of suicide occur among offenders who have
been in prison before. More minute investigation

XV111 INTRODUCTION.

into each individual case would undoubtedly heighten
all these percentages. But as they stand they are
sufficiently striking, and they establish beyond the
possibility of a doubt that the criminal population
exhibits a high percentage of defective biological
conditions.

In what way do our existing methods of penal law
and administration attempt to deal with the offender
exhibiting these anomalous conditions ? Do we
act upon the principle so clearly enunciated by
Bentham of adjusting our methods of penal treat-
ment to the nature of the offender as well as to the
nature of the offence? On the contrary, as far as
adults are concerned, the existence of this principle is
practically ignored. It is assumed that all offenders
are the same, and are therefore affected in exactly
the same way and to the same extent by penal
discipline. And what is the result ? A steady and
uninterrupted increase of recidivism ; a failure of
penal law and penal administration as instruments of
social defence, a constant augmentation of expendi-
ture in connexion with the repression of crime.

What are the best means of mitigating this
unsatisfactory state of affairs? In the first place
penal law must be constructed with a view to cope
with the conditions which produce the criminal
population. At present the principal office of a
criminal court is to ascertain whether a person under
trial for a criminal offence is innocent or guilty ; if
he is found to be guilty the sentence is almost
entirely determined by the character of the offence.
Except in glaring cases of lunacy the court takes

INTRODUCTION. XIX

little or no cognisance of the individual and social
conditions of the offender. The sentence is not
adjusted to contend with these conditions. In fact
it is often calculated to aggravate them, and in such
instances is worse than useless as a weapon against
the tendency to crime. It should be made the
business of a criminal court to inquire not merely
into the alleged offence, but in cases of conviction
into the conditions of the offender who committed it ;
and the duration and nature of the sentence must be
determined by the results of this inquiry quite as
much as by the nature of the offence. It may be
said that this proposal is throwing new and unac-
customed functions upon courts of justice, and to a
certain extent this is no doubt the fact. But it is
also to be remembered that as social organisation
increases in complexity, the machinery of govern-
ment must be adapted to these new conditions. The
judicial machine is at present of too primitive a
character : in order to do its work efficiently it must
be reconstructed, its functions must be enlarged.

In the next place penal establishments must be
placed upon the same basis as penal law. In other
words, they, too, must be classified and administered
with a view to deal with the conditions which pro-
duce the offender. At present these establishments
are all of practically the same type ; they are all
administered on the same lines. Except in extreme
cases the same kind of penal treatment is meted out to
all classes of offenders. Uniformity of penal establish-
ments and uniformity of penal discipline rest upon
the assumption that all offenders are of the same type

XX INTRODUCTION.

and are produced by exactly the same conditions.
A practical acquaintance with the criminal popula-
tion shows that this is not the fact. The criminal
population is composed of many types. It is com-
posed of casual offenders who do not differ to any
great extent from the ordinary man ; it is composed
of juvenile offenders ; it is composed of insane, weak-
minded, and epileptic offenders ; it is composed of
habitual drunkards, beggars, and vagrants ; and
finally there is a distinct class consisting of habitual
offenders against property. It is useless applying
the same method of penal treatment to each and all
of these classes of offenders. The treatment must be
differentiated, and determined as far as practicable
by the kind of criminal type to which the offender
belongs. In order to effect this object, penal estab-
lishments must as far as possible be classified. Where
classification of penal establishments is impossible,
and where, in consequence, offenders of various types
have to be incarcerated in the same establishment,
these offenders should be classified in accordance
with the type to which they belong, and subjected to
a regimen adapted to their class. If these principles
of penal treatment were applied to the criminal
population it is certain that recidivism would
diminish ; it is certain that the habitual criminal
would become a greater rarity, and, most important
of all, it is certain that society would enjoy a greater
immunity from crime.

W. D. M.

CONTENTS.

-»<>•-

CHAPTER I.

PAGB

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER , . I

CHAPTER II.

PATHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES OF THE FEMALE OF-
FENDER . # 27

CHAPTER III.
THE BRAINS OF FEMALE CRIMINALS • , 36

CHAPTER IV.
ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS • .45

CHAPTER V.

FACIAL AND CEPHALIC ANOMALIES OF FEMALE

CRIMINALS • . • • .76

CHAPTER VI.

FURTHER ANOMALIES . • ■ .82

XX11 CONTENTS.

FAGH

CHAPTER VII.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES • 88

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CRIMINAL TYPE IN WOMEN AND ITS ATAVISTIC

ORIGIN . . ... • IO3

CHAPTER IX.
TATTOOING . . . . . . 115

CHAPTER X.

VITALITY AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF FEMALE

CRIMINALS . . • • .125

CHAPTER XI.

ACUTENESS OF SENSE AND VISUAL AREA OF FEMALE

CRIMINALS ..... I34

CHAPTER XII.
THE BORN CRIMINAL .... 147

CHAPTER XIII.
OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS . . . . 1 92

CHAPTER XIV.
HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS . . , 2l8

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.

CRIMES OF PASSION,

CHAPTER XVI.

SUICIDES •

CHAPTER XVII.
CRIMINAL FEMALE LUNATICS

XX111

244

• 269

289

CHAPTER XVIII.
EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS AND MORAL INSANITY , 298

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. SKULL OF CHARLOTTE CORDAY (3 plates).

Facing page 34

2. OLD WOMAN OF PALERMO . „ 72

3. PHYSIOGNOMY OF RUSSIAN FEMALE OFFENDERS

(4 plates) . . . Facing page 76

4. GABRIELLE IiOMPARD . . „ 96

5. THOMAS „ 98

6. MESSALINA • • • „ 98

7. MARGHERITA. LOUISE . . „ IOO

8. PHYSIOGNOMY OF FALLEN WOMEN, RUSSIAN

(4 plates) . . . Facing page ioo

XXVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

9. PHYSIOGNOMY OF FRENCH, GERMAN, AND RUS-
SIAN FEMALE OFFENDERS (5 plates).

Facing page 102

10. NEGRO. RED INDIAN . . ,, 112

1 1 . FIELDS OF VISION OF F. M., IN EPILEPTIC ATTACK

and tranquil state (2 plates). Facing page 142

12. FIELD OF VISION OF FEMALE OFFENDER

(2 plates) • , . Facing page 144

CHAPTER L

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

When one of the present writers began his obser-
vations on delinquents some thirty years ago, he
professed a firm faith in anthropometry, especially
cranial anthropometry, as an ark of salvation from
the metaphysical, a priori systems dear to all those
engaged on the study of Man.

He regarded anthropometry as the backbone, the
whole framework indeed, of the new human statue ot
which he was at the time attempting the creation ;
and only learnt the vanity of such hopes and the
evils of excessive confidence when use, as is usual,
had degenerated into abuse.

For all the differences between the authors of this
work and the most authoritative modern anthropo-
logists— all of them in reality professors of anthropo-
metry— arise precisely from the fact that the vari-
ations in measurement between the normal and the
abnormal subject are so small as to defy all but
the most minute research.

One of the writers had already noted this fact as
his work "The Criminal Man" was reaching its
second and third editions ; and only became still more

2 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

convinced of it when Zampa's observations upon the
crania of four assassins in Ravenna disclosed an
exact correspondence between their measurements
and those found in an average taken upon ten normal
Ravennese. And while the anthropometrical system
failed thus to reveal any salient differences whatever,
anatomico-pathological investigation, on being ap-
plied to the same crania, proved the existence in
them of no less than thirty-three anomalies.

But unfortunately the attention of inquirers had
been diverted from the anatomico-pathological method
to anthropometry, with the consequence that the
former came to be rashly abandoned. And as one
result of this we may mention that Topinard and
Manouvrier, being deficient in anatomico-pathological
knowledge, failed to detect the immense anomalies
existent in certain crania of assassins which they
were examining ; and because there were no salient
anthropometrical differences in these skulls and the
skull of Charlotte Corday, they rejected the theory
of anomaly altogether.

We must not, however, be understood to advocate
the total abandonment of measurements. On the
contrary, we would retain them as the frame, so to
speak, of the picture ; or, rather, as the symbol, the
flag of a school in whose armoury numbers furnish
the most effective weapon ; and we would recommend
such retention the more, that whenever a difference
does result on measurement, the importance of the
anomaly is doubled.

The study of female criminology was undertaken
by Messrs. Bergonzoli, Soffiantini and myself, with

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. 3

the help of 26 skulls and 5 skeletons of prostitutes in
the possession of Signor Scarenzi. Messrs. Varaglia
and Silva l made notes on 60 criminal subjects who
died in the prisons of Turin ; while 17 others who
died in Rome were investigated by Mingazzini 2 and
Ardu 3 ; the proportion of offences being : Prostitutes,
4 ; infanticide, 20 ; complicity in rape, 2 ; theft, 14 ;
arson, 3 ; wounding, 4 ; assassination, 10 ; homicide,
15 ; poisoning, 4; abortion, 1. As regards race,
11 were Sicilians, 6 Sardinians, 31 Neapolitans, 7
natives of the March and Umbria, 2 Venetians, 4
Lombards, 4 natives of Emilia, 3 Tuscans, 3 Ligurians,
and 6 Piedmontese.

I. Cranial Capacity.

Beginning with cranial capacity, we have the follow-
ing : —

Normal Females

observed by

Female

Capacity.

Prostitutes.

Criminals!

Amadei.

Morselli.

Lunatics.

Papuans.

1,000 to 1,100 c.c. 3*8

172

273

I-I

2-50

4'o

I,IOO ,, 1,200

I5-3

I9'I

6 45

9 '2

7'47

12 0

I,20O ,, 1,300

42-3

46-3

21-8

29-9

2178

38-0

1,300 „ 1,400

23-0

22-5

309

30-1

37-12

24*0

I,40O „ I,500

ii'5

8-6

I5-45

137

25-35

8-o

1,500 „ 1,600

3'8

172

io'9o

1 2 "6

464

2'0

I,6oO ,, 1,700

—

1-82

2-3

—

2"0

1,700 „ 1,750

- —

—

0*91

1*1

1*07

—

The lowest capacity in the 60 criminals is 1,050;
the highest 1,630 (a poisoner). Among the prosti-
tutes the smallest is 1,110; the highest 1,520.

* Varaglia and Silva, " Anatomical and Anthropological Observation
on Sixty Crania and Forty-two Encephali of Italian Female Criminals.

2 G. Mingazzini " On Thirty Crania and Encephali of Italian
Criminals."

3 Ardit, ' ' Notes on the Biangular Diameter of the Mandible " (Archivio
di Psichiatria, 1892).

4 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The average among the first named is 1,295 with
respect to 13 brachycephalic crania, and 1,266 with
respect to 45 dolichocephalic crania, the latter being,
as Calori had already remarked, always of inferior
capacity.

Among female criminals we find the smaller
capacities to be more common in the serial averages
than among normal subjects, while the larger
capacities fall off more than one half.

Arithmetically speaking, the average of criminals
(1,322) is higher than the average shown by prosti-
tutes (1,244), and is a little even above the normal
(1,310—1,316).

But according to Mingazzini, who is a far better
and more trustworthy observer, the average cranial
capacity is 1,265, a very inferior average to that
furnished by normal Italian women, for whom the
figure found by Nicolini is 1,310, and by Mantegazza
and Amadei, 1,322.

And there is much importance in the fact that he
observed a capacity inferior to 1,200 in 20 per cent
of these criminals, and in only 5 per cent, a capacity
above 1,400 ; while among the normal women noted
by Amadei and Morselli, only 14 per cent, fell below
the former figure and 29 per cent, rose above the
latter : a result which establishes the inferiority of
criminals.

Coming now to separate delinquencies, we find the
figures of highest capacity to be under the different
heads as follows : —

Poisoning 1*384 I Wounding ... ... ... 1,314

Arson .. 1,328 | Infanticide ... ... ... 1,280

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER.
And of lowest capacity : —

Theft ... 1,261

Assassination (murder) 1,253
Prostitution i>244

Homicide
Rape

... 1,238
.M 1,180

The capacity again varies geographically, as under : —

Sicily 1,226

Sardinia 1,248

Calabria 1,280

Neapolitan Territory ... 1,260

Lombardy 1*250

Venetia l»5o6

The Marches
Tuscany

Emilia

Piedmont
Liguria

1,340
1,268
1,257
1,285
1,289

When these figures are compared with those known
in regard to normal females and female lunatics — for
instance, with the Tuscans of Chiarugi and Bianchi —
the average is notably lower.

II. Orbital Capacity.

The maximum orbital capacity among the 60
female criminals was 62, the minimum 44, and the
medium 5276 c.c.

For the series we have the following figures : —

44 c.c. ..

1 (

:raniurr

t= I"66

46 ,, ..

crania

= 3'33

48 „ ..

»,

= n-66

50 » ••

. 16

>»

= 26-66

52 „ ..

. 9

»,

= 15-00

54 » ••

. 5

»»

= 8-33

56 „ -

. 10

= 16-66

58 „ ..

• 5

= 8-33

60 „ ..

= 3*33

62 „ ..

• 3

= S'°°

In these series we have a predominance of the high
capacities of 50 and 56 c.c, and the average is 5276.

THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The distribution according to crime was : —

Poisoning ...
Assassination
Homicide ...
Wounding ...

57
54
53
53

Rape ... .
Infanticide.
Theft ... .
Arson... .

53
52
52
5i

The high capacities predominate in the gravest forms
of crime.

Among 26 prostitutes of Paris the average was 43*5,
showing an extraordinary inferiority to the remainder.
The minimum was 30, and the maximum 69 ; the
last being presented by a woman formerly a teacher
and notorious for her profligacy.

III. Area of the Occipital Foramen.

Inferior to 600
Between 601-650
„ 651-700
„ 701-750
„ 751-800
„ 800-850

2 = 3*33 Per cen*.
4 = 6*66 „

11 = 18-33 „
18 = 30-00 „
13=21-66 „

12 = 20-00 ,,

The minimum area is 580 mm.q., the maximum is
850, the average is 731. The larger areas, between
721 and 740 mm.q., predominate.

The distribution according to crime was : —

Arson

.. 790

Infanticide ... .

733

Wounding

.. 767

Homicide ... .

728

Poisoning

.. 767

Rape

710

Theft

.. 748

Prostitution ... .

705

Murder

•• 739

IV. Cephalo-Rachidian Index.

The predominant figures are between 15*01 and 19;
the minimum is 14*58, the maximum 21*69, tne average
1772

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER,

The distribution as regards crime is : —

Poisoning
Prostitution
Infanticide
Theft ...
Wounding

1 8*04

17-85
17*61

I7'57
17-40

Homicide

Murder

Arson

Complicity in Rape

17*06
17-03
1777
16-64

V. Cephalo-Orbital Index.

The predominant figures are between 22 and 26 ;
the minimum is 18*46, the maximum 30*90, the
average 24-64.

Distribution according to crime : —

Arson
Wounding
Infanticide
Poisoning
Theft ...

26*1

Prostitution

25-1

Murder ...

24-9

Homicide

24-3

Rape ...

24-3

... 23-0

... 22 -O

VI. Facial Angle.

The minimum angle is 69° the maximum 8i°.
The general average is 74*2° (according to Mingazzini
it is 8 30), the serial average is 740 to 760.

Distribution according to crime : —

Maximum.

Minimum.

Medium.

Poisoning

75° •

8o°

76-2°

Wounding

75° -

780

76°

Arson

7i° ..

. 79° ••

75°

Theft

780

720

76-9°

Infanticide

79° •

700

. 74-9°

Murder

77° •

. 71° ••

74-3°

Homicide

8i°

690

72-9°

Rape

. 73° •

.. 72-5° -

72*7°

Among prostitutes the maximum was 820, the
minimum 720, and the average 74-6°.
3

8 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

VII. Horizontal Circumference and Curves.

Proportion per cent.

Criminals.

Prostitutes.

Between 460 and 470

6-66

—

» 47o » 490

.. 43'33

42*1

„ 490 ,,510

•• 33*33

49*71

„ 510 „ 520

20 'OO

I2'5

„ 520 ,, upwards

... 7'6

i-66

Whence it appears that prostitutes do not reach either
the highest or the lowest figures.

The maximum circumference was found in a
poisoner of Verona (535), and in a woman guilty of
infanticide (530).

The predominating circumferences among criminals
are between 470 and 490 ; among prostitutes, between
490 and 510; while among 52 per cent, of normal
subjects, at least according to Morselli, the prevailing
figures are between 501 and 530.

The average presented by criminals — 492 (Min-
gazzini gives it 490*2), is inferior to the normal
average of Parisian women (498), and of the ancient
Roman women (505), but is equal, indeed superior
to the average among modern Italian women, which
is 491.

Curves. — An examination of the proportions of the
various parts of the fronto-occipital curve (reduced to
100), and of the anterior horizontal line (putting at
= 100 the total horizontal curve), we obtain, in
common with Varaglia and Silva, the following
results : —

Horizontal Anterior Curve 46*14

Sub-cerebral Anterior Curve ... 4*50

Frontal Curve 297

Parietal Curve 34*4

Occipital Curve 3i#o

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. g

These figures demonstrate that the asserted increase
in the sub-cerebral curve of the criminal does not
exist.

As regards the anterior horizontal curve, we find a
large development in Venetia (48*06) and in Umbria,
and a small one in the Marches and in Latinia

(45*31).

The figure given for Sardinian women, 4574,

differs notably from that of the modern women of
the same region, and approximates to the figure pre-
sented by the ancient Sardinian females, which was
46-94.

The medium anterior horizontal circumference is
227.

VIII. Cephalic Index.

Among 60 criminals we find 13 brachycephalic and
47 dolichocephalic crania. Among 26 prostitutes
we observed 3 sub-dolichocephalic and mesocephalic
crania (75 to 80), 17 brachycephalic and sub-brachy-
cephalic, with a minimum of 68 and a maximum of 82.

Mingazzini among 17 criminals found an average
of 73*35, which shows a larger number of cases of
dolichocephalic skulls than among the male criminals
whom he examined, where the average was 77 '81,
and this fact corresponds to the normal. In the 10
dolichocephalic skulls he found an average of 7'26>
and in the 8 brachycephalic an average of 80*65.

The average index among the 13 brachycephalic
skulls is 84*41 ; among the 47 dolichocephalic it is
74*58. Calori gives 84 as the average cephalic index
among Italian brachycephali, and 77 among Italian

10 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

dolichocephali. In the 26 prostitutes, all from Paira,
the average is 746, with a minimum of 68 and a
maximum of &2.

Among the Tuscans, 2 are dolichocephalic, with an
index of 7677, and one brachycephalic female had
the ancient Etruscan type.

Of 4 crania belonging to natives of Emilia, 2 are
dolichocephalic, with an average of 78, and 2 brachy-
cephalic crania have an average of 85, which is a
higher number than the average of the Bolognese
brachycephali. There are 20 crania from the
Neapolitan territory.

I. Crania from the Abruzzi, Molise, Avellino,
Benevento, Basilicata. Average index, 75*93 ; ver-
tical, 73-87.

II. Crania from Naples and Salerno. Average
cephalic index, 78*28 ; vertical, 75'0I.

III. Crania from Pughi. Average cephalic index,
76*10; vertical, 7274.

These are consequently all dolichocephalic, with a
minimum of 67*03 (in a poisoner), and a maximum
of 79*31 (in a murderess — assassin), and a general
average of 75*48. Calori found in the Neapolitan
provinces 52 per cent dolichocephalic, with a cephalic
index of 76.

Among Sardinian women we have an average of
70*9, with a minimum of 68*27, and a maximum of
74*28 (the subject was a thief). All these cases are
dolichocephalic to a higher degree than was ob-
served by Calori, who found 6 per cent, of brachy-
cephali, with an average of 74 among the dolicho-
cephali, and 81 among the brachycephali.

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. II

Zannetti found a minimum cephalic index of
65*07 and a maximum of 76*08, with an average
(among 6 women) of 72*36 ; which is a higher figure
than that obtained by us. The cephalic index of the
ancient Sardinian women is 74*81, while 71*64 repre-
sents that of modern Sardinian males, and 71*68 that
of the ancient male inhabitants. Our figure con-
sequently approaches that of the actual Sardinian
males, and differs from that of the present Sardinian
females.

The average vertical index of our female criminals
(71*22) is higher than that of the modern Sardinian
women (68*98), but lower than that of their ancient
progenitors (77*05), and approximates more nearly to
that of the Sardinian males, both modern (71/86) and
ancient (72*34). The Sardinian female criminal
more nearly resembles the contemporary male type
than the type of the woman of her epoch.

Sicilian Females, — According to Morselli the
measurement for normal females is 70*6, and for
normal males 74*5.

The ancient Corsican women had an index of
78*26, as against 73*53 among the men, showing a
difference of 473 in favour of the females.

This difference, which up to now remains insuf-
ficiently proved, results as reversed in 8 Sicilian
female criminals with a minimum index of 68*2, a
maximum of 77*19, and an average of 73*65, which is
much nearer to the male average (74*9) than to that
of the women of the Sicilian provinces.

Offences. — After this there is little importance to be
attached to the distribution according to crime.

THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Among prostitutes we find an average of 74*6.
The other results are as under : —

Average.

Infanticide

74 0

73*3

8l'2

Complicity in Rape

77-29

67-6

... 89-9

Theft

79-8

76-8

84-1

Arson

80-3

78-0

85-0

Wounding

75'4

72-4

84-2

Murder

75 '4

73*3

... 83-8

Homicide

76-1

74'5

83-0

Poisoning

74 '2

76-2

• •«

IX. Vertical Index.

The average among the 60 female criminals is 79*9,
according to Mingazzini 71*5, while among the males
it is 74*8.

The highest index is 82*53 ; the lowest 65*62, in a
woman of Cosenza who had committed infanticide,
and 6 1*6 in another criminal of the same class ob-
served by Mingazzini. Now it is to be remarked that
the Calabrian crania are among the most platy-
cephalic in Italy.

Among the modern Italian women, as among those
of ancient Rome and Etruria, the larger number of
crania have an index of 71 (Morselli), just as with
our female criminals ; the average being 72*31 for 56
Italian women of every race, while that of 99 male
crania is 73*85 (Mantegazza). These results differ
but little from ours.

The distribution according to crime is as fol-
lows : —

Homicide M 73'10

Murder (assassination) 71*34

Infanticide 7I'°9

Poisoning 7° '44

Complicity in Rape .

.. 8o-i8

Arson

• 78*31

Prostitution

.. 76-61

Theft ;

- 74'54

Wounding .

•• 73 '95

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. 1 3

X. Minimum Frontal Diameter.

Between 81 ■ 55

1= 1 '66 per cent.

,, 86* 90

... 17 = 28-33 „

» 91* 95

... 27=45-00 „

„ 96*100

... 12=20-00 „

„ 101*105

... 3- 5-00 „

The minimum frontal diameter among the 60
female criminals is 85 mm., the maximum is 102.
The average is 93 mm. ; and the predominating
figures are between 86 and 100 ; and especially be-
tween 91-95.

Among prostitutes the minimum is 85, the maxi-
mum 100, and the average 89.

XI. Coronal Diameter and Index.

The minimum coronal diameter is 97, the maxi-
mum 131, the mean 113 mm.

The prevailing figures are 106-120.

Among prostitutes the maximum is 126, the mini-
mum no, the mean 117.

The smallest coronal index is 75*42 ; the highest
reaches 97*02.

The prevailing measurements are between 75*0 1
and 90, 8o*oi to 85 being especially frequent. The
general mean is 82*94.

But these figures correspond more to the geo-
graphical origin of the respective criminals than to
their crimes, and the predominating numbers are
usually low. For the rest we generally find the
smallest frontal and coronal indices in the female
subject, owing to the lesser development in her of
the minimum frontal and coronal diameters and to

THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the larger development of the maximum antero-
posterior diameter.

XII. Minimum Frontal Index.

The smallest frontal index is 59*85, the largest
88. The general average is 69*97 5 an<^ the pre-
dominating numbers are between 65*01 and 75,
especially 65*01 and 70.

Between 55*01-60
60*01-65
65*01-70
70*01-75
75*01-80
80*01-85
85*01-90

1 = 1 *66 per cent.

2= 3*33

30=50*00 „

22 = 36.66 „

3= 5'°o t,

1= 1*66 „

1= 1*66 ,.

The distribution as regards crime was : —

Complicity in Rape ... 75 '43

Infanticide 7I#47

Homicide 70*39

Poisoning 70*28

Arson 67*18

Murder (assassination)

Wounding

Prostitution

Theft

68*87
6870

67*97
6776

XIII. Nasal Index.

The smallest nasal index is 36*53, the largest is
56*42. The average measurement is 46*25 (according
to Mingazzini, however, 48*09), showing narrowness
of nostril. The maximum is 56*4, and the minimum

36-5.

The distribution as regards crime is as follows : —

Poisoning 48*65

Arson 45*69

Wounding 47*5°

Complicity in Rape ... 45 *o8

Infanticide ~ 46*97

Murder 43*88

Homicide 46*27

Prostitution 42*92

Theft 46*14

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. 1$

XIV. Palatine Index.

General average 82*03 (but according to Mingaz-
zini 79/5), which is inferior to the male's (787). The
maximum is 100, and the minimum 68*o8.

The distribution as regards crime is as below : —

83*37

8275

8270

... ... 81 '74

Complicity

in Rape

... 87-23

Homicide

Poisoning

... 85-63

Arson . . .

Wounding

... 85-33

Infanticide

Theft ...

... 84-70

Murder...

XV. Orbital Index.

Among 17 female criminals the mean found by
Mingazzini was 8y6 on the right side, and 87*35 on
the left

Among 60 of the same class, Varaglia found 22
with an orbital index of over 89 ; 26 in whom the
figures were between 83 and 88-99 ' an^ 12 who only
reached 82*96. The general mean was 87*26. The
maximum (found by Mingazzini) was 102 in an
infanticide, while two other infanticides showed the
minimum of 74*66.

The distribution as regards crime was as follows :—

Wounding

... 8970

Complicity in Rape ...

85-98

Poisoning

... 89-69

Arson

85-18

Homicide

... 88-93

Prostitution

85-02

Murder

... 88-25

Infanticide ... ... ...

8475

Theft

... 86-04

XVI. Facial Index.

The minimum is 49*18, the maximum 77'&7 ; the
general average is 66-99.

The prevailing figures are 65*01-70.

THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The distribution as regards crime is as under : —

65-88

64*92

64-59

58-09

Homicide

.. 68-91

Murder...

Infanticide ... ... .

. 67-98

Prostitution

Wounding

. 67-80

Poisoning

Complicity in Rape .

. 67-49

Arson ...

Theft

. 66-oi

XVII. Total Height of Face.

wee

•n 56- 60 ..

1= 1*66

3er cent

61- 65 ..

. 1= 1-66

j»

66- 70 ..

. 3= 5'°o

»>

>»

7i- 75 ••

3= 5'oo

*»

76- 80 ..

13 = 21-66

»»

81- 85 ..

26=43'33

»»

86- 90 ..

11 = 18-33

»»

9i- 95 ••

1= 1*66

»»

96-100 ..

1= 1-66

»'•

The minimum height is 60 mm., the maximum 99.
The prevailing numbers are between 81-85, and
then between 76-80 and 86*90.

The distribution as regards crime is as follows : —

Wounding

Theft

Infanticide

Murder

Complicity in Rape

8i-s

Prostitution

Poisoning

Arson

XVIII. Bizygomatic Breadth.

Criminals.

Prostitutes.

Between 111-115= 8*33 per cent.

—

per cent.

„ 116-120 = 28-33 „

„ 120-125=46-66 „

»t

„ 126-130= 8-33 „

„ 131-135= 6-66 „

„ 136-140= i'66 „

—

The minimum breadth is in mm., the maximum
138 mm. The prevailing figures are between 121-
125, and then between 1 16-120.

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. IJ

Among prostitutes the average is 123, the maximum
is 130, and the minimum 118.

The distribution as regards crime is as follows : —

122

121.5

121. 5

120

XIX. Weight of the Lower Jaw.

A special — virile — characteristic of the lower jaw
among the 26 prostitutes is its greater weight rela-
tively to the cranium.

Arson ... ...

. 128

Infanticide

Poisoning

. 126

Theft ...

Wounding

. 123

Rape ...

Murder (assassination) ..

. 122

Homicide

Weight of Jaw.

Weight of Cranium

65*9 on an average

• ••

507

35 minimum (in syphilitics)

...

287

90 maximum

...

728

The average of 65*9 is really equal to the general
average, but if the two, absolutely abnormal minima,
of 35*33 are set aside we get an average of 70*5 ; and
in any case the weight relatively to that of the
cranium is 12*0, which is the same as in the male.
Mingazzini found the average weight of jaw among
17 female criminals to be 79/1, and that of the cranium

599*5-

Ardu, examining 20 crania of female criminals and
20 crania of normal women, obtained the following : —

Weight of Lower Jaw.

Weight of Cranium.

Crim.

Norm.

Crim.

Norm.

Maximum ...

... 87

. #■*

831

850

Minimum

... 54

...

466

313

Difference ...

... 33

...

365

537

Relation

... 82-4

45 "2

...

56'0

36-8

Total average ... 68 '2 63*0 586*2 516*5

The highest figure among criminals does not

1 8 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

reach that presented by the normal woman, but the
minimum is superior to the minimum of the latter*
The difference (between jaw and cranium) is notably-
smaller, and the average being higher, it follows that
the lower jaw of criminal women weighs more and
varies less than the corresponding feature among
normal women. The series of the crania is regular.

XX. Cranio-Mandibular Index.

Out of 20 crania Ardu obtained the following
results : —

Index.
Criminal. Normal.

Maximum 15*64 197

Minimum 7*34 9*0

Divergency 8*30 107

Relation 48*5 46*5

Total average ... 11 -54 137

Here the maxima and minima do not reach in the
criminal the same figures as in the normal woman,
and the average of the criminal is lower. This is
owing to the fact that while the criminal has a heavier
jaw and skull, the proportion between them is not the
same as in the normal subject : —

"Weight of Cranium in Criminal : ditto in Normal : 100 :: 85
,, Jaw „ : ditto „ : 100 :: 92

The cranium, that is to say, is heavier in proportion.

Among the 17 criminals mentioned by Mingazzini,
however, the index is 13*2, and 12*0 in 60 of the same
class observed by Silva ; and this yields an average
equal or superior to the male.

Normal
Women.

Normal
M ales.

55 Male
Criminals.

105
84
21
80

I05
92
13

87'5

117
89
28
76-1

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. 19

XXI. Bigonial Diameter.

According to observations made by Ardu upon 17
criminals their average is superior to that of normal
women, and even of the male, while the minima do
not fall to the figures shown by either ; that is to say,
the mean oscillates between higher limits : —

17 Criminal
Women.

Maximum 112

Minimum 89

Divergency 23

Relation 79*4

Total average ... 97*2 907 94*1 ioo'i

By analysis of the series we find : —

Under 80 o = *o per cent.

Between 81-90 3 = 17.6 „

91-100 ... 13 = 76-4 „

Above 100 1 = S'S „

Mingazzini found the least breadth (79*5) in a
husband-murderer, while a woman guilty of homicide
showed the maximum of 116.

I obtained the following among —

26 Fallen Women.
7*6 per cent.

15*3 ,»
42*3 »»
34'5 .»

The maximum breadth is 105, the minimum 81 ; and
the predominating figures are between 91-95 and
then between 86-90.

The highest figures for the jaw, taken serially, are
found in Sicily, and the lowest in Sardinia.

Fallen women furnish the maxima among the
highest figures.

57 Criminal Women.

Between 81-85

= 12*28 per cent.

„ 86-90

= 29-82 „

» 91-95

= 36'84 M

„ 96-100

= 21 -o8 „

THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The distribution per crime is as follows : —

Arson

Wounding...
Homicide ...
Prostitution
Infanticide...

96
93
93
9i
9i

Complicity in Rape ...

Theft ... # ...

Murder (assassination)
Poisoning M

91
90
90

XXII. Symphitic Height.

Between 12-15
16-19
20-23
24-27
28-31
32-35
36-39

1
o

4
21
21

9
1

175 per cent.

o*oo ,,

7'oi „

36*84 „

36*84 ,,

1578 „

175 »

The figures which predominate are between 24-31,
he minimum height is 15, and the maximum $6.
The distribution per crime is : —

Complicity in Rape

•• 31

Arson

Infanticide

.. 30

Murder (assassination) ...

Prostitution

.. 29

Homicide

Theft

.. 28

Poisoning ...

Wounding

.. 27-5

Among the female criminals observed by Mingazzini,
he medium height of the symphisis was only 28*8,
while among males it is 31.07.

XXIII. Length of the Branchial Arches.

The predominant numbers are between 56-60, and
again between 51-55 and 61-65 ; the least length is
46, and the greatest is 76.

Distribution per crime : —

Complicity in Rape ... .

• 63

Theft

... ... 56

Poisoning

. 60

Wounding

Assassination

• 59

Arson

Homicide

. 58

Prostitution

Infanticide

. 56

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. 21

Conclusions. — As we expected, and as we found
already during our researches into the male criminal,1
the conclusions to which the above data lead us are
but few.

The most important are those which relate to the
cranial and orbital capacity, and to the weight and
diameter of the jaw, to which add observations on the
cheek-bones.

It is clear, indeed, that fallen women have the
smallest cranial capacity of all, and up to 1,200 a
scanty cranial capacity continues to be noted in
prostitutes and criminals alike ; while among normal
women, even those whose cranial capacity is small
and those who approximate to the average, the
superiority to the other two classes of their sex
persists up to the limit marked 1,300, and offers
more analogy to the mentally afflicted than to the
sane.

In average capacity and in capacity above the
average, women of good life and even lunatics sur-
pass both criminals and the fallen class.

In great cranial capacity the better class of women
surpass, five or six times over, criminals,' prostitutes
and lunatics. Also in this respect prostitutes are
slightly superior to criminals ; and among the latter
the highest are the poisoners.

As a whole prostitutes are more remarkable than
criminals for smaller as well as for larger cranial
capacity, although when compared with women of
good lives, they rank below lunatics — a peculiarity

1 " Uomo Delinquente," vol. i. 3rd ed.

22 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

which they share especially with thieves among male
criminals.

The maxima and minima among prostitutes moie
nearly resemble those of Papuan women than of
normal females. With regard to size of orbit the
maximum is reached by poisoners and murderesses
generally, who in this respect resemble the male.
The minimum is found among thieves and unchaste
women, especially prostitutes.

It is curious, however, that the average size of orbit
presented by normal women, which is 47, and even
by lunatics, whose average measure according to Peli
is 51, should be surpassed, as in the case of males, by
almost all criminal women, especially those guilty of
the graver crimes, such as poisoning, assassination, and
homicide. To this rule prostitutes are an exception.
The occipital region of female criminals surpasses to a
great degree the average in the case of women of
good lives, as given by Mantegazza ; but here the
maximum is not furnished by murderesses, but by
women guilty of arson and of wounding, while prosti-
tutes offer the minimum. The cephalo-rachidian
index in criminals is but little below the normal
average, i8'i, which is, if anything, somewhat higher
than the average supplied by poisoners, while the
minimum here again is found among women who
have committed arson and rape. The cephalo-orbital
index is very much below the normal female average
of 28*4, and there is but little difference in this respect
between women guilty of arson and wounding ; but
the lowest figure is reached by those whose offences
have been homicide and rape.

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. 2$

The facial angle is found largest in the lists of
poisoning and wounding, lowest in those of arson
and rape, and of medium size among thieves and
cases of infanticide.

The horizontal circumference of prostitutes, both
as to maxima and minima, is lower than among
criminals, but the medium measurement in both cases
is equal to the normal average, and the curves of the
cranium furnish no data. This last is true also of
the cephalic index, except that in some places, and
especially in Sicily, the measurement approximates
to that of the male, and, what is more curious, of the
males of antiquity, both with respect to the curves
and to the vertical index.

The average of the antero-posterior, the transverse
(maximum), the vertical, and the frontal (minimum)
diameters, is as under : —

Among Sardinian female criminals 178 127 128 92

„ Modern Sardinian females (Zannetti) 180 "67 143 124 '67 91 "5
„ Ancient „ „ 176*50 132 136 92-5

It will be seen that the figures given for the
criminals approximate to those of the ancient Sar-
dinian women, with the exception of the vertical
diameter, which is larger in our women (Italians of
the Peninsula) than among the modern Sardinians,
but less than among the ancient Sardinians. The
transverse diameter is less among our women, while
the longitudinal and frontal minimum occupies a
middle position between the measurements of the
ancient and modern Sardinian females.
4

24 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The following is a table of the cranial curves : —

Bi-auricular
Curve.

Occipitc
Curve
Ante.

>-frontal

= TOO.

Post.

Horizontal
Curve = 100.
Ante. Post.

. 292-50 ...

. 303*17 -
. 28l

33 '53
29'95
33'6i

66-47 »■
70-05 ...

66-39 ...

49-26 50-74
50-36 49"64

4573 54'27

Ancient Sardinian females
Modern ,, ,,

Sardinian female criminals... 281

By this it will be seen that Sardinian women
approximate more to their ancient than to their
modern prototypes ; and as regards the anterior
portion of the whole horizontal curve, the figures
given are nearer to those of the ancient Sardinian
males (46-94) than to any others.

And when it is considered that the figure 33*81
stands for the anterior portion of the occipito-frontal
curve of the ancient Sardinian males (which is very
near the 33'6i of our modern women), it is evident
that we have here two other peculiarities beyond
those above noted, in which female criminals resemble
males, and males of ancient days.

Zannetti's great work on the modern Sardinians
supplies us with further conclusions, for he has shown
that modern females differ more from modern males
than did ancient females from ancient males.

The bizygomatic diameter in Sardinian women
is on the average 120, ni'50 for the moderns and
n6'00 for the ancients. For the males the figures
are: 11677 (moderns) and 11 575 (ancients), which
prove that here again the modern women approxi-
mate more to the ancient females, and still more to
the males. The longitudinal diameter of prostitutes
is usually the shortest ; and the longest is shown by
criminals ; the exact contrary is the case with the
transverse diameter, prostitutes possessing the highest,

THE SKULL OF THE FEMALE OFFENDER. 2$

and criminals the lowest measurements. But here the
ethnical element has to be taken into account, and
obscures all conclusions.

The frontal diameter is larger in prostitutes than
in criminals. Females guilty of rape and infanticide
have the highest frontal index, and thieves and pros-
titutes the lowest.

The same is true in great part of the coronal index.
The nasal index is inferior to the average of 48, espe-
cially among prostitutes, thieves, murderesses, and
incendiaries.

The largest facial index is found in the lists of
infanticide and homicide, the smallest in those of
poisoning and arson ; the length of the face is greatest
among those guilty of wounding, and least among
those guilty of arson.

But it is especially as regards the diameters of the
cheeks and cheek-bones, and in the weight of the
jaws, that figures come to be of great importance.
Prostitutes are wider across the cheek-bones than
criminals in the proportion of 36 to 16 in all the
higher numbers, and are inferior to the same class
in all the lesser figures.

The bigonial diameter of female criminals is much
greater than in women and men of moral lives ; but
the higher average is distinctive of the male criminal,
who, while surpassing his female prototype in this
respect, does so less markedly than the normal woman
surpasses the normal male. The maximum like the
minimum of male criminals is more remarkable than
in the female. Finally, when the extreme figures at
either end among criminals of both sexes are com-

26 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

pared, it is to be observed that, although cne man's
maximum is higher than the woman's, the same fails
to hold good of the minimum. The divergence in
the case of the male is greater, and begins conse-
quently at a higher level. We are here in presence
of a sexual peculiarity^ persisting among criminals as
among normals.

The bigonial diameter of prostitutes exceeds that
of criminals among the higher series (of figures) as
34 is to 21 per cent. The maxima of the criminals
are to be found among the women who have com-
mitted homicide, wounding, or arson.

The lower jaw of female criminals, and still more
of prostitutes, is heavier than in women of moral
lives, and the measure of skull and jaw is nearly
always as virile as the weight.

The maximum measure of symphisis is found under
the heading of rape, and the minimum under that of
poisoning.

The length of the branchials is greatest among
women who are guilty of rape and poisoning, and
least among prostitutes.

CHAPTER II.

PATHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES OF THE FEMALE

OFFENDER.

As we have already said, cranial anomalies yield
far more striking differences than cranial measure-
ments. In order to economise space, we append a
table of anomalies prepared according to their per-
centages (see p. 29).

It is evident from this table that if anomalies be
frequent in the crania of female criminals (and espe-
cially of murderesses), they are less so than in the
males of a corresponding class. The difference is
smaller especially in the median occipital fossa ; in
the nasal cavity (33 to 48) ; in irregularity of the
occipital region (where the divergence is three times
less) ; in the lower jaw (one-half less) ; in the plagio-
cephalon, in the sclerosis, and in the frontal sinuses
(also one-half) ; finally, in the absence of subscapho-
cephali, oxycephali, and epactal bone (of which
latter there is only one). The female criminal
exceeds the male only in the greater number of
wormian bones, in the simplicity of her sutures, in
anomalies of the palate, and of the atlas.

28 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Nevertheless a comparison of the criminal skull
with the skulls of normal women reveals the fact
that female criminals approximate more to males,
both criminal and normal, than to normal women,
especially in the superciliary arches in the seam of
the sutures, in the lower jaw-bones, and in pecu-
liarities of the occipital region. They nearly re-
semble normal women in their cheek-bones, in the
prominence of the crotaphitic line, and in the median
occipital fossa. There are also among them a large
proportion (9/2 per cent.) of virile crania.

The anomalies more frequent in female criminals
than in prostitutes are: enormous pterygoid apophisis;
cranial depressions ; very heavy lower jaw ; plagio-
cephalia ; the soldering of the atlas with the
occiput ; enormous nasal spine ; deep frontal sinuses ;
absence of sutures ; simplicity of sutures ; wormian
bones.

Fallen women, on the other hand, are distin-
guished from criminals by the following peculiari-
ties : clinoid apophisis forming a canal ; tumefied
parietal prominences ; median occipital fossa of
double size ; great occipital irregularity ; narrow or
receding forehead ; abnormal nasal bones ; epactal
bone ; prognathous jaw and alveolar prognathism ;
cranial sclerosis ; a virile type of face ; prominent
cheek-bones.

As to the principal anomalies I proceed to give
the average frequency with which they are severally
found in normal female subjects, in female criminals,
and in prostitutes ; but it must be remembered that
it is not always possible to deduce an average from

PATHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES.

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30 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the observations made by different authors, for the
reason that some of these pay but little attention to
certain peculiarities. For instance, if Messrs. Varaglia
and Silva do not make mention of platycephali
among female criminals, or if Mingazzini omits to
speak of cranial depressions or prognathous features
or cranial sclerosis, we may, with the utmost proba-
bility, conclude that the reason of such omissions lies
in attention not having been paid to those particular
points.

Anomalous teeth, present in only 0*5 per cent,
of normal subjects, are to be found in io*8 per cent,
of criminals and in 5*1 per cent, of prostitutes.

The median occipital fossa is existent in 3^4 per
cent, of normal subjects, in 5*4 per cent, of delin-
quents, and in 17 per cent, of prostitutes, which is a
figure exceeding that of male criminals (16).

The narrow or receding forehead is found in 10 per
cent, of normal women, in 8 per cent, of criminal
women, and in 16 per cent, of prostitutes. Prog-
nathism distinguishes 10 per cent, of normals, 33*4
per cent, of criminals, and 36 per cent, of pros-
titutes.

Plagiocephali exists in 17*2 per cent, of normal
subjects, in 28*8 per cent, of delinquents, rising to
44 per cent, among homicides, and in 22 per cent, of
prostitutes.

This is an anomaly much more frequently observed
among male criminals, where it is found in a propor-
tion of 42 per cent.

The soldering of the atlas with the occiput is never
observed in normal women, but exists in 3*6 per

PATHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES. 31

cent, of female criminals and in 3 per cent, of pros-
titutes.

Cranial sclerosis is present in 17*2 per cent, of
normal women, in 1 6*2 of the criminal class, and in
22 percent, of prostitutes. This peculiarity resembles
plagiocephali in being much more frequent among
male criminals, where it reaches the proportion of 3 1
per cent

The wormian bones are found in 20 per cent, of
normal subjects, in 64*8 per cent, of criminals, rising
in homicides to 76 per cent, and in 26 per cent, in
prostitutes.

The cheek-bones are prominent in 3*9 per cent of
normal women, in i*8 per cent, of criminals, and in
16 per cent, of prostitutes.

Occipital foramen. — A curious fact is the irregularity
of the occipital foramen, where in two cases we find
the atlas soldered with the occiput (being 3-3 per
cent), and in seven other cases (or 11 "6 per cent.)
different irregularities of the following sort : Articular
fossa of the basion, owing to dental apophisis (twice) ;
porosity of surrounding bone (once) ; an offshoot of
bone extending from the basion to the centre of the
foramen (twice) ; incipient process of division of the
occiput (once) ; marked asymmetry (once).

The sum shows 15 per cent, of irregularities among
criminals, 23 per cent, among prostitutes ; while in
male lunatics the proportion was o#5 per cent, and in
male criminals 10*5 per cent.

Signor Legge, among 1,770 crania in Camerino,
found occipital fusion with the atlas in 12 per cent,
with median condyles and basilar tubercles in 2*5

32 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

per cent. In 76 out of 4,000 crania Tafani found
either a third occipital condyle or protuberances
representing it.

A basilar area with a double aperture was found
once only (by us). Legge observed it twice in 1,770
crania from Camerino and the neighbourhood.

In the crania of certain prostitutes from Pavia
(where idiotcy is common) were found two instances
of a horizontal basilar bone, together with indications
of imbecility.

Frontal suture. — Three instances : once in a parri-
cide of Benevento, aged 54 ; once in a Piedmontese
thief, aged 30 ; and once in a Florentine infanticide,
aged 28. Here the proportion is 5*1 per cent. :
inferior to the same in healthy males, where I calcu-
late the peculiarity to exist in 8 to 9 per cent.
Mingazzini, however, found it in 15 per cent, of
female criminals.

Proportion of anomalies. — The very much larger
number of anomalies in prostitutes than in criminals
may be demonstrated by the fact that in 51*5 per
cent, of prostitutes more than 5 anomalies will be
present, whereas the same number is only found in
27 per cent, of criminals. The mean among prosti-
tutes is 5 anomalies per cranium as against 4 among
criminals.

First after prostitutes, whose anomalies are as 5*5,
come thieves (4*2) ; then homicides (4*1) ; and lastly
infanticides (4*0) ; although the latter are typically
superior to the other two classes, as 27 to 24 per
cent.

But all these figures sink into numerical insignifi-

PATHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES.

cance when compared with male crania,1 where the
average of anomalies is three and tour times higher
(being 78 per cent.) than in the case of female delin-
quents and prostitutes.

It will have been remarked how many abnormal
characteristics of the crania of female criminals, such
as frontal sinuses and projecting cheek-bones, are
normal in the male ; and this must be held to reduce
the average.

Political, criminals (female). — Not even the purest
political crime, that which springs from passion, is
exempt Irom the law which we have laid down. In
the skull of Charlotte Corday herself, after a rapid
inspection, I affirmed the presence of an extra-
ordinary number of anomalies, and this opinion is
confirmed not only by Topinard's very confused
monograph, but still more by the photographs of the

50 Male Female

Delinq. Thieves.

2 Anomalies ... o 8

3 8 48

4 >» o 16

5 ». 2 24

6 „ 4 —

7 . „ 78 -
Typical (5 and

more anomalies) 84 24
Average of the

anomalies per

cranium ... 11*4 4*2

Infanti-
cides.

iS
9

4*o

Homi-
cides.

8
4

4'i

Total.
I2'6
27

32*4
I2'6

7-2

27.0

4*o

Prost.

6'5

16
26
i-6

9'5
26

5i-S

5'5

In their observations on 19 crania of male criminals Roncoroni and
Ardu found —

1 Cranium with 23 anomalies.

2 Crania ,, 22

I Cranium
I

19
18

2 Crania

1 Cranium

2 Crania

1 Cranium

6 Crania

7 „

with 16 anomalies.

12 „

34 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

cranium which Prince R. Bonaparte presented to the
writers, and which are reproduced in Figs. I, 2, 3.

The cranium is platycephalic, a peculiarity which
is rarer in the woman than in the man. To be noted
also is a most remarkable jugular apophisis with
strongly arched brows concave below, and confluent
with the median line and beyond it. All the sutures
are open, as in a young man aged from 23 to 25, and
simple, especially the coronary suture.

The cranial capacity is 1,360 c.c, while the average
among French women is 1,337 J the shape is slightly
dolichocephalic (77'7) ; and in the horizontal direc-
tion the zygomatic arch is visible only on the left —
a clear instance of asymmetry. The insertion of the
sagittal process in the frontal bone is also asymmetri-
cal, and there is a median occipital fossa. The
crotaphitic lines are marked, as is also the top of
the temples ; the orbital cavities are enormous,
especially the right one, which is lower than the left,
as is indeed the whole right side of the face.

On both sides are pteroid wormian bones.

Measurements. — Even anthropometry here proves
the existence of virile characteristics. The orbital
area is 133 mm.q., while the average among Parisian
women is 126. The height of the orbit is 35 mm.,
as against 33 in the normal Parisian.

The cephalic index is 77*5 ; zygomatic index 927 ;
the facial angle of Camper, 850 ; the nasal height,
50 (among Parisians 48) ; frontal breadth, 120 (among
Parisian women 93*2).

Pelvi. — Out of 5 of these organs, all belonging to
prostitutes of Pavia, two measure on an average 135

Skull of Charlotte Corday. — (Fig. i.)

Skull of Charlotte Corday. — (Fig. 2.)

Skull of Charlotte Cord ay. — (Fig. 3.)

PATHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES. 35

transversely and 123 obliquely, which is shorter than
the average of 5 normal women (150-128). Two
presented a virile appearance, and in one there was
complete flattening of the right side of the pubes.
In all 5 the channel of the sacrum was quite open,
while in 5 normal women no such aperture existed.

CHAPTER III.
THE BRAINS OF FEMALE CRIMINALS,

I. Weight. — The average weight of the encephali
of 42 Italian female criminals, according to Varaglia,
and Silva, was 1,178 grammes.

The heaviest, belonging to an infanticide, was
1,328 grs.

Out of 17 brains of criminals Mingazzini found
4 sub-microcephalous, the weights being 1,006, 1,021,
1,056 in infanticides, and 1,072 in a matricide : the
general average of the 17 was 1,14676, or 108 grs.
below the masculine standard. In 120 normal women
the maximum weight found by Giacomini was 1,530
grs. ; and the minimum, 929, was in a woman of 77
years whose intellectual faculties remained intact ;
while among the total number all were inferior to
1,400. Pfleger and Wechselbaum, out of 148 normal
women, aged from 20 to 59 years, and of whom the
average height was I m. 56, found an average weight
of brain of 1,189 Srs- > an<^ m 377 women, of ages
ranging from 20 years to senility, I m. 55 in height,
the mean was 1,154.

Tenchini discovered an average weight of 1,194 in

THE BRAINS OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 37

167 encephala of Brescian women aged from 15 to 60
years.

If these results be compared with the weights of
the 43 criminals it will be seen that the maximum
of healthy women is higher than that of criminals,
and the minimum is lower. The average weight of
criminals falls by 16 grs. below the average of
Tenchini, and by 12 grs. below the first mean
obtained by Pfleger and Wechselbaum, but is 1 1 grs.
above the second average of those writers.

In the matter of cranial types, we found among 3 1
dolichocephali an average weight of 1,162 (as against
1,136 in the normal), and among 11 brachycephali
an average weight of 1,198 (Calori gives 1,150 for the
normal). This proportion holds good also in respect
of cranial capacity : thus showing that among
criminals as well as normals there is a balance in
favour of the brachycephalic.

Varaglia and Silva found that in 20 out of 42
encephali of criminals the left hemisphere weighed
from 1 to 5 grs. more than the right; while in 18
cases the contrary was the case to the amount of
from 1 to 6 grs. In 4 instances the two hemispheres
were equal, and this proportion corresponds pretty
nearly to Giacomini's observations on the normal
subject.

In one instance only among the criminals was
tnere a difference of 51 grs.

The average weight of the cerebellum, the pons,
the peduncles, and bulb was as 155*42 (or according
to Mingazzini 153*14), which was higher than the
figure (147) exhibited by 16 normal Piedmontese

38 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

women, but very inferior to the mean of the male

(i69).

2. Anomalies. — As to anomalies of the convolu-
tions they are very rare, certainly rarer than in the
case of male criminals ; and it is precisely because
he observed only the brains of female criminals that
Giacomini had so few exceptions to record. For
while Mingazzini, Willyk, and Tenchini found the
occipital operculum in 4 per cent, of male criminals ;
in 33 per cent, a deepening of the second annectant
convolution (very rare in normal subjects) ; in 6 per
cent, separation of the calcarine fissure from the occi-
pital (observed in 10 per cent, of normals) ; and in
5 percent, superficiality of the gyrus cimei; — Giacomini
observed in female criminals only a slight increase in
the number of convolutions especially on the right
side, and a greater scarcity of sulci.

Mingazzini, however, gives, as the result of wider
investigations into 17 brains of female criminals,
absence of the r. vertical anterior fissure on the left
side in a sub-microcephalic homicide ; deepening of
the first annectant convolution on the right in two
criminals, and on the left in one ; division of this
same convolution into two branches terminating in
the occipital lobe in one case ; superficiality of the
gyrus cunei in two ; rudimentary median frontal
gyrus joining itself immediately to the superior
frontal gyrus (the subject, an infanticide).

From the deep upper side of the latter a fold
started, continuing laterally in a transverse direction
until it joined the anterior portion of the lower
frontal gyrus. In the left hemisphere of the same

THE BRAINS OF FEMALE CRIMINALS, 39

brain, the median frontal gyrus was interrupted in
the posterior portion by a frontal arrow-shaped
furrow, and in the anterior part the three gyri were
almost entirely fused.

In another cerebrum, this time of a matricide, the
left postcentralis is complete and independent ; be-
hind is a transverse furrow, really the prolongation
of the left calloso-marginalis, and yet again behind
is the left interparietalis arrow-shaped. In the right
hemisphere of a woman guilty of corrupting morals,
the left interparietalis is represented by a cruciform
furrow dividing the superior parietal lobule from
the lower, the two lobules being united behind by an
anastomatic transversal fold, followed by a sulcus in
front of the first external annectant convolution. In
this same cerebrum the ascending parietal gyrus on
the left was divided transversely into two secondary
gyri by means of a convolution bifurcated on its higher
side and exactly parallel to the sulcus of Rolando.

In two cases the left superior temporal convolution
communicated with the incisura occipitalis ; and in
one instance after sending a spur in a downward
direction it continued uninterrupted to the free
margin of the malleus. In one case the calcarine
fissure communicated with the collateralis ; and in
another the lower bifurcation of the same fissure
joined the left extremus.

From all this it is clear that if the external super-
ficies of the hemisphere is the same in criminals as in
normals, nevertheless the signs of degeneration are
more frequent among the former class.

Mingazzini satisfied himself that the whole cerebral

40 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

hemisphere is less extensive in women than in men,
whether the women be normal or criminal ; and if we
cannot maintain with Huschke and Rudinger that
the parieto-occipital lobe is larger in females, it is yet
true that the frontal lobe in men predominates over
the other to a greater degree than in women.

Mingazzini also found that the absolute length of
the sulcus of Rolando is often greater on the left than
on the right, and that this occurs more frequently in
women (i8'34) than in men (7*26).

The morphological anomalies found among crimi-
nals of the two sexes were : 13 men, 19 ; 17 women,
19 — so that in every brain the proportion of anoma-
lies is 1*46 among males to I'll among females, thus
showing a notable excess among males.

Some female criminals, however, show a number of
anomalies.

Ferrier, for instance, relates the case of a woman
whose right hemisphere was smaller than her left, as
510 grs. to 550, and in whom, moreover, the fissure
of Rolando was interrupted by a deep annectant
convolution following on the ascending frontal fold,
which, in addition to being atrophied, was crossed in
the middle by two sulci. The ascending parietal
convolution was similarly divided, and the second
frontal had the same peculiarity.

In the third frontal convolution he observed a
depression, at the bottom of which were folds of
smaller size and firmer substance than the usual
annectant convolutions, which he attributed to in-
flammatory processes.

The malformation of the fissure of Rolando struck

THE BRAINS OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 41

him as extremely rare : he had, in fact, encountered
it only twice in his examination of 800 normal
brains.

Flesch, in a female thief, found pachymeningitis
and interruption of the ascending frontal convolution
on the left ; also a real median lobe on the cerebellum,
formed, as in many mammiferi, by two sulci beginning
in the median fissure, diverging in front, and crossing
the horizontal convolutions of the median lobe
throughout the whole length of the hemispheres.

3. Pathological anomalies. — More important still
are the pathological anomalies. Out of 33 female
criminals, a post-mortem examination revealed in
11 grave macroscopic lesion of the central system
and its involucra, such as : dilatation of the lateral
ventricles; multiple sub-arachnoid haemorrhages of
the frontal region in both hemispheres ; thickening
of the spinal dura mater, both cervical and dorsal ;
abscess on the cerebellum in connection with the
left median cerebellary peduncle; meningo-encepha-
litis ; cerebral apoplexy ; haemorrhage in the lateral
ventricles ; syphilis; two transparent rounded vesicles
adhering to the peduncle and on the lower side of
the chiasma of the optic nerve under the arachnoid ;
broad furrows ; abundant sub-arachnoid liquid ; endo-
cranial abscess ; luxation of the odontoid ; paralysis
for a month previous to examination of all the ex-
tremities ; meningitis of the base in connection with
the pons and medulla oblongata ; cerebral cedema and
suffusion into the ventricles ; humid mother-of-pearly
tumour under the arachnoid, between third and fourth
pair of nerves (origin evident).

42 THE FEMALE OFFENDER,

Hotzen, in the "Archive of Psychiatry " (1889),
relates the case of Maria Koster, who, at the age of
18, after having until then appeared of a quiet and
industrious disposition, killed her mother with sixty
blows of a hatchet, only to obtain possession of a
scanty sum ; kept a diary of her impressions ; was
in domestic service ; then a typographer ; then a
needlewoman ; and who presented only asymmetry
of the face and of one pupil. She had hysterical
attacks after puberty, which in her case only declared
itself at 19, but often feigned these attacks. After
her death she was found to have phthisis, traces of
adherence of the dura mater and of haemorrhagic
pachymeningitis, besides true atrophy of the cerebral
cortex.

Her central anterior convolution was crossed by
fissures between the third median inferior convo-
lution and its termination in the fissure of Rolando.
The central posterior convolution was divided by a
furrow into two halves, so that the parietal and
rolandic sulci communicated.

The fissure of Rolando did not terminate in the
fissure of Sylvius ; both the paracentral convolutions
were between the third superior convolution and the
median, and traversed by a deep and yawning
fissure, which brought the interparietal fissure into
direct communication with the first frontal sulcus.

Here, then, is a case of atrophy, congenital and
hereditary atrophy, of the cerebral cortex, charac-
terised by insufficiently developed frontal convolu-
tions, especially of the occipital lobe, by small convo-
lutions, incomplete enclosure of the cerebellum by the

THE BRAINS OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 43

large hemispheres, and by abnormally numerous seg-
mentations of the cerebral cortex, amounting to posi-
tive aplasia.

Such furrows are not products of superior evolu-
tion ; no new cerebral substance is laid down in their
neighbourhood, and they constitute, in fact, a case of
atrophy of the cerebral matter.

Lambl, in "Westphal's Archiv. fiir Psychiatric"
(1888), gives the history of Marianna Kirtexen, who,
under maternal guidance, gave forth oracles, and was
consulted by peasants, and even by persons of high
rank, showing much ability in guessing at their
maladies and prescribing strange remedies, for which
she was extravagantly paid. She was, in short, a
clever swindler, although only 12 years old. She
was lame, squint-eyed, and left-handed, her right
arm being, indeed, almost paralysed. She was fluent,
well-mannered, gave very correct replies, and had a
real curiosity — passion even — for seeing and treating
the sick.

She died of consumption, and autopsy revealed a
long-standing porencephalia in the left hemisphere of
the brain, forming a large clepsydral-shaped cavity,
of which the middle part or isthmus consisted in an
elliptic horizontal fissure 4 mms. long in the white
substance. The wider base, rounded and 5*4 centi-
meters in breadth, lay towards the outside and
terminated in the arachnoid, while the small end,
measuring 2'8 centimeters, opened into the external
wall of the left lateral ventricle. Into the upper seg-
ment of the cup-shaped fossa on the outer surface of
the left hemisphere ran the lower part of the pre-

44 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

central (frontal ascendant) gyrus, and into the
anterior segment a portion of the superior frontal
gyrus entered, also the lower part of the same, and
the posterior portion of the median frontal gyrus.
In the lower segment the posterior portion of the
inferior frontal gyrus and the gyri of Rett's island
were found ; while into the posterior segment entered
the anterior portion of the first temporal gyrus, and
the lower part of the retrocentral (ascending parietal)
gyrus, together with the operculum. There was con-
sequently partial destruction of the frontal ascending
convolution, but the cortex had remained intact. On
the internal surface of the hemispheres were other
anomalies due to pressure of the ventricular fluid.
The corpus callosum and fornix were atrophied.
The gyrus fornicatus was flattened in the median
portion, and the horns of the lateral ventricle were
dilated and rounded. The internal ganglia were
normal.

Microscopic examination of the grey cortex in the
diseased parts revealed a fluted striated substance,
mixed with round cells enclosing nuclei (evidently
a thickening of the neuroglia).

Other cells mixed with the above had flattened
edges, a transparent protoplasm, and in the centre
two or even three simple nuclei. These cells were
surrounded by dark, granular, nucleated matter, and
had the appearance of cartilaginous fibre.

The convexities of the pia mater and arachnoid
enclosed a large number of Pacchionian granulations
such as are found in the aged, and were notably
darkened and thickened.

CHAPTER IV.

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS.

I. Authors and the cases they studied. — In the list
of those who have recently made a study of the
characteristics of female criminals, we must include —
Marro,1 who investigated 41 cases ; Troisky,2 58
cases ; Lombroso and Pasini,3 122 cases ; Ziino,4 188
cases ; Lombroso, 83 photographs ; Varaglia and
Silva,5 60 crania ; Romberg,6 20 cases ; and recently
Salsotto/ 409 cases ; Madame Tarnowsky,8 100
female thieves ; and Roncoroni,9 who studied 50
normal women.

1 Marro, " I caratteri dei delinquenti." Bocca, 1889.

2 Troisky, " Cephalometry of Criminals with reference to some
Symptoms of Physical Degeneration," Journal of Charkow, Russia,
1884.

3 Lombroso and Pasini, " Archivio di psichiatria," 1883.

4 Ziino, " Fisiopatologia del delitto," 1881.

5 Varaglia and Silva, "Note anatomiche ed antropologiche su 60
cranii e 46 encefali di donne criminali italiane. " " Archivio psichiatria,"
vol. vi.

£ Romberg, " 101 Cefalogrammi." Berlin, 1889.

7 Salsotto, " La donna delinquente. Ri vista di discipline carcerarie/'
1887.

8 Tarnowsky, " Etude anthropometrique sur les prostituees et les
voleuses." Paris, 1887.

9 Roncoroni, " Ricerche su alcune sensibilita nei pazzi. Giornale della
R. Accad. di Med.," 1891 ; " I caratteri degenerativi su 50 donne e 50
nomini normali : 1'olfatto, il gusto e l'udito in 35 normali." u Arch,
di psichiatria," 1892.

46 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The characteristics of prostitutes, which we cannot
study separately from those of female criminals, were
investigated by Scarenzio and Soffiantini x in 14
crania ; by Andronico2 in 230 subjects ; by Grimaldi3
in 26 ; by De Albertis 4 in 28 ; by Tarnowsky in
150; by Bergonzoli and LombrosoS in 26 crania;
while Berg 6 lately made researches into the tattoo
marks on 804. Gurrieri examined into the sensi-
bility of 60 cases, and Fornasari gave the anthro-
pometry of a similar number.7 Riccardi 8 and
Ardu9 made notes on the weight, height, &c,
of 176.

We also published in the " Giornale della R. Ac-
cademia di Medicina," of Turin, Nos. 9 and 10, 1891,
and in the "Archivio di psichiatria," vol. xiii., fasc.
vi." observations on characteristics of degeneration in
200 normal women, in 120 Piedmontese female thieves,
and in 115 prostitutes of Turin. We also studied,
synthetically, the type of the criminal in 300 women
(234 of whom were in the female penitentiary, and
56 in the prison of Turin), as well as in 69 Russian
female criminals and 100 prostitutes of the same

1 Scarenzio e Soffiantini, "Archivio di psichiatria," 1881, vol. vii.

p. 29.

2 Andronico, " Prostitute e delinquent." " Arch, di psichiatria,"

1882, vol. iii. p. 143.

3 Grimaldi, " II pudore. II manicomio," vol. v. No. I, 1889.

4 De Albertis, " II tatuaggio su 300 prostitute genovesi. Archivio
psich : scienze pen: ed antrop : crim.," vol. ix., 1888.

s Bergonzoli e Lombroso, "Su 26 cranii di prostitute," 1893.

6 Berg, "Le tatouage chez les prostituees Danoises." "Arch,
psich.," vol. xi. fasc. 3 and 4, 1891.

7 Gurrieri e Fornasari, " I sensi e le anomalie nelle donne normali e
le prostitute." Turin, 1893.

s Riccardi, " Osservazioni intorno una serie di prostitute," 1892,
Anomalo Nos. 8 and 9.

9 Ardu, " Alcune anomalie nelle prostitute." Turin, 1893.

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 47

nationality, in which we collaborated with Madame
Tarnowsky and with Ottolenghi.1

This constitutes a total of 1,033 observations on
female criminals, 176 observations on the skulls of
female criminals, 685 on the skulls of prostitutes,
225 on normal women in hospitals, and 30 others
also normal.

2. Weight and height. — The net result of the data
furnished by Salsotto and Madame Tarnowsky on
weight and height (see Tables, pp. 51-2), is to
show that 45 per cent, of infanticides and 29/6
per cent, of murderesses are of weight below the
normal ; while 50 per cent, of infanticides and 44
per cent, of murderesses are beneath the normal
stature.

On the other hand, only 15 per cent, of poisoners
were of lower weight, and only 25 per cent, of lower
stature than the normal : facts which can be referred
to the circumstance that poisoners do not generally
belong to the poorer classes.

According to the data of Madame Tarnowsky 19
per cent, of prostitutes and 21 per cent, of female
thieves are below normal weight, the figures for peasant
women being 20 per cent., and for women of educa-
tion 18 per cent. Height was less than the normal
among 28 per cent, of prostitutes, 14 per cent of
thieves, 7 per cent, of peasant women, and 10 per
cent, of educated females.

Salsotto gives 37 per cent, of infanticides, 70 per
cent, of poisoners, and 52 per cent, of murderesses as

1 Ottolenghi e Lombroso, "La donna delinquenti e prostituta."
Turin, 1892.

48 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

of normal weight, and 38 per cent, of infanticides,
50 per cent of poisoners, and 48 per cent, of female
assassins as of normal stature.

Madame Tarnowsky's data are the following:
Normal weight, 567 per cent, of prostitutes, 51 per
cent, of thieves, 46 per cent, of peasant women, and
58 per cent, of educated women. Normal stature,
6i#3 per cent, of prostitutes, 62 per cent, of thieves,
64 per cent, of peasant women (of good lives), and
74 per cent, of educated women.

Salsotto found, on the other hand, that 18 per
cent, of infanticides, 15 per cent, of poisoners, and
2 1 '6 of female assassins exceeded normal weight ;
and Madame Tarnowsky's figures in the same re-
spect are 22-9 of prostitutes, 28 of thieves, 34 of
peasant women (of good lives), and 24 of educated
women.

As to height in Russia the normal was exceeded
by 14 per cent, of prostitutes, 24 per cent, of thieves,

19 per cent, of peasant women (of good conduct), and
12 per cent, of educated women. Salsotto gives as of
height above the medium, 11 per cent, of infanticides,

20 per cent, of female poisoners, and 10*4 per cent, of
other murderesses.

To sum up, weight appears more often equal to or
above the medium in thieves and murderesses, but
especially in prostitutes : more rarely is this the case
in infanticides.

3. Medium height. — This, on the contrary, appears
to be rarer in all female criminals and prostitutes than
in moral women. Here are the tables : —

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 49

Salsotto.

Tarnowsky.

'*"

■*

^~*"»

!§

a
0

. *•

V </)

■32

0-S

43-3

.2 a

to
41

>
V

V)
(A

0 "1
- *>

« >
c —

« s

ducated
x\ women.

i> 0
PL, tfi

" 0

ed. weight 55*

I 57.7

58-5

55*2

58 56^

56'4 kg.

„ height I'

52 1 '53

i'53

i-55

1 '53

i*55

1-56

I -54 m.

Marro found that the average height for women of
good lives is 1*55, and for criminals 1*52, with a
medium weight for moral women of 57, and for female
criminals of 53.

Riccardi gives as the medium height of 42 Bolog-
nese fallen women 1*52, with a maximum of 1*67, and
a minimum of 1*43. Riccardi, who studied the ques-
tion of stature in relation to age and social condition
among the Bolognese, found the following data
(" Statura e Condizione sociale, studiate nei Bolog-
nese, 1885 ") :—

Normal (Riccardi).

Normal.

Age. Easy circumstances.

Poor.

Averages.

Prostitutes.

17 156*6

I50"4

I53-3

153*3

1587 c.

18 I56-5

I529

I540

162.O

I55-0

19 I55'9

I55-0

i55-o

I50-0

—

20-25 156-8

I54-I

i55'2

I54-0

1537

26-35 155*3

I52-3

I54-3

152*1

I63.O

Whence it results that at the age of 25, which was
that of almost all the twenty Bolognese prostitutes
measured, they were of shorter stature than the
average, not only of women in easy circumstances,
but even of poor women.

4. Medium weight. — As to weight, from the ave-
rages furnished by Salsotto and Madame Tarnowsky,
murderesses and female poisoners appear, as we

THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

already remarked, to be above the average of moral
women.

If we now follow Fornasari in a comparison of the
respective weights of prostitutes and moral women in
relation to age and height, as in the following tables : —

£>

22 ...

27 Prostitutes,
t. (kerns.)

IPO

48 ^"Qo

DEC 3»i#)&2-ooo

24 ... 52*OOOj

20 ...^

"boo

Height.

1,445

1,415
1,523
1,510

1,604

1,580
1,500

1,584

1,690

Age.
15
31
25
26

30
22
19

26 Normals (Fornasari).

Wgt. (kgms.)
42*000

43*000
47-500
48*000

5i'5oo
52*400

55*200

Height.

1,445
1,500

1,540
1,450

i,544

1,540
1,500

it will be seen that height and age being equal, the
weight is greatest among prostitutes.

Fornasari demonstrated this even better by the
results of twenty more weight-takings, which gave
him an average weight of 58 kilogrammes, with a
maximum of 75 kilogrammes and a minimum of
38, these being figures above the average of normal
women.

This greater weight among prostitutes is confirmed
by the notorious fact of the obesity of those who grow
old in their vile trade, and who gradually become
positive monsters of adipose tissue. We could cite
not a few who attain the weight of 90*98, and even
130 kilogrammes.

But this stands out still more clearly when, in
conformity with a formula obtained by means of
thousands of measurements taken by one of the
writers z in order to find the relation of weight to

1 Lombroso, " Sulla Statura degli Italiani," Milan, 1873.

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THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

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ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 53

stature (see Table III.), such women are regarded as
having a weight equal to the average in whom the
number of kilogrammes which represent the weight is
equal to the number of centimeters by which their
statures surpass the meter.

It is then seen that 60 per cent, of female poisoners,
59*4 per cent, of prostitutes, 50 per cent, of female
assassins, and 46 per cent, of female thieves, have a
weight above the average, while in only 45 per cent.
of Russian peasant women, leading moral lives, and
44 per cent of infanticides is the same the case.

Below the normal, on the other hand, are 46 per
cent, of moral peasant women (Russians), 37 per cent,
of murderesses, 36 per cent, of thieves, 31 per cent,
of infanticides, and 29 per cent, of prostitutes, while
Salsotto gives 25 per cent, as the proportion among
Italian female poisoners.

5. Span of arms. — The average in 44 Modenese
(measured by Riccardi) was 1*556 m., while the
average stature was 1*52, the consequent relation
being as 102*3 to 100 (and in normals as 103 to 100).

Madame Tarnowsky, however, gives the following
results among Russian women : —

150 100 50 100

Prostitutes. Thieves. Murderesses. Moral Poor.

Height 1 '53 i*55 i'S6 1*56 m.

Span of arms I "62 1*65 1*63 I '668

the span of the arms being consequently inferior
among prostitutes and even criminals when compared
to the stature, than among the moral poor, which
result must be attributed to the greater development
of limbs in women who work ; and this we shall find
to be the case also among the Bolognese females.

54 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

6. The average height of the body seated. — Among 30
Bolognese prostitutes this was 82*0, and relatively to
the height 53*6 per cent., as against 83*2, or relatively
to the height 537 per cent, among 30 normal women,
also Bolognese ; that is to say, there was no remark-
able difference.

7. Limbs. Thorax. — From the measurements of
limbs made by Madame Tarnowsky, it appears that
the upper limbs of an illiterate working-woman of
moral life measure 0*608, as against 0*597 m thieves,
and 0*583 in prostitutes. Even the right arm, which
in normal peasant women measures 0*619, falls in
thieves to 0*605, and in prostitutes to 0*588. Prosti-
tutes consequently have the shortest arms of all, the
reason being in their case, as in that of thieves, that
they work less than moral women.

The circumference of the thorax, which is 82*2 in
prostitutes, differs but little from that of moral women
(in Bologna 827, and in Modena 847), but relatively
to the height (54*0 in prostitutes, as against 53*3 in
moral women) the divergence is greater (Riccardi).

8. The hand. — The hand, however, according to
Madame Tarnowsky, is longer in Russian prostitutes
(right, 187; left, 184) than in peasant women and
even homicides (right, 185 ; left, 184), while in thieves
it is shorter (right, 178 ; left, 175).

Fornasari also found that among the prostitutes of
Bologna (where it measured from 155 to 198 mm.)
the hand was longer than among normals (141 to 184
mm.), while the breadth varied from 65 to 85 among
the first-named and from 52 to 84 among normals.

Such differences which were marked in the

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 55

figures at both ends gradually disappeared as the
median averages were reached ; but the net result
was that in normal women, even workers, the hands
were smaller without exception.

Fornasari measured the length of the middle finger
so as to compare it with the breadth of the hand, and
from the difference of the two measurements he was
able to deduce the large or smaller digital develop-
ment when compared with the palm.

The length of the middle finger was measured on
the back from the point to the head of the third
metacarpus, and on the inner side from the point to
the fold which separates the finger from the palm.

The difference, in both measurements, between the
middle fingers resulted as from about 19 to 20 mm.
On the inner side the length of the middle finger
varies in prostitutes as from 60 to 85 mm., showing
an average of 70 to 74 ; in normal women the differ-
ence is from 53 to 84, but the average is similar. On
the outer side the variation in prostitutes is from 75
to 100, with an average of 80-84 > m normals from a
minimum of 65 there is a rise to the maximum of 99,
and the serial average is 85-89.

The second measurement, made on a careful
anatomical basis, confirms the result yielded by the
first in so far as it shows that the shorter middle
fingers belong to normal women, and the longer ones
to prostitutes ; but that relatively to the serial aver-
age, while the first measurement gives a similar
length to prostitutes and to normals, the second
shows the latter to possess a higher average length.

Comparing now the length of the middle finger (on

56 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the outside) to the breadth of the hand, we obtain
the following figures : —

Difference between Fingers and Palms.

From I- 9 mm.

Bolognese
Prostitutes. Prostitutes. Normals

13 ... 9 ... 6

„ 10-19
» 20-25

40 ... 15 ... 11
7-3 ». 3

The difference among the Bolognese is from 1 to
24 in prostitutes, and from 5 to 24 in normal women.
Consequently in the former class the digital portion
of the hand is less developed than in the latter rela-
tively to the palmary division.

If the length of the hand in relation to the height,
taken as 100, be compared, we find : —

Prostitutes.

Bologn
Prostitutes.

ese
Normals.

9*5

...

9'5

...

10-5

...

"'5

...

12 and

more 1

—

•••

—

These figures would lead to the conclusion that the
hand in prostitutes is largest relatively to stature.

9. Neck, thighs and leg. — The measurements for
the circumferences of the neck, thigh, and leg were
only taken in the case of 14 normal women, it being
not too easy to find subjects who will submit to the
experiment. Between the least circumference, over
the ankle bones, and the largest, round the calf,
Fornasari found a difference in Bolognese prostitutes
of from 70 to 150, and in normal women of from 100

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. $J

to 140 ; the median average for the first-named being
120, and for the last-named 100. Normals conse-
quently have the calves least developed on an
average, and prostitutes show the maxima and
minima of development. Between the maximum
measurement of the calves and that of the thigh
the variation was from 120 to 240 in prostitutes of
Bologna, and from 120 to 220 in normals ; the serial
mean being for the first-named 190, and for the
second 150.

The thighs of prostitutes are consequently bigger
than normal women's in proportion to the calves.

Between the maximum circumference of the leg
and the circumference of the neck, the figures in
Bolognese prostitutes were from — 55 to + 30, and
in normals from — 35 to -f- 5, the results being as
under, the neck < = > calves : —

14
8

In most cases normal women have the two circum-
ferences equal ; their neck, however, is often smaller
but rarely larger, and even when larger, only a little ;
in prostitutes, on the contrary, the neck is often
larger or smaller than the maximum circumference of
the calves.

10. Foot. — The foot in prostitutes is shorter and
narrower than in normals.

With respect to length, the prostitutes of Bologna
varied as from 200 to 240 mm. (serial average, 230),
while the normals differed as from 200 to 235 (serial

...

prostitutes.

...

Bolognese prostitutes.

••*

normals.

58 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

average, 210 to 220) ; in breadth, the prostitutes
ranged from 64 to 90 mm. (median average, 80 to 84),
and the normals from 70 to 96 (with an identical
mean).

Between the length of foot and that of hand,
prostitutes show a greater difference than normals in
the maxima and minima, but the media in the two
classes are almost the same. The divergence among
prostitutes is from 38 to 73, and among normal
women from 20 to 65, while the media are from 50
to 59 for one as for the other.

The foot, therefore, would appear to be shorter
proportionately to the hand in prostitutes than in
normals.

11. Cranial capacity. — Here, as far as measure-
ments can be exact in the case of women with their
quantity of hair, Marro found the capacity in 41
criminals to be below that of normal women as 1,477
to 1,508. Among the women he observed, the
following series of probable cranial capacities were
obtained : —

41 Criminal Women.

41 Normal Women,

1400-1450

28*8 per cent.

— per cent.

1450-1500

45*6 „

44 »»

1500-1550

... i6-8 „

44 »

1550-1597

7'2 „

12 „

Fornasari's observations on Bolognese women give
from 1,400 to 1,559 for prostitutes, and from 1,410 to
1,579 for normal women.

But the cranial capacity can be best demonstrated
by the data furnished by Madame Tarnowsky, who
studied Russian women all of the same age and
locality.

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 59

Prostitutes.
No. 150.
Horizontal circumference 531 '6
Longitudinal curve ... 316*2
Transversal curve ... 283*8

Longitudinal diameter ... 178*2
Transversal diameter ... 142*5

Peasant

Educated

Chaste

Women.

Thieves.

No. TOO.

No. 50.

No. 100.

537-o .

. 538*0 .

•• 535*5

316*2 .

•• 313'S

•• 3i7'3

285*9 .

.. 286*9

.. 286*3

181 *4 .

.. I83*2

.. 179*4

144*8 .

.. I45'2

•• I43"9

Probable cranial capacity 1452*3 ... 1465*3 ... 1466*8 ... 1462*4

Thieves consequently would appear to have a
probable cranial capacity inferior to that of normals
by barely 3 cm., while in prostitutes the inferiority is
as 13 cm.

The measurements of the crania confirm this
prevalence of small cranial capacities among prosti-
tutes.

12. The Cranial circumference among 80 female
Piedmontese delinquents corresponded to an average
of 530 ; and the same result was obtained by Marro,
who found 535 in the normal woman. By the serial
method, criminal women appear as exceeding normal
women in their minima, and falling behind them in
their maxima.

We find from the figures of Salsotto that 51 per
cent, of criminals had cranial capacities between 521
and 540 ; 22 per cent, had them between 541 and
557 ; and 27 per cent, between 504 and 520.

With respect to crime, we find the largest cranial
circumference in homicides (532), after whom come
poisoners (517), then infanticides (501), and finally
thieves (494) ; and these results are almost identical
with those obtained by Ziino. The larger circum-
ferences, serially taken, are wanting in thieves and
infanticides, while abounding in homicides.

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THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Murderesses

Infanticides.

(assassins).

Poisoners.

510

3 per cent.

...

15 per cent.

>••*

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Andronico, out of 230 prostitutes, found in 87 per
cent, of them a circumference between 480 and 500 ;
the writers, in 178 prostitutes, found a mean cranial
circumference of 522, which was less than in
criminals ; and De Albertis found an average of

537-

In 27 prostitutes of Bologna, Fornasari found a

minimum of 470 and a maximum of 560 ; and in

20 moral women a minimum of 490 and a maximum

of 534-

Madame Tarnowsky discovered an average circum-
ference of 535 in thieves, 531 in prostitutes, 537 in
illiterate peasants, 538 in 50 educated moral women,
the result being a smaller cranial circumference in
the female criminal. This has indeed been noted by
several observers.

Coming now to more detailed results, we have :
the least amplitudes (from 485 to 520), above all in
prostitutes (11*31 per cent.) and in thieves (15 per
cent), as against 6 per cent, of peasant women and
2 per cent, of educated females (Tarnowsky) ; the
greatest amplitudes (540-580) are rarest above all in
prostitutes (28*61 per cent.) and in thieves (12 per
cent), while abounding in peasant women (467 per
cent), and especially in educated women (62 per
cent). According to Salsotto, the least circum-

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 63

ferences predominate in female poisoners (55 per
cent.) ; while there are fewer of them in infanticides
(24 per cent.), in murderesses (23 per cent.), and in
thieves (15 per cent); the widest circumferences
among criminals are to be found in thieves (37 per
cent), then in infanticides (31 per cent), next in
murderesses (19-2 per cent), and in poisoners (10 per
cent.). Marro states that the least circumferences
(from 485-520) are to be observed in 27*4 per cent,
of criminals and in 20 per cent of normals ; the
widest (from 541-580) are in 10*4 per cent, of
criminals and in 36 per cent, of normals.

13. Curves. The longtitudinal curve. — According
to Madame Tarnowsky, the lowest figures (280-310)
are furnished especially by prostitutes (56 per cent)
and by thieves (38 per cent), after whom come
peasant women of moral lives (37 per cent), and by
educated women (36*3) ; while Salsotto's figures are :
for criminals, thieves (38 per cent) ; poisoners (15 per
cent) ; assassins and infanticides (20 per cent). The
highest figures (321-340), as given by Tarnowsky,
are 34 per cent, in peasants, 30 per cent, in thieves,
263 per cent in educated women, and 20 per cent.
in prostitutes. Salsotto calculates them as follows :
56 per cent, in murderesses, 52 per cent, in infanti-
cides, 40 per cent in poisoners, and 30 per cent, in
thieves, Marro says that the least longitudinal
curves (280-310) are in 57*6 per cent of criminals,
and in 14 per cent, of normals ; the greatest
(331-340) are in 7*2 per cent of criminals and in
12 per cent, of normals.

Transverse curves. — Here the data contributed by

64 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Madame Tarnowsky are widely different from those
given by Salsotto ; and the reason of the diver-
gence is ethnical.

Among Italian female criminals Salsotto does not
find one with a transverse curve measuring from 200
to 300 mm. ; while Tarnowsky, in Russia, finds 86
per cent, among thieves, 85 '46 among prostitutes, 84
per cent, among peasant women, 80 per cent among
educated women.

Between the limit of 321-340 Madame Tarnowsky
finds only 4 per cent, of educated women, and 1 per
cent, of thieves, while Salsotto gives 66 per cent,
among assassins, 60 per cent, among infanticides, and
20 per cent, among poisoners.

Marro noted a great preponderance (5 per cent.)
among criminals of the least curves (280-310), and a
scarcity (7*2 per cent.) of the large ones (331-340).
In normal subjects the first are present in 4 per cent,
only, the second in 32 per cent. Grimaldi, among
the prostitutes observed by him, noted a great preva-
lence of the longitudinal over the transverse curve.

The anterior circumference was found by Salsotto
in the following order : from 292-300, 52 times (22
per cent); 301-310, 98 times (41 per cent.) ; 310-328,
87 times (37 per cent) ; 292-300, in 25 per cent of
infanticides and poisoners, and in 20*6 per cent of
murderesses (assassins); 301-310 in 48 per cent, of
infanticides, in 40 per cent, of assassins, and in 35
per cent, of poisoners; 311-325 in 40 per cent of
poisoners, in 39*4 per cent, of assassins, and in 27 per
cent, of infanticides, with a prevalence of higher
numbers among murderesses as compared to infanti-

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 65

cides. De Albertis found a low, anterior, semi-curve
(282) in prostitutes.

14. This small development repeats itself in the
cranial diameters furnished by Madame Tarnowsky,
which are important because obtained from women
of the same country. The results are as follows :

Medium antero-posterior diameter among educated women

183

»l »»

in illiterate peasants

...

181

»» It

in thieves

...

153

tt tt

in prostitutes

...

178

»» »»

in homicides...

...

177

Maximum transverse diameter

in educated women

...

I45'0

>> »»

in illiterate peasants

...

144-9

a a

in homicides ...

...

144-2

tt tt

in thieves

...

143 '9

tt tt

in prostitutes ...

...

I43'i

Antero-posterior diameter. — According to Madame
Tarnowsky and to Marro, the smaller diameters pre-
vail among prostitutes, and above all among female
thieves, with a corresponding scarcity of the larger
diameters. For instance, we have 165-180 for 42*66
per cent, of prostitutes and 82 per cent, of thieves,
as against 25 per cent, of moral peasant women and
20 per cent, of educated women ; and, on the other
hand, from 183-195 are to be found only in 17*33
per cent, of prostitutes, in 8 per cent, of thieves, as
against 35 per cent, of moral peasant women and 50
per cent, of the educated.

Marro's figures are: from 154-175 among 70 per
cent, of criminal women and 41 per cent, of normals ;
with 175-185 for 28*8 percent, of criminals and 52
per cent, of normals.

Transverse diameter. — The inferiority of prostitutes
and still more of thieves to normals is, according to

66 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Madame Tarnowsky, especially apparent in the lesser
frequency of the long diameters, as 145-155; the
percentage of these figures among prostitutes and
thieves being respectively S7'99 an<^ I%> as against
71 and 68 per cent, among peasants and educated
women ; while Marro states that the superiority of
normal women is revealed by the greater frequency
among them of the large diameters, such as 145-155,
which are found in 504 per cent, of criminals and
78 per cent, normals.

Minimum frontal diameter, — In Russia, Madame
Tarnowsky found no woman, whether normal,
criminal, or prostitute, whose frontal diameter was
between 95 and 105 ; Salsotto, on the other hand,
found this measurement in 60 per cent, of poisoners,
in 51 per cent, of murderesses (assassins), and in only
40 per cent, of infanticides. Madame Tarnowsky
found a minimum frontal diameter of 121 and
upwards in 66 per cent, of cultivated women, in
21*17 per cent, of prostitutes, in 8 per cent, of peasant
women, and in 6 per cent, of thieves, but never once
in any Italian female criminal. Salsotto observed a
diameter of io'6 to 12 in 60 per cent, of infanticides,
in 49 per cent, of murderesses, and in 40 per cent, of
poisoners.

According to Marro, the maxima from 12 centi-
meters upwards are found in 19 per cent, of normals,
and are wanting in criminals.

The medium smallest frontal diameter among the
30 prostitutes of Modena observed by Riccardi was
106*2, or lower than that of moral women, which was

I08'2.

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 6?

Frontal height. — The minima here, or 30-40, are
found in 25 per cent, of infanticides, in 26 per cent,
of murderesses, and in 40 per cent, of poisoners ; the
maxima,or 5 i-67,are among 45 per cent. of infanticides,
30 per cent, of assassins, and 23 per cent, of poisoners.

In the Bolognese prostitutes the average height is
given at 40-70, and in moral women of the same
town, at 40-60. In prostitutes the breadth is
100-129, in moral women 95-124.

The proportion between the height of the forehead
and that of the face among Bolognese women is as
follows: Prostitutes, 32-64; moral, 34-52.

The cephalic index is too ethnical in character for
us to attach much value to the results obtained by
various observers : we have already noted a marked
inclination, amounting to 10 per cent, to the brachy-
cephalic form among Piedmontese female criminals ;
but Marro found hardly any difference between
criminals and normals (the last-named showing 86,
and the first 85), except that the lower indexes as
far as JJ were found in 2'6 per cent, of criminals and
in no normals, while the highest, from 85 upwards,
existed in 54 per cent, of criminals and in 20 per cent,
of normals.

Both Grimaldi and De Albertis noted a marked
number of brachycephali among prostitutes.

Madame Tarnowsky, who is most to be relied upon
for ethnical comparisons, gives the media of the
cephalic index as almost identical in prostitutes,
in thieves, and in moral women, the chief difference
being the greater proportion of brachycephali among
the first of these three classes.

68 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The figures were as under : —

'i>'

Cephalic index of prostitute ... ... 8o*o

,, ,, thief 8o*2

,, „ peasant 79-9

,, „ educated 79-1

Bizygomatic diameter. — Madame Tarnowsky gives
this diameter as between 8*5 and iro in 46 per
cent, of thieves, 19 per cent, of peasants, 16 per
cent, of educated, and 14 per cent, of prostitutes,
all in Russia. In the educated the average is 112 ;
in peasant women it is 1 1 1 ; and rises in prostitutes
to 113, and in thieves to 114.

Among the Bolognese prostitutes the bizygomatic
diameter was 85-129, with a mean of 113 ; in moral
women the breadth was 1 01-104, with an average
of 102.

But the great development of the facial osseous
structure has been already amply demonstrated in
our references to heavy jaws and projecting cheek-
bones. In Italy, all the criminals examined by
Salsotto had wide cheek-bones. He gives the dia-
meter as between 13*1 and 14*0 for 45 per cent, of
poisoners, 70 per cent, of infanticides, and 11 per
cent, of murderesses ; while in Russia Madame
Tarnowsky found no women with an equally wide
diameter.

In Bologna, prostitutes had a diameter of 104-139
as against 90-133 among women of moral lives
(Fornasari).

Bimandibular diameter, &c. — In moral women of
Bologna this varies as from 95-99 ; among prostitutes,
as 100-104. The minimum, or 90-100, was observed

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 69

by Madame Tarnowsky in 75 per cent, of thieves,
50 per cent of educated women, 27 per cent of
peasants, and 19*33 per cent, of prostitutes ; in
Italy, where comparisons with moral women are
wanting, the minima found by Salsotto are in 23 per
cent, of infanticides, 15 per cent, of poisoners, and
14 per cent, of murderesses.

The maximum (n*i to 120 in Russia) was observed
by Madame Tarnowsky in 4*66 per cent, of prostitutes,
and in 4 per cent, both of peasant women and the
educated ; and by Salsotto in 25 per cent, of mur-
deresses, in 17 per cent, of infanticides, and in 5 per
cent, of poisoners.

Marro's figures as regards the diameters of cheek-
bones and jaws and the height of the forehead refer
to so small a number of subjects that no certain
conclusions can be drawn from them ; moreover
Marro's normals being from the rural classes and
his criminals from the population of towns, his
respective data cannot be compared ; for even
among normal peasant women the figures indicate
a large diameter of the cheek-bones.

Nevertheless, it may be mentioned that the
diameter of the jaws exceeded 11 centimeters in
25 per cent, of criminals as against 15 per cent of
normals.

The bigonial diameter is —

In Russian normals .« ... ... .... ... 99*5

„ prostitutes 97*8

„ thieves 99*4

„ homicides ... ... .«. ioi*6

70 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The gonio-symphitic diameter is —

In Russian normals 93*9

,, prostitutes 94/2

„ thieves 95-5

„ homicides 96*6

the highest number being evidently among criminals
and prostitutes.

The facial angle is —

In Russian normals 72°'°2

„ prostitutes 7i0,oi

„ thieves 7i°#o7

„ homicides 72°#oi

15. Hair. — The hair of criminals and prostitutes
is darker than among normals.

The following comparative table is by Madame
Tarnowsky : —

Russians.

100 Moral Women. 100 Thieves. 100 Prostitutes.

Dark hair 42 ... 62 ... 52

Fair hair 58 ... 35 ... 47

Red hair 2.6 ... 3 ... 0*5

Prostitutes appear to have a smaller proportion
of dark hair than thieves, because the fair-haired
specimens of their class are the most sought after.
Marro already, even in his scanty figures, had noted
a predominance of fair and red-haired women among
the unchaste, and this observation accords with our
own. His results were : —

Criminals. Normals.

Fair-haired 26 per cent. .„ 12 per cent.

Dark-haired 26 ,, ... 20 ,,

Red-haired 48 „ ... o ,,

Chestnut-haired 41 „ ... 68 ,,

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. JZ

An unusual quantity of hair is also frequent among
criminal women.

Riccardi in a total of 33 prostitutes found 6 with
an exaggerated amount of hair, 9 with a moderate
quantity, and 4 with wavy hair. Fornasari among
60 found 48 with very abundant hair.

Archaeology, indeed, has furnished us with an
example of thick, fair hair in Messalina, and records
also the abundant tresses of Faustina.

Madame Tarnowsky, on the contrary, found only
13 per cent, of criminals with very thick hair.

Among the women most noticeable for their
quantity of hair were Heberzeni, Trossarello, and
Madame la Motte. Of the last-named, Samson, the
executioner, observed, " The most remarkable thing
about her was her abundance of hair."

16. Iris. — The intensity of the pigments is still
better proved by the dark colour of the eye, which is
most frequent in prostitutes and thieves.

The following results are given by Madame Tar-
nowsky : —

Russians.

150 Normals. 100 Thieves. ioo Prostitutes.

Dark iris ... 30 per cent. ... 39 per cent. ... 52 per cent.
Blue or grey iris 70 „ ... 61 „ .... 66 „

She remarked that the grey or green irises were
strewn in the proportion of 30 per cent, with orange
yellow spots.

17. Wrinkles. — Taking into account only the
deeper wrinkles, I concluded, after examining 15S
normals (working-women, and peasantry) and 70

72 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

criminals, that among the latter class wrinkles are

14 to 24 years.

25 to,

\g years.

50 years

& over.

Norm.

Crim.

Norm.

Crim.

Norm.

Crim.

54-

20.

72.

41.

32.

p. c.

p. c

p. C

Deep frontal, horizontal

wrinkles

9-2

417

53*6

90-6

88-8

Deep fronto - vertical

wrinkles

—

6-9

7*3

40*6

Crow's-feet

12.5

88-8

Wrinkles under the eye-

lids .

i-8

—

14*6

46-6

44'4

Naso-labial wrinkles ...

25'9

69-5

633

967

100

Zygomatic wrinkles ...

—

5*5

I2'2

28-1

22'2

Goniomental wrinkles...

- —

36-1

317

53*i

Labial wrinkles

—

12*2

28-1

not more common than among the former. Never-
theless, certain wrinkles, such as the fronto-vertical,
the wrinkles on the cheek-bones, crow's-feet, and labial
wrinkles are more frequent and deeply marked in
criminal women of mature age.

In this connection we may recall the proverbial
wrinkles of witches, and the instance of the vile
old woman, the so-called Vecchia deW Aceto of
Palermo, who poisoned so many persons simply
for love of lucre. When already of mature age, the
idea of these murders occurred to her on hearing
that a man, by means of a certain arseniated vinegar,
removed vermin from the heads of children, and she
at once saw how with a similar liquid she could kill
adults with impunity and at a small cost. The bust
(from a photograph politely presented by Comm.
Prof. Salinas, Director of the Museum of Palermo)
which we possess of this criminal, so full of virile
angularities, and above all so deeply wrinkled, with
its Satanic leer, suffices of itself to prove that the

Old Woman of Palermo.

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 73

woman in question was born to do evil, and that, if
one occasion to commit it had failed, she would have
found others.

This characteristic is wanting among prostitutes.

18. White hairs. — Not only is both senile and
precocious greyness much more frequent in female
than in male criminals, but it is even more common
among the former than among normal women, who
from our figures appear, contrary to assertions in
treatises on the subject, to turn white sooner than
men of the criminal class. Nor do these results

30 to 29 30 to 34 35 to 40 40 to 49 50 to 59 60

200 Normal women of

years.
p. c

years.
p.C

years.
p.C.

years.
p.c.

years.
p.c

operative and peasant

classes

80 Criminal women .«

57
74

84
IOO

OO
IOO

IOO

contradict the theory that greyness is in direct
relation to psychical activity, for the female criminal,
who is almost always a criminaloid, is less than the
male to the emotions of an agitated life ; while
among normals, on the other hand, the woman grows
grey later than the man, because she leads a much
more tranquil life, and is much less sensitive and
active than he.

19. Baldness. — Women do not turn bald more
frequently than men, in spite of certain modes of
coiffure which more or less spoil the hair, and in spite
also of certain special physiological circumstances,
such as pregnancy and childbirth, which tend to
cause loss of hair. Still, in female criminals bald-
ness is less common than among the normal class.

74 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

We find, for instance, the following percentages of
baldness in women : —

20 to 20 30 to 34 35 to 40 40 to 49 50 to 59 60 x
years. years. years. years. years. years,
p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c.
200 Normal women
(operatives and peas-
ants) 7 3 18 26 37 45

80 Criminals ... ... 4 o 25 10 25 25

20. Summary. — It must be confessed that these
accumulated figures do not amount to much, but this
result is only natural. For if external differentiations
between criminal and normal subjects in general are
few, they are still fewer in the female than in the
male. We saw already from the cranium that
stability of type is much greater in the woman,
and differentiation much less, even when the skull is
anomalous.

The following are our most important conclusions.

Stature, stretch of arms and length of limbs are
less in all female criminals than in normals : and, in
proportion to the stature, the average weight of
prostitutes and murderesses is greater than in moral
women.

Prostitutes have the longer hands and bigger
calves ; while their feet are smaller. Their fingers,
however, are less developed than their palms.

Female thieves, and above all prostitutes, are
inferior to moral women in cranial capacity and
circumference, and their cranial diameters are less ;
but, on the other hand, their facial diameters are
larger, especially in the jaw.

Criminals have the darker hair and eyes, and this

ANTHROPOMETRY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 75

holds good also to a certain extent of prostitutes, in
whom fair and red hair now surpasses and now
approximates to the normal.

Greyness, rarer in the normal woman (than in
man), is more than twice as frequent in the criminal
woman, and vice versa, in the latter baldness is less
common both in youth and maturity ; and the same
is true of wrinkles, these being markedly more
frequent only in criminals of ripe years.

Little of all this can be positively affirmed of
prostitutes, who are painted and made up when not
(as is usual) very young; but so far as it is possible to
judge, they are as little subject to precocious greyness
and baldness as are congenital male criminals.

CHAPTER V.

FACIAL AND CEPHALIC ANOMALIES OF
FEMALE CRIMINALS,

FOR the sake of brevity we append a table of the
principal anomalies in the cephali and faces of female
criminals and prostitutes, as observed by us and
others. {See Table V.)

The prevailing characteristics are thus shown to
be:—

Cranial asymmetry. — Present in 26 per cent, of
criminals and in 32 per cent, of prostitutes, with
special prevalence among female assassins (46 per
cent.) and poisoners (50 per cent.). {See Plate I.,
Fig. 18.)

Platy cephali are common in 1 5 per cent, of poisoners
and in 2 per cent, of thieves. The average among
criminals of all classes is 8 per cent, while among
prostitutes the proportion falls to v6 per cent only,
which is about the figure of normals. Platycephali,
however, are not specifically characteristic. (See
Plate I., Fig. 14.)

Oxycephali. — The percentages of this peculiarity

are: — Among criminals, 13*5; among prostitutes,

Physiognomy of Russtan Female Offenders.

Plate I.

Physiognomy of Russian Female Offenders.

Plate I.

Physiognomy of Russian Female Offenders.

Plate I.

Physiognomy of Russian Female Offenders.

Plate I.

FACIAL ANOMALIES OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. J?

26*9 ; and among criminals, murderesses stand
highest, showing 22 per cent.

Receding foreheads are in the proportion of 1 1
per cent, in criminals, 12 per cent, in prostitutes, and
only 8 per cent, in normals.

Among Russian women the figures were : 14 per
cent for homicides, 10 per cent, for thieves, 16 per
cent, for prostitutes, and 2 per cent, for normal women.

Over-jutting brows were found by us in 15 per
cent, of cases, by Salsotto in 6 per cent, and among
normals in 8 per cent, by the writers ; while Madame
Tarnowsky observed the feature in 6 per cent, of
homicides, in 12 per cent, of thieves, in 10 per cent.
of prostitutes, and in 4 per cent, of normals. (See
Plate I., 2, 14, 17, 20 bis; Plate II., 18, 24.)

Cranial ano7nalies. — Present in 35*5 per cent, of
criminals and in 45 per cent, of prostitutes.

Frontal anomalies. — Present in 20 per cent, of
female delinquents, in 22 per cent, of prostitutes, and
in 6 per cent, of normals. (See Plate I., 2, 17, and
Plate II., 17.)

Asymmetry of the face. — Present in 77 per cent, of
delinquents and in r8 per cent, of prostitutes.

Enormous lower jaw. — Found in 15 per cent, of
delinquents, in 26 per cent of prostitutes, in 9 per
cent, of normals. (See especially Plate I., 2, 3, 4,
7, 19, 20 ; Plate II., 1, 15, 17, 23.)

Projecting cheek-bones. — Found among 19*9 per cent,
of criminals, especially murderesses (30 per cent),
among 40 per cent, of prostitutes, and 14 per cent of
normals. (See Plate I., 3, 7, 9, 15, 20 ; Plate II., 2, 3,
4,6,7,8, 16, 17,23.)

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80 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Anomalous ears, — Gradenigo gives a complete table
of the ears in 245 criminals as compared to 14,000
normal women : —

Regular external ear (ala)

Sessile ear

Scaphoid fossa prolonged to lobe

Projecting ears

Prominent anti-helix

Darwin's tubercle

From which the conclusion is that among criminals
the anomalies are more than twice as frequent, with
the exception only of Darwin's tubercle, which is,
however, abnormal in Fig. 10, Plate I.

Projecting ears. — Proportion, among criminals
observed by us 9*2 per cent., among prostitutes 9*9
per cent, normals 6 per cent. As regards delin-
quents the peculiarity is most frequent in swindlers
(17 per cent), in wounders (10*5 per cent), and in
poisoners (15 per cent). (See Plate I., I, 2, 2 bist
8, 13, 14, 17 ; Plate II., 8, 12, 22, 23.)

Strabismus. — The percentage among delinquents is
8'5, among prostitutes 5, and normals 4 ; while as
regards criminals the greater frequency is in thieves
(16 per cent) and in poisoners (10 per cent.).

Alveolar prognathism. — Proportion among delin-
quents 7 per cent, assassins standing highest (12 per
cent), and among prostitutes 13 per cent

Virile physiognomy. — This feature shows a per-
centage of 11*8 in delinquents, 4 in prostitutes. (See
Plate I., 6, 6 bis, 20, 20 bis, and note how, especi-
ally in profile, the peculiarity gives a hard, cruel look
to faces which on a front view are sometimes hand-

FACIAL ANOMALIES OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 8l

some ; for instance, 2, 3, 8, II, 12, 16, 19. For prosti-
tutes, see Plate II., 21, 24.)

A crooked nose was found by us in 25 per cent of
criminals, in 8 per cent, of prostitutes (Plate I., 1,
2 bis> 5, 12).

A flat nose was noted in 40 per cent, of normals,
in 12 per cent, of homicides, in 20 per cent, of thieves,
and in 12 per cent, of prostitutes. (See Plate I.,
10, 19 ; Plate II., 8, 12, 13, 18.)

Mongolian physiognomy. — Found in 13 per cent, of
criminals and in 7 per cent of prostitutes.

Asymmetry of the face is wanting in prostitutes.
The proportion among thieves was 10 per cent, only,
and in homicides 6 per cent.

Anomalous teeth. — Observed in 16 per cent, of
delinquents, in 28 per cent, of prostitutes, in 8 per
cent, of normals. In Russia the figures were 40 per
cent in homicides, 58 per cent in thieves, 78 per
cent in prostitutes, and 2 per cent, in normals.

CHAPTER VI.

FURTHER ANOMALIES.

The list of characteristics of degeneration is not yet
complete.

1. Moles. — Hairy moles form a feature that has
been but little studied, but must be added to those
which mark degeneration in the female subject. It
is a kind of indirect supplement of the beard, by
which the female approximates to the male. We
have noted it among normals in 14 per cent., among
criminals in 6 per cent., among prostitutes in 41 per
cent.

Gurrieri found it, however, only in 8 per cent, of
the latter. Zola mentions the moles of Nana and
those of the profligate Countess, her worthy rival.

2. Hairiness. — Among 234 prostitutes one of the
present writers, like Ardu, found a virile quantity of
hair in 15 per cent, as against 5-6 per cent in
normals and 5 per cent, in criminals.

On the other hand, down which is present in 6 per

cent, of prostitutes in Russia and in 2 per cent of

homicides is wanting in thieves and in normals in

that country. In Italy it was found in 1 1 per cent

FURTHER ANOMALIES. 83

of normals, in 36 per cent, of homicides, and in 13
per cent of thieves and infanticides.

In No. 7 of Plate I. it is seen to form almost a
beard.

3. Madame Tarnowsky observed yet another series
of anomalies, which the writers did not find in their
subjects, and which seem to be characteristic of
Russian women. This is a cleft palate, which she
found among 8 per cent, of normals and 14 per cent,
of homicides, among 18 per cent, of thieves and 12
per cent, of prostitutes. She remarked asymmetry of
the eyebrows (of which there is a striking example in
No. 18, Plate I.) among 4 per cent, of normals, 40
per cent, of homicides, 20 per cent of thieves, and 44
per cent of prostitutes.

4. Masseter muscles. — Madame Tarnowsky found
another peculiar feature in 6 per cent, of homicides
and in 4 per cent of thieves (while it was wanting in
both prostitutes and normals). This was an unusual
development of the masseter muscles, which was
doubtless to be connected with the exaggerated size
of the jaws.

Yet another, still more singular and atavistic,
peculiarity which she noted in two criminals, was
hypertrophy of the muscles of the neck, such as
may be seen in large quadrupeds. (See Plate

I., 8.)

5. Prehensile foot — From observations made by
Ottolenghi and Carrara it seems that the prehensile
foot in normal women is almost three times as
frequent as in normal men, being as 11 to 28. In
female criminals it is only a little rarer than in

THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

normals (24). In prostitutes the proportion (42) is
almost double that observed among normals.

Basis from 8 mm. upwards.

Basis from 3 mm. upwards.

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In one out of 60 prostitutes Gurrieri found that
the second and third toe coalesced as far as the small
phalange.

6. The larynx of prostitutes offers several anomalies.
—Professor Masini in 50 prostitutes x found 15

1 "Arch, di psich.," xiv., fasc i.-ii.

FURTHER ANOMALIES. 85

with deep voices, and vocal chords that were large
in proportion to the size of the laryngeal opening.
Twenty-seven had still more masculine voices, with
high bursts of sound followed by low, deep tones.

On external observation the larynxes of these
women were of normal movement in all. Chiefly re-
markable was the exaggerated size of the wings of
the thyroid, and a very flat thyroid angle. To this
external conformation the glottis corresponded in
width ; the vocal chords were thick and close to-
gether ; the vocal tubercle was marked, and the
bases of the arytenoid cartilages very wide.

In each case the larynx resembled a man, thus
showing once again the virility of face and cranium
characteristic of the prostitute class,

7. Summary. — Almost all anomalies occur more
frequently in prostitutes than in female offenders,
and both classes have a larger number of the cha-
racteristics of degeneration than normal women.

Only the asymmetrical face, strabismus, virile and
Mongolian types of physiognomy are more common
among criminals than among prostitutes ; while out-
standing ears are only a little less frequent in the
former than in the latter class.

Prostitutes are almost quite free from wrinkles,
hypertrophy of the masseters, platycephali, crooked
noses and asymmetrical faces ; what they have more
frequently are moles, hairiness, prehensile feet, the
virile larynx, large jaws and cheek-bones, and above
all anomalous teeth. That is to say they show fewei
of the anomalies which produce ugliness, but are
marked by more of the signs of degeneration.

86 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

If we compare infanticides who, from the very
nature of their offence, depart least from the type of
normals, with other delinquents, we find percentages
such as are recorded in Table VI. (see following page).
They are least subject to asymmetry, to strabismus,
to virility of face, to anomalous teeth and cheek-
bones, but have, more frequently than others,
peculiarities of the ears and hydrocephalic heads.
Female poisoners, thieves, and assassins are most
remarkable for cranial asymmetry and strabismus ;
while the female assassin has most often a virile and
Mongolian type of face.

Female homicides and poisoners offer most ex-
amples of cranial depressions and diasthema of the
teeth ; and incendiaries are most characterised by flat
and deformed noses.

Homicides, poisoners, and incendiaries have the
more prominent cheek-bones, and infanticides re-
semble them in showing the largest number of
asymmetrical faces and exaggerated jaws ; but on
the whole the type of murderesses (whether assassins
or poisoners) is more degenerate than that of infanti-
cides.

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CHAPTER VII.

PHOTOGRAPHS OF CRIMINALS AND PROSTI-
TUTES.

ANYBODY wishing to observe with his own eyes the
anomalies we have detailed will derive assistance
from Plates I., II., III., which contain photographs
of French and Russian prostitutes and delinquents.

If asked why we have chosen these examples from
distant countries, we can but reply that, beyond not
finding in any other European land a co-operation
so intelligent as that afforded by Madame Tarnowsky,
we are also hampered by juridical considerations.

Among the most ridiculous of the prohibitions
obtaining in Italy, or rather in the Italian bureau-
cracy, which is certainly not the first in Europe, is
the absolute impossibility of measuring, studying, or
photographing the worst criminals once they have
been condemned.

So long as there is a presumption of innocence, so
long as these persons are only suspected or accused,
one can discredit them in every way, and hold them
up to publicity by recording their answers to their
judges.

But once it is admitted beyond question that

CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES. 89

they are reprobates, once the prison doors have
closed for good upon them — oh, then they become
sacred ; and woe to him who touches, woe to him
who studies them !

Consumptive patients, pregnant women, may be
manipulated, even to their hurt, by thousands of
students for the good of science ; but criminals —
Heaven forefend !

When one of the writers wished to publish photo-
graphs of male criminals in his " Uomo Delinquente,"
he was driven to the German prison " album " ; and
the difficulties thrown in his way by the Italian
authorities were doubled in the case of female
offenders and prostitutes, whose sense of shame it
was considered necessary to respect in every way.

In Russian prisons Madame Tarnowsky was
afforded every facility, and after making a complete
study of the body and mind of the delinquents, she
forwarded us their photographs.

1. Female criminals. — We will first take 5 homi-
cides, of whom the two first have the true type of
their class. (See Plate I.)

The first, aged 40, killed her husband with reiterated
blows of a hatchet, while he was skimming the milk,
then threw his body into a recess under the stairs,
and during the night fled with the family money and
her own trinkets. She was arrested a week later and
confessed her crime. This woman was remarkable
for the asymmetry of her face ; her nose was hollowed
out, her ears projecting, her brows more fully de-
veloped than is usual in a woman, her jaw enormous
with a lemurian appendix.

90 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

No. 2, aged 60. Was constantly ill-treated by
her husband, whom she finally joined with her son in
strangling, hanging him afterwards so as to favour
the idea of suicide.

Here again we have asymmetry of the face, breadth
of jaw, enormous frontal sinuses, numerous wrinkles,
a hollowed-out nose, a very thin upper lip, with deep-
set eyes wide apart, and wild in expression.

No. 3, aged 21. Was married against her will,
ill-treated by her husband, whom she killed, after a
night altercation, with a hatchet while he slept.

In her we find only a demi-type. Her ears stand
out, she has big jaws and cheek-bones, and very black
hair, besides other anomalies which do not show in
the photograph, such as gigantic canine teeth and
dwarf incisors.

No. 4, aged 44. Strangled her husband by agree-
ment with her lover, and threw him into a ditch.
She denied her crime. Hollowed-out nose, black
hair, deep-set eyes, big jaw. Demi-type.

No. 5, aged 50. A peasant. She killed her brother
at supper, so as to inherit from him. She denied her
guilt persistently. Was condemned, together with
her hired accomplices, to twenty years' penal servi-
tude. She had black hair, grey eyes, diasthema of
the teeth, a cleft palate, precocious and profound
wrinkles, thin lips, and a crooked face. Demi-type.

Passing now to poisoners, we find the following to
be the most remarkable out of twenty-three : —

No. 6, aged 36. Of a rich family, with an epileptic
mother, and a father addicted to alcohol. She
poisoned her husband with arsenic after sixteen years

CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES. 91

of married life. Nose hollowed out and club-shaped,
large jaws and ears, squint eyes, weak reflex action
of left patella. She confessed nothing. Character
resolute and devout. Type.

No. y, aged 34. Also poisoned her husband with
arsenic ; also denied her guilt. An enormous under
jaw. On close examination displayed gigantic
incisors, and down so long as to resemble a beard.
Demi-type.

No. 8, aged 64. Poisoned her son's wife and the
mother of the same. Deep wrinkles, ears much
higher than the level of the brows. A singularity is
the size of the neck-muscles, exaggerated as in oxen.
Thin lips, and a cleft palate. Demi-type.

No. 9, a peasant, aged 47. Poisoned her daughter-
in-law because of inability to work. Fluent in speech,
never confessed the crime. Asymmetrical face,
oblique eyes (a feature, however, which might be
ethnological), huge, unequal jaws, small ears, nose
club-shaped and hollowed out. On a near view she
displayed big canine teeth, and a great parieto-occi-
pital depression. Her children like her grandfather
were epileptic. Type.

No. 10, aged 20. Attempted to poison her hus-
band, an old man, who treated her ill. Darwin's
lobule was enormously developed in her ear, as may
be seen even from the photograph. Hydrocephalic
forehead, nose hollowed out and club-shaped, large,
unequal jaws, eyes and hair black. Type.

No. 11, aged 35. Poisoned her daughter-in-law, for
an unknown reason, with some medicine. Fair hair,
asymmetrical face, overlapping teeth. Guilt confessed.

92 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Now we come to the incendiaries, of whom there
are 10, four of a striking type.

No. 12. Set fire to the village palisades to revenge
herself on some malignant gossips. A large nose,
thin lips, lowering expression, with incisors replaced
by molars. Type.

No. 13, aged 63. Sets fire to a neighbour's house
because of a quarrel about money. Denied the
offence. Defective teeth, big, feline eyes, very large
ears, asymmetry of eyebrows. Demi-type.

No. 14, aged 25. Set fire, in concert with her
husband, to a neighbour's house out of revenge. She
accused her husband and denied her own complicity.
Many wrinkles, projecting parietal bones, big ears and
jaws, low forehead. Demi-type.

No. 15, aged 41. A peasant. Set fire to nine houses
out of revenge ; pretended to have done it while
drunk. Very ferocious countenance, asymmetrical,
with enormous ears and jaws. Sullen, very black
eyes, fair hair, diasthema of the incisors, narrow arch
of palate. Type.

No. 16, aged 45. Convicted more than once as a
receiver, who had twice hidden convicts in her house.
Crooked face and teeth, hollowed-out nose, large,
prognathous face, enormous superciliary arches.

Out of 9 infanticides, 3 presented the salient type.

No. 17, aged 60. Killed a newborn babe to save
her daughter's reputation. Cut the infant into pieces
and hid it. Confessed nothing. A strong character.
Many wrinkles, enormous cheek-bones, ears, and
frontal sinuses. Right side of face higher than the
left. Forehead receding as in savages. Canine teeth

CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES. 93

gigantic and badly placed. Sunken eyes, brownish-
green in colour.

No. 18, aged 60. Assisted her daughter to drown
the latter's newborn child ; then afterwards accused
the daughter, in consequence of a quarrel about a
lover whom the two women shared.

Physiognomy relatively good,in spite of the subject's
licentious tendencies which age could not eradicate.
Nothing anomalous beyond the hollowed-out nose
and very wrinkled skin. The face, however, though
it does not appear so in the photograph, was really
asymmetrical, and the woman had the cleft palate
and fleshy lips which betray a luxurious disposition.

No. 19, aged 19, the domestic servant of a priest,
had a child, of which the father was a stable-boy.
Driven out of every house, she killed her child by
beating it on the frozen ground. Crooked face, a
hollowed-out nose, big ears and jaws, incisors over-
lapping.

Finally comes a female brigand — No. 20, aged 25.
Was the companion in arms of a band of brigands,
one of whom was her lover. A hollowed-out nose,
large jaws and ears, a virile physiognomy ; and in her
also there is congenital division of the palate.

Many may find that after all these faces are not
horrible, and I agree, so far, that they appear
infinitely less repulsive when compared with corre-
sponding classes among the men whose portraits
were reproduced by us from the " Atlas de L'Homme
Criminel." Among some of the females there is even
a ray of beauty, as in Nos. 19 and 20 ; but when this
beauty exists it is much more virile than feminine.

94 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

To understand this at once, let the reader look at the
lower profile in Nos. 20 bis, 6 and 6 bis, and then
even the most inexperienced will, see how hard, cruel,
and masculine are these lines, which yet are not
wanting in grace.

It is useful also to remark the physiognomical
resemblance among the most different criminals.
Nos. 6, 10, 9, and 3 look like members of the same
family. And let anybody compare these with the
few French thieves reproduced by Mace1 (Plate III.),
and he will see how little race can do ; for the French
women seem Russians, and the Russians French.
No. 2, for instance, in Plate III., in her jaws and long
face, resembles No. 7 in Plate I., who is a Russian ;
Nos. 4 and 8 are like the sisters of Nos. 2 and 9,
Russians, having the same oblique eyes, big, hollowed-
out noses, and precocious wrinkles ; while No. 9, Plate
III., resembles No. 20, Plate I. All have the same
repulsive, virile air, the same big, sensual lips, &c.

The French women, however, are infinitely more
typical and uglier, and here I would remark that the
more refined a nation is, the further do its criminals
differ from the average. It is, for instance, well
known in Russia that among Tartar criminals the
depraved type is less striking than in the Russians,
especially those who are natives of Moscow and St.
Petersburg (Kennan's " Siberia," ii.).

The photographs (see Plate III.) chosen haphazard
from the note-books of Mace (a police official who
was certainly unbiased and quite ignorant of criminal
anthropology) only confirm our conclusions ; for there

1 " Mon Musee Criminel," Paris, 1890, p. 148.

CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES. 95

are but three out of all the examples, namely, Nos.
I, 3, and 7, who show either a small number of
abnormal features (such as big ears and lower jaws,
very black hair, strong brows, and coarse full lips), or
else show them to a limited degree.

Among the rest of the specimens eight or nine
anomalies are present, and the type is often complete.

Note, in No. 2, the immense jaws, thick lips,
crooked face, the oblique, squinting, cruel eyes ; in
No. 6 the marked strabismus, the sessile ear, the
asymmetrical face ; in Nos. 4 and 5 a repetition of
these peculiarities ; and in No. 8 the flat, crooked
nose, low forehead, and slanting eyes. In every
instance the jaws are huge. The types are singularly
virile. Nos. 2, 4, 5, 8, and 9 are striking examples,
having the bodies of women, but all the air of brutal
men : whom they resemble sometimes, even in their
dress.

Nos. 12 and 13 are German women, whose vertical
wrinkles and thin lips seem to me to mark them out
as thieves.

A typical assassin is No. 14, also a German, with
her still, glassy eyes, big jaw, and masculine aspect.

Characteristic again is No. 10 (Plate III.), a certain
Z., first a prostitute, then a thief, finally a murderess,
who killed her guest and calumniated her benefactor,
but was absolved on her trial. For, although hand-
some at first sight, she presents, nevertheless, all the
features which I consider typically criminal : im-
mensely thick, black hair, a receding forehead, over-
jutting brows, and an exaggerated frontal angle, such
as one notes in savages and monkeys ; while the

g6 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

jaws and lip — indeed her whole face is essentially
virile.

The same may be said of the Italian female brigand
(No. n), who betrays the type not so much in her
oblique glance and heavy jaw, as in her long face and
masculine physiognomy, so that if she had dressed
as a man she could have been taken for one, like
Gabrielle Bompard.

The last-named, whose photograph is given, ex-
hibits, as Brouardel, Ballet and Motet correctly
remarked,1 all the characteristics, generally rare in
women, of the born criminal. Her stature was I
metre 46 ; her hips and breasts rudimentary, and she
consequently looked so masculine that she was able,
when dressed as a man, to accompany Eyraud every-
where without being recognised. She had thick hair,
abnormal and precocious wrinkles, a livid pallor, a
short, hollowed-out nose, a heavy jaw. Above all, she
had an asymmetrical face, and Mongolian eurig-
nathism.

Still more typically homicidal and lascivious, in my
opinion, is the female criminal Berland.2 Here we
have sunken eyes, a receding forehead, a small head,
sessile ears, numerous deep, precocious wrinkles, thick,
crooked lips, a flat, crooked nose, which curved out-
wards, a receding chin, and a virile physiognomy
(Figs. 7, 8).

Talmeyr (Sur le Banc) has painted a veritable
band of assassins and thieves, of which the leader was

1 " Archives d' Anthropologic Criminelle," Lyons, 1891.

2 I owe these two portraits to the kindness of Prince Roland Bona-
parte, who possesses one of the finest anthropological collections in
Europe, and who had the likenesses done specially for me.

Gabrielle Bompard.

CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES. 97

a working woman, who was always drunk, had cor-
rupted her own son, led the most profligate life, and
little by little had turned all the men she had to do
with, her son not excepted, into a gang of murderers.

Another woman, Thomas by name (Figs. 9, 10),
was profligate and drunken, besides habitually
practising abortion as a profession. She always fell
into a dipso-epileptic state after accomplishing her
crime. She resembled Nos. 4 and 8, Plate III., and
was remarkable for facial asymmetry, sessile, pro-
truding ears, a crooked nose, thin, crooked lips, and
many wrinkles.

These two photographs give a very good idea of
the criminal type in women, which evidently is less
brutal than the corresponding type in the male
offender.

Very often, too, in women, the type is disguised by
youth with its absence of wrinkles and the plumpness
which conceals the size of the jaw and cheek-bones,
thus softening the masculine and savage features.

Then when the hair is black and plentiful (as in
No. 10, Plate III.), and the eyes are bright, a not
unpleasing appearance is presented. In short, let a
female delinquent be young and we can overlook her
degenerate type, and even regard her as beautiful ;
the sexual instinct misleading us here as it does in
making us attribute to women more of sensitiveness
and passion than they really possess. And in the
same way, when she is being tried on a criminal
charge, we are inclined to excuse, as noble impulses
of passion, acts which arise from the most cynical
calculations.

98 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

For this reason many will hardly agree with us in
finding the criminal type in No. io, Plate V., nor yet
in Messalina, who, all flattered though she was by
contemporary writers, yet offers many of the features
of the criminal and born prostitute — having a low
forehead, very thick, wavy hair, and a heavy jaw.

Magnan (see "Actes du 2e Congres d' Anthropo-
logic Criminelle," Paris, 1889) mentions the following
examples, as showing the absence of the type peculiar
to born criminals.

Margherita, the first of the two, must be admitted
not to show, on a casual view, the usual characteristics
of degeneration ; but when one learns that she is only
12 years of age, one can but feel surprise at her
unusual precocity, for her physiognomy is that of a
woman of twenty. She has very strong jaws and
cheek-bones, sessile ears, hypertrophy of the middle
incisors, atrophy of the lateral teeth, and dulness of
the sense of touch. She is, in short, the complete
type, not of a born criminal, but of a prostitute,
and yet Magnan mentions her as completely non-
typical !

We learn that her fits of anger were violent ; that
she broke everything, threatened her mother, stole,
and incited her brother to steal. She used to bite
her little brother without any motive, and putting a
pin between her teeth would invite him to kiss her.
Her memory was good. What chiefly distinguished
her were sexual disorders, and especially an invin-
cible tendency to onanism. " I would be glad not to
do it," she said to her mother, "but I cannot help
myself."

■ ;v ■ ■ . -

' " II I. nil.

Fig. 9.

(Thomas,)

Fig. 10.

Messalina.

CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES. 99

All medical remedies were useless. At 1 1 years of
age she underwent chloridectomy, and the bandages
were hardly removed when the old practices recom-
menced.

Let us take the next example, that of a born thief.

Louise C. (Magnan writes of her), aged 9, was the
daughter of a mad father, always in a condition of
sexual excitement. She was of weak intelligence ;
her instincts had always been bad, her conduct
turbulent, and her mind incapable of concentration.

At three she was a thief, and laid hands on her
mother's money, on articles in shops, on everything,
in short, that came in her way. At five she was
arrested and conveyed to the police-office, after a
determined resistance. Her habits were vagabond
and unruly. She shrieked, tore off her stockings,
threw her dolls into the gutter, lifted up her skirts in
the street.

Magnan asserts that she has no morbid peculiarity
of face ; but on looking at her photograph (Fig. 13),
one perceives that, although only nine years old, she
offers the exact type of the born criminal. Her
physiognomy is Mongolian, her jaws and cheek-bones
are immense; the frontal sinuses strong, the nose flat,
with a prognathous under-jaw, asymmetry of face, and
above all, precocity and virility of expression. She
looks like a grown woman — nay, a man.

Precocity and virility of aspect is the double
characteristic of the criminal-woman, and serves
more than any other feature to destroy and mask her
type.

2. Prostitutes. — With the aid of Madame Tar-

100 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

nowsky we have examined ioo prostitutes, all from
Moscow, and all aged from 18 to 20 years. We
do not undertake to say that among them there
are no Germans and no Jewesses ; but the greater
number are Russians from Moscow. (See Plate II.)

Contrarily to criminals, these women are relatively,
if not generally, beautiful ; still among them there is
not wanting the type which we are accustomed to
regard as the criminal one ; but it is only found in 10
per cent, of the examples, being especially marked
in Nos. 1 8, 23, 16, 2, 3, 10. In 15 per cent, we have
only a half-type ; and in all the examples there are
the characteristics of madness as well as of criminality.
Observe Nos. 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, where the wild eyes
and perturbed countenance, together with facial asym-
metry, recall women seen in asylums for the insane,
especially the maniacal cases.

The faces of these women are singularly mono-
tonous as compared to those of criminals. Nos. 1, 2,
3, 4, 6, 8, 12, and 14, seem all to have the same face,
the same jaws, cheek-bones, and hair.

Some of the photographs are quite pretty. No. 25
might be called a Russian Helen, and No. 20 is very
handsome in spite of her hard expression. The
first fifteen might pass in the streets for beauties ;
and indeed our more fashionable cocottes have exactly
the same type. Ninon de Lenclos and Marion were
justly celebrated for their beauty.

This absence of ill-favouredness and want of typical
criminal characteristics will militate with many against
our contention that prostitutes are after all equi-
valents of criminals, and possess the same qualities

Margherita.

Louise.

Physiognomy of Fallen Women, Russian.

Plate II.

Physiognomy of Fallen Women, Russian.

Plate II.

Physiognomy of Fallen Women, Russian.

Plate II.

Physiognomy of Fallen Women, Russian.

Plate II.

CRIMINALS AND PROSTITUTES. 101

in an exaggerated form. But in addition to the fact
that true female criminals are much less ugly than
their male companions, we have in prostitutes women
of great youth, in whom the beaute du diable, with its
freshness, plumpness, and absence of wrinkles, dis-
guises and conceals the betraying anomalies.

Moreover, most people do not find ugliness in the
black, thick hair (Nos. I to 8, 21 and 22), outstanding
nose (Nos. I, 2, 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24), strong
jaw (Nos. 1 to 15, 17, 21, 23), hard, spent glance, which
we have pronounced to be characteristics of degenera-
tion, and which distinguish all these examples except
Nos. 16, 21, and 22, with their wild air, and Nos. 5
and 28 with their beautiful eyes. And yet another
thing to be remembered is, that the profession of
these women necessitates a comparative absence of
peculiarities which, when existing, excite disgust and
repulsion, and require as much as possible to be
artificially concealed. Most certainly the art of
making up, imposed by their trade on all these un-
fortunates, disguises or hides many characteristic
features which criminals exhibit openly. And it may
happen, therefore, that we are only permitted to see
abundant hair, black eyes, and absence of wrinkles,
where acquaintance with reality would reveal the
exact opposite.

Again, if external anomalies be rare in prostitutes,
internal ones, such as overlapping teeth, a divided
palate, &c, are more common among them than among
female criminals ; and male offenders offer a corre-
sponding phenomenon in the superior personal at-
tractiveness of swindlers and forgers to homicides

102 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

or assassins, who naturally do not require beauty
as an aid to the accomplishment ot their special
crimes.

Where delicacy of mien and a benevolent expression
are useful, however, we find them — a truly Darwinian
trait. But even the handsomest female offenders have
invariably strong jaws and cheek-bones, and a mascu-
line aspect. These peculiarities are shared by cocottes,
among all of whom there is a family resemblance so
marked as to merge the differences between Russian
prostitutes and the unfortunates who flaunt in fine
equipages, or wander in rags through the streets of
Italian towns. And when youth vanishes, the jaws, the
cheek-bones, hidden by adipose tissue, emerge, salient
angles stand out, and the face grows virile, uglier
than a man's ; wrinkles deepen into the likeness of
scars, and the countenance, once attractive, exhibits
the full degenerate type which early grace had
concealed.

Physiognomy of French, German and Russian Female Offenders.

Plate III.

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE CRIMINAL TYPE IN WOMEN AND ITS
A TA VIS TIC ORIGIN.

I. Quota of the type. — More instructive than a mere
analytical enumeration of the characteristics of
degeneration is a synthesis of the different features
peculiar to the female criminal type.

We call a complete type one wherein exist four or
more of the characteristics of degeneration ; a half-
type that which contains at least three of these ; and
no type a countenance possessing only one or two
anomalies or none.

Out of the female delinquents examined 52 were
Piedmontese in the prison of Turin, and 234 in the
Female House of Correction were natives of different
Italian provinces, especially from the South. In
these, consequently, we set aside all special charac-
teristics belonging to the ethnological type of the
different regions, such as the brachycephali of the
Piedmontese, the dolichocephali of the Sardinians,
the oxycephali.

We studied also from the point of view of type the
150 prostitutes whom we had previously examined
for their several features ; as well as another 100
9 103

104 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

from Moscow whose photographs Madame Tarnowsky
sent us.

And we classified under the same heads the
various data furnished by Marro, by Grimaldi, and
by Madame Tarnowsky, so as to compare the results
obtained by all three.

One glance at Table VII. suffices to show the
reader how little these various returns differ. The
subjects we examined in the House of Correction
resemble those we saw in prison; nor do our results
differ much from the averages ot the other observers,
allowance being made for the personal equation or
individual divergences in the mode of regarding the
same peculiarity.

The results of the examination may be thus sum-
marised :—

I. The rarity of a criminal type in the female as
compared with the male delinquent. In our homo-
geneous group (286) the proportion is 14 per cent,
rising, when all other observations are taken into
account, to 18 per cent, a figure lower almost by one-
half than the average in the male born criminal,
namely, 31 per cent.

In normal women this same type is only present
in 2 per cent.

All observers agree as to the rarity of the criminal
type. Marro records the absence of the type in 58*7
per cent, Madame Tarnowsky in 55 per cent, we found
it wanting in 55*9 per cent of the cases in the House
of Correction, and in 55*8 of those in prison ; so
that altogether the criminal type results as wanting
in 57*5 per cent, of delinquents.

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Soldiers

Normal males

Normal females

Criminal males

Great criminals (men)

Male criminals (photographs)

Female criminals (German photos.)...

Female criminals (Italian)

F. crims. observed by Marro

,, ,, Tarnowsky ...
Females in penal establishments (?)

Murderesses ;

Thieves

Infanticides

Swindlers

Corrupt ..

Poisoners

Females in prison (thieves)

Average 286 (Lombroso, Ottolenghi)
Female criminals photographed
Prostitutes (Grimaldi) ...

„ (Tarnowsky)

,, (Lombroso, Ottolenghi)...

Average of female criminals

,, prostitutes

Female lunatics (Roncoroni)

1 1 - - — ■ — ., ■ ——-———- 1 .,_,,, 1 —

106 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

The demi-type is present in almost constant pro-
portions, Marro finding it in 22 per cent, Madame
Tarnowsky in 21 per cent, we in 29 per cent in
the House of Correction, and in 28*9 in the prison.
Average : 25*20 per cent.

2. Prostitutes differ notably from female criminals
in that they offer so much more frequently a special
and peculiar type. Grimaldi's figures are 31 per
cent, (of anomalies), Madame Tarnowsky's 43 per
cent, our own 38 per cent ; making a mean of 37*1
per cent These results harmonise with the conclu-
sions to which we had already arrived in our study
of particular features, and our survey of the various
types of born prostitutes as distinguished from
ordinary female offenders.

3. In the differentiation of female criminals, accord-
ing to their offences, our last observations on the
286 criminals (made first without knowing the nature
of their crimes and classified afterwards) give the
prevalence of the criminal type among thieves as
15*3 and 16 per cent; among assassins as 13*2 per
cent, and as rising to 187 per cent in those accused
of corruption, among whom were included old prosti-
tutes.

The least frequency was among swindlers, II per
cent, and infanticides, 87 per cent, such women being
indeed among the more representative of occasional
criminals.

In a yet more complete table Madame Tarnowsky
shows how the percentages among homicides prevail
over those among thieves, and how the averages
among prostitutes are higher than any others, be-

THE CRIMINAL TYPE IN WOMEN. I07

sides giving us the various proportions of the anoma-
lies.1

Normals

150.

Hom

icides

TOO.

Thieves ioo.

Prostitutes ioo.

Anomalies

32 per cent.

10 per cent.

40 per cent.

—

per cent.

>»

—

»»

>»

»»

>»

»»

—

>»

—

»*

>»

—

»>

»»

Here we see the crescendo of the peculiarities as
we rise from moral women, who are most free from
anomalies, to prostitutes, who are free from none, and
we note how homicides present the highest number of
multiple anomalies.

All the same, it is incontestable that female
offenders seem almost normal when compared to the
male criminal, with his wealth of anomalous features.

2. Social and atavistic reasons for the rarity of the
type. — The remarkable rarity of anomalies (already
revealed by their crania) is not a new phenomenon
in the female, nor is it in contradiction to the un-
doubted fact that atavistically she is nearer to her
origin than the male, and ought consequently to
abound more in anomalies.

We saw, indeed, that the crania of male criminals
exhibited yZ per cent, of anomalies, as against 27
per cent, in female delinquents and 51 per cent, in
prostitutes ; but we also saw that the monstrosities
in which women abound are forms of disease, con-
sequent on disorder of the ovule. But when a
departure from the norm is to be found only in

1 "Arch, di psich.," xiv. i., 1893.

I08 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the physiognomy, that is to say, in that portion
of the frame where the degenerative stamp, the
type declares itself, then even in cases of idiotcy,
of madness, and, what is more important for our
purpose, of epilepsy, the characteristic face is far less
marked and less frequent in the woman. In her,
anomalies are extraordinarily rare when compared
with man ; and this phenomenon, with a few excep-
tions among lower animals, holds good throughout
the whole zoological scale.

For this reason, as Viazzi well observes (Anomalo,
1893), the common characters of a genus are more
evident in the forms of the female. Most naturalists are
agreed * that for the type of a species also one must
look to the female rather than to the male ; and this
remark may be applied with equal justice to the
moral sphere.

Helen Zimmern, in her " Philosophy of Fashion,"
observed that women show their individuality better
than men in the details of their dress, but that the
principal lines of every fashion of attire in every age
are due to the active, creative element in man. And
in truth, beginning with the primitive Greek chiton,
sleeveless and flowing, confined by a belt, from which
all feminine and masculine habiliments have succes-
sively sprung throughout the course of European
civilisation, how many have been the varieties of
male attire from age to age, among different nations,
while the female dress in its general lines is substan-
tially always the same (Viazzi).

Compilers of public statutes have also noted the

* Morelli, " Lezioni di Antropologia " (in course of publication), p. 220.

THE CRIMINAL TYPE IN WOMEN. log

conservative tendency of women in all questions of
social order ; a conservatism of which the primary
cause is to be sought in the immobility of the ovule
compared with the zoosperm.

To this add that the female, on whom falls the
larger share of the duty of bringing up the family,
necessarily leads a more sedentary life, and is less
exposed than the male to the varying conditions of
time and space in her environment. More especially
is this the case among the greater number of verte-
brates, and still more of savages, where the struggle
for life, both for parents and progeny, devolves
primarily upon the male, and is the incessant cause
of variations and peculiar adaptations in functions
and organs (Viazzi).

Now, once we admit that the primitive type of a
species is more clearly represented in the female, we
must proceed to argue thence that the typical forms
of our race, being better organised and fixed in the
woman through the action of time and long heredity,
joined to fewer ancestral variations, are less subject
to transformation and deformation by the influences
which determine special and retrogressive variations
in the male.

Another very potent factor has been sexual selec-
tion. Man not only refused to marry a deformed
female, but ate her, while, on the other hand, pre-
serving for his enjoyment the handsome woman who
gratified his peculiar instincts. In those days he was
the stronger, and choice rested with him.

It is almost superfluous to record once again the
instance of the aboriginal Australian, who, in reply

110 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

to an inquiry as to the absence of old women in his
country, said, " We eat them all ! " and on being
remonstrated with for such treatment of his wives,
answered, "For one whom we lose, a thousand
remain."

It is quite certain that the ladies whom they lost
were neither the loveliest nor the most attractive.
The only anomalies which prevail are such as form
no obstacle to sexual selection, either because the
male finds them convenient for other reasons, or has
no objection to them, or attaches no importance to
them. Such is the cushion of the Hottentot women,
which is useful for the transport of children; and
when this and other anomalies prevail among the
women of any tribe, they assume a stable and per-
petual character in virtue of the tenacity peculiar to
the feminine organism.

Yet another reason for the comparative rarity of
the criminal type in women is that congenitally they
are less inclined to crime than men. Atavism must be
held to account for this fact, savage females, and still
more, civilised females, being by nature less ferocious
than males. It is the occasional offender whom we
meet with most frequently among women ; and as
occasional criminals have no special physiognomy,
they can offer no examples of the type. And woman's
inability in this respect is all the greater that even
when a bom offender she is, in the majority of cases,
an adulteress, a calumniator, a swindler, or a mere
accomplice — offences, every one of them, which require
an attractive appearance, and prohibit the develop-
ment of repulsive facial characteristics.

THE CRIMINAL TYPE IN WOMEN. Ill

The primitive woman was rarely a murderess ; but
she was always a prostitute, and such she remained
until semi-civilised epochs. Atavism, again, then
explains why prostitutes should show a greater num-
ber of retrogressive characteristics than are to be
observed in the female criminal.

Various as are these solutions of a singular problem,
we may, I think, seek yet another. In female animals,
in aboriginal women, and in the women of our time,
the cerebral cortex, particularly in the psychical
centres, is less active than in the male. The irrita-
tion consequent on a degenerative process is there-
fore neither so constant nor so lasting, and leads
more easily to motor and hysterical epilepsy, or to
sexual anomalies, than to crime. For a similar reason
genius is more common in men than in women ; and
the lower animals remain insensible to narcotics,
which intoxicate the human species, and are not sub-
ject to delirium or mania when attacked by fever.

We have now got to the reason why criminality
increases among women with the march of civilisa-
tion. The female criminal is a kind of occasional
delinquent, presenting few characteristics of degenera-
tion, little dulness, &c, but tending to multiply in pro-
portion to her opportunities for evil-doing ; while the
prostitute has a greater atavistic resemblance to her
primitive ancestress, the woman of pleasure, and, as we
shall see, has consequently a greater dulness of touch
and taste, a greater propensity for tattooing, and so on.

In short, the female criminal is of less typical
aspect than the male because she is less essentially
criminal ; because in all forms of degeneration she

TI2 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

deviates to a less degree ; because, being organically
conservative, she keeps the characteristics of her
type even in her aberrations from it ; and finally
because beauty, being for her a supreme necessity, her
grace of form resists even the assaults of degeneracy.

But it cannot be denied that when depravity in
woman is profound, then the law by which the type
bears the brand of criminality asserts itself in spite
of all restraint, at any rate as far as civilised races
are concerned {see Plate III.) ; and this is particularly
true of the prostitute, whose type approximates so
much more to that of her primitive ancestress.

3. Atavism. — Atavism helps to explain the rarity
of the criminal type in woman. The very precocity
of prostitutes — the precocity which increases their ap-
parent beauty — is primarily attributable to atavism.
Due also to it is the virility underlying the female
criminal type ; for what we look for most in the
female is femininity, and when we find the opposite
in her we conclude as a rule that there must be
some anomaly. And in order to understand the
significance and the atavistic origin of this anomaly,
we have only to remember that virility was one of the
special features of the savage women. In proof I
have but to refer the reader to the Plates opposite,
taken from Ploss's work (" Das Weib," 3rd ed., 1890^
where we have the portraits of Red Indian and Negro
beauties, whom it is difficult to recognise for women,
so huge are their jaws and cheek-bones, so hard and
coarse their features. And the same is often the case
in their crania and brains.

The criminal being only a reversion to the primitive

Negro Woman.

Red Indian Woman.

THE CRIMINAL TYPE IN WOMEN. 113

type of his species, the female criminal necessarily
offers the two most salient characteristics of pri-
mordial woman, namely, precocity and a minor degree
of differentiation from the male — this lesser differen-
tiation manifesting itself in the stature, cranium, brain,
and in the muscular strength which she possesses
to a degree so far in advance of the modern iemale.
Examples of this masculine strength may still be
found among women in country districts of Italy,
and especially in the islands ; and the reader should
now be able to understand why I detect the criminal
type in that Z. . . . (Plate III., No. 10), whose likeness
would strike many as being very beautiful.

The excessive obesity of prostitutes, to which we
have already drawn attention, is perhaps of atavistic
origin.

" The fatness of many prostitutes," observes Parent
Duchatelet, " strikes those who look at them en masse
when many are together in one place. Persons living
among these women and observing them every day
have certified that this obesity only begins at about
the age of 25 to 30 years. It is rarely noticeable in
young girls or beginners. To what," he continues,
" are we to attribute this peculiarity ? The most
simple explanation seems to lie in the great number
of hot baths which such women are accustomed to
take throughout the year, and, above all, to their in-
active lives and abundant nourishment."

But the lower orders of prostitutes, who are the
fattest, do not take baths ; and if their lives in the
daytime are inactive, they are not so at night, when
their wakeful hours are frequent and diversified by

114 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

dances and orgies. And if we must admit that, as a
rule, they grow fat only after the age of 20 years,
yet we have but to look at the likenesses furnished
by Magnan to observe that the tendency shows
itself sometimes in the very young.

Many attribute this obesity to the mercurial pre-
parations of which these women make so large a use.
But it is well known that workers in quicksilver mines
and makers of looking-glasses, so far from being fat,
are noted for their thinness. Moreover, prostitutes
who do not use mercury incline to be fat, and mer-
curial treatment does not produce fleshiness in those
who undergo it.

Hottentot, African, and Abyssinian women when
rich and idle grow enormously fat, and the reason of
the phenomenon is atavistic.

Maternal and sexual functions produce the cushion
of the Hottentot woman, who by increasing in
adipose and connective tissue reverts to a peculi-
arity of primitive women — or is, in other words, an
example of atavism. Indeed, in Oceania and in
Africa the standard of beauty consists in weight, to
increase which, various artifices are resorted to, such
as imbibing enormous draughts of milk and beer in a
progressive ratio, until at last the venal women of
those societies are simple monsters of obesity.

In conclusion, I would remark that in prisons and
asylums for the insane, the female lunatics are far
more often exaggeratedly fat than the men. In Imola
there is a girl of 12 years with hypertrophy of the
breasts and buttocks (the former weighing two kilo-
grammes), so that she is fatter than a Hottentot
woman, and has to wear special stays.

CHAPTER IX.

TATTOOING.

I. Criminals. — Among male criminals the practice
of tattooing is so common as to become a special
characteristic ; but in female delinquents it is so rare
as to be practically non-existent.

Out of 1,175 sentenced women observed by me, by
Gamba, and Salsotto, only 13, or 2' 15 per cent., were
tattooed.

Among female lunatics the percentage is larger ; at
any rate in Ancona, where Riva found 10 tattooed out
of 147 — that is to say, 6*8 per cent. All were tattooed
on the arm, and almost all the signs were either
religious symbols, such as seals or crosses, or else
they were dates. There were no images.

One had on the arm a cross surmounting a globe,
with which she had been tattooed by a mountebank.
Another had, also on the arm, self-inflicted, four
initials, being those of her mother and two lovers.
This woman was a Venetian, an adulteress, condemned
for wounding her paramour, and was affected with
syphilis. Yet another Venetian woman had four
initials on her arm.

A female homicide, aggressor and thief, aged 24,

Il6 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

who suffered from epilepsy, who had been first a
model, then a prostitute, and had killed her lover, a
painter, out of jealousy and because he would not pay
her, bore on her forearm, in large letters, beginning
with a W, the name of the man she had killed, and
underneath the date of the abandonment which he
had thus expiated ; while on her other forearm was
the contradictory declaration, " faime Jean"

2. Prostitutes. — Among prostitutes, especially those
of the lowest class, the case is very different. The
proportion of tattooed among them is higher, even
setting aside the tattooing of the face with moles,
which doubles and even trebles the number of
examples.

Segre found I in 300 in Milan, De Albertis 28 in
300 at Genoa ; I found 7 in 1,561 at Turin — in all, 36
in 2,i6i,or 2*5 per cent. The principal characteristics
of the practice are almost negative. There are few
religious symbols (only one in thirty-three cases)
but frequent allusions to love mostly illicit, for the
instances only include two allusions to parents, while
twenty-four out of thirty-three referred to lovers. The
small degree of constancy in these attachments is
betrayed by the multiplicity of references to lovers,
of whom in two cases two were indicated, and in two
more, three. The marks consisted : —

In 31 .,

,. Names and initials.

In 6 .,

,. Transfixed hearts.

In 3 .

.. Men's heads.

In 2 .,

,. Mottoes.

In 3 ••

,. Own names.

De Albertis found on the arm of a prostitute, 84
years old, a Genoese, the figure of a zouave between

TATTOOING.

117

two initials, C. D. One had " W., my love," and two
transpierced hearts on the right forearm. One had
caused herself to be tattooed on the breast by an
expert practitioner with the figure of her lover, and
underneath, the letters " E. I. M. B." (Evvia il mio
Bruno). This was an allusion to her first lover whom
she had known when only fourteen, by whom she had
had a child and then been abandoned at the end of
two years. She was, nevertheless, a woman of some
education.

In Paris also, as a rule, prostitutes are tattooed only
with the initials or names of their lovers, followed by
the declaration, " Pour la vie" flanked sometimes by
two flowers or two hearts. The marks are almost
always on the shoulders or breast. Only twice was
any obscene allusion found.

La Rosny was covered all over with the names and
initials of her lovers and the dates of her new attach-
ments.

As to the places chosen for tattooing they are as
follows : —

Covered parts
Uncovered (face)
Right arm
Left arm...
Forearm...
Thighs ...
Breasts ...

27
I
7
4

19
7
3

The age at which the tattooing begins is almost
always early.

In 1 case
>> 3 )j
„ 9 „

>5 3 >>

7 years.

>»

»»

Il8 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Parent Duchatelet noticed that the tattooing is
most frequent in the more degraded girls, who are
accustomed to mark themselves with the names of
their lovers, effacing always the old with the new,
so that in one case there had been 1 5 names. Old
unfortunates prefer to tattoo themselves with the
names of women.

De Albertis observed that among prostitutes those
who are tattooed are the most depraved.

Out of 28, 15 had been in prison, 10 of them
several times, and one 24 times. Nine were covered
with scars, 28 were wanting in moral sense, and 20
even in a sense of religion ; 25 out of 28 had dulness
of touch, and I was absolutely wanting in it. All
had been precociously depraved, one at 9, another at
10 years — 8 between 12 and 14 years. Seven of the
number had tattooed themselves, one at the age of 9
out of imitation. Fourteen out of twenty-eight showed
anxiety to exhibit the marks.

Very accurate researches made by Bergh in Den-
mark yielded similar results to the above.1

Among the unfortunates of Copenhagen the fashion
came in when a young man, formerly a sailor, who
possessed an aptitude for drawing, and especially for
tattooing, began to take advantage of the well-known
frivolity of this class of women.

Within the last five years Bergh found 80 women
tattooed out of a total of 801, and 49 of the number,
or more than half, had been tattooed by the sailor in
question. The others had been tattooed by their

x " Archivio di psichiatria," xii.

TATTOOING. Iig

female friends in the houses of correction, or in the
police stations, and some by the procurers.

Thirty-four were tattooed with letters, 10 with
names, 22 with letters and figures, 11 with names
and figures, and 8 with figures alone. The greater
part of these tattooings were in red and black.

In 73 out of 80 cases eternal love was proclaimed
by an E affixed to the names of the lovers
Twenty-three of the same women had written their
own names, either partially or entirely ; and in 5
cases there was the date and the year of their loves.

Twenty-six had tattooed themselves with the
names of 2 lovers, 3 with the names of 3, 4 with 4,
and 2 with 5 or 6. The lovers of Parisian prostitutes
have never been equalled in number. Five had
erased the name of one lover by replacing it (in the
same spot) with that of another, and adding the
image of a funereal cross. This was observed also in
some cases in France.1 Two bore the name of a
female friend beside that of the lover. Four were
tattooed only with their own names, one with the
name of a brother, another with that of a boy, and
thirty-five with different figures.

For the rest there was no great variety, the same
marks being generally repeated. Naturally there are
often symbolical figures, the same as in France and
Italy. Fifteen women had a kind of knot formed by
two leaves turning in different directions ; 7 showed a
rose surrounded with leaves ; 6 a heart with two
hands clasped across it, with two letters and an
arrow in the middle.

1 Laccasagne, Les iatouages, Figs. 15, 35, 36.
10

120 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Five women bore the half-length likeness of a
young man ; four showed two clasped hands ; nine
a heart, that well-worn symbol of love ; three a kind
of ribbon ; two a branch with leaves, and two a leaf
only. Eight had a bracelet, or a funereal cross, or a
rosary, a ring, a star, a ship with sails, or a flag with
cannon. Two women were tattooed in nine places,
one in eleven, and another in fifteen. All these
marks were on the upper part of the body ; rarely on
the legs or chest ; and eight were on the joints of the
fingers.

Three women were marked with a ring on the
thumb, on the index and on the middle finger of the
left hand. Three had marks on the left knee, one on
the right knee, and three on both knees. One showed
a design on the sternum, and another on a spot lower
down, between the breasts.

In Copenhagen, as in Paris and Genoa, the tattooed
prostitutes were the lowest of their class ; but none
of the designs which they exhibited were obscene.
Generally they bore allusions to the love of men.

The tattooings are usually always in the same
places and of the same colour ; and sometimes they are
superimposed, an effort being made to cover the name
of an old lover with that of the new one. The chief
difference seems to be, that while in Copenhagen only
male names are found, on Parisian prostitutes there
are often female ones.

Tattooing among the lower class of prostitutes is
frequent, but rare among the upper sort, and almost
unknown in the ranks of the clandestine.

Out of 1,502 women, almost all young, who between

TATTOOING. 121

1886 and 1890 were admitted to the division in the
Vestne Hospital of Copenhagen reserved for clan-
destine prostitutes, only 3 1 were tattooed, 1 5 of them
when very young, by the sailor already mentioned,
and the remainder by their female friends or their
lovers.

3. Conclusions. Atavism.— On the whole, there-
fore, even the peculiarity of tattooing is found to a
far smaller degree among criminal women than
among men. In females of this class the proportion
is as two per thousand, while in young men, especially
the military, the proportion rises to 32 and 40 per
cent, with a minimum of 14 per cent.

In prostitutes, on the other hand, the average is
2.5 per cent., and has been trebled of late through
the recent practice of tattooing the face with
moles.

In Denmark, setting moles aside, the proportion is
10 per cent. Still more remarkable is the fact that
even among the tattooed female criminals the majority
were prostitutes also ; and it was the most vicious and
the most degraded of the unfortunates themselves
who were tattooed, and tattooed more especially on
the covered portions of their bodies, such as thighs
and breasts. Finally, prostitutes alone, especially
in Denmark and France, showed a multiplicity
of tattooings, the number amounting to 9, 11, or
even 15.

The predominating meaning of all these designs
is love ; but it is a love which proves the incon-
stancy of the unfortunate class, since in 26 cases out
of 73 the letter E, which constituted a declaration

122 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

of eternal affection, was followed by the names of
2, 4, 5, and even 6 lovers ; while 5 women were
tattooed with a funereal cross above the name, or had
effaced an old name with a new one.

We have here, then, yet a further proof that
phenomena of atavism are more frequent among
prostitutes than among ordinary female criminals,
while in both classes they are rarer than in the
male.

Other differences between the tattooings on women
and those on men are a much greater want of
variety ; an absence of epigrams, obscene signs,
and cries of vengeance, and the presence of ordinary
symbols and initials only. Here we have another
effect of the smaller ability and fancy, the lower
degree of differentiation in the female intellect ;
for even the female criminal is monotonous and uni-
form compared with her male companion, just as
woman is in general inferior to man.

Once again, then, we must seek an explanation
of the type in atavism, and this becomes doubly
significant when we learn that even the savage
woman is tattooed less frequently and more simply
than the aboriginal man.

In the Natchez tribe warriors alone are tattooed.
In Polynesia and the Marquesas Islands the men are
so thickly tattooed as to look clothed, the marks
forming a complete record of their age, rank, honours,
the enemies they have overcome, and even the property
which they possess. But the women limit themselves
at most to some delicate designs on feet or hands or
arms, choosing the images of gloves and shoes in

TATTOOING. 123

preference to the plants, serpents, sharks, &c, with
which the men adorn themselves.

At Nouka Hiva it is a privilege of the more aris-
tocratic woman to be tattooed with fantastic designs,
plebeian females being restricted to simple ones.

Among the Arabs especially prostitutes are tattooed
on the hands, forearms, arms, and upper neck, with
garlands, arabesques, or circular lines, and the men
are also tattooed on the face.

This custom is dying out among the women of
Japan, has ceased among those of Burmah, and in
New Zealand is reduced to two or three lines on the
lips and chin.

The same may be said of the women of Toba, in
India, where the marks signify puberty only, or are
perhaps intended for adornment, but have no religious,
political, or commercial significance.

So that here again is less tendency to differentiation.

The desire to beautify herself, which is so great in
the modern woman, was not present in the primordial
female, who was a mere beast of burden or of genera-
tion ; therefore even such a simple and primitive
adornment as tattooing, which required time and
some trouble, and was accompanied with religious
rites, and had besides to be durable, because serving
as a register of descent and legal claims, was practised
only by and for men. Among women for a long
time its place was taken by blue and red painting of
the hair, nails, and even teeth, which was resorted to
probably only at the epoch of puberty. The fine
ladies of Bagdad dyed their lips, legs, and chest blue,
outlining the curves of the breasts with blue flowers.

124 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

In Burmah the nails of feet and hands are coloured
red ; x while in Sackatu indigo is used to dye the hair,
teeth, feet, and hands. By all which we see that even
simplicity of tattooing is a sign of atavism in the
criminal prostitute.

1 C. Variot, " Les tatouages et les peintures de la pean " ( Revue
Scientifique, iii.).

CHAPTER X.

VITALITY AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF
FEMALE CRIMINALS.

WOMEN are not only longer-lived than men, but have
greater powers of resistance to misfortune and deep
grief. This is a well-known law, which in the case of
the female criminal seems almost exaggerated, so
remarkable is her longevity and the toughness with
which she endures the hardships, even the prolonged
hardships of prison life. It is a well-known fact that
the number of aged female criminals surpasses the
male contingent. "Witch" is a synonymous term
for old woman in the language of the people ; and
there are some proverbs which point to similar con-
clusions.

We shall see later that if the proportion of pre-
cocious criminals is slightly greater among women
(Roncoroni, " Senola Positiva," ii.), the number of old
female offenders is relatively much larger. I know
of some denizens of female prisons who have reached
the age of 90, having lived within those walls since
they were 29, without any grave injury to health.
As to comparative official statistics, I append a list of
prison returns, which, because of their nature, are

125

126 THE FEMALE OFFENDER,

subject to fewer manipulations and fewer errors than
judicial lists.

Between 1870 and 1879, the inhabitants of prisons
and convict establishments in Italy who were over
sixty years of age, showed a percentage of 4/3 among
the women, and 3*2 among the men.

The results for lesser ages were as follows : —

Women. Men.

Years — 50 to 60 : io*8 per cent. ... 8#i per cent.

„ 40 to 50 122-8 „ ... 19*4 ,,

„ 30 to 46: 32-6 „ ... 33-0 „

„ 20 to 30 -.27-6 „ ... 33*2 „

„ under 20 2-5 „ ... 27 „

These figures show how many more female offenders
reach advanced age than males, and prove also how
the women stand punishment better. For among
male criminals the number condemned to the galleys
for life, or for periods longer than 10 years, is far
greater than among women, as may be seen by these
returns : —

Condemned to

10-15 years.

p. c.
Men, 13-5
Women, 9

15-20 years,
p. c.
Men, 14*4
Women, 8*9

20 and more years,
p. c.
Men, 7-5
Women, 2 '8

Life.

p. c.
Men, 13*2
Women, 10*3

It is not possible to know the average length of
life of prostitutes, owing to scarcity of numbers and
the nomad habits of the class.

Parent Duchatelet failed to settle the question in
spite of the facilities afforded him by the accurate
bureaucratical system of his country. But he suc-
ceeded in showing that many of the class, when
forced by years and infirmities to abandon their
trade, remain members of society as workwomen,

VITALITY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. I2J

wives or concubines of rag-pickers, sweepers, &c,
or become attached to brothels, convents, refuges for
mendicants, hospitals, and prisons. Out of 1,680,
for instance, 972 took up a means of livelihood
(108 keepers of brothels, 17 actresses), 247 founded
establishments, such as shops, reading-rooms, and so
on, 461 became domestics (in inns, hotels, &c). Out
of 3,401 in ten years (1817-27), 177 became chroni-
cally affected with the following complaints : —

had different affections.

32
28
18

»»
>>

epilepsy,
paralysis,
old age.

»>

blindness.

10
5

syphilis,
deafness.

428 died — that is, 1*2 per cent, in the year, while
among Frenchwomen, aged from 15 to 50, the mor-
tality in 1880-85 was i*o per cent., these figures
proving therefore that the mortality among prostitutes
is not above the average. Indeed, when it is remem-
bered that the census among normals was taken at
a time in which average length of life rose from
31 to 40 years (for Parisian women, indeed, to 43),1
and when due allowance has been made for the
special maladies to which prostitutes are subject,
such as uterine and bronchial phthisis, syphilis,
alcoholism, &c, it becomes clear that the average
mortality of these unfortunates is lower than that of
other classes.

" Many medical men," adds Parent, " pretend that
they die of phthisis, or syphilis, in early youth, but

1 Levasseur, " La population Francaise," 1890.

128 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

many others assert that they have iron constitutions,
that their profession does not exhaust them, and
that they can resist anything." That the latter must
be the correct view is confirmed by many special
observations.

There was Marion de Lorme, who lived to be 135
(from 1588 to 1723), so that when the Parisians
wished to instance something which resisted the
assaults of time, they mentioned her and the towers
of Notre Dame. She buried four husbands, and
was over 80 before losing her freshness of mind or
body. Ninon de Lenclos at 80 still had glossy black
hair as in youth, white teeth, bright eyes, full form,
and is reported to have excited a violent passion in
the Abbe de Chateau neuf, a youth of twenty.

Among the Greek courtesans many were celebrated
even in old age : such as Plangone, Pinope, Gnatone,
Phryne, Theano.

In Lucian's Dialogues Tryphon, when speaking
of Filematium, says, " Have you noticed her wrinkles?
her age ? the hair which is turning white at her
temples ? "

Historians maintain that Thai's died at 70, without
ever having abandoned her profession. Plutarch,
indeed, relates that her death was owing to her
having pursued a young Thessalian, with whom she
was in love, into the Temple of Venus, where the
women of the country killed her out of anger at her
audacity, and, stranger still, out of jealousy of her
charms.

Even Phryne, when quite old, had lost nothing of
her beauty, and she exacted large sums to the day of

VITALITY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS, 1 29

her death — describing the practice with much wit as
" selling the dregs of her wine dear."

Plato loved Archeanassa when decrepit. " Archea-
nassa is mine — she conceals a conquering love in her
wrinkles." Others say that the epigram which counts
the wrinkles wherein little Loves nestle, refers to
Asclepias.

Even the famous Lamia, the mistress of Demetrius
Poliorcetis, reached extreme old age. The Chloe of
Martial earned sufficient to restore to her lovers in
old age the gold she had received in her youth — arid
of which she had availed herself to take seven
husbands, to whom she erected seven tombs — sepul-
tures of little honour.

Martial also alludes jokingly to Vetustilla, who
lived under three hundred consuls ; and Ligella, whose
age equalled that of the mother of Ceres.

In short, if statistics are silent, and must so remain
on this subject, history and tradition are there to
show that the women who most frequently survive
accidents and incidental and professional maladies
are not the women of purest life.

Voice. — Parent Duchatelet remarked that many
prostitutes have a coarse voice like carmen, especially
after they have passed the age of 25 years, and when,
also, they belong to the lowest class. Many attri-
buted the peculiarity to habits of drinking wine and
shrieking ; he put it down to the effect of weather,
of exposure, and of alcohol. This may be true,
but the result of Signor Masini's investigations has
been to show me that the voice of these women is
masculine because they have a masculine larynx.

130 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Handwriting. — The handwriting also, in the very
few prostitutes who have any education, is somewhat
masculine, and the same is true of born criminals.
Examples are : Trossarello, Ninon de Lenclos,
Catherine de Medicis, &c, &c, but the examples are
not numerous enough to afford positive data.

Muscular force. — There is no proof of extra-
ordinary muscular force. In ioo infanticides of
normal stature the dynamometer showed a force
of 30 kilogrammes on the right side and 30 on the
left. In 20 poisoners the results were 24 kilo-
grammes on the right and 26 on the left side. In
130 assassins, 30 kilogrammes on the right side and
31 on the left ; so that we have a noticeable left-
handedness in poisoners and murderesses. And,
indeed, left-handedness has been observed in 23 per
cent, of murderesses, in 43 per cent, of poisoners, in
13 per cent, of infanticides, and I found the same
peculiarity in 11 per cent, of prostitutes ; while
among normals the proportion is from 9 to 12 per
cent. And the number of left-handed prostitutes
would appear to be very great if one were to trust
the dynamometer, which, however, is not always
possible.

Gurrieri, with the help of this instrument, found
33 per cent, of left-handed prostitutes ; Ricard found
10 per cent left-handed, and from 8 to 5 per cent
ambidexter.

As to manual ability, only 5 per cent, of the lett-
handed showed it, and the proportion was the same
for the ambidextrous.

More important, perhaps, is the singular agility

VITALITY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. 131

and force displayed by a few very extraordinary
criminals.

One of the writers has recorded the story of the
woman Perino, of Oneglia, who jumped from trees
on to the roofs of houses into which she penetrated
for purposes of robbery, and from which she escaped
in the same way, evading detection for years.

We know of a prostitute-model (epileptic and
tattooed) who killed her lover, a painter, and who,
especially when hurt in her vanity, was subject to
such fits of violence that five gaolers could not
restrain her. She had embroidered a pair of epau-
lettes on a red shirt, and was accustomed to say,
" This is my uniform." " I am a chieftainess of
brigands." She was, in fact, the leader of all the
worst characters in Turin, and the terror of the
surrounding neighbourhood.

The celebrated Bonhours, a prostitute and murderess
who wore masculine garments, and was as strong as a
man, killed several men by blows from a hammer.

The celebrated Bell-Star, who led a band of
assassins, on one occasion rode in a race in North
America, dressed as a man, and carried off several
prizes.

Zola, with great justness, in his " Bete Humanie "
endowed the murderous virago Flora with such
strength of arm that she was able to run a train oft
the line so as to kill her lover and her rival.

It is a familiar remark in farmhouses that the most
active and the readiest servant-girls are the least
honest ; while as for prostitutes, their agility is proved
by the numbers among them who are dancers and

133 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

tight-rope performers ; and there is no cocotte who
does not fence.

Philenis, Martial's prostitute heroine, half a woman
and half a man, played balls and threw in the air the
big blocks of lead used by athletes. She wrestled
with the athletes, and like them was beaten with a
whip.

Reflex actions. — The reflex actions of the tendons
as observed by Madame Tarnowsky furnished the
following comparisons : —

Prostitutes.

Thieves.

Homicides.

Normals.

Normal in

per cent.

Excessive ,,

>»

Weak ,,

>»

»»

»j

Wanting ,,

»»

—

Anomalous ,,

»»

t»

»i

The figures given by Gurrieri are still more remark-
able. They are : —

Slow in 78 per cent, of prostitutes.

Wanting „ 16 „ „

Excessive ,, 7 ,, ,,

Normal ,, 16 „ „

Anomalous ,,54 »> >»

Salsotto obtained the following : —

Poisoners.

Murderesses.

Infanticides.

Slow

in 58

per cent.

10 per cent,

Wanting

„ 10

»>

3*6

»>

i-o „

Excessive

» 5

»»

j»

16 „

Normal

» 35

>»

»!

73 »

Anomalous

„ 65

27 »

We found them excessive in 25 per cent, of crimi-
nals, slight in 16 per cent, normal in 54 per cent, and
wanting in 5 per cent.

It will be seen consequently that even in reflex

VITALITY OF FEMALE CRIMINALS. I33

actions the majority 01 anomalous cases is to be
found among prostitutes. In them, indeed, tardy and
abolished action may be explained by alcoholism, or
by syphilis, which so easily attacks the anterior roots ;
but it must be said that in the larger number of the
cases observed there was no proof of any syphilitic
process.

Out of 100 prostitutes we found 20 with exagge-
rated reflex action, and 21 in whom it was slight or
wanting. After prostitutes, the abnormal figures are
furnished by poisoners and murderesses, in whom the
action, when anomalous, is tardy. The least abnormal
are infanticides.

The reflexes of the pupils were tardy in 10 per cent.
of criminals and in 16 per cent, of prostitutes, and
normal in 78 per cent, of the latter.

Reddening with nitrate of amyl was wanting in 90
per cent, of thieves.

Murderesses. Poisoners. Infanticides.

{Rapid in 35 per cent. 40 per cent. 70 per cent.

Slow „ 65 „ 55 „ 30 „

Wanting or slight „ 81 „ 80 „ 82 „

thus proving once again the functional abnormality
of murderesses.

Fifty per cent, of assassins and 25 per cent, of
poisoners blushed at the mention of their crime ; 45
per cent, of them received any allusion to it in absolute
silence.

CHAPTER XI.

ACUTENESS OF SENSE AND VISUAL AREA OF
FEMALE CRIMINALS,

I. Touch. — In our first inquiries into the sense of
touch we found a greater dulness among criminal
than among normal women.
Our results were as follows : —

Criminal and Prostitute. Normal.

Fine touch 17 percent. 1 6 'o per cent.

Dull touch 46-2 ,, 25*0 „

Medium touch 51 -6 ,, 56*0 „

These figures differ somewhat from those obtained
by Marro, who in 40 female delinquents found an
average of 1 '96 on the right side, and 1 '94 on the left,
as against 25 normals whose average was 1*94 on the
right side and 1 '99 on the left, thus giving only four
criminals in whom the touch was dull. But he adds
that the normal women whom he examined were
peasants and continually handling carbolic acid.
Among 36 female thieves I found in the index finger
an average sense of touch of 375 (right hand), 373
(left), and 1*97 in the tongue ; and among 35 infanti-
cides 376 (right), 3*46 (left), and 275 in tongue.

The average among 101 delinquents was 34.6 (right
hand), 3*67 (left hand), and 2'o6 in tongue. The dul-
ness is thus greater than among male criminals, in

134

ACUTENESS OF SENSE. 135

whom we have 2*94 (right hand), 2*89 (left), rg in
tongue.

Salsotto, however, found in 20 female poisoners,
who certainly belonged to the highest class, a much
smaller average, namely, rg (right hand), r8 (left),
also 13 per cent, of left-handed subjects. Among 100
infanticides his results were 2*0 (right hand) and 3*0
(left hand), with left-handedness in 17 per cent. In
130 murderesses he found 2*2 (right hand), and 2*2
(left), with 45 per cent, of left-handed subjects. So
that, according to him, the sense of touch would be
normal in poisoners, rather duller in infanticides and
murderesses, while among the latter there would be a
great prevalence of left-handedness.

Madame Tarnowsky, comparing 50 homicides,

Arms.
Inside surface.
R. L.

Hands.
Palm.
R. L.

Fingers.

Inside phalanx.

R. L.

Murderesses

... mm. 23 22

14 14

4 4

Thieves

... „ 16 15

12 12

4 4

Prostitutes ...

... >. 13 I2

9 9

3 3

Normals

... „ 14 J4

9 9

3 3

(" Archivio di psichiatria e scienze penali," 1893, xiv., fasc. i.-ii.)

50 thieves, and 50 Russian prostitutes, with 50
normal peasant women, found the dulness in the
arms and hands of thieves and homicides to be
almost double that observed in normals ; but the
difference was very much less in the phalanx of the
index finger, and this was one respect in which prosti-
tutes showed no difference. And the normals were
peasant women in whom the sense of touch was much
deadened by manual labour.

2. Prostitutes. — I, also, in studying prostitutes,
found the results, as to difference of touch in the
n

I36 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

hand, slight and often contradictory, so that in 15
young prostitutes the average touch was relatively
very fine, being 1-90 (right hand), 1*45 (left), 1*48
(tongue) ; while in 68 of middle-age it was dull :
3-04 (right), 3-02 (left), 2'ii in tongue, and very
marked tactile left-handedness.

De Albertis among 28 prostitutes of the lowest
class found a tactile sensitiveness of 3*6 (r.) and
4 (1.), with a maximum of I'O and a minimum of 18.

Gurrieri, from observations made on 60 prostitutes
as compared with 50 normals or quasi-normals, con-
cludes that the fleshy part of the finger in both hands
is more sensitive in normals. For instance, at a dis-
tance of 2 to 2*5 mm. 60 per cent of normals feel the
two points in the right hand, and 70 per cent, in the
left, while only 57 per cent, of prostitutes feel them
in the right, and 64 per cent, in the left hand. The
left hand is the most sensitive both in normals and
in prostitutes. Prostitutes are slightly more sensitive
in the tip of the tongue : 80 per cent, of them as
against 78 per cent, of normals feeling the experiment
at from 0*5 to 1*5, although 18 per cent, of normals
were sensitive at from 2 to 2*5, and only 10 per cent,
ot prostitutes.

But here we must take into consideration three
factors which have not been mentioned hitherto :
these are culture, age, and degenerative characteris-
tics. In young girls, even those who show signs of
degeneration, the sense of touch is very fine.1 In 12

1 Touch, general sensitiveness, sensitiveness to pain and degenerate
type in normal, criminal, and lunatic females (" Archivio di psichiatria,"
1891).

ACUTE NESS OF SENSE. 137

girls aged from 6 to 15 years there appeared an
average of 1*56 (right) and 2*57 (left); and the
average obtuseness in educated women is less (2)
than in women of the people (2*6), and is also very
much less frequent (being only 16 per cent.) in nor-
mal women who have no signs of degeneration. The
average is higher (28 per cent.) in those who have
some degenerative characteristics, and is very high
(75 per cent.) in those women, even when normal,
who have many of these characteristics.

Consequently all divergences may arise from having
compared criminals with normal peasant women (as
did Marro and Madame Tarnowsky) or with old
women, or with normal women who had many signs
of degeneration.

For when studying the sense of touch with refer-
ence to the type we found the following results in
56 female criminals : —

Very fine touch. Medium (1*5 to 2*5). Dull (3 and over

19 with o type, 5 per cent. ... 42 per cent. ... 52 per cent.

21 „ £type * — ... 61 „ ... 39 „

16 „ type — ... 50 „ ... 50 „

These figures show how the greatest dulness and the
greatest sensitiveness are found in those who do not
present the type, while in the J type the maximum
sensitiveness of touch is middling, with minimum
deadness : in the complete type the sensitiveness and
the deadness are equal.

3. General sensitiveness and sensitiveness to pain. —
With the help of Dubois Reymond's sleigh we
studied the general sensitiveness, and found an
average of 58*2 mm. for men of moral lives, 59*1

138 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

for the corresponding class of women, 57*6 (right)
and 58*6 (left) for female thieves, 59-0 (right) and
56*5 (left) for prostitutes, with only a slight difference,
therefore, between the different classes.

As regards sensitiveness to pain, observed with the
Lombroso algometer, the average among normal
men was 42 mm., among normal women 45, in
female thieves 21*4 (right) and 20*5 (left); in prosti-
tutes 19/0 (right) and 21 (left), thus showing the
greatest dulness and tactile left-handedness in the
latter. In 28 per cent, of prostitutes we found com-
plete insensibility to pain.

Gurrieri studied general sensitiveness and sensitive-
ness to pain in various parts of the body, and found
that 10 per cent, of normals, and only 7 per cent, of
prostitutes felt the current, in the palm of the hand,
when the points were at a distance of 130 mm. At
a distance of 40 mm. and more 16 per cent, of nor-
mals and 39 per cent, of prostitutes was the propor-
tion found, thus showing (what Madame Tarnowsky
has since confirmed) that prostitutes are more sensi-
tive in the palm than normal women.

The results as to all other parts were as follows : —

General sensitiveness.

Sensitiveness to pain.

Fine. Dull.

Norm. Prost. Norm. Prost.

Norm. Prost. Norm.

Prosl

p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c.

p. c. p. c. p. c.

p. c.

Throat 82 50 10 9

18 38 8

Forehead & hand 4 4 20 49

6 5 20

Tongue 14 3 28 55

4 13 -

Clitoris ... .« 8 5 24 32

33 5 8

Consequently the normal woman is much more sensi-
tive than the prostitute, whose greatest deadness is in

ACUTENESS OF SENSE. 139

the clitoris, and whose least is in the palm of the
hand. And that is natural. For the hand of the
female operative, and still more of the peasant, grows
insensible through thickening of the skin consequent
on hard work, and in Russian women especially the
deadness is extraordinary (10 mm.). But in the
case of the prostitute abstention from hard work and
idleness refine her sense, not indeed from central or
cortical causes, but from the accident of her pro-
fession, and for converse reasons the deadness of the
clitoris in her case is explicable. The insensibility to
pain of the prostitute which corresponds to that of
the born criminal (male) is shown by the facility with
which these women allow themselves to be injured.
Most of them are covered with wounds (out of 392
prostitutes observed by Parent, 90 were treated for
this cause). They also bear grave syphilitic lesions
with indifference, and endure with equal fortitude
external cauterisation and surgical operations.

Professor Tizzoni lately related to me the case of
a prostitute whose leg he had to amputate and who
refused the administration of ether, only begging as a
favour that she might be so placed as to be able to
watch the operation of which she followed all the
stages, as though a stranger to them, without uttering
a cry. Such women are true ftlles de marbre.

Gurrieri has noted a very important fact, namely,
that the greatest sensitiveness to pain among prosti-
tutes is found in those who have had children. In
them the lingual sensibility is 99 mm. as against j6
for the others. Similarly the sensibility of the clitoris
in the child-bearing is 102 and 97 in the rest. But

I40 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the same peculiarity does not appear to hold good
always for the breasts, tongue, and hand.

4. Magnetic sensibility. — Salsotto found magnetic
sensibility in 12 per cent, of murderesses (130) and in
6 per cent, of poisoners and infanticides.

5. Taste. — Fifty per cent, of normals and 15 per
cent, of criminals observed by us showed great deli-
cacy of gustation. They detected 1 in 500,000 of
strychnine. Among 10 per cent, of normals, 20 per
cent, of criminals, and 30 per cent, of prostitutes,
there was, on the contrary, a marked deadness (1 in
IOO of strychnine).

Madame Tarnowsky, whose methods, however,
were less exact, found that 2 per cent, of homicides
and thieves and 4 per cent of prostitutes could not
distinguish any one of the four solutions, bitter,
sweet, and salt, used in experimenting on their sense
of taste ; the salt solution especially being the one
in which they made most mistakes. This is a phe-
nomenon which has never been observed in normals.

6. Sense of smell. — The olfactory sense, tested by
Dr. Ottolenghi with essences of cloves, resulted as 3
times duller in criminals (6 per cent.) than in normals
(2 per cent).

Among born prostitutes there were 19 per cent,
without sense of smell. As an average result we
obtained the 5th degree of the osomometer — 1 in
2,500 of essence of cloves.

According to Madame Tarnowsky, the olfactory
sense was normal in 82 per cent of moral women,
in 66 per cent of prostitutes and homicides, and in
77 per cent, of thieves ; it was below the normal in

ACUTENESS OF SENSE. 141

18 per cent of moral women, in 24 per cent, of
prostitutes and homicides, and in 20 per cent, of
thieves ; it was wanting in 10 per cent, of homi-
cides and prostitutes and in 8 per cent, of thieves.

7. Hearing. — This sense, according to Madame
Tarnowsky, was normal in 86 per cent, of moral
women, in 74 per cent, of prostitutes, in 68 per cent,
of thieves, in 54 per cent, of homicides ; it was
weakened in 14 per cent, of normals, in 24 per cent,
of prostitutes, in 30 per cent, of thieves, and in 40
per cent, of homicides. It was wanting in 2 per
cent, of prostitutes and thieves and in 6 per cent,
of homicides.

8. Field of vision. — Ottolenghi in my wards studied
the field of vision of typical female criminals, of
occasional criminals, and of born prostitutes.

Only 3 in 15 of the born criminals had a normal
field of vision. In 12 of them it was more or less
limited, in 9 there were deep peripheric recesses,
forming that more or less broken peripheric line
which he noticed in the male born delinquent and
in epileptic subjects (Ottolenghi, " Anomalie del
campo visivo nei psicopatici," &c. Bocca, 1890).

I give as a first example the field of a certain
F. M., aged 15 years, a typical criminal, the daughter
of a thief, who sent her out to steal on pretence
of asking alms. She practised her profession only
too well, and almost always succeeded in carrying
off something wherever she was received. She
had the face of an old woman, marked cheek and
frontal bones, small, very unsteady eyes, and wrinkles
on her forehead. Her tactile dulness was remark-

143 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

able (3 mm.) ; she had almost complete analgesia
(5 mm. of pain when tested with Dubois Reymond's
sleigh) ; was subject every now and again to attacks
almost of mania, perhaps epileptic in character,
during which she was sleepless and sang continually.
She was extremely voluble, and possessed very acute
senses.

Her field of vision (Laudolt method) when tran-
quil showed diminution, especially on the left side,
asymmetry, profound peripheral scotomata.

When the subject was excited the field of vision
grew much larger, but became in no wise more regular.

Her other senses varied in the same way — her
touch was much more delicate : 0*5 (right), 0*5
(left) ; her sensitiveness to pain more marked (30
on the right, 30 on the left) ; her smell became
most acute, responding to the first solution of the
osomometer ; but she was wanting in the power of
tasting anything bitter, and could not detect strych-
nine, even in the strongest solution (1 : 100).

In Plate. IV. are other examples of remarkable
fields of vision in female criminals.

No. 3 is the completely typical visual area of a
thief, Nov. R, aged 40, who had been several times
convicted. Her field of vision is limited, with an
irregular periphery in both eyes, especially the right
one.

No. 4 belongs to another thief, also relapsed, aged
25, who had but few typical peculiarities. Her
field of vision is normal in size, but on the right
side is a peripheral scotomata in the internal inferior
quadrant.

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ACUTENESS OF SENSE. 143

Field No. 5 belongs to a clever swindler, and is
normal on the left side, but rather limited on the right
under side. (In this connection we may mention that
male swindlers have all a normal field of vision.)

A very abnormal visual field, typical of crime, is
No. 6. This woman, aged 39, killed her husband
(with the help of her lover) under circumstances of
the utmost premeditation and indifference.

The field is very small, and irregular throughout
the whole periphery, especially on the left — but there
was neuro-retinitis of syphilitic origin.

Another typical case of anomaly in the field of
vision is in the born criminal, M. C, who at 9 years
of age attempted to poison, and at 12 really did
poison, a companion, while at 14 she was condemned
for corruption of minors and for theft.

Her field of vision, No. 1, is regular, but limited
on the left, anomalous on the right, owing to peri-
pheral scotomata, and with an irregular periphery.

Br. M., aged 43, criminal, thief, and prostitute,
has a field of vision showing a deep scotomata in
the internal inferior quadrant of the left eye, while
the right eye is normal. (See No. 2.)

Among 15 occasional criminals, only 4 had anoma-
lous fields of vision. No. 7 is quite regular. It
belongs to a girl of 16 years who tried stupidly to
poison her old and brutal husband by putting
sulphate of copper into his food.

No. 8 is a large field and quite regular, in spite of
the hysterical nature of the subject, a Frenchwoman
who was brought to Italy by her souteneur \ and was
tried with him for passing false money.

144 THE FEMALE OFFENDER,

In 8 out of 1 1 prostitutes the field was found to be
very limited, and with a broken, irregular perimetrical
line, forming four true peripheral scotomata.

Typical in its irregular periphery is the field of
vision of No. 9, belonging to a woman of 28, entirely
wanting in moral sense — rachitic, with huge jaws and
frontal sinuses, whose mother died in prison, whither
she had been sent for prostituting herself and her
daughters.

Yet another field abnormal in its periphery and
peripheral scotomata is No. 10. The subject, aged
18, was a typical prostitute, and an accomplice in
theft. The field is limited above, especially on the
right, has an irregular periphery with a broken line,
and two peripheral scotomata, one large and corre-
sponding to the lower external sector on the right,
the other smaller, and corresponding to the upper
external sector on the left. The visual faculty was
good, but there was deadness of touch in this subject
(3 mm. on right and 4 on left).

In regard to sensitiveness of the retina, born
prostitutes approximate to the male born criminal,
more than does the true female criminal.

In making the above recorded observations it was
found that there was a relation, in the case both of
criminals and prostitutes, between general sensibility
(especially sensitiveness to pain) and sensibility of
the retina, and a similar relation between this and
the characteristics of anatomical degeneration.

Madame Tarnowsky, in a too rapid survey, con-
cluded that the visual field in homicides is smaller
than in other criminals, and especially than in normal

Field of Vision of Female Offenders.
90 90

NQ1.

Plate IV.

Field of Vision of Female Offenders.
WV.

Plate IV.

ACUTENESS OF SENSE. 145

women.1 De Sanctis also 2 measured the visual area
of 28 prostitutes in a Lock hospital, all of whom were
not typical ; in 17 he found the field normal, in 4 it
was limited concentrically, in 3 it was limited asym-
metrically in several sectors, and in 3 again there
was an irregular periphery with a very exaggerated
curve.

Rarisotti examined the visual area of 10 prostitutes,
and in only 3 of the number found concentric limita-
tion with scotomata and peripheral depressions.

On the whole, therefore, congenital female criminals,
and still oftener prostitutes, present scotomata and
peripheral depressions, but both classes exhibit these
phenomena less frequently and less markedly than
congenital male criminals.

The absence of the special characteristics of
hysterical subjects, especially the most frequent,
such as hemiopia and variability, in the women of
whom we treat, even when slightly inclined to hysteria,
proves that the moral and functional anomalies of
criminals, &c, are not due to hysteria.

This plea so often advanced when women are on
their trial for offences consequently falls to the
ground ; and the fact really is that hysteria is more
common among normal women.

9. Sharpness of vision. — There was no remarkable
difference in the above respect between 10 normals
and 20 prostitutes and 20 congenital female criminals

Of the 20 prostitutes 20 per cent, had less than

* " Archivio di psichiatria," xiv., fasc. i.-ii.

2 " Osservazioni perioptometriche nei degenerati " {Riv. Med.t
1892).

I46 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

normal sight, 40 per cent, had sight above the
average, and 40 per cent, were normal.

Of the 20 criminals 15 per cent, had less than
normal sight, 50 per cent, were above the average,
and 35 per cent, were equal to the average.

Twenty per cent, of prostitutes and 30 per cent, of
criminals showed myopia of 15" to 20".

The chromatic sense was normal in 30 criminals
and 50 prostitutes ; but in 4 among the latter class
the perception of colour was feeble.

10. Summary. — On the whole, dulness of sense
(except in touch) and visual anomalies are greater
among prostitutes than among female criminals, but
less in both classes than among male congenital
criminals.

The reflexes of prostitutes are slower than in the
male criminal, perhaps because of the direct action of
syphilis upon the nervous centres.

CHAPTER XII.

THE BORN CRIMINAL.

The analogy between the anthropology and psycho-
logy of the female criminal is perfect.

Just as in the mass of female criminals possessing
few or unimportant characteristics ot degeneration,
we find a group in whom these features are almost
more marked and more numerous than in males, so
while the majority of female delinquents are led into
crime either by the suggestion of a third person or
by irresistible temptation, and are not entirely defi-
cient in the moral sense, there is yet to be found
among them a small proportion whose criminal pro-
pensities are more intense and more perverse than
those of their male prototypes.

" No possible punishments," wrote Corrado Celto,
an author of the fifteenth century, " can deter
women from heaping up crime upon crime. Their
perversity of mind is more fertile in new crimes than
the imagination of a judge in new punishments."

" Feminine criminality," writes Rykere, " is more
cynical, more depraved, and more terrible than the
criminality of the male."

" Rarely is a woman wicked, but when she is she
surpasses the man " (Italian Proverb).

147

I48 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

" The violence of the ocean waves or of devouring
flames is terrible. Terrible is poverty, but woman is
more terrible than all else " (Euripides).

"The perversity of woman is so great," says
Caro, " as to be incredible even to its victims."

Cruelty. — Another terrible point of superiority in
the female born criminal over the male lies in the
refined, diabolical cruelty with which she accom-
plishes her crime.

To kill her enemy does not satisfy her, she needs
to see him suffer and know the full taste of death.
In the band of assassins known as " La Taille," the
women were worse than the men in torturing captives,
especially female captives.

The woman Tiburzio, after having killed a com-
panion who was pregnant, bit her ferociously, tearing
away pieces of flesh, which she threw to the dog.

Chevalier killed another woman in the same con-
dition by driving a pair of scissors through her ear
into her brain.

P . . . did not care to wound the lovers on whom she
was revenging herself, a wound being in her view too
small a thing. She preferred to blind them by
throwing into their eyes a powder made of fine glass
which she had crushed with her teeth.

Da . . ., asked why she had not stabbed her lover
instead of throwing vitriol at him, answered in the
words of the Roman Tyrant, " Because I wished him
to feel the bitterness of death ! "

Sophie Gautier killed, by slow torture, seven children
who had been given into her care.

History has recorded the mingled immense cruelty

THE BORN CRIMINAL. I49

and lust of women who have enjoyed royal or popular
power. We know of instances among Romans,
Greeks, and Russians from Agrippina, Fulvia, Mes-
salina, down to Elizabeth of Russia, Theroigne de
Mericourt, and the female cannibals of Paris and
Palermo.

And the same may be said of Asia. Amestris,
to revenge herself on a rival, begged Xerxes to hand
over to her the rival's mother, whose breasts, ears,
lips, and tongue she cut off and threw to the dogs,
after which she sent the mutilated woman home.

Parysatis, the mother of Artaxerxes, caused the
mother and sister of a rival to be buried alive, while
the rival herself she ordered to be cut to pieces.
And for ten whole days she had a soldier tortured for
boasting that he had killed Cyrus.

Ta-ki, the mistress of the Emperor Cheon-Sin
(1147), not only succeeded in separating him from his
ministers and subjects, and plunging him into vicious
excesses, but when a rival appeared on the scene she
had her killed, and sent the body, cut in pieces, to
the murdered woman's father whom she also caused
to be assassinated.

Among other barbarities, Ta-ki used to order preg-
nant women to be torn limb from limb.

But the culminating examples of such barbarity
are offered by mothers in whom maternal affection,
the most intense of human sentiments, is transformed
into hatred.

Hoegli beat her daughter, and plunged her head
into water to suffocate her cries. One day she kicked
her downstairs, thus bringing on a deformation of

150 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the spine. Another time she broke the child's
shoulder with a blow from a shovel ; and when by all
this ill-treatment she had reduced her to be a mon-
ster of ugliness, she turned her into ridicule, calling
her " a camel," &c. When the little one was ill, to
make her cease crying she threw pailfuls of icy water
over her head, covered her face with filthy sheets, and
forced her to keep awake by counting " two and two
make four " for hours at a time.

Stakembourg, a woman of bad life, on finding her-
self at 42 abandoned by her lovers, took to perse-
cuting her daughter. " I do not like girls," she used
to say. She hung her daughter from the ceiling by
the armpits, knocked her on the head with a brick,
and burnt her with a hot iron whenever she came
near her. One day, after having beaten her black
with a shovel, she said, laughing, "Now you are a
little negress."

Rulfi starved her little girl, and, in order that she
might suffer more, made her sit fasting at the table
during meals. She engaged a master to beat and
reprove her when she did not know her lesson, which,
seeing the child's starving state, happened very often.
She tied and gagged her, and then made her little
brothers stab her with pins, so that she might suffer
not only pain but humiliation.

In short, we may assert that if female born
criminals are fewer in number than the males, they
are often much more ferocious.

What is the explanation ? We have seen that the
normal woman is naturally less sensitive to pain
than a man, and compassion is the offspring of sen-

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 151

sitiveness. If the one be wanting, so will the
other be.

We also saw that women have many traits in
common with children ; that their moral sense is
deficient ; that they are revengeful, jealous, inclined
to vengeances of a refined cruelty.

In ordinary cases these defects are neutralised by
piety, maternity, want of passion, sexual coldness, by
weakness and an undeveloped intelligence. But when
a morbid activity of the psychical centres intensifies
the bad qualities of women, and induces them to seek
relief in evil deeds ; when piety and maternal senti-
ments are wanting, and in their place are strong
passions and intensely erotic tendencies, much
muscular strength and a superior intelligence for
the conception and execution of evil, it is clear
that the innocuous semi-criminal present in the
normal woman must be transformed into a born
criminal more terrible than any man.

What terrific criminals would children be if they
had strong passions, muscular strength, and sufficient
intelligence ; and if, moreover, their evil tendencies
were exasperated by a morbid psychical activity !
And women are big children ; their evil tendencies
are more numerous and more varied than men's, but
generally remain latent When they are awakened
and excited they produce results proportionately
greater.

Moreover, the born female criminal is, so to speak,
doubly exceptional, as a woman and as a criminal.
For criminals are an exception among civilised

people, and women are an exception among criminals,
12

152 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the natural form of retrogression in women being
prostitution and not crime. The primitive woman
was impure rather than criminal.

As a double exception, the criminal woman is
consequently a monster. Her normal sister is kept
in the paths of virtue by many causes, such as
maternity, piety, weakness, and when these counter
influences fail, and a woman commits a crime, we
may conclude that her wickedness must have been
enormous before it could triumph over so many
obstacles.

Affections and passions. Maternity. — A strong
proof of degeneration in many born criminals is
the want of maternal affection.

Lyons, the celebrated American thief and swindler,
although very rich, abandoned her children when she
fled from America, leaving them dependent on public
charity.

Bertrand deserted her child in its infancy without
troubling herself either to nourish or to clothe it.

Madame Brinvilliers tried to poison her daughter
of sixteen, of whose beauty she was jealous.
Gaaikema also poisoned her daughter in order to
inherit her fortune of 20,000 francs.

Often women criminals make their own children
accomplices of their bad deeds ; while, on the other
hand, many prostitutes desire a pure life for their
daughters.

Leger, assisted by her son, killed and robbed a
neighbour. D'Alessio, with the aid of her daughter,
killed her husband ; and Meille urged her son to
murder his father.

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 153

All these instances prove that for such women the
child is almost a stranger, whom, instead of loving
and protecting, they make the instruments of their
passions, thus exposing them to dangers which they
have not the courage to face themselves.

One of the writers saw in prison a woman called
Marenco, a thief of idiotic aspect, who, having by a
rare concession been allowed to nurse her baby in the
cell where she was confined alone, and with nothing
to do, allowed the infant almost to die of hunger
under the plea that " to nurse it bored her " ; and
finally the child had to be weaned.

This want of maternal feeling becomes compre-
hensible when we reflect on the one hand upon the
union of masculine qualities which prevent the female
criminal from being more than half a woman, and
on the other, upon that love of dissipation in her
which is necessarily antagonistic to the constant
sacrifices demanded of a mother. Her maternal
sense is weak because psychologically and anthro-
pologically she belongs more to the male than
to the female sex. Her exaggerated sexuality so
opposed to maternity would alone suffice to make
her a bad mother.

Sensuality has multiple and imperious needs
which absorb the mental activity of a woman,
and, by rendering her selfish, destroy the spirit of
self-abnegation inseparable from the maternal func-
tion.

In the ordinary run of mothers the sexual instinct
is in abeyance : a normal woman will refuse herself
to her lover rather than injure her child ; but the

154 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

female criminal is different. She will prostitute her
daughter to preserve her paramour.

Finally the organic anomaly, the moral insanity
(of epileptoid form) which forms the substratum of
born female criminals, tends to introvert their natural
sentiments and extinguishes maternity in a mother
just as it extinguishes religion in the nuns, whom it
transforms into blasphemers.

A parallel case in men is military insubordination,
such as in Misdea leads at times to murderous
attacks upon superior officers.

The beneficent influence of maternity upon women
is made clear in the case of criminals on whom the
child-bearing function acts for a time — at least, as a
moral antidote.

Thomas, a woman vicious from her infancy, had
but six months of goodness in her whole life.
During that period the child she had borne seemed
to have transformed her nature, but when it died
she relapsed into the gutter.

Never, then, is maternity the motive power of
crime in a woman. That lofty affection is foreign
to the degenerate nature of criminals, and the
excesses to which it contributes are suicide or
madness.

Vengeance. — Vengeance plays a principal part in
the offences committed by women.

The inclination to acts of revenge which we
noted even in the normal woman is carried in the
criminal to an extreme. The psychic centres being
in an excited condition, the smallest stimulus pro-
vokes a reaction out of all proportion to its cause.

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 1 55

Jegado poisoned her employers because they had
reproved her, her fellow-servants because they had
done her some small ill-turn.

Closset tried to poison her employers in return
for a scolding, and stabbed her master when he
dismissed her.

Rousoux, when her mistress (a farmer) forbade
her to take some cherries out of a basket, warned her
that she would have cause to repent the prohibition,
and a few days later set fire to the farm.

The same offence, under almost similar circum-
stances, was committed in June, 1890, by Bekendorf.
M. tried to kill a friend who had spoken ill of her.
" / nurse vengeance in my heart" said Trossarello,
"and I advise my friends to do the same"

Pitcherel poisoned her neighbour out of revenge
for his having refused his consent to his son's
marriage. When condemned to death and urged to
imitate our Lord by forgiveness, she replied, " God
did what He liked, but as for me, I shall never
forgive."

As a general thing the female born criminal is
far less rapid in her vengeance than the man.

Revenge in her case follows after days, months,
or even years, the explanation being her weakness
and the relative timidity of nature which restrains
where reason alone is powerless.

" In her," wrote one of the authors, referring to
Trossarello, " vengeance is not sudden, it is not a
species of reflex action, as the doctors say, and as it
is in most men ; but it occupies her mind for months
and years ; it is a pleasure which she secretly gloats

156 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

over, and which, even when she has realised it in
action, leaves her satiated but not content."

Most often the hatreds and the vengeances of
women are of complicated origin. The personal
susceptibility which we noted both in the child and
the normal woman rises in criminals to a pitch of
morbid intensity. They conceive mortal hates with
extraordinary facility. Every small check in the
struggle for life produces hatred of somebody in
them, and frequently the hatred ends in crime.

A disappointment turns to hate for the person who
has caused it, even involuntarily : an unsatisfied
desire breeds resentment towards the person repre-
senting the obstacle, even though he may only
have exercised a personal right. Defeat results in a
detestation of the conqueror, which is most violent in
cases where the defeated one's own incapacity has
been the cause of his overthrow.

All these are but slower forms of the same passion
which causes children to administer a shower of
blows on any object against which they have
knocked their heads ; and they prove an inferior
psychical development, common not only to children,
but, according to Romanes and Guyau, also to the
lower animals.

The woman Morin conceived a violent hatred
against a lawyer whom she had employed in an affair
by which he, through his superior cunning, had pro-
fited, while she had lost ; and she attempted to
murder him.

Rondest killed her old mother after having, partly
through persuasion and partly through force, obtained

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 157

from her all she had to give. The old woman would
not have needed even to be supported much longer,
but her daughter through the irritation of unsatisfied
desire had come so to hate her that she preferred to
risk her head even when there was no longer anything
to be gained, rather than leave this hatred ungratified.

Levaillant tried to kill her mother-in-law (although
she could not succeed to her fortune) because she did
not give her enough money to make a fine figure in
society : and Plancher murdered her brother-in-law
because he was rich and respected while she and her
husband were poor.

Naturally these sentiments of hatred are most
ferocious when excited by an offence to the feelings
which are strongest in women and represent their
worst passions. If sexuality comes to complicate
jealousy and vengeance these manifest themselves
under a more terrible aspect than usual. M. . . ., for
instance, poisoned a friend, a member of the demi-
monde, because of her beauty and social success.

Sometimes the hatred which fills these women has
no cause whatever, and springs from blind and innate
perversity.

Many adulteresses, many poisoners commit perfectly
uncalled-for crimes.

Imperious and violent, they dominate the weak
husbands, who, out of fear of the consequences ot
any attempt at control, leave them free to go their
own way, and thus generate towards themselves a
hatred in inverse proportion to the indulgence they
have exhibited.

The elderly husband of Madame Fraikin shut his

158 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

eyes to her profligacy ; he was ill and had but a few
months to live ; yet she had not the patience to await
his death, but murdered him. Madame Simon's case
is identical. Madame Moulins had been married
against her will to a rough but excellent man, who
treated her as a sister, tolerated her adultery with
the man she loved before marriage, and even went
so far as to acknowledge her son as his own.
Nevertheless she hated him every day more in-
tensely. "He must die I" she exclaimed continually ;
and she caused him to be murdered.

During twenty years Enjalbert's husband never
addressed a reproach to her on the subject of her
dissolute life ; but at last he mildly complained, and
roused such a hatred towards himself in her that
she murdered him.

Jegado constantly poisoned people without any
object.

Stakembourg conceived a hatred of her daughter as
soon as with advancing years she found that she could
exercise her own trade as a prostitute with less profit
than formerly. The child became the object on which
she visited her wrath.

These women have the same passion for evil for its
own sake which characterises equally the male born
criminal and epileptic and hysterical subjects. Their
hatreds are automatic, springing from no external
cause, such as an insult or an offence, but from a
morbid irritation of the psychical centres, which finds
relief for itself in evil action. Continually under the
influence of this irritation, the women we are de-
scribing must visit their anger upon some victim,

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 159

and the unhappy being with whom they are brought
most frequently into contact becomes, for the merest
trifle, the slightest defect or contradiction, the object
of their hatred, and the sufferer by their wicked-
ness.

Love. — Intense as are the erotic tendencies of the
female born criminal, love is yet very rarely a cause
of their crimes.

Love, like hatred, is in their case only another
form of insatiable egotism. In their love there is
no altruism, no spirit of self-sacrifice : only the
satisfaction of their own desires. Their passion of
love is extraordinarily impulsive and casual. When
they conceive a passion for a man they are impelled
to gratify it instantly, even at the cost of a crime.

Possessed by one idea, hypnotised, one may say,
they can think of nothing except how to appease
their passion : they are unconscious of peril and rush
into crime to get that which, with a little patience,
they might obtain without risk.

Ardilouze had but to wait a few months before
attaining her majority and being free to marry her
lover without her father's consent. Nevertheless,
rather than wait, she murdered her father. The
letters addressed by Aveline and Beridot to their
lovers betray a desperate impatience.

Their love often derives its very intensity from the
obstacles which it encounters.

Buscemi fell in love first of all with a lame and
humpbacked barber ; next with a swindler, who was
also a married man. The more opposition she en-
countered from her parents the stronger grew her

l6o THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

passion. It finally led her into crime and then
evaporated.

Such a love is less a lofty and generous sentiment
than the violent resistance (similar to that which we
see in children) of wounded vanity to anything which
impedes the gratification of its own caprices.

Until the desire of these women is gratified it
seems as if the world must come to an end ; but
once their object is obtained they cease to care for
it. The man they adored yesterday is forgotten
to-day, and soon replaced by another. BOidot, when
her parents opposed her marriage, fled from the
house with her lover, whom two years later she
caused to be murdered by his successor.

If arrested and tried, these criminals are plunged
by the fear of punishment into a new obsession.

Self-salvation then becomes their one idea, their
sole desire ; and like Queyron, Beridot, Buscemi,
Saracemi, and Bompard, they are willing to betray
the very accomplice for whom they so blindly com-
promised themselves a few months previously.

Indeed, hatred and love being only two forms
of their insatiable egotism, their love shows a
morbid tendency to polarise itself (so to say)
into violent hatred at the first act of infidelity, the
first offence, or even at the birth of a new passion.

Beridot, to begin with, idolised the husband whom
she learnt to hate as soon as a new lover had replaced
him in her affections.

Cabit, a prostitute, madly in love with her souteneur
Leroux, to whom she gave almost all her money, killed
him when he deserted her in favour of another woman.

THE BORN CRIMINAL. l6l

The Countess de Challant caused her old lovers
to be killed by the new ones.

Dumaire was disinterestedly in love with a young
man for whose studies she paid, but killed him the
day he left her to take a wife; and before the judge
she declared that she would have murdered him twice,
a hundred times over, rather than see him belong to
another.

Weiss worshipped her husband, and for his sake
remained shut up a year and a half in the house,
as if in prison ; nevertheless, she forgot him at once,
and tried to poison him when another man inspired
her with a passion still more violent.

Levaillant hated, abused, and insulted the husband
whom she had previously been crazy to marry, when
he, by his extravagance and folly, had no longer
money enough to enable her to shine in society.

This is like the affection of children— intense —
but incapable of disinterested sacrifices or noble
resignation.

It results in a tyranny such as is more often found
in the love of a man than of a woman. P. . . .,
anxious to prevent her lover from going near other
women, sent round a circular to all the ladies of the
town warning them that he belonged to her, and that
they should suffer if they attempted to invite him.
Often when she heard that he was dining in some
house, she would go there and make a scandalous
scene before everybody. But a few months later,
when she had replaced him with a new lover, she
addressed a second circular to the ladies, saying that
they were welcome to him, just as she might have

l62 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

done had he been an animal or a chattel in her
possession.

Greed and avarice. — To a less degree than ven-
geance, greed is a moving cause of crime in women,
in whom it shows itself sometimes under a different
form than in men.

Among dissolute criminals, indeed, who need much
money for their orgies and their pleasures, and are too
lazy to work for it, there is a great resemblance to the
male criminal, who also desires to have large sums of
money to waste. Women of the sort we are con-
sidering will attempt or instigate the crime which
promises to bring in a rich harvest of valuables.
Thus Bompard, attracted by the prospect of a rich
booty, urged Eyraud to assassinate the porter ; and
Lavoitte persuaded her lover to kill and rob a rich
old woman.

Other instances are Bonhours, Brinvilliers, Rob.

Messalina caused the richer citizens of Rome to be
killed, that she might have their villas and their
wealth ; and Fulvia suggested murderous crimes
partly out of vengeance and partly out of greed.

Crimes inspired by avarice (the opposite of prodigal
greed) are frequent among female criminals, although
rare among males.

Gaaikema, who was extremely parsimonious,
poisoned her daughter in order to inherit 22,000
florins.

C. . . . killed her son because to keep him was too
expensive

Another woman — a lady of high birth, out of
whose reach her relatives had removed one victim

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 1 63

for fear of scandal — began to ill-treat her third child
simply because he was an additional expense. " Of
him," she said, " we had really no need."

Corre and Rykere have already noticed how much
more frequently than men, women — especially
peasant-women — are guilty of the murder of old
or invalid parents who, being unable to work, repre-
sent only an additional burden on the family. For
this cause Lebon, aided by her husband, burned her
mother alive.

Madame Lafarge, at Gers, in 1886, murdered her
husband, a useless old man ; and what is more
significant, murdered him with the assistance of her
daughter-in-law.

Similar are the instances of Faure and Chevalier.

The Russian woman whose portrait we give in
Plate I. (No. 9) killed her daughter-in-law as being
too weak to work.

Domestic avarice, being characteristic of women in
general, leads, where it exists in an exaggerated
degree (and all passions are easily exaggerated in
women), to crime. For a woman an unnecessary
expense in the household is as terrible as the loss
of a large sum or the danger of commercial ruin is
to a man ; for the house is her possession, her king-
dom, so to speak, and she attaches to it the same
importance as a man attaches to his usual field of
activity, whether that be the professorial chair, the
seat in Parliament, or the country over which he
reigns as a sovereign.

Hence the ferocious hatreds and the crimes to which
avarice gives rise in the female sex.

1 64 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Dress. — Yet another frequent cause of crime in
a woman is love of dress and ornaments. Dubosc,
who had helped to murder a widow, on being asked
why she had done it, answered, " To obtain beautiful
hair."

M. B. began her career by stealing 1,000 francs,
which she spent almost entirely in objects of personal
adornment.

M. and S. were accused of shoplifting, and elected
to wear in prison the very articles they were charged
with stealing, thus choosing to furnish clear proofs of
their guilt rather than give themselves a chance of
acquittal by renouncing for one day the pleasure of
being well-dressed.

Madame Lafarge stole her friend's diamonds, and
ran grave risks in order to keep possession of them.

Madame D. stabbed a creditor of her husband's
who had threatened to seize a rich necklace in pay-
ment of the sum owing to him.

V. gave as a reason for killing her lover that he had
pledged her jewels. This was true, but he had done
it with her consent — a consideration which did not
avail to shield her victim from the effects of the
hatred she had conceived for him.

Madame Tarnowsky says that many Russian
women steal not from need — as they are employed
in remunerative work — but simply in order to buy
articles of luxury to dress and adorn themselves.

And according to Rykere and Guillot the money
which women obtain by the crimes they commit,
either as accessories or principals, almost always goe*
in the purchase of personal ornaments.

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 1 65

In the psychology of the normal woman dress and
personal adornment enter as factors of immense im-
portance. A woman who is ill-dressed looks upon
herself as disgraced. A similar feeling is visible in
children and in savages, dress appearing among the
last-named to be the earliest form of property, and
we need not wonder consequently that it should be a
frequent source of crime.

A woman steals or murders to be well-dressed as a
commercial man will swindle in order to make a brave
show on settling day.

Religious feeling {religiosity) is anything but rare
or weak in these born criminals.

The wife of Parency, while her husband was
murdering an old man, addressed prayers to God
that all might go well.

G., when setting fire to her lover's house, cried
aloud, " May God and the Holy Virgin do the rest."

The Marchioness of Brinvilliers was so fervent a
Catholic that one of the principal documents against
her at her trial was a narrative of her principal
crimes, which she had written out for the confessional.

Aveline burned tapers in church " for the accom-
plishment of our projects," she wrote to her lover,
meaning for the success of the crime about to be
committed ; and in another letter she said, " He
(her husband) was ill yesterday. I thought God was
beginning His work."

Pompilia Zambeccari had vowed to give a candle
to the Madonna if she succeeded in poisoning her
husband.

The woman Mercier belonged to a family of five

166 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

sisters and a brother, who were all subject to
religious mania. She herself had visions wherein
Jesus Christ appeared to her, and frequent auditive
hallucinations during which she had fancied com-
munications with God. Only the religious delirium
was less intense in her case than in that of her
brother and sisters — a fact which partly explained
why she alone was a criminal, and why, in the
intervals of her madness, she possessed so clear and
lofty an intelligence.

Maria Forlini, who had strangled and torn to pieces
a child in order to revenge herself on its parents, on
being condemned to death, turned to one of her
counsel and said, " Death is nothing. One must
think of the salvation of one's soul. The rest is of
no importance."

V. B., before murdering her husband, threw herself
on her knees to pray to the Virgin for strength to
accomplish the deed.

In 1670 the Parisian female poisoners of high rank
alternated the administration of lethal powders with
Satanic masses for the death of their husbands or the
fidelity of their lovers. A priest read the ritual over
the body of a pregnant woman (of bad life), after
which the foetus was strangled, and its blood and
ashes served for the concoction of philtres. Voisin
alone killed 2,500 of these little victims.

Trossarello imagined God to be the accomplice of
her crimes, and declared that the death of her victim
Gariglio was decreed in heaven as a punishment for
having abandoned her. In fact, she added, his
associate was also to die.

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 1 67

Contradictions. — The born criminal is not want-
ing in a paradoxical and intermittent goodness which
makes a strange contrast to her habitual depravity.

Madame Lafarge was extremely kind to her
servants. In her own neighbourhood she was called
the Providence of the poor and the sick, whom she
visited and assisted.

Jegado was extremely affectionate to her fellow-
servants, but poisoned them the moment they offended
her. D'Alessio caused her husband to be assassinated,
but only a few years previously she had nursed him
devotedly through a dangerous illness.

F. . . ., who murdered her husband with the assist-
ance of her lover, supported a child whom she had
taken from the orphanage.

Dumaire, who had enriched herself by prostitution
was generous with her money. She supported
almost all her relatives, who were very poor ; and
she paid for the studies of the lover whom she finally
killed when he deserted her.

Thomas relieved the wants of the poor, and often
wept at the recital of their miseries. She bought
presents and clothes for children.

P. T., one of the most ferocious female criminals
who ever came under our notice, was very kind in
succouring her companions, and showed a passionate
love for children.

Trossarello sat up whole nights long by the bed-
sides of poverty-stricken patients.

All this altruism, however, is intermittent and of
short duration.

Criminal women are kind to the unhappy simply
13

1 68 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

because the latter are in worse case than themselves.
And this is a source of instinctive satisfaction to
natures in whom the good fortune of others inspires
only hatred. Moreover the exercise of charity enables
them to feel that the party benefited is at their feet ;
that is to say, their love of power is gratified by good
methods for once.

Their kindness, in short, is of an inferior sort,
springing from what may be described as a composite
selfishness.

This intermittent goodness explains the facility
with which such women listen to sentimental sug-
gestions, and the behaviour of the most ferocious
among them in the presence of the scaffold, which to
ordinary observers seems so heroically Christian and
resigned as to appear a miracle worked by God for
the redemption of a lost soul.

Madame Brinvilliers, as her confessor Pirot relates,
died the death of a true Christian. She wrote letters
to the families she had injured begging them to
forgive her. She was full of kind consideration for
her gaolers, to whom she left the few objects still in
her possession. She addressed a letter to her husband
in which she urged him to bring up her children in
virtue and the fear of God.

The woman Tiquet listened devoutly to the
sermons of her confessor. When her accomplice
was decapitated she lamented that he should have
suffered so severely for a crime to which she was
the truly guilty party; and she kissed the executioner
so that he might feel that she did not hate him.

Jegado, after an interview with a priest, declared

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 1 69

that she died happy and perfectly prepared for
another life. Guillaume admitted that for her crime
she deserved death. Balaguer showed herself pious.
She left the few things she could dispose of to the
wife of her lawyer, and during her last days succeeded
so well in winning the affection of her prison com-
panions that they all wept when she left them to
mount the scaffold. She assured the executioner that
she forgave him.

In all this there is some truth of feeling if little
depth. The criminal receives a sentimental sugges-
tion from her spiritual adviser, whose influence she
falls under all the more easily because of her peculiar
position. Alone, removed from evil, able to speak
only with the priest, she is naturally moved by his
appeals to the milder feelings in which she is not
totally wanting, and her conscience reasserts itself
in the absence of all stimulus to evil. This effect
is produced the more easily that the female criminal
is usually very accessible to religious impressions.

Add to this the instinctive yearning for sympathy
and protection, even moral protection, which pos-
sesses women in general, and is likely to make itself
strongly felt when they are rejected by the world and
on the brink of the tomb. The priest is the only
person with whom they have intercourse : they wish
to captivate him, and with their feminine facility for
assimilating the ideas and feelings of others they
assume all the Christian virtues for a few days, even
that virtue which is most foreign to their nature,
namely forgiveness.

Sentiment alistrii — If strong, true feelings are wanting

170 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

to these women, its place is supplied by a mawkish
sentimentality, especially in their letters.

Aveline wrote to her lover : " I am jealous of nature
which enrages us with her beauty. Do you not find,
dear, that this beautiful weather is made for lovers
and speaks to them of love ? " Again : " How I wish
we had accomplished the deed (her husband's murder)
which will make us free and happy ! I must see the
end of it, for there is Paradise. At the turn of the
road are roses."

Trossarello wrote to her lover letters full of
sentimental declarations of love while all the time
betraying him. The so-called Baroness Gravay de
Liverniere, one of the most shameless and accom-
plished swindlers of her time, wrote in her diary the
following remarks about a youth of 18, whom at 48
she was endeavouring to marry. " Such a practical
man ! He only loves me because he hopes for the
patronage of my friends. Ah, memories ! when I
think of him I recall the gallant cavalier who wrote :

•' * Pour avoir de noble dame
Obtenir le doux baiser,
Je vais brulant d'une flamme
Que rien ne peut appaiser.' "

Just because these women are moral lunatics and
wanting in deep, true feeling, they fall easily
into exaggerated sophistries, like the coward who
in conversation boasts of imaginary theatrical
courage.

Intelligence.— -The intelligence of female criminals
varies much. Some are very intelligent, while others
are not remarkable in this respect. As a general

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 171

thing, however, their minds are sufficiently alert ;
and this is one reason why they do not commit so
many impulsive crimes (as men).

To kill in an explosion of bestial rage is com-
patible with the intelligence of a Hottentot ; but to
plan poisoning demands a certain ability and astute-
ness. And the crimes of women are almost always
deliberate.

Impulsive female criminals who revenge themselves
for a small offence by some act out of all proportion
to its cause (like Closset, Rousoux, &c), or women
of great physical strength like Bonhours or P., may
have only average intelligence, but the ferocious
criminals who commit a multiplicity of crimes are
generally very able.

M. (a case mentioned by Ottolenghi) had a remark-
ably active mind, very fertile in ideas, although her
education had been scanty. She was greatly addicted
to writing down her notions, and either scribbled
them as best she could or dictated them to her com-
panions ; and when we remember how undeveloped
are the graphic cerebral centres of women in general,
this must be taken as a significant proof of mental
superiority. For the rest, M.'s intelligence is suffi-
ciently demonstrated by the fact that at 17 she had
organised for herself and others a vast and profitable
system of prostitution.

Brinvilliers, Lafarge, and Weiss had also acute
minds, and wrote extremely well. Jegado was
described by a witness as seeming a fool, but being
really fiendishly clever.

Tiquet had been for many years distinguished for

172 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

her wit among persons of the best society. And the
women who are induced to commit crimes through
greed are usually well endowed with ability. Mercier,
in spite of being subject to a religious mania which
often caused her to make grave mistakes, had really
remarkable business capacity. She had often amassed
considerable sums of money by her commercial enter-
prises, and easily remade them when lost.

Lyons, the celebrated American adventuress and
thief, must have possessed a very superior intelli-
gence. She enriched herself by robbery in America,
and came to Europe to continue the same system out
of sheer love for it. Arrested in flagrante by the
police of Paris, she succeeded in obtaining her liberty
through the intercession of the British and American
ambassadors. Equally able were many others, such
as the pretended Countess Sandor, who wrote for
newspapers, and in the disguise of a man captivated
the daughter of a wealthy Austrian nobleman and
obtained her in marriage, living with her for several
months and extorting money from her father, until
at his instigation she was arrested and her real sex
discovered. Other instances are Bell-Star, who
during many years led a band of outlaws in Texas
and organised expeditions against the government
of the United States itself, and finally the so-
called Gravay de Liverniere already described, whose
real name was never discovered out of the seven or
eight aliases which she had assumed ; who at the age
of 48 fascinated a youth of 19 to such an extent
that he would not give her up even when she had
been sentenced ; who simulated the birth of a

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 1 73

child, and for a long time passed for a cousin of
the Queen of Spain.

P. W., who was guilty of stabbing and probably of
poisoning, managed political newspapers, organised
political conspiracies, and published novels and poems.

Madame Tarnowsky also remarked with reference
to Theodosia W., a celebrated receiver of stolen goods
in St. Petersburg, that in the management of her
business she required much astuteness and discern-
ment in order to distinguish between her different
customers, who were sometimes poor wretches bring-
ing their last possessions to pawn, sometimes real
thieves, and sometimes spies.

Another proof that born criminals are often of
great intelligence lies in the frequent originality of
their crimes. M., already alluded to (Ottolenghi),
enriched herself by a remarkable combination of
prostitution, pandering, and blackmail. Lacassagne
induced her accomplice in the murder of her illegiti-
mate child, to take all the guilt upon himself by
promising to marry him as soon as he had worked
out his sentence, but when he presented himself to
exact the fulfilment of her agreement, she murdered
him with the assistance of her brother. Gras not
having money enough to marry an artisan, caused
the latter to throw vitriol at another lover of her own,
who was in delicate health, her plan being to marry
him when thus disfigured by persuading him that no
other woman would take him, then to ruin his already
shattered constitution, and, on being left a rich widow,
to marry the man of her heart.

The superior ability of born criminals is explicable

174 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

when we remember that these women are often weak
and physically incapable of satisfying their perverse
instincts. If they have sufficient astuteness they can
still triumph in the struggle for life, but in the con-
trary case they become prostitutes.

Writing and painting. — These two accomplish-
ments are almost totally wanting in the born criminal.
We have never found any tattooing or other design
containing an allusion to crime, nor even any special
sorts of embroidery which yet ought to be the graphic
form peculiar to female offenders. The only instance
we remember of the symbolic drawings in which
male criminals indulge is that photograph, already
described, of the lover of Pran. . . ., which she had
adorned with two crosses and a death's head. The
design was completed by a date, namely, that on
which she intended to attempt his murder out of
revenge for his having abandoned her. She held the
document in high esteem, and kept it always by her
in prison as a memento of her deed.

The born criminal is rarely inclined to write much.
We know but of three instances among them of
memoirs : those of Madame Lafarge, of X., and of
Bell-Star, while male criminals are greatly addicted
to these egotistic outpourings. Madame Lafarge, the
woman X., and Bell- Star, particularly the last, were
certainly endowed with superior intelligence, but
among male criminals even those whose mental
equipment is less than mediocre, there have been
many who wrote memoirs.

Very rare also are poetesses, such as the mistress
of the brigand Cerrato who dictated verses to him.

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 175

The most characteristic document ever written by
a female criminal is the confession of her sins drawn
up by the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, and which was
one of the gravest witnesses against her at her trial. In
it we find, first, that intensity of religious sentiment
which feels the need of defining the sense of one's
own guilt by giving it the life and weight of written
words ; next, the absence of foresight peculiar to the
criminal, and finally that aberration of moral percep-
tion which confounds as equally wicked omissions
of mere formal religious duties and monstrous crimes
like parricide or incest.

Mode of execution of crimes. Deliberation. — Another
proof of the frequent ability of born criminals
is the deliberation with which women so often
accomplish their crimes, and which, whether we regard
it as an effect of weakness, or as suggested by the
reading of romantic literature, is equally an evidence
of intellect above the average.

The means taken to accomplish an end, even a
comparatively simple end, are often most complicated.
We have already described the elaborate plan con-
ceived by Gras to obtain wealth and marry her
lover.

Princess X., in order to remove the husband of the
woman of whom she had need for her own vile pur-
poses, carefully and lengthily prepared a meeting
between the friend herself when with her lover and
the friend's husband, in the hope that the jealousy of
the latter would favour her own desires ; and later
she induced the friend, whom she had then deter-
mined to poison, to write a declaration of suicide

176 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

which would guard the Princess herself from detec-
tion.

M., who wished to supplant a friend as lady's-maid
in a family, first tried to turn her employers' minds
against her by calumny ; then when this failed, she
calumniated the employers themselves to the servant
by accusing them of cheating their domestics out of
their salary. This device also proving useless, she
next stole the key of the house from her friend,
profited one evening by a moment when the latter
had gone out leaving the front door open, to introduce
herself furtively and hide under the other's bed.
When the friend was asleep, M. stabbed her, and fled,
shutting the house door after herself. The next day
she returned, and calmly proposed to the mistress of
the house to nurse the wounded woman until her
recovery, and on the mistress hesitating to accept the
offer, M. promised if she would do so, to reveal the
name of the aggressor.

R. B., wishing to kill her husband, prepared, while
he slept, a large cauldron of boiling water, then woke
him, saying that somebody in the street was calling
to him, and as he went, still half asleep, to the window,
she pushed him into the cauldron.

It is clear that to conceive such complicated plans
there is need of a certain amount of imagination
which may supply the place of want of force.
Muscular strength, were it present, would facilitate
the execution of the crime, and its absence necessi-
tates tortuous and indirect action. This is so true
that women of masculine force, like Bonhours, who
dressed herself in men's clothes and enjoyed wrest-

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 1 77

ling with men, or like P., who could wield a heavy
hammer, do not show this deliberation in their
crimes, but settle matters with a resolute blow from
a knife or a club.

One curious point in all this deliberation is that
it proves itself often defective even in the case of
the cleverest criminals. The plans hit upon even
when most elaborate are constantly absurd and
impossible, not to say mad. Morin, in order to rob
and kill her enemy, devised a scheme for inveigling
him into a house outside Paris which she had rented
for the purpose. Once there, she intended to have
him dragged down into a cellar and tied to a post,
with nooses, carbines, pistols, and swords disposed all
about to frighten him and superinduce in him the
proper frame of mind for listening to a document
composed in an inflated style which his daughter was
to read aloud to him, and the object of which was to
persuade him to sign certain bills of exchange. At
the same time two ruffians dressed up as ghosts were
meant to contort themselves, and utter terrific cries,
thus giving the final touch to a scene which had been
suggested by a novel of Mrs. RadclirTe's.

In the same way the born criminal constantly
endeavours to prepare a preventive alibi, or proof of
innocence ; but her ideas, however ingenious, are often
quite unadapted for their purpose. Madame Lafarge,
for instance, who during her husband's malady put
arsenic into his drinks instead of gum, used to make
a point of being seen eating gum herself.

Buisson, while engaged in murdering an old man,
was scratched by her victim, and as soon as she

178 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

reached home she hanged her cat, then went with an
air of anger to tell her friends that the brute had
sprung at her face. Madame Meyron caused her
husband to be stabbed in his bed by her lover, then
drew up the bed coverings, called her friends, and,
showing the corpse, said that death must have
resulted from vomiting of blood.

Instigation. — The female born criminal does not
always commit her crime herself. Often, unless she
be endowed with masculine strength of muscle, or
her intended victim be another woman, or her con-
templated crime an insidious one, such as poisoning
or incendiarism, her courage fails. The letters of the
women Beridot and Aveline to their lovers are full of
laments at weakness. Lavoitte said to her accom-
plice, " If I were a man I would kill that rich old
woman myself." Here we see the cowardice of a
weak creature at the thought of a struggle with
one stronger than itself. Moral shrinkings there
are none ; the woman simply has recourse to insti-
gation. For the born criminal is especially to be
recognised by the fact that in a joint crime the part
played by her is that of an incubus^ to use an ex-
pression of Sighele's : she eggs on her accomplice
to the deed with an extraordinary refinement of
wickedness.

Fraikin employed Devilde, a paid assassin, to
murder her husband, and when his courage had
failed him for the third time at the moment of
execution, she angrily exclaimed, " A man must be
a fool to let so excellent an occasion escape him."
At the fourth attempt she made him drunk, then

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 179

conducted him to her husband's chamber, hid herself
at the foot of the bed, at the same time showing him
a note for a thousand francs, and at the decisive
moment she still had presence of mind enough to
admonish the murderer not to seize her husband by
the hair, as he wore a wig.

Albert, whose paramour, Lavoitte, instigated him
to murder an old woman, thus recounted the wiles by
which she persuaded him : " She began by describing
all the wealth of the woman, and the little use she
made of it. I resisted, but the next day Philomene
returned to the charge, arguing that in war one kills
one's neighbour, and that there is no harm in it —
then, why should that horrid old woman not be
killed ? ' God will pardon us/ she added, ' for He
sees our misery.' "

Madame Simon tried to kill her weak husband by
encouraging him to drink, and obliging him morning
and evening to imbibe a mixture prepared by herself
of brandy, gin, and other deleterious compounds.
Afterwards she proposed to each one of her innumer-
able lovers to commit the murder, promising one of
them five francs ( /) and her hand ; and at last
Merangal, a weak, half-crazy youth, was induced by
her to accomplish the deed, for which she armed him
with her own hand.

Madame de Brinvilliers, wishing to persuade one
of her lovers against his conscience to commit a
crime, said to him, " What can it matter to you
whether that old woman lives or not? You do not
even know her"

Obstinacy in denial. — A peculiarity of female

l8o THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

offenders, and particularly of the born criminal, is
their obstinacy in denying their crime, no matter
how convincing the proof of it may be. The male
criminal, when denial no longer serves him, usually
confesses, but the woman only protests her innocence
the more strenuously, the more obviously absurd her
asseverations become.

D'Alessio, Rondest, Jumean, Saraceni, BeVidot,
Pearcy, and Daudet persisted in denying everything.
Madame Lafarge maintained her guiltlessness to the
end, and proclaimed it in the memoirs which were to
survive when she was gone.

Jegado, in the teeth of all evidence, continued to
assert that she did not even know the nature of
arsenic, and that her one fault was to be too kindly
disposed towards people in general ; and this attitude
she persisted in to the end.

Even when they do not deny altogether, they invent
excuses for themselves so elaborate and absurd that
even a child would not believe them, but the criminal
reiterates them imperturbably.

Madame Dacquignie declared that she had killed
her husband in self-defence, although she bore no
marks of violence. She maintained that she had
only inflicted one blow on him, yet the corpse had
six wounds.

Madame Lafarge, to excuse herself, invented a theft
of diamonds of the most complicated and absurd
description.

Madame Hoegli asserted that she had only inflicted
on her daughter the usual corrections which a mother
may give her child : if the daughter was suffocated,
that was an accident.

THE BORN CRIMINAL. l8l

D£pise, who had wounded her lover in an ambus-
cade, pretended that he had beaten her, thrown her
down, and encouraged his dog to bite her.

Praeer maintained that she had her brother armed
with a revolver in her husband's room only that he
might take possession of certain letters which would
have compromised her in her divorce suit (but which
she would not admit contained any proof of her
adultery) : as to the revolver — it was intended simply
to frighten her husband.

Sometimes, when being tried in court, these women
change their line of defence two or three times, and
they asseverate each new statement with undiminished
ardour, and without apparently ever reflecting that
the variations in their story will influence the judges
against them.

Madame Goglet, who set fire to her house in order
to burn her old husband, said at first that the guilty
party was a stranger whom she had fired at without
hitting him. Next she asserted that she was not the
true Madame Goglet, but a great friend, who exactly
resembled her, and had undertaken to nurse the old
man in his real wife's place. And finally, when the
husband swore to her identity in court, she did not
hesitate to affirm that he had become purblind in
consequence of a shock.

" The female delinquent," observes Rykere, u is
more sophistical and argumentative than her male
prototype. She finds pretexts and excuses which
astonish one by their fantasticality and strangeness."

Pasteur Arboux also remarks, "Not only do women
when they fall into crime fall deeper than men, but

l82 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

they lie with greater coherence and audacity. They
are bolder in the stones which they tell, and more
hypocritical."

In short, the denials and excuses made by female
offenders are marked by absurdity and elaborate-
ness. That is to say, there is the same delibera-
tion about them as we noted in the crimes of
women. It is clear that if these criminals persist
in their denials in the teeth of the most irrefragable
proofs, this can only be because they are but little
imbued with the sense of truth, and fail to con-
ceive the state of mind which evidence produces
in their judges. The logic of fact not penetrating
to their own brains, they cannot feel the force of
an irrefutable circumstance, and they believe others
to be in the same case as themselves. The same
feebleness of logical faculty explains the complicated
lies which they invent in their own defence, and of
which they fail to perceive the absurdity, patent
though it be to others. Add to this the action of
auto-suggestion which, when the lies have been re-
peated often enough, ends by converting them into
half truths, and does so all the more easily that female
criminals have very short memories for their own
deeds. In a brief period the recollection of what
they have done grows dim, and the delinquent then,
freed from the sense of her crime, is able all the better
to fix her attention on the story which she is telling.
The image of the truth already faint is replaced in
her mind by the imaginary narrative. A lie costs
but little mental fatigue, and is consequently all
the easier to repeat. The female offender does

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 183

not waste her energy in inventing a plausible
lie, but continues to reaffirm what she has already
said without hesitation or failure, and she sometimes
succeeds thus in influencing judge and jury to such a
degree as to impose on their credulity with a fable
of the most fantastic description.

Revelation of cnme. — To the long list of contra-
dictory circumstances which we have met with in the
course of this work, we must now add another. We
have shown that the female delinquent is obstinate in
denying her guilt when pressed with questions by the
judge. We have now to show that she often reveals
her own guilt in a perfectly spontaneous manner: a
singular psychological phenomenon for which there are
many causes. One is that need to gossip and that in-
capacity for keeping a secret characteristic of the female
sex. Gabrielle Bompard, for instance, while travelling
with Garanger, began telling him many things about
Eyraud, and on arriving in Paris, where all the news-
papers were speaking of Eyraud and herself, she could
no longer refrain from revealing her own identity and
that of her accomplice. The woman Faure who threw
vitriol at her lover would never have been discovered,
so well had she taken her precautions, if she had not
herself confided the secret to a female friend. Where
an act of vengeance is concerned the temptation to
tell is doubled through the keen joy which the avenger
feels in her deed, and her desire to intensify that joy
by confiding it to others. Nor must we neglect to
take into account the habitual featherheadedness and
imprudence of the female criminal who does not
realise the peril to which she exposes herself by
14

184 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

alluding publicly to her act. Sometimes the confes-
sion assumes a different form. The female criminal
is impelled, indeed, to incriminate herself, but her
want of foresight does not go so far as to make her
reveal her intended crime before it is accomplished.

Her need to talk about it finds satisfaction by
indirect means. She will show herself full of anxiety
concerning the health of the man whom she intends
to poison, telling her acquaintances, with every sign
of sorrow, that she is sure he is about to die, even
when he is still quite well. And when at last he
sickens, but the truth is not yet suspected, she ex-
hibits great concern, and is always predicting the worst.

Madame Lafarge, after she had sent her husband the
poisoned tart, went about saying that she was in fear
of receiving a black-bordered letter; and she inquired
for how long a period widows in that part of the country
habitually wore mourning. Hagu, after poisoning
the wife of her lover Rogier, said, during the illness
of her victim, " I tell you that she cannot live long.
Is it possible that so young a man could remain with
a woman who hates him ? " Jegado, as soon as one
of her victims fell ill, and before anybody suspected
aught but a slight indisposition, would say, " He will
die. Be sure of it. That is a mortal illness. Send
for the priest," and so on.

All such speeches serve to resuscitate in the mind
of the female offender the image of her crime, and
afford her an after-taste of the voluptuous joy which
she feels in evil-doing. Jegado's conversation turned
always on death : " Her talk," said one person, " was
a perpetual reminiscence of deceased persons."

THE BORN CRIMINAL, 1 85

As we have already mentioned, women, unlike
men, do not embody their crimes in writing or
drawing ; hence the more imperious longing to
invoke the memory of their acts by narrating them.

A woman talks of her crime just as a man will
revive the recollection of it by written allusions, or
by some drawing or engraving on an utensil, &C.1

Very singular is the confession which a woman
sometimes makes to her lover. The female delinquent
will reveal her crime to the man she loves, even if he
neither questions nor suspects her. She will even
sometimes force him to accept written proofs of her
guilt, thus furnishing him with a weapon against her,
of which she feels the full gravity when her mad but
brief passion is over, and which often leads her to
commit a fresh crime in order to rid herself of an
inconvenient witness. V. confided to Signorini, her
lover, that she had stolen some Government coupons ;
and later, when tired of him, she killed him to save
herself from being accused of the theft.

Menghini, in a letter to her latest lover, D'Ottavi,
avowed the murder of her husband, and when
D'Ottavi left her she induced her preceding lover
to kill the confidant, who had now become dangerous.

We have in all this a natural consequence of the
tendency to mutual confidences which prevails among
lovers, and especially of the need which every woman
feels, when in love, to give some extraordinary proof
of devotion to the man of her heart. The greater
the pledge of love, the more the woman desires to
bestow it ; and what more can she do than to make

* See " Uomo Delinauente," vol. i.

1 86 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

a confession of guilt which by its very nature places
her liberty and her life at the mercy of her lover?
And here we have a fresh example of the habitual
reckless imprudence of the female offender. She
never reflects that her love is always of short dura-
tion, but invariably believes that it will be as lasting
as it is intense. This, joined to that absence of
moral convictions which causes her to regard the
gravest crimes as a mere trifling lapse, furnishes the
only possible explanation of her conduct. Other-
wise, how could she make up her mind to confess
her crime to a lover in whom (even supposing him
to be momentarily attracted by an avowal which lifts
the woman, through her wickedness, out of the ranks
of the commonplace), it must nevertheless in the
long run inspire only horror and aversion ?

In other cases jealousy, a spirit of revenge for
having been abandoned by her lover, drives the
female criminal to accuse her accomplice. " The
woman," writes Joly, " who is, or believes herself to
be, betrayed, is merciless in denouncing her accom-
plices." Sometimes the betrayal results not from
passion, but from a spirit of astute calculation. The
woman finds herself threatened with the detection of
her crime, and by abandoning her accomplice she
hopes (especially if young and good-looking) to earn
the indulgence of the law for herself. The fickle-
ness of the female sex must also be taken into
account. A woman adores a man as a god, and is
willing to die for him during a few months ; then her
affection turns to hatred, and she hands him over to
justice without the least hesitation. According to

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 187

Guillot this inconstancy forms the greatest danger
for all associations of malefactors. Bompard unhesi-
tatingly sacrificed her accomplice, who was also, in
part, her victim. Bistor was arrested on information
received from the woman Perrin, his associate in
crime, just as the police were about to pigeon-hole
the case.

In consequence of this frequent deliberate or
involuntary betrayal of associates on the part of
female delinquents, the more intelligent criminals of
the opposite sex are wary of trusting them.

In the band of malefactors captained by Chevalier
and Abadie there was a regulation to the effect that
only two women, the mistresses of the leaders, should
be admitted.

Synthesis. — In general the moral physiognomy of
the born female criminal approximates strongly to
that of the male. The atavistic diminution of
secondary sexual characters which is to be observed
in the anthropology of the subject, shows itself once
again in the psychology of the female criminal,
who is excessively erotic, weak in maternal feeling,
inclined to dissipation, astute and audacious, and
dominates weaker beings sometimes by suggestion,
at others by muscular force ; while her love of
violent exercise, her vices, and even her dress,
increase her resemblance to the sterner sex. Added
to these virile characteristics are often the worst
qualities of woman : namely, an excessive desire for
revenge, cunning, cruelty, love of dress, and un-
truthfulness, forming a combination of evil ten-
dencies which often results in a type of extraordinary

l88 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

wickedness. Needless to say these different cha-
racteristics are not found in the same proportion in
everybody. A criminal, like Bonhours or P., will be
deficient in intelligence, but possessed of great
physical strength ; while another, such as M., who
is weak physically, triumphs over this obstacle by
the ability with which she lays her plans. But when
by an unfortunate chance muscular strength and
intellectual force meet in the same individual, we
have a female delinquent of a terrible type in-
deed. A typical example of these extraordinary
women is presented by Bell- Star, the female brigand,
who a few years ago terrorised all Texas. Her
education had been of the sort to develop her natural
qualities ; for, being the daughter of a guerilla chief
who had fought on the side of the South in the war
of 1861-65, she had grown up in the midst of fighting,
and when only ten years old, already used the lasso,
the revolver, the carbine, and the bowie-knife in a
way to excite the enthusiasm of her ferocious com-
panions. She was as strong and bold as a man,
and loved to ride untamed horses which the boldest
of the brigands dared not mount. One day at Oak-
land she twice won a race, dressed once as a man and
once as a woman, changing her dress so rapidly that
her ruse remained unsuspected. She was extremely
dissolute, and had more than one lover at a time, her
admirer en titre being always the most intrepid and
daring of the band. At the first sign of cowardice
he was degraded from his rank. But, however bold
he might be, Bell-Star dominated him entirely, while
all the time having — as Varigny writes — as many

THE BORN CRIMINAL. 189

lovers as there were desperadoes in four States. At
the age of eighteen she became head of the band, and
ruled her associates partly through her superior
intelligence, partly through her courage, and to a
certain degree through her personal charm as a
woman. She organised attacks of the most daring
description on populous cities, and fought against
government troops, not hesitating the very day after
one of these raids to enter some neighbouring town
unaccompanied, and dressed — as almost always — in
male attire. Once she slept in the same hotel as the
judge of the district, without his once suspecting her
identity or even her sex. And as during the table
d'kote dinner he had boasted that he would un-
doubtedly recognise Bell-Star if he ever met her, and
would arrest her on the spot, the following morning,
when mounted, she sent for him, told him who she
was, called him a fool, and after lashing him twice
across the face with her whip, galloped away. She
wrote her memoirs, recording in them her desire to
die in her boots. This wish was granted, for she fell
in a battle against the government troops, directing
the fire to her latest breath.

Another Napoleon in petticoats similar to Bell-Star
was Zelie, a Frenchwoman by birth. She was ex-
tremely intelligent, spoke three languages perfectly,
had extraordinary personal fascination, and even
from childhood showed herself perfidious and profli-
gate. Her adventures having carried her to the
brigand country of North America, she became the
leader of a band of malefactors. With a bold and
audacious air, and her revolver in her hand, she was

190 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

always the first to face danger, and when quarrels
arose among her companions she would throw herself
into the midst of them and make them lay down
their arms. Laughing she crossed perilous mountain-
paths where others feared to follow her : neither
epidemics, earthquakes, nor war availed to cow her.
She eventually died in a lunatic asylum in France, a
prey to hysteria.

M. R., a case described by Ottolenghi, was a
thief, a prostitute, a corrupter of youth, a black-
mailer, and all this at the age of 17. When only 12
she robbed her father in order to have money to
spend among her companions. At 15 she fled
from home with a lover, whom she left almost at
once for a career of prostitution. With a view to
larger gains, when only 16 she organised a vast
system of prostitution, by which she provided young
girls of 12 and 15 for wealthy men, from whom she
exacted large sums, of which only a few sous went to
the victims. And by threats of exposure she managed
to levy costly blackmail on her clients, one of whom,
a highly-placed functionary, was dismissed from his
post in consequence of her revelations. She was
extremely vindictive, and committed two crimes of
revenge which serve to show the strange mixture of
ferocity and cunning composing her character. One
of her companions having spoken evil of her, she
(who was then only 16 years of age) let a little time
pass, then coaxed her enemy to accompany her out-
side the gates of the town. They reached a deserted
spot as evening fell, and M. R. suddenly threw the
other girl on the ground, and while recalling her

THE BORN CRIMINAL. IQI

offence proceeded to beat her violently with a pair of
scissors and a key, nor desisted until her victim had
fainted ; after which she quietly returned to town.
" You might have killed her," somebody said. " What
did that matter ? " she replied ; " there was nobody to
see." " You might have employed a hired assassin."
" I am afraid of those," was the answer. " Besides, on
principle one should do things oneself." " But with
a key you could never have killed her " (went on the
other). " If one beats the temples well," M. R.
replied, " it is quite possible to kill a person even with
a key."

She conceived on another occasion such a violent
hatred to a brilliant rival that, enticing her into a cafe,
she furtively poisoned her coffee and thus caused
her death.

It would be difficult to find greater wickedness at
the service of a vindictive disposition and an unbridled
greed. We may regard M. R. as an instance in which
the two poles of depravity were united. That is to
say, she was sanguinary (for she went about always
with a dagger in her pocket, and stabbed anybody
who offended her in the least) and at the same time
inclined to commit the more cautious and insidious
crimes, such as poisoning, blackmail, &c. And we
consequently find in her an example of the law we
have already laid down, to the effect that the female
born criminal, when a complete type, is more terrible
than the male.

CHAPTER XIII.

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS.

The born offender is more completely and intensely
depraved than any other, but the case is quite dif-
ferent with the occasional criminals who form the
large majority of female delinquents. In them per-
versity and vice are of a milder form, and there is no
want of the higher virtues of the sex, such as chastity
and maternal love.

1. Physical characteristics. — The first thing to be
observed is the absence of any characteristics or
features denoting degeneration. As we saw already
54 per cent, of female offenders are absolutely
normal in these respects, and even as regards the
special senses they show no peculiarity, 1 5 per cent,
having fineness of taste, and 6 per cent, fineness of
smell.

2. Moral character. — The same may be said of their
moral equipment. Guillot unconsciously described
the occasional criminal exactly when recording his
observations on female prisoners, in the following
words : —

" The guilty woman, with a few exceptions in which
all vices are combined, is more easily moved to peni-

ZQ3

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. I93

tence than men, recovers the lost ground more quickly,
and relapses into crime less frequently."

And he quotes a lady visitor of St. Lazare who,
speaking of the female prisoners, said : " When one
knows them it is easy to love them : " thus showing
that their natural perversity is not excessive.

" The writings on prison walls in the male cells,"
continues Guillot, " breathe violence, impiety, threats,
and obscenities ; those in the female cells are much
more reserved, and speak only of repentance and of
love." And he gives a few examples : — ■

" In this cell where my love perishes, far from thee,
my adored one, I moan and suffer."

" John loves me no longer, but I shall love him
always."

" You who enter the cell, called sonriciere, if not
separated from your loved one you only suffer one-
half."

" What should my heart find to say to you in this
mournful cell, unless it expresses all its pain and
agony, its longing and despair at the thought of my
loved one ? "

" Henrietta once loved her lover more than any
woman ever loved, but now she detests him."

" I swear never to begin again, for I am sick of
men ; love brought me here, for I killed my lover.
Beware of men, they are liars all."

" The judgment of men is nothing — only God's
matters."

" God is so good, He pities the unfortunate."

" Mary, our Lady, Holy Virgin, I throw myself at
your feet, and place myself under your protection."

194 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

And in these female criminals the sense of chastity
is very strong. In France, for instance, they shrink
with horror from the idea of going to St. Lazare
where they might come into contact with prostitutes.

Mace refers to occasional offenders and not to the
shameless and dissolute born criminal in the following
remarks : —

" The women are reluctant. They are alarmed at
the idea of St. Lazare, because associating with it an
indelible brand of ignominy and disgrace. They see
themselves brought into contact with the degraded of
their sex, and no woman enters willingly on the road
to that prison."

Guillot also noted the antagonism existing between
prostitutes and delinquents in St. Lazare.

The latter hold venal women in horror ; but it must
be confessed that the aversion is mutual, for prosti-
tutes boast that they have never stolen.

The born criminal, on the other hand, cannot
despise the prostitute, for she is herself equally
unchaste.

Guillot remarks upon the strong maternal love
existing in occasional offenders, and which contrasts
with that utter absence of the sentiment in the born
criminal, so amply demonstrated already by us.

" In St. Lazare," says Guillot, " maternal jealousy
frequently breeds rivalries and jealousies. Every
mother wishes her own child to be considered the
handsomest, the strongest, and to be most admired,
most caressed. The birth of an infant is an event
which turns the whole prison upside down ; and
insubordinate offenders, who would not submit to

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 195

prison regulations even when threatened with solitary-
confinement, have shown a lamb-like docility on being
threatened with separation from their child."

And not only chastity and maternal love, but other
gentle qualities are present to prove how little the
occasional offender differs from her normal sister.

Guillot, for instance, remarks upon the species of
affection and the extreme trustfulness of this class of
women towards their advocates, especially if young
and good-looking. The lawyer becomes a kind of
protector, inspiring rather a chimerical confidence and
a filial respect and attachment.

One prisoner wrote on the wall : " I am in prison,
charged with a theft of 2,000 francs : but it is of no
consequence — I have a lawyer."

Here, then, is an example of the need of protection
and the confidence in the other sex, which we have
described as characteristic of the normal woman, but
which are entirely wanting in the born criminal, who,
semi-masculine, tyrannical, and selfish, demands not
help or protection from anybody, but the simple
satisfaction of her own passions.

This confidence in the lawyer is only a form of the
feminine need of protection, which finds a stronger
expression in love. Love among occasional offenders
is much more disinterested and profound than among
born criminals — in whom, indeed, it is a mere shallow
impulse born of unbridled selfishness.

" They" (occasional offenders), writes Guillot, "know
quite well how to distinguish between the unhappy
woman who testifies in court against her lover while
thinking to save him, as in the Pranzini trial, or while

196 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

seeking to exculpate herself, as in the Marchandon
affair, or with the object of freeing herself from the
yoke of a monster, as in the Prado trial, and the
woman who from cowardice consents to take part in
a conspiracy against her lover. They pity the first
class for having to do what they would do themselves
under similar circumstances, but the action of the
second class revolts the sentiments of tenderness and
generosity of which these women are still capable."

For instance, Gabrielle Fenayron, while confined in
St. Lazare, could never show herself in the prison
court, because, had she done so, the other prisoners
would have ill-treated her.

Occasional criminals are consequently capable of
the spiritualised love which is especially womanly;
but in the born criminal there is only sensuality and
lust.

In order, however, to understand exactly in what
the degree of criminality of these occasional offenders
consists, we must make a psychological examination
of the occasions which have led them into crime, and
which may be divided into several heads.

3. Stiggestion. — In many cases the origin of her
reluctant crime in such a woman is suggestion on
the part of a lover, or sometimes of her father or
brother.

A prison-sister once said to us, pointing to the
women, "These are not like men. They do not
commit crimes out of evil passions, but to please
their lovers. They steal or compromise themselves
for men's sakes, without having sometimes any direct
interest in the act."

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. I97

Sighele x remarked that among the distinctive signs
of these occasional crimes is the length of time
necessary to make the suggestion bear fruit, together
with uncertainty of execution on the woman's part
and her speedy remorse when the deed is done.

A certain L., whom her lover wished to induce to
kill her husband, took from him a bottle of sulphuric
acid, promising to make her husband drink it ; but
at the moment of pouring the poison into a glass of
wine she felt her courage fail, and, dropping the bottle,
confessed.

Guiseppina (Josephine) P., a fatherless girl of 17,
was seduced by a man much older than herself, who
afterwards married her. The marriage turned out
unhappily, and after the birth of a daughter, whom
the husband repudiated, the couple separated. The
woman, thrown on her own resources, was reduced
from wealth to a mere pittance of thirty francs a
month ; and she became the lover of a certain Guillet,
a brutal and avaricious peasant, who obtained great
influence over her, and in order to get possession of
her husband's property induced her to assist in
murdering him.

Josephine had yielded, but when arrested showed
herself penitent and confessed the crime. " God will
forgive me," she said, " because I have been so un-
happy. I had no means of existence, I was alone
and starving. My own family would give me nothing,
and it was then this man (Guillet) ruined me. He is
the origin of all my misfortunes and of my crime."

« "Coppia Criminale," 1893, and "Archivio di psichiatria," vols,
xiii. and xiv. Turin.

I98 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

M. R., who showed none of the graver signs of
degeneration, and was industrious and honest, resisted
the profligate designs of her father, and turned a deaf
ear to her brother, who wished her to support him by
prostituting herself, but fell in love with a man of bad
character, and fled from home in his company. The
pair were soon reduced to misery, for the woman
could find no work, and the man looked for none ;
and eventually the lover proposed that they should
commit burglary upon a jeweller, threatening to
abandon the woman if she refused. For a time she
resisted, then, after two days of utter want, consented,
but only to show herself uncertain and inefficient in
the commission of the offence, so that she was arrested
without any difficulty. In prison she showed herself
penitent and made a full confession. There was,
however, something masculine in her force and energy
of character, and still more in her absence of maternal
instincts. For she was pregnant, but said openly that
she should take no care of her child.

"Women are the cause of most of the offences
committed by men," writes Guillot, "but they are
often ignorant of the means by which their caprices
have been satisfied ; or if they have suspicions they
stifle them, not daring to protest, and either yielding
to threats or allowing themselves to be blinded by
love. They become, in fact, docile slaves."

The majority of women who commit abortion
have done so under suggestion ; infanticides, on the
other hand, showing, as we have seen, a greater
similarity with the women who err from passion.
As Sighele well observes, abortion is hardly ever the

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 199

act of the woman only. Generally it is her lover
who forces her to it to avoid the scandal which would
otherwise result. Fouroux, for instance, induced his
mistress, who was the wife of his friend, an officer
in the navy on foreign service, to commit abortion.
Georgina Boges, a woman of very weak character,
almost without any individuality of her own, was so
much under the influence of her lover (who was also
her mother's) that she helped him to kill her child.
Before the judge she was still so much dominated by
her partner in sin and by her mother that she tried to
exculpate them by taking the whole blame of the
crime upon herself.

Desiree Ferlin, a girl of weak health and character,
extremely gentle, was violated by her own father, and
at his suggestion had recourse to abortion ; but when
arrested refused to speak of her father until forced to
do so, and then tried to defend him. A girl named
Lemaire was also twice forced to commit abortion
by her father ; but in her case terror, and not simple
suggestion, was the agent. She hated her father and
tried to resist him, but in vain, for he was a man of
the worst description, who forced her to lead a life
of utter isolation, and was in the habit of brutally
beating her. Once, because she had broken loose,
he made her kneel on the edge of a scythe to ask his
pardon.

Sometimes it is not the suggestion of a despotic
lover, but the example of an acquaintance which
supplies the impulse to the act. A woman finds
herself suddenly pregnant, and would be glad to
escape from so compromising a condition, but has
15

200 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

no clear ideas on the subject, nor has formed any
definite resolution. She meets a friend who was once
in a similar position and has more experience ; who
gives the address of an expert midwife, and testifies
to the simplicity and security of the method recom-
mended. Nobody will know anything any more than
in the friend's case. The perplexed woman ends by
being persuaded, and a fixed resolution succeeds to
her first vague desire. Here is a letter found among
the papers of a midwife, and furnishing a good
example of the way in which such an idea is
formed gradually by suggestion in the midst of
many doubts :'—

" Madam, — My friend, Mrs. X., tells me I may
confidently address you and count upon your dis-
cretion. I have to tell you a very delicate thing :
I am pregnant and in despair. I am sure my lover
would abandon me if I had a child, and that would
give me pain. He does not know my condition, and
I do not wish him to know it. My friend assures me
that you will be able to relieve me without danger
and without anybody's knowledge. Please make an
appointment and believe in my eternal gratitude."

In other cases it is want and the claims of an
already large family which suggest the expedient,
" Why bring another unfortunate being into the
world ? " This is the feeling, the reasoning of the
mother who loves the children she has already, and
would love the new-comer if it were not destined
to add to the existing misery of the family. Her
idea is no proof of perversity, especially as she
desires to get rid not of a living thing, but of some-

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 201

thing invisible and intangible, which has for her as
yet no existence in reality. In this connection we
may recall the case in which Zola was on the jury
and which he related to a reporter of the Figaro.
"A woman was in the dock who in three confine-
ments had had four children. One day she found
herself again pregnant. Her husband, a porter,
earned very little. In despair the woman went to
call on a neighbour to whom she related her trouble.
Then suddenly an idea came to her. * If I could
only get rid of it ! ' she said. The neighbour can
give her no advice, but knows of a woman who can.
Together they seek out this woman in a washhouse,
and the deed is done, in return for the sum of four
francs and a half, which is all the porter's wife can
dispose of. And now behold all three at the assizes !
Would you have had the heart to condemn those
three women who had nine children among them,
and who stood there in tears ? / had not the heart."

Now here is a case in which the criminal is an
artificial product, the outgrowth of a suggestion, and
absolutely analogous to the examples furnished on
a much larger scale by hypnotism.

It is true that, as in hypnotism, the subject only
responds to the suggestions which are in harmony
with his character ; and the women who are induced
by another will than their own to commit offences
have certainly had a latent tendency to crime. But
the tendency is not strong enough for them to have
sinned spontaneously ; and this is the point wherein
they differ from the born criminal. They are
offenders, indeed, but offenders on a reduced scale,

202 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

and they possess only some of the characteristics
of the born criminal. In one case the maternal
sentiment will be deficient, in another there are disso-
lute tendencies, facility for falling in or out of love ;
and sometimes there is even less departure from the
type of the normal woman, crime being resorted to
with difficulty and followed by intense remorse.

In short, there are degrees by which we pass from
the born criminal to the woman of moral life, and
each degree offers the example of a more or less
complete occasional offender.

Suggestion, as we have seen, emanates almost
always from a lover, the reasons for this being partly
sexual and partly due to the confidence which women
have in men. Another factor, as in the case of M. R.,
is the capacity for an intense if not enduring affection,
and the influence which a man naturally acquires over
the woman to whom he is joined by illicit affection.
More rarely suggestion emanates from a woman.

Giulia Bila was bound to Maria Moyen, a woman
of equivocal life, by affection of an intensity such as
is rarely seen, and was so entirely under her friend's
influence as to consent without difficulty to execute
the vengeance which Maria had planned against a
lover who had abandoned her. Giulia was filled with
indignation equal to Maria's, against the betrayer,
who was always represented to her in the blackest
colours, and felt such a hatred to him that she easily
adopted the suggestion of throwing a bottle of vitriol
in his face. But her offence was hardly committed
before she was filled with horror and remorse. She
allowed herself to be arrested, and weeping, averred,

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 203

what of course was true, that she had not been her
own mistress when accomplishing- the act.

Fernande K., a German woman of the most malig-
nant character, organised in Paris a band of female
domestic thieves whom she ruled with a rod of iron,
commanding them as a general commands his
soldiers.

She picked up all the servant-girls who had been
dismissed for a first small offence (such as thefts of
little value) and found some difficulty consequently
in engaging themselves again ; procured them situa-
tions by forging certificates, and forced them to
commit robberies of as much value as possible in
each house, the proceeds being brought to her for
division, with a lion's share tor herself.

Not one of her tools dared to disobey her, or to
defraud her of even a small part of the spoils by
keeping anything back from the division.

Rondest, that ferocious born criminal, who, as we
have seen, murdered her mother so as not to be
obliged to support her, had a friend in whom she
gradually inspired just the same hatred for the
mother as she was possessed by herself. The friend,
regarding the elder woman as a personal enemy,
beat and insulted her, and constantly repeated
Rondest's own phrase, " I have to support you," just
as though she had been the daughter in proprid
ttersona.

This is a form of contagious hatred and crime
analogous to what experts in mental affections
describe as contagious delirium (Sighele), and the
phenomenon is unknown among normal women.

204 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Friendship is a form of suggestion, as Sighele has
shown, and in certain cases it results in the total
absorption of the weaker personality in the stronger
one.

Why do we find this friendship and this suggestion
in the criminal class ? We have already explained
the absence of friendship between women by the
latent animosity of one to the other ; but there is
an even stronger reason. Friendship is not possible
without suggestion, and suggestion can only work
when between two persons there is a marked
psychical difference. Now normal women are
monotonous; they resemble one another, and cannot
be acted upon by suggestion : consequently friendship
with its dominion of the stronger over the weaker is
impossible to them. On the other hand, criminals,
being products of degeneration, develop variations
which sometimes amount to monstrosities ; conse-
quently between any two of them there may be such
a difference in character as lends itself easily to
suggestion, the born criminal, that malignant semi-
masculine creature, being able to influence the
criminaloid, in whom bad instincts are latent, being
indeed mere exaggerations of normal impulses.

4. Education — bad results of it. — The occasions
which present themselves to draw the naturally moral
woman into crime are multiplied now by the higher
education conceded to females, but of which they
can make no use by earning their bread in offices or
professions.

Many women of intelligence find themselves with
nothing to show in return for much expense and

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 205

labour. They are reduced to want while conscious
of not deserving it, and being debarred from the
probability of matrimony owing to the ordinary man's
dislike to a well-instructed woman, they have no
resource but in suicide, crime, or prostitution The
chaster ones kill themselves ; the others sell them-
selves, or commit thefts.

Mace relates that many governesses are to be
found in St. Lazare imprisoned for thefts of gloves,
veils, umbrellas, pocket-handkerchiefs, and other
articles necessary for them to make a good ap-
pearance in school, and which they cannot always
earn enough to purchase. They have been driven to
the offence, consequently, by the exigencies of their
profession. " The number of governesses," he says,
" who have no pupils is so great that a certificate,
whether high- or low-class, becomes the cause of
suicide, of theft, or of prostitution."

M., the daughter of an eccentric, unpractical
mother, received a high literary but incomplete
education, crowned by a university degree, which
only unfitted her for real life. At twenty-three she
found herself an orphan, ruined by family reverses,
and with an idle brother who refused her all help.
After various vain efforts she accepted a post of
teacher in an elementary school in the country, but
was dismissed, at the unanimous request of the in-
habitants, on its being discovered that she was a
Protestant. Then, alone in the world, without means
of existence, and haunted by the memory of more
prosperous days, she began buying articles of
jewellery in shops, where she obtained credit in

206 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

virtue of the former position of her family, and
either resold them at half-price or pawned them.
A series of such frauds finally brought her to prison,
where she died before her trial, worn out by misery
and shame.

5. Excessive temptations. — Sometimes offences,
especially offences against property, are committed
by normal, or nearly normal, women through sheer
excess of temptation.

We have observed that in the normal female
the sense of property is not very strong. Richet
relates that the articles accidentally found and
brought to the Municipal Office in Paris are
almost always thus restored by men ; and a culti-
vated lady, Mrs. R., once confided to the writers
that it is very difficult for women to play without
cheating. So weak a respect for property will natu-
rally yield to strong temptation. Their offence will
even appear to them in the light of an escapade
rather than a crime, and we must admit that they
can commit it without being deeply depraved.

" Women," as Joly truly remarks, " have a floating
idea that they may do anything to men, since it is
always open to them to pay with their persons."

Shoplifting, which has become so common since
the era of huge establishments, is a specially feminine
offence — temptation being furnished by the immense
number of articles exhibited, and which excite the
desires of women who can only afford to buy a few.
We saw that fine things are not articles of luxury for
women, but articles of necessity, since they equip
them for conquest ; and therefore the huge shop, with

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 20J

its manifold and various seductions, betrays them
into crime. An inspector of the Bon Marche told
Joly that out of ioo female thieves 25 per cent, are
habitual offenders who rob whenever they can, 25 per
cent, are impelled to the act by want, and 50 per cent,
are, as he expressed it, monomaniacs — that is to say
they are women often in a good social position and
of easy means, but who yet cannot resist the tempta-
tion of so many beautiful things displayed before
them.

Of this class a certain proportion are true klepto-
maniacs.

Mace calculated that in the thirty principal shops
of Paris there are five thefts committed every day,
while in the provinces the number amounts to a
hundred thousand ; and he affirms that out of every
hundred thieves there will be one poor woman for
ninety-nine rich or fairly well-to-do, the reason being
that women in society come into contact with luxury,
feel the need of it, and are consequently more subject
to temptation.

Zola has given a good description of this form of
dishonesty in his " Bonheur des Dames."

Ladies who cannot spend, or do not need to do so,
go all the same to the great sales, as an engineer will
go to an exhibition of machines, just out of interested
curiosity. Little by little a fever possesses them, and
they end either by buying far beyond their means or
accomplish a dexterous theft.

Domestic thefts committed by maidservants are
almost all to be included under the head of occa-
sional crimes. Girls come up from the country and

208 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

enter houses where the great or relative well-being
which reigns seems to them a sign of enormous
wealth. They are badly paid, yet are given money,
plate, and other valuables to handle, which awake in
them the greed innate in every woman. A small
malversation in the daily expenditure, or the theft of
a trinket or a piece of silver seem to them rather an
irregularity than a judicial crime. " Forty-nine per
cent, of female thieves," writes Madame Tarnowsky,
" belong to the class of domestic servants, and
return to service in their intervals of liberty from
prison ; 34 per cent, are general servants — that is
to say, they receive no training and take low
wages." Our theory with regard to occasional
criminals receives confirmation from this enormous
proportion of domestic servants among female
thieves.

Given, then, this feeble organic shrinking from
theft, and stealing soon becomes a habit if the
occasions for committing it be repeated : the occa-
sional offender becomes an habitual offender, and
goes to swell the ranks of the systematic female
thieves who are always practising upon their em-
ployers.

Balzac, in the following words, described this evil
as it existed in his day : —

" With a few exceptions, cooks, male and female,
are domestic thieves, shameless thieves whom we pay.
. . . Once women of this description wanted forty sous
for the lottery, now they take fifty francs for their
savings bank. They plant their toll-house between
the dinner-table and the market-place, and the Munici-

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 20O,

pality of Paris itself is not so successful in exacting
its dues. Fifty per cent, is levied on all eatables,
and presents demanded from the tradespeople as
well.

" The richest shopkeepers tremble before this
new tyranny, and seek silently but invariably to
conciliate it. Anybody attempting control is met
(by these women-servants) with insolence and abuse,
or is grossly calumniated.

" We have indeed now reached a stage in which
servants demand particulars regarding their em-
ployers, as the latter formerly did about them."

Madame Grandpre assures us that the evil is much
greater in Paris to-day. She mentions maidservants
who have so enriched themselves as to become persons
of consideration in their neighbourhood, and who
worse still, instruct in their own practices young
girls freshly arrived from the country.

Madame Grandpre cites as an example the story of
a servant-girl whom she became acquainted with in
St. Lazare : —

" She had come to Paris to seek a situation which
would enable her to support two little brothers of
whom she was very fond. She was very ignorant,
but was engaged in the house of rich people, who
paid her ill and nourished her badly, besides setting
her to do the most menial tasks under the control of
the upper servants, whose tyranny was, as usual, all
the greater for being exercised in petty ways.

" One evening, when the girl was weeping over the
humiliations and hardships of her position, in her own
room, a fellow-servant, older and more experienced,

210 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

went to console her. She won the girl's confidence,
and in reply to her complaints of misery, taught
her various artifices by which she could add to
her salary, and which the other, seeing small harm
in them, consented to after only a little hesita-
tion. Eventually she had to go to prison. ' And
yet/ she said, l she (the fellow-servant) does the same
thing, but she is not in prison ; on the contrary, she
is respected in the neighbourhood, and all the trades-
men bow to her.' "

Another proof that thieves are occasional criminals,
differing but little from the normal woman, is fur-
nished us by the observation of Madame Tarnow-
sky, who remarks on the difference in industry
between prostitutes and thieves. The latter, when
in prison, can be employed in various ways ; they are
prudent and put by money ; they are also more
tenacious than prostitutes, and can concentrate their
minds better : thus showing their freedom from many
of the fundamental qualities of the real criminal.

6. Desertion and corruption of infants. — Neglect
during infancy, and desertion on the part of parents,
are among the causes which most conduce to dis-
honesty in women, who begin by being occasional
thieves, then on leaving prison, either finding it
impossible to work after their long period of idleness,
or failing to overcome the prejudices of employers
against those whom justice has branded, are trans-
formed into habitual offenders.

The male child only learns respect of property
from teaching and example, and much more fatal
consequently is desertion in the case of the female

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 2 II

infant who is naturally less honest even when well
educated and surrounded with every advantage.

The effect is well described by Madame Tarnowsky
in her remarks upon Russian female thieves, of whom
the majority spring from the people, whose habits are
careless and spendthrift.

" The future thief (female)," writes the lady, "grows
up without learning to work, and is left to run about
idle in the midst of all the temptations of the streets.
She is often cold and hungry, for at home there is
neither food nor fire ; and she finishes one day either
by prostituting herself for a dainty, or by stealing
some article for which her longing has grown during
long hours of idleness, and then she goes to prison to
expiate the crime of having been born of poor and
vicious parents.

" Her first period of detention ended, she goes forth
rich in knowledge acquired from her companions in
prison, and promising herself to profit by what she
has learnt, but to be wary and not let herself be
caught again.

" After her first theft she has ceased to hold com-
munication with her family, who, in any case, could
only starve and ill-treat her ; and crime consequently
becomes a necessity of her existence."

7. Abuse and blows. — Other occasional offences com-
mitted by women are blows and abusive language."

Owing to the latent antipathy of women towards
one another, they are subject to mutual hatreds
which arise and grow from trivial causes, and,
thanks to the sex's superior hastiness of temper,
lead easily to insults and assaults. Abuse and

212 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

blows appear, indeed, to be for women what, in
barbarous days, homicide was for men— namely, a
natural method of resenting injury.

" A little water spilt upon the stairs," writes Mac6,
" will set two women quarrelling. One slaps the other ;
the slapped one flies to the police court and causes
her enemy to be condemned to a fine, in default of
paying which she is taken to prison."

Such incidents happen every day between neigh-
bours, or competing retail shopkeepers ; between
caretakers and tenants, between portresses and
servant-girls, between servant-girls themselves, and
so on. Nor are ladies of higher condition strangers
to such methods, only that they often resort to modes
of vindictiveness which do not always lead to a court
of law.

8. Mendicity. — Even begging, which in men is
almost always a result of degeneration, a congenital
tendency developed by vagabondage and idleness,
is sometimes in women an occasional delinquency.

As we have pointed out already, women are less
inclined than men to commit suicide from want, and
one reason of this is that when reduced to misery
they resort with less difficulty to begging, either
because they are by nature more pliable to circum-
stances, or because more moved by maternal affection.
Mace tells the story of a widow with two daughters
who, when no longer able to earn even a franc a day by
sewing trousers, because one of the girls was ill and
had to be nursed, sent the other one out to beg. The
child was arrested, but would not give her address
until she had exacted a promise that she should not

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 213

be sent to prison. The Prefect of Police went to visit
the case and found the family in a squalid garret, and
the mother determined not to be separated from the
sick girl whom she dreaded to see die like her
husband in a hospital. The spectacle seemed so
pitiable to the officer that, instead of taking legal
measures, he left a donation of ioo francs. Mace says
that in the case of women the police constantly have
not the courage to commit women for begging ; for
even they, so little given to a liberal interpretation of
the law, feel that it would be inhuman to treat what
they recognise for an occasional and involuntary
offence, in the same manner as they visit the vaga-
bond propensities of the true degenerate.

9. Characteristic local offences. — It is the occasional
nature of women's offences which explains a fact
otherwise in contradiction with the monotony pre-
vailing in all the physiological and psychical mani-
festations of the sex, the fact, that is, that in different
countries different sorts of female criminals abound.
There are, in short, ethnological variations in the
criminality of women of more marked extent than
variations in any other branch of their psychology,
but the reason is that different social conditions in
each country offer opportunities for different sorts of
crime.

In Sweden, for instance, infanticide is most com-
mon, the reason being that in that country women
are employed to draw sledges, and are consequently
at the mercy of brutal men during journeys outside
the towns and in districts removed from authority.
They find themselves pregnant and have recourse to

214 THE FEMALE OFFENDER,

infanticide as the only means of saving their reputa-
tion, and concealing a shame of which the causes are
accidental and an incident of their calling. A special
opportunity breeds a special class of offence, and the
offenders, who are quasi-normal, would have broken
no laws had the condition of their life been different.

According to the anonymous author of the
"Scandales de St. Petersbourg " infanticide and
abortion are common incidental crimes among the
upper classes, the occasion for them arising from the
dissolute habits of the men, and the facile morals
of the women in the midst of a society which is
so strangely composed of barbarous and civilised
customs.

The writer in question says : " It is especially the
women of the upper classes who have recourse to this
offence. Sometimes they are young girls anxious to
save their reputations ; sometimes married women,
who, for one reason or another, do not wish to be-
come mothers. Specialists both male and female have
a very large practice. The facility with which abor-
tion is practised is all the greater that neither hus-
bands nor lovers are at all scrupulous in this respect,
and regard the act as only slightly if at all
criminal.

Again, according to the same authority, a still more
common offence among Russian women is simulation
of birth or the substitution of one infant for another
— and here the cause is that for various social and
legislative reasons marriage is costly and difficult —
consequently even moral women have to consent to
unions where they have no other guarantee — a feeble

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 215

one for the most part — than the love and loyalty of
the man.

Very often the latter after some years grows weary
of his companion, and especially if there are no
children he is ready to avail himself of the absence
of a legal tie. Then it is that the woman conceives
the idea of avoiding desertion by simulating a birth
which may revive her husband's love by awakening
the paternal sentiment in him. There was a cele-
brated law-suit in St. Petersburg, wherein the parties
were an extra-legal wife and a very rich, very avari-
cious banker, who so cruelly ill-treated his companion
that she sought to soften her lot by pretending to
make her husband a father.

She managed the ruse so well as to deceive him
completely ; and he made her a handsome donation.
This great success induced a feeling of remorse in
her, and she imprudently made a full confession of
the deception she had practised. Her husband was
furious and brought an action against her, of which
he was himself the chief victim, since it covered him
with public ridicule.

In the same way shoplifters were for a time a
French speciality, for as long, at least, as the huge
emporia of fashion were French exclusively ; and
even now the evil must be greater in France than
elsewhere, if we may judge by the fact that almost all
our examples of the offence come from French
writers. The reason of this preponderance is that,
by common report, the French shops are the biggest
and the most attractive in the arrangement of articles
for sale ; consequently they are the most tempting.
16

2l6 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Another occasional offence, specifically local, is
abortion in the United States, where it is so diffused
that public opinion has ceased to condemn it.

In proof, we have the advertisements of doctors
and female midwives who practise chiefly in this
branch and recommend their establishments in news-
papers and on posters.

Not long ago one of them caused a leaflet " to
ladies" to be distributed in the streets.

This phenomenon is due undoubtedly to the ever
larger share which women are beginning to take in
professions and business, thanks to the natural
development of capitalism, and which, by render-
ing maternity a positive misfortune, causes abortion
to be almost a social necessity. And public opinion
is so alive to this truth that the act in question is no
longer regarded as either dishonourable or criminal.

10. Synthesis. — Occasional offenders, who form the
majority of criminals, may be divided into two classes
— one which includes the milder sorts of born crimi-
nals ; and another which differs but little from the
normal, which may indeed even be described as con-
sisting of normal women in whom circumstances
have developed the fund of immorality which is
latent in every female.

To the first class belong above all offenders through
suggestion, and who are guilty of bloodshed or offences
against the person ; the second class includes offenders
against property.

In their eyes theft is often a matter of as little
moment as it is to children ; it appears to them in
the light of an audacity for which account and com-

OCCASIONAL CRIMINALS. 21 J

pensation are due to the owner of the article taken,
but not to abstract justice, the representative of
society. They look upon it, that is to say, as an
individual rather than a social crime, just as it was
regarded in the primitive periods of human evolution,
and as it is still regarded by many uncivilised nations.

CHAPTER XIV.

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS.

In the asylums for the insane hysteria is most
common, and chiefly contributes to differentiate
insanity in the male from insanity in the female.
[In Italy in 1888 there were 4 hysterical males and 788
hysterical females, the latter thus forming one-tenth
of the insane (64*82).] But in our official criminal
statistics hysteria does not exist. Salsotto, by exer-
cising extra care in investigation, found it among the
graver female criminals, but only in a few instances.
In the prison of Turin we find it in 3*9 per cent, of
the inmates, the maximum being 10 per cent, among
the poisoners and assaulters, with 7*2 per cent, in
murderesses, 4*0 per cent, in women guilty of rape,
and 3*o per cent, (the minimum) in infanticides. All
the other figures are uncertain. I myself have seen
hysteria, but very rarely in prisons, and never to so
grave a degree as one would imagine a priori.

As a general thing it seems connected with crime
because it gives rise to sensational trials which fix
public attention, and lend an exaggerated importance
to the affection. Add to this that hysteria, as in all

cases where I was consulted, is often adduced by the

218

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 2IO,

accused or her counsel ; but the real thing is not
there, only a coarse imitation. This may be attribu-
table to the lower culture and greater inactivity of
the women of Turin who ever outside prison offer
fewer instances of general paralysis and hysteria
(both maladies to which abuse of excitement largely
contributes) than are to be found elsewhere. It is
impossible, for instance, to compare in this respect
our women to those of Paris or even Rome.

I. Psychology. — We need not give the physical
characteristics of hysteria. They can be studied in
the second volume of " L'Uomo Delinquente," pp.
327-30.

In a good half of hysterical women there is suffi-
cient intelligence if little power of fixing the atten-
tion ; but their disposition is profoundly egotistical,
and their absorbing preoccupation with themselves
makes them love scandal and a public sensation.
They are excessively impressionable, consequently
easily moved to choler, ferocity, to sudden and
unreasonable likes and dislikes. Their will is always
unstable ; they take delight in evil-speaking, and if
they cannot draw public attention by baseless trials
and scandalous forms of revenge, they embitter the
life of those around them by continual quarrels and
disputes.

A still higher degree of hysteria leads to false
witness, and they stir up law and authority against
the pretended culprits.

This is a symptom which begins sometimes even
in childhood.

(a) What is of more importance for us is the

220 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

facility of hysterical women to undergo hypnotic
suggestion, so that the will of the hypnotiser replaces
that of the patient, and he can make one side of the
brain act quite contrary to the other side, evoking
cheerful images in one part and sad ones in the other,
so that he has but to place the patient in an attitude
proper to a particular idea, and the idea itself is sug-
gested.

In hallucinatory suggestion the organs are modified
as in real suggestion. Let an imaginary bird be
placed on the top of a tower, and the patient's pupil
dilates to watch it, then narrows as the bird is sup-
posed to descend. Consecutive optical images can
also be evoked. If the subject is told to look a long
time at (imaginary) green he afterwards sees red.

Patients can be persuaded that they are made of
glass, that they are birds, that they have changed
their condition or their sex, and they proceed to
perform appropriate acts. Complete amnesia and
paralysis may be suggested, and the peculiar exag-
gerated reflex actions of the tendons follow. Real
fixed ideas, strange, impulsive, even criminal, may
be evoked ; the patient can be made to kiss a
cranium, can be induced to kill a third party at some
stated, distant period, and to do it in the perfect belief
that he is acting according to his own will, so that he
will give reasons sometimes for the act, reasons which
are naturally spurious. It follows that crimes may be
committed ; and many things done, especially in a
cataleptic condition, become explicable.

The hypnotised hysterical subject, in short, is an
obedient automaton, without any initiative of his

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 221

own he follows the will of another. Moreover, during
each of these hypnotised states he forgets what he
has done in the preceding one, and remembers it
only when brought back to the same state, which is
an important thing to remember. For where one
offence succeeds to another, and imputations are
made of deeds which the offender has forgotten
because committed in his hypnotised condition, he
must be hypnotised anew before his responsibility
can be made apparent. It happened, for instance,
that a man was accused of an offence against public
decency which he denied, and thus aggravated his
position. Motel, however, remembered that he was
subject to the somnambulistic trance and hypnotised
him, with the result that before the judges he ingenu-
ously confessed the offence.

(b) A still more salient characteristic of hysteria is
mobility of mood. The subject passes with extraor-
dinary rapidity from laughter to tears, " like children,"
says Richet, " whom you will see laugh immoderately
before their tears are well dry."

" One hour," writes Sydenham, " they are irascible
and discontented with everything ; the next they are
cheerful, and follow about their acquaintances with
a tenacity equal to the affection which they first had
for them."

"Their sensibility is exalted by the most futile
causes. A word will grieve them like some real
misfortune, such as unkindness from their husband,
the death of their children, and so on. Their
impulses are not wanting in intellectual control, but
are followed with excessive rapidity by action."

222 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

" Moral impressions," writes Schlile, " dominate
them because they become organic. An idea will
bring about a convulsion, and often one notices in
them a sudden incoherence, a sudden confusion of
mind, which passes after a long sleep. (This is
absolutely like what happens in epilepsy.)"

Reflection is replaced by reflex action, so that they
will conceive an antipathy to beautiful things and
take a sudden liking to some disgusting object.

In the hospital (writes Huchard) they seek one
another just like epileptics, one might say ; but
jealousy springs up at once, they denounce one
another, conspire one against the other ; friendship
is hardly born before it dies and is transformed into
quarrels.

Imitation is an absolute contagion among them,
and they organise puerile revolts, laugh and complain
about trifles. When one girl puts on a flower all the
others do the same, and usually they are very fond
of brilliant colours.

Although of such a changeable disposition they are
subject to fixed ideas, to which they stick with a kind
of cataleptic intensity. A woman will be dumb or
immovable for months under pretence that speech
or motion may hurt her. But this is their only form
of perseverance. They are indolent and idle by
nature, but can be persuaded to work. They make
great projects then and work actively for some days,
then sink once again into idleness.

(c) They have a special handwriting, or rather a
special tendency to vary in their handwriting, which
is sometimes very large and sometimes very small,

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 223

according to their psychical condition (Binet). This
is a peculiarity which we observed also in epileptics.

(d) They have a mania for lying. " The scriptural
expression, Homines mendaces" says Charcot, " seems
intended for them. They simulate suicide, maladies,
anonymous letters. They He without need and with-
out object : they cultivate it as an art." " And," con-
tinues the same authority, "one is astonished at the
sagacity and tenacity of their fictions, especially
where the doctor is concerned. They observe, for
instance, that anuria attracts his attention, and they
will prolong the pretence of it, and pretend to have
ejected urine from their ears, their eyes, their nose,
and they will feign fecal vomitings."

A girl accused herself of having thrown a man into
the river, and the water was about to be dragged and
the girl brought to trial when a doctor revealed that
the whole story was an invention dictated by hysteria.

In all grave cases, as Schiile remarks, hysteria causes
a moral perversion, of which the germ may be per-
ceived in excessive egotism — in the desire to do evil
for evil's sake.

(e) Another peculiarity is their great tranquillity
notwithstanding the apparent gravity of their illness :
they are paralysed, blind, drawn up without being at
all alarmed, even when unaware of how easily they
may be cured.

(/) The cases of theft and arson are most common
among hysterics at the period of menstruation.

(g) They are remarkably erotic. It is true that this
is denied by some. Legrand says that they depart
from virtue less out of lasciviousness than from a

224 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

spirit of adventure, or a desire for unknown emotions,
or a sudden flash of passion brief and not strong ; but
I would remark that even in such cases the sexual
element is latent ; and for the rest, if very many are
apathetic, others are most excitable.

Legrand out of 83 hysterics found 12 percent, who
prostituted themselves without necessity, and three
committed monstrous excesses. Moreover, all the
criminality of the hysterical subject has reference to
sexual functions. Where they invent calumnies the
greater part turn upon assaults. " Some hysterical
women," writes Schule, " during the honeymoon will
leave their husbands and run away with a casual
acquaintance."

I would add to all these peculiarities yet another,
which has been well described by L. Bianchi — that
is, the mania of hysterics for writing anonymous letters,
or letters with a borrowed signature, some of which
are addressed to themselves. It often happens that
they persuade themselves of the authenticity of these
productions, and become the victims of their own
deceit. Naturally it is still easier for them to delude
others.

The man Conte, for instance, by means of letters
which he wrote with his own hand, persuaded the
authorities that a prelate had tried to murder him,
after which he gulled and cheated his doctor (who
had defended him during his trial and cured him of
hysterical attacks by hypnotism), and extracted from
him a large sum by pretending that he was about to
make a good marriage (" Archivio di psichiatria," vol.
vii. fasc i.). And we shall see that almost all accusa-

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 225

tions of assault are supported by anonymous or forged
letters (see following pages).

2. Delirium. — Hysterical, like epileptic subjects,
suffer often either from melancholy or monomaniacal
delirium — indeed, according to Morel, they show this
symptom the oftenest when the other special morbid
phenomena of their malady are wanting.

The maniacal affection is accompanied by hallucina-
tions and impulses, by a continual need of agitation
and change of movement, by the desire to break and
throw down all that comes in the way. It will make
a sudden apparition in the midst of rude health, last
but a short time, and depart without leaving any trace.
All at once a person will leave a ball-room and throw
himself into the river. A girl will break all the plates
and pour boiling water on her brother's neck while he
is dining, then fly from the house to a wood, where
she is found building an altar with stones for the
celebration of her own marriage. Often these crises
are periodic, thus offering another analogy to epilepsy.

3. The forms of hallucination are the same as those
which haunt drunkards, such as rats, serpents (espe-
cially red) ; and, as in drunkenness, lively images
alternate with melancholy ones (Morel).

4. Suicide. — Suicide is more often attempted or
simulated than put into execution. It is almost
always automatic and causeless, and is attempted all
at once and very ostentatiously coram publico, instead
of quietly as is the case with other suicides. One will
take laudanum after warning the police. Another
jumps into the river when a boat is passing.

5. Flights. — Another point in which the hysterical

226 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

person resembles the epileptic is in taking flight and
setting out on the strangest journeys, sometimes con-
sciously and sometimes not.

A woman will go away for two or three days, either
abandoning herself to prostitution, or simply wander-
ing about, after which she will return home and some-
times boast of what she has done, or sometimes keep
silence.

Hysterical women, like drunkards, are calm in
prison, and do not protest against punishment.

6. False accusations. — Many women accuse their
servants of theft either to enjoy their disgrace and
have them put into prison, or out of feminine vanity
or hatred.

But the most common form of calumny is criminal
assault, which accusation is often brought against a
public magistrate, or a father even, but more fre-
quently still against a priest or doctor.

Usually the accusation is so absurd that it cannot
be believed ; but often it succeeds ; and the means
adopted for making it consists almost always of
letters, anonymous or otherwise.

An unmarried woman of 25, of good family,
pursued a priest with love-letters in the following
terms : " My beloved, where are you? Nobody
knows us. Your Laura, who kisses you ardently."
A short time afterwards the innocent priest was
accused by the lady of having corrupted her.

A girl of 18 declared to the King's Proctor that
she had been criminally assaulted several times by
priests, her cousin aiding. She went into the most
minute particulars, declaring that she was praying

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 22J

alone in the church one evening, not having noticed
that the congregation had dispersed.

The priest came, invited her into the sacristy, then
proposed that she should accompany him to Spain.
When she resisted his proposals he cut himself in
two places in order to induce her to listen to him.
She fainted, and on coming to her senses found he
had taken advantage of her, and so on, and so on.

On another occasion she averred that her cousin
had taken her to a convent where the nuns shut her
up all one night with a priest.

The accused parties were brought up for trial, and
the absurdity of the girl's charge having been proved,
she was accused in her turn. She persisted, however,
in her story, composed verses in the priest's honour,
and showed letters containing declarations of love,
which she affirmed were written by him.

Finally a medical examination, which ought to
have preceded instead of following all these pro-
ceedings, demonstrated the utter baselessness of the
tale, and proved the girl to be suffering from
hysteria, heightened by jealousy of her cousin, whom
she thought the priest favoured unduly.

General D. M. had a daughter of 16, called Maria,
who complained that Lieutenant P., when seated
near her at table, had addressed unbecoming remarks
to her. From that moment anonymous letters rained
upon the house, containing declarations of love for
the general's wife and threats against the daughter ;
and finally arrived a missive, also anonymous, which
warned the general that an attempt had been made
to dishonour his daughter. The lieutenant was for-

228 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

bidden the house, and the day after his dismissal
the nurse found the young lady stretched upon the
ground, half strangled by a handkerchief, and dressed
only in her night attire, which was stained with blood.
She declared that the lieutenant had come to her
room in the night and tried to criminally assault her,
and had wounded her with a knife ; and the family
received a letter purporting to be from the officer
and boasting of his deed. He was arrested, and
although it was proved that the anonymous letters
were not his, although others were received continu-
ally while he was in prison, and experts found a great
resemblance in them to the handwriting of the girl,
whom the doctors also proved to be suffering from
hysterical anosmia and ambliopia, the poor young
man was condemned by the jury to ten years'
imprisonment.

An hysterical woman stole linen from a hospital,
and even from her own press, and hid it with much
care. When brought up for trial she succeeded in
having it believed that she had found, or been
presented with, the articles she had stolen.

Out of 83 hysterical accused, 21 had made false
accusations, 9 of which were of criminal assault,
besides 3 who bore false witness.

A girl, whose case is related by Legrand du
Saulle, showed hysteria at puberty, and at the same
time was so devout that she wished to enter a
convent. At 20 she began a series of fantastic calum-
nies, accusing a priest of having seduced her when
he had never even seen her.

After her marriage she took to drink, and used to

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 220.

beat her husband. She eloped with a shopman, and
finally was imprisoned for attempted homicide.

A famous instance is the woman Glaser's, who
deceived doctors and judges, and passed for being
mad, dumb, subject to hallucinations, a forger, a
thief, and calumniator without anybody ever being
able to discover how far it was all true, and whose
case was the despair of the great expert Casper by
obliging him to reverse his judgments.

Maria V. (aged 23) was found unconscious, deeply
cut in a regular manner all over her face and body,
her hands tied, her mouth gagged with a handker-
chief, and her eyes tied down with the strings of her
cap.

She accused four young men whom she minutely
described of having reduced her to this condition
when she resisted their attempts at criminal assault ;
but the case was proved in court to be all an hysterical
invention.

Another woman burnt her hand with live coals in
order to accuse another of the act.

Maria H., a woman of 26, when jilted by her
promised husband Martin, fell into convulsions and
syncope, but eventually recovered. One morning all
the vines of a magistrate were found cut, and Maria
accused Martin and his brother, who were condemned
for the offence. At the end of some months she
exhibited wounds on her person, and accused an
uncle of Martin's, who was sentenced to five years'
imprisonment. In a short time new wounds were
followed by new accusations, this time against
another uncle of Martin's, who had all the inhabi-

230 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

tants of the place against him, Maria, the pretended
victim of a whole family, having become a popular
idol ; and it was only after she had stolen articles
from a family which she entered as servant that
a suspicion of her bond fides in the other matters
began to arise. Later she married a vine-dresser,
who shortly afterwards died of poison ; and a forged
will finally resulted in her being sentenced to prison
for life. (Legrand du Saulle, " Les Hysteriques,"
1884.)

A lawyer relates how a girl of 12 charged a
proprietor of Gratz with rape, and caused him to
be put in prison for a year, and he would have
remained there longer, only that a servant accused
of stealing by the same person was proved innocent
through the missing watch being found in the latter's
own trunk. Later the police were informed that the
aforesaid proprietor out of revenge caused stones to
be thrown every night against the windows of the
house where the girl lived with her mother, but when
they went there at midnight they found the denouncer
throwing the stones herself.1

7. Stealing. — Another very frequent offence among
hysterical subjects is stealing.

Out of 83 accused of various offences, 17 had been
guilty of this ; and, as we have seen, Legrand du
Saulle found 50 hysterical women in 104 who had
been caught stealing in the shops of Paris.

C. H. went to a neighbouring village to watch her
husband, of whom she was jealous. She did not find

1 " Aus den Papieren lines Vertheidigen," von Dr. Julius Kosiek,
Gratz, 1884.

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 23I

him, and the idea occurred to her to steal fowls in
the house to which she had gone. She stole 21,
and sold them so cheaply that the buyer himself
accused her of theft. She confessed, and at the
same time made a hearty meal, and talked to every-
body of what she had done. When arrested she
threatened to kill herself.

Another hysterical subject, aged 20, penetrated
into shops by means of false keys, and carried off
whatever of value she found.

A., the daughter of mad parents, at 15, during
menstruation, imagined herself surrounded with ene-
mies. She fled into the fields, stole everything she
could find, and threatened to burn and to poison
wholesale.

At the end of 10 to 15 days she quieted down,
and declared that she had yielded to an irresistible
impulse.

During 8 years she seemed cured, then after a
pregnancy she had a return of the symptoms, then
showed erotic tendencies and fell into prostitution.

Stealing in the big shops is a special thing
caused by the great crowd and the immense stock.

Like epileptics, hysterical subjects as a whole
traverse the whole gamut of offences. Out of 88 I
found —

guilty

of calumny.

>»

theft.

>»

suicide.

»»

prostitution.

>»

arson.

>»

poisoning.

»»

swindling.

homicide.

i»

infanticide.

233 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

3 guilty of calumny and false witness

2 ,, stealing of infants.

I ,, abuse of children.

I ,, offence against nature.

I ,, exercise of medicine.

I ,, offence against decency.

8. Multiple crimes. Murder. — We have said that
the impulses of hysterical women are always like
those of big children ; but it is strength to do
greater evil which is wanting in them as in all
women. For the rest they can often surpass their
sex, and then become terrible, worse than men.

And there are not wanting instances in which one
woman will be guilty of crimes of different sorts.
One will wound, rob, poison, burn, and bear false
witness. Another will prostitute herself, steal chil-
dren, calumniate, and steal.

A certain U., a peasant woman, was hysterical to a
high degree. Very beautiful, she became the mistress
of one who ill-treated and starved her ; then, in com-
plicity with another, a young lover, she robbed him,
and finally one night, while he was asleep, she, unas-
sisted, mutilated and almost killed him with a reaping-
hook. Before the judges she invented a story of an
imaginary struggle, and succeeded in having herself
acquitted.

The woman Bompard was hysterical, and so was
the woman Zelie, of whom we have already spoken.

But the most classical example of hysteria is
offered by the woman Z., who was at once a thief,
a prostitute, an assassin, and a calumniator. Her
story is the same as that of all the morally insane
or born female criminals.

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 233

She was a woman of 20, the child of parents of
small morality. Her father drank and had a bad
character ; her sister led a profligate life ; her mother
- — a foundling — was helpless and complaining.

Z. was branded with hereditary signs — very thick,
black hair, black eyes, a big mouth, very prominent
cheekbones, and frontal microcephalia.

From her early school-da}^ she was the torment of
her companions. A profligate between the age of
14 and 17. When only 14 she quarrelled with and
worried her fellow-workers in a shop where she had
been placed, and where she also behaved in a bestial
and dissolute manner. She stole and accused two of
her companions of theft, besides falsely accusing her
master of adultery. She stole some lace and hid it
under the bed only that she might discredit a fellow-
worker who had never done her any harm, and who
was dismissed in consequence of the charge. She
also tried to poison another employer who had
always been kind to her ; and in a sort of delirium
of perversity she arrived at the pitch peculiar to
hysterical women and born criminals of doing evil
absolutely without any reason. She would cut the
bells, or make her own room filthy and then accuse
her mistress of it.

She formed a violent friendship with a woman
named Lodi, of handsome appearance and rather
light conduct ; but even here she was moved by the
envy which consumed her. She wished to see her
friend covered with jewels so as to annoy another
woman, and also probably to prepare the way for
a future attack upon her character. Later she turned

234 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

against her, and showed in calumniating her an exag-
gerated and baseless hatred.

She became the mistress of an old man, and robbed
him until, in spite of his fear of her (a fear that he
confessed to the police), he dismissed her. But she
contrived to return one night, and in that night the
old man was killed by repeated blows on the head.
Nobody was in his room but Z., who suddenly roused
the street by her shrieks, and was found hanging out
of the window in her nightdress. She declared that
she had been alarmed by the presence of two assas-
sins, then of one who had disappeared entirely. The
state of the lock of the house-door, which had evi-
dently been vainly forced from the inside, showed
that she herself had tried to fly. When the absence
of any other aggressor, and the fact that she was
found to have hidden the old man's purse in her
stocking, and his jewels in her clothes, made it
impossible for Z. to persist in her first lie, she then
admitted having helped the murderers, but averred
that she was only the accomplice of a paid assassin
hired by a certain Pallotti, who had instigated
her to commit the deed so that he might be freed
from a debt of 1,800 francs which he had con-
tracted for jewels to give his mistress (Lodi). And
she told this story in such minute detail that
Lodi and Pallotti were arrested, although perfectly
innocent.

In prison Z. showed a singular piety. She was
hardly admitted before she asked to go to confession,
and she dictated prayers in verse to the Madonna.
But at the same time she wrote letters bearing the

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 235

impress of conviction to Pallotti, accusing him of
having taken part in the murder.

Before the judge and at the assizes she showed
herself shamelessly mendacious, contradicting herself
without blushing, and saying, when everything else
failed, " Let Pallotti tell" She looked him full in the
face in court and said, " You have made me suffer.
You have little to gain by it. You will gain nothing."

It should be observed also that she showed no real
emotion, only an affectation of fear. But a few hours
after the murder she remembered having left a ring
in her victim's room, and she remained throughout
quite unmoved, even when shown the blood-stained
hammer with which experts declared that the deed
might have been done even by the hand of a woman.

I may be mistaken, but when I recall many similar
instances I can but think that a motive and an
element of calculation in this woman's crime was
the prospect of being able to calumniate Lodi, whose
great fault consisted in being beautiful and beloved,
and in having shown affection to Z. herself.

I may remind the reader of that hysterical woman
of Buonvecchiato who asked to be allowed to beat
her dog, and when asked her motive by the doctor,
said, " It is because I always see him caressed by
others"

9. Poisoners. — Naturally poisoners are not wanting
among hysterical criminals.

Maria J. had cases in her family of hypochondriacs,
lunatics, and suicides. Left an orphan, and leading
rather an agitated life, she fell ill, and, thinking her-
self affected with blindness, sought medical advice

236 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

and in this way became acquainted with certain
poisons which she conceived the desire of adminis-
tering to others. Although comfortably off she
became a sick-nurse ; and one day, being with a lady,
an invalid whom she carefully tended, she prepared
her something to drink.

Strange symptoms followed, the patient's eyes and
eyelids being paralysed, and her stomach oppressed.
Maria then gave her another mixture, an effervescent,
which produced delirium during three days.

The same mixture given to another lady had the
same effect, namely, delirium and vomiting ; and
some sweetmeats which Maria insisted on the invalid
swallowing also caused instantaneous sickness.

When the doctors issued orders she listened most
attentively and promised obedience, but they were no
sooner gone than she began to abuse them and ill-
treated the patient.

Later she became directress of a school, and took
upon herself the care of a young girl. Under pretence
that a journey would do her charge's health good she
took her away, and gave her the usual sweetmeats,
whence followed delirium, vomiting, and the victim's
death. In this way she poisoned nine people ; and
the curious thing was that she foretold, in conversation
with her friends and neighbours, the death of her
victims and the symptoms they would present, thus
offering the best proof of her own guilt.

When arrested she confessed her crimes, and ad-
mitted that she had administered atropine and mor-
phia, with no other object but that of making medical
experiments and procuring rest for the patients.

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 237

10. Saints. — Among hysterical women we also find
saints, ecstatics, and fasting girls, like Koerl and
Louise Latean.

11. Analogies of hysteria with epilepsy. — The reader
will have observed how much analogy there is between
hysteria and epilepsy. The convulsions of hysteria
are so like epileptic fits that they can only be
distinguished from them by the scarcity of urea,
by the presence of hysterogenic zones, especially
in the ovary, pressure on which will sometimes cure
an attack ; by the beneficial effects of a continuous
current ; by hydropathic treatment ; by the smaller
effect of bromide, and by the absence or merely
slight degree of fever (which is, however, present
sometimes).

Wettkowski (" Klin-Wochens," Berlin, 1886) did
not observe any rise of temperature in hysterical
sufferers. Rousseau found only a low degree — oscil-
lating between no and 1*5. The attack is followed
by a fall, which hardly ever reaches 390 ; but Rousseau
says that the same patient may have different tem-
peratures according to the attack ("Progres Med.,"
1888, vi.).

If in hysterical subjects the degenerative character-
istics of epilepsy be wanting, all the functional peculi-
arities, the lateral action, and dulness of sense are
very much more marked. Here again Briquet and
Morel observed that where convulsions or other typical
symptoms are absent, psychical phenomena are com-
mon. There is a relation between hysteria and the
sexual organs, but the same, if in a lower degree, may
be said of epilepsy ; and if hysterical patients are

238 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

more liable to be cured at the critical age, on the
other hand the cases in which hysteria makes its first
appearance in youth appear quite incurable, and thus
correspond, physiognomically, as in every other point,
with epileptics and born criminals.

In both maladies there is intermittence, sometimes
regular, sometimes lasting years ; and we have
masked forms of hysteria in which the affection
shows itself in malignancy, idleness, love of calumni-
ating, cheating, suicide, exaggerated vanity, continual
travelling, excessive, precocious, anomalous altruism,
impulsiveness, brief lapses of consciousness, giddiness,
&c. (see above). The analogy is present also in those
rare cases of excessive altruism which we noted in
criminals from passion (" Uomo Delinquente," vol. ii.
part ii.), and also in some rare instances of epilepsy
(Idem, part i.).

The similarities in a psychological sense are so
many that I have preferred to give the textual
words of authors, so as not to be accused of par-
tiality.

Etiologically the relation between epileptics and
dipsomaniacs is quite certain.

And the hysterical subject offers parallel peculiarities
to the epileptic, the infant, the born criminal, and the
morally insane in the variability of his symptoms, in
his desire for a change of place, in his need to do evil
for evil's sake, in his gratuitous mendacity (lying for
lying's sake), in his causeless irascibility.

And here I perceive that these pathological symp-
toms of the hysterical patient throw light on certain
characteristics of the born criminal to which I did not

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 239

draw sufficient attention. Chief among these is their
continual gratuitous mendacity.

Valentini writes : " Thieves lie unprovoked the
instant they open their mouths ; they lie without
knowing why, from second nature ; ana they do it
unconsciously even when they have no wish to deceive"

Delbriick also observes that old inmates of prisons
tell lies without motive. And Moeli says "that
criminals tell lies even after they go mad, so
ingrained is the habit in their minds, just as an artist
will continue to have ability in his art." And the
mendacity of children is notorious.

Epileptics are also sometimes distinguished by the
letter-writing mania. And I alluded to the morally
insane who address love-letters to themselves. Vari-
ations of character are common to the hysterical and
the epileptic — and epileptics, even while hating and
quarrelling with one another, are gregarious among
themselves ; and they also are capable of that double
personality which in some hysterical persons consti-
tutes a true second life. Finally a persistent or
intermittent piety will cause both classes to attain to
absolute saintliness (Saint Paul, Saint Theresa).1

12. Calumny. — The feature, however, which dis-
tinguishes hysterical women from all others is the
intensity of their mania for calumny, and the success
with which they apply it. The reason is simple.
Women — even bad women (and they are the most
frequently hysterical) — have less strength and less
capacity than men for deeds of violence, and are
consequently more inclined to crystallise their bad

1 See " The Man of Genius," part iv.

240 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

impulses into calumny ; also they are more subject
to that auto-suggestion which incarnates an idea and
transforms it into action. Like the hypnotised sub-
ject described in my " Studies on Hypnotism " (3rd
ed.), they profess and proclaim the false with the same
intensity as an honest person will affirm the true,
especially as women, like children, are less impressed
with the sense of truth, and more easily disregard it.
Moreover, when hysterical they are possessed by their
own lie, which presents itself to their minds with a
force of conviction greater than truth can bring ; and
they are subject besides to that species of exaltation
which the hypnotised experience at every stage, and
whence suggestion derives its overmastering force.
Finally (as Schiile says), " they have such an unbridled
fancy that truth and falsehood, facts and desires, are
all one, all equally true to them, and they conse-
quently often misrepresent in perfectly good faith."

Hysterical women furnish us with the saddest cases
of calumny, of swindling, of triumphant mendacity, not
only among the ignorant masses, but also in the stern
halls of justice where it is not always given to those
presiding to distinguish truth from the falsehoods
which hysteria affirms with such superabundant
energy.

That which has struck me most in studying the
psychical anomalies of hysteria, and the more cele-
brated trials to which it has given rise, is that the
subjects ol this affection, like epileptics, would be
indistinguishable from the born criminal, except that
their malady lends a peculiar virus, a fatal point to
their deplorable capacity for evil, so that even if (as I

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 24.I

do not maintain to be the case) most criminals were
hysterical it would never be wise to set them at
liberty.

Even their great undeniable susceptibility to
suggestion must not be allowed to plead in their
favour since as a general thing they can only be
influenced for evil, never for good. We saw this in
the case of Gabrielle Bompard, who fell into the
hands of an honest man (see above), but deceived him
continually.

A still more remarkable instance is offered by the
following case : —

A young married woman leading a profligate life
robbed a man of his purse. He perceived the loss,
and returning to the house he had just left proclaimed
it. The woman professed herself astonished and
indignant at the charge, but the police when sum-
moned found the missing sum almost intact hidden
in the chimney. The thief was taken to prison, and
fright and rage produced in her such strong hysterical
convulsions that four robust people could hardly hold
her. One of the writers came upon the scene after
some hours, and by a simple compression of the
bulbs and the application of a small magnet cured
the convulsions entirely, but they were followed by
profuse uterine haemorrhage, which was probably due,
like the attack, to psychical disturbance.

After vainly trying a tepid enteroclisma we hypno-
tised the patient and suggested that the haemorrhage
should cease. It did so as if by magic, like the con-
vulsions ; and when two days later both symptoms
returned they were cured immediately by the same

242 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

method, so that the good nuns (in charge of the
prison) regarded us as sent by the Evil One. Now
here was an opportunity to try hypnotism as a means
of obtaining a confession of guilt, so we continued our
experiments in suggestion for some time, and were
able to conjure away a headache and a mood of deep
melancholy ; we even obtained, though only for a
brief period, transposition of the senses and believed
we had dominated the patient completely. But when
we ordered her to make a sincere confession of guilt
she immediately began over again the string of lies
which she had told (naturally in vain) to the magis-
trate ; relating, namely, that the man had invented
the story of the stolen purse out of revenge for having
been repulsed by the prisoner's young sister, how the
money found was honestly come by, &c.

The proof that she deceived us unconsciously
(persisting, that is to say, in the habitual mendacity
of her waking moments) lies in the fact that when
told next day by a companion that she had spoken
of her offence, and believing that she had betrayed
herself, suspecting also (for the hysterical are always
suspicious) that we were acting for the police and not
out of mere scientific interest, she informed us resent-
fully that she had invented lies to deceive us and had
never been hypnotised at all. And later, when suffer-
ing from bad hemicrania, she refused to be hypnotised
anew, and we naturally did not insist, since the will
of the patient had to be respected, and we were
satisfied with the results already obtained.

Suggestion in this case was strong enough to cure
convulsions and haemorrhage, but it could not extract

HYSTERICAL OFFENDERS. 243

a secret which the patient was interested in keeping,
nor alter by one fraction the mendacious tendencies
which were thus proved to have an organic basis
deeper than that of any other hysterical manifestation.

13 Hysterical prostitutes. — Seeing that the only dif-
ferences between the born criminal and the hysterical
woman consist in the superior mendacity and volu-
bility of the latter, and in a frequently paradoxical
preoccupation with sexual matters, it becomes clear
that the reason why epilepsy shows itself rarely
among prostitutes is that it is replaced by hysteria.

Legrand du Saulle observed that 12 per cent, of
hysterical women took to prostitution out of sheer
dilettantism, without any pressure from misery ; and
Madame Tarnowsky found that 15 per cent, of
prostitutes were hysterical. She included under this
head the few who showed intelligence and cultivation,
as well as those who loved excitement, and others
greedy and vain who appropriated everything they
found. Most of the number were extraordinarily
precocious and profligate, having begun their career
as early as the age of eight, and they also showed
the special changeableness of hysterical subjects by
passing from one lover to another and hating the old
ones profoundly. Thirteen per cent, had real attacks
of hysteria.

We know that psychical hysteria, like epilepsy,
may show itself unaccompanied by true convulsions,
and is then only the more cynical and indecent, and
it is consequently very probable that the number of
prostitutes with an hysterical basis is infinitely larger
than we have hitherto imagined to be the case.

CHAPTER XV.

CRIMES OF PASSION.

An analysis of crimes of passion disproves yet
another of the many popular fallacies regarding
women. The inferiority of the weaker sex to the
other in this respect is not so much numerical as that
the female offenders differ from the genuine type of
the male criminal in their nature, which has more
analogy with the born female delinquent on the one
hand and the occasional criminal on the other. But
crimes of passion have, nevertheless, much in common
in both sexes.

I. Age. — Naturally, as among men, so among
women, the offenders are chiefly young.

The age at which the crime is committed is usually
that of the fullest sexual development : Vinci was 26 ;
Connemune 18; Provensal 18; Jamais 24; Stakel-
berg 27 ; Daru 27 ; Laurent 22 ; Hogg 26 ; Noblin
22 ; and the female political criminals were also
young (Sahla 18 ; Corday 25 ; Renault 20).

Rarer, yet not exceptional, are the cases in which
crimes of passion resulting from love have been com-
mitted at an age comparatively advanced, by women

in whom youth and sexuality have a shorter cycle.

244

CRIMES OF PASSION. 245

The woman Lodi, whose conduct had been good
up to middle age, finally fell in love with a fellow-
servant, and at his instigation robbed her master oi
bonds for 20,000 francs, all of which she handed over
to her lover without keeping a penny for herself.

Dumaire killed her lover when she was 30 ; Perrin
at the age of 40 tried to kill her husband.

2. Characteristics of degeneration. — If we except a
greater development of the maxillae, and greater
virility than usual, female offenders from passion
have no special physiognomical characteristics nor
signs of degeneration. Madames C. H. B.,1 Charlotte
Corday, — Perowska, Helfmann, Vera Sassulich, —
Kulischoff,2 were all very handsome.

3. Virile characteristics. — It is remarkable that
female offenders of this class have also some mascu-
line traits of disposition ; such, for intance, as the love
of firearms.

Mesdames Clov. Hug. and Dumaire amused them-
selves habitually with revolver practice. Madame
Raymond always carried a dagger and a pistol,
having, said the husband, acquired the habit at
Hawaii, where all women do the same. Nevertheless,
it is difficult to understand why she should have per-
sisted in it after many years of residence in Paris.
Madame Souhine was described by the witnesses as
having a haughty, energetic, and resolute character.
Madame Dumaire, according to Bataille, who was
present at her trial, was resolute, outspoken, logical.

1 See Lombroso, " Uomo Delinquente," vol. ii. pp. 117, 168.

2 Lombroso and Laschi, "Crime Politique," vol. ii. p. 177, Plates
VI., VII.

246 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Finally, many women, contrary to the usual
tendencies of their sex, occupy themselves with
politics and become religious and political martyrs.
Madame Daru was a Corsican, Noblin a native of
the Basque provinces ; that is to say, both belonged
to semi-primitive nationalities in which the woman is
habitually rather virile, and both showed muscular
strength in the commission of their crime, for Daru
killed her lover with blows from a knife, and Noblin
strangled her rival.

Sometimes the female offenders of this description
take a strange pleasure in dressing themselves as men
— like B., for instance, who assumed men's clothes when
attempting her schemes of revenge on her husband's
mistress. It is true that masculine qualities are not
always found in criminals alone, as is proved by the
instance of Mrs. Carlyle, certainly the purest and
most angelic of women, who yet as a child climbed
walls and gates and loved to box with her schoolboy
companions, from whom she got usually less than she
gave.

4. Good feeling. Affection. Passion. — In the women
who commit crimes of passion there is great intensity
of feeling. Indeed, their affections are infinitely more
ardent than those of normal women, and they never
show the absence of domestic sentiments which we
noted in the born criminal.

Ellero, speaking of the incendiary, R. Antonia
says: "There was but one opinion about her: all
bore testimony to her being an excellent wife, a most
loving mother, and filled with compassion for all the
needy and the suffering. Her heart was indeed

CRIMES OF PASSION. 247

greater than her head, and her notion of good and
evil was blood of her blood, a pure instinct, and, for
that very reason, was not very wise. Not once but
many times she had induced her husband to go
security for the family of her sister who was
threatened with financial ruin."

B., who had a virile physiognomy, but otherwise
few abnormal features, was a most affectionate wife,
an exemplary mother, and of such immaculate con-
duct, that a memorial in her favour was unanimously
signed by her neighbours after she had been arrested.

Myers, who killed her faithless lover, eventually
became an exemplary mother. Ottolenghi noted in
B. R. a strong moral sense and very chaste instincts.
She proved these, in fact, by her assertion that what
disgusted her in her husband was not so much his
coarseness nor his repulsive appearance as the idea
that he had been her mother's lover.

Madame Daru adored her children and maintained
them by her own incessant toil, while her husband
spent his substance in riotous living.

The infanticides — who are mostly criminal from
passion — are, according to Cere, almost the only
female offenders who, when married in the penal
settlements, become excellent mothers of families.

" Often," writes Joly, " in St. Lazare we have
infanticides of the gentlest dispositions, in whom it
is quite evident that there is no absence of maternal
love. A little time ago there was an infanticide — a
pretty girl, neither an idiot nor depraved — who used
to make dolls out of the house-linen, and carry them
in her arms like infants."
18

248 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Despine tells the story of a girl who, directly her
child was born, threw it down a lavatory ; but when
it was brought back still alive, felt maternal love
awake in her, so that, taking the infant, she warmed
it, nursed it, and showed herself the tenderest of
mothers.

The chief quality of Madame Souhine was an
extreme independence which made her prefer to die
with her children rather than live on charity.

Madame Du Tilly, an excellent wife and mother,
had but two ideas — to provide for her children and
to prevent her improvident husband from ruining
himself and his family.

Jamais, even when in the greatest want, remained
chaste and pure, and wrote to her absent lover, " I
keep myself for you." Madame Dumaire, who had
provided for herself by a rather equivocal marriage,
on being left a widow showed herself generous, and
assisted her relatives.

5. Passions as motives for crimes. — The passion
which most often betrays such women as we have
described into crime is love. Strangers to the cold-
ness of the normal woman, they love with all the
intensity of Heloise, and take a real delight in
sacrificing themselves for the man they adore, and
for whom they are ready to violate prejudices,
custom, and even social laws.

Vinci for her lover sacrificed the long hair which
was her only beauty.

Jamais sent her soldier-lover money and gifts,
although she had to support herself and two children
by her toil.

CRIMES OF PASSION. 249

Dumaire was disinterestedly but passionately in
love with Picart, whom she assisted by paying for
his studies, never demanding that he would marry
her if only she might continue to live with him.

Spinetti married a man of bad character, whom she
vainly tried to reclaim, and whom she, herself once
rich, eventually consented to wait on like a ser-
vant.

Noblin was so devotedly attached to Sougaret
that, although herself naturally of good instincts, she
would not leave him even after discovering him to
be a criminal. Three times, to please him, she com-
mitted abortion, and finally accomplished a crime
which was repugnant to her natural goodness.

This intensity of love explains why almost all
such women have formed illicit connections without
being, for that reason, impure. Virginity and mar-
riage are social institutions adapted, like all customs
and institutions, to the average type — that is to say,
in this case, to the sexual coldness of the normal
woman. But our offenders love too passionately to
submit to such laws. They are like Heloise, who
refused to marry Abelard for fear of injuring him,
and declared herself proud to be called his mistress.

The greater number of infanticides are to be
ascribed originally to an imprudent passion which
overrides respect for social usage. Grandpre gives
an instance in the infanticide who in a short time
fell hopelessly in love with a stranger who had come
to her neighbourhood during the summer season, and
whom she met in the country roads.

From this point of view, then, the woman whom

250 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

passion betrays into crime is very different from the
born offender who violates the laws of chastity from
lust and love of pleasure and idleness. But all such
good and passionate women have a fatal propensity
to love bad men, and they fall into the power of
frivolous and fickle, sometimes depraved lovers, who
not only abandon them when tired of them, but often
add to the cruelty of betrayal the still greater cruelty
of scorn and calumny.

The motive for crime, then, in the woman becomes
very strong, and is hardly ever limited to the mere
pain of desertion. Such women as Camicia, Raffo,
Harry, Rosalia Leoni, and Ardoano were betrayed
after vows of fidelity ; and in the instance of Leoni
there was the additional fact of the opprobrium
arising from the accusations of her lover, who declared
that he was one of thirteen.

Vinci, who had sacrificed her hair for her lover's
sake, was taunted by her rival, who took advantage of
the ugliness consequent on the loss of the adornment
to supplant her.

Jamais was cynically deserted by her lover when,
her occupation failing, she could no longer supply
him with money, and received, moreover, letters of
an insulting nature from him.

Madame Raymond was betrayed by her husband
and by her most intimate friend. She discovered the
intrigue and, for once, forgave it ; but later learnt
that the intercourse continued, and found letters from
her rival full of insulting allusions to herself. An
almost similar instance is that of Guerin.

Madame T., an affectionate wife and mother, who

CRIMES OF PASSION. 25 1

for many years had led a comparatively happy life, all
at once finds herself and her children deserted, and
the house despoiled by her husband, who has fallen
in love with a prostitute.

To all these causes we must add the unjust scorn
of the world which visits on the woman what it calls
her sin, but which is only an excess of love, dangerous
in a society where the dominating force is egotism.
Derision, and often the inhuman severity of relations,
add to a sorrow which is already profound. Jamais,
for instance, was repulsed by her dying father, who
would not receive her last kiss ; and Provensal was
the recipient of a letter from her brother, who re-
proached her with having dishonoured her family and
become a stranger to it.

Such impelling causes are secondary in the cases
which we have been considering, but become the
principal motive of crime in infanticides, who are,
however, also moved by a kind of desire to revenge
themselves on the child for the infidelity of the
father. " When it was born," said an infanticide to
Grandpre, " I reflected that it was a bastard, that as
his child it would be base like him, and my fingers
closed round its neck."

Statistics prove unmistakably all that we have
advanced by showing that illegitimate births and
infanticides are in inverse, and not as might be
expected, in direct ratio ; that is to say, that infanti-
cide is most frequent in districts where, illegitimate
births being rarest, they are regarded with most
severity.

Fear of shame impels to crime, and hence the

i85i-55-

1875-80.

Country.

Town.

252 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

difference in the statistics of infanticide furnished
by towns and rural neighbourhoods : —

France lCountry

( lown

Italy

These differences are evidently owing to the greater
facility which the towns offer for concealing the
shame. These crimes from passion are consequently
determined by public opinion and its prejudices, just
as in old days men had to exact vengeance for
injuries to themselves and their families under pain
of being dishonoured.

Sometimes crime arises from revolt against ill-
treatment and excessive humiliation.

B. R., who tried to poison her husband, had been
married by her wicked mother to that mother's lover,
a brutal, disgusting old man with whom she would
not live, and who, out of revenge, used to beat her
cruelly, leaving her without food, and forcing her to
occupy a garret open to all the winds of heaven.

Spinetti, who had made so many sacrifices for her
vile husband, on being beaten by him and ordered
to rob her master of some valuables, cut his carotid
artery with a razor.

C. H., calumniated atrociously by a man who
accused her of having led a dissolute life, prosecuted
him for libel and killed him in the assize court,
when exasperated at his success in having the suit
remanded by means of a legal artifice.

CRIMES OF PASSION. 253

6. Maternal and domestic love. — More rarely than
the other causes which we have detailed, the incentive
to crime is some injury inflicted on the woman's
maternal or domestic affections.

Madame Du Tilly, a most affectionate wife and
mother, found herself abandoned by her husband
and insulted by her rival in his love, a milliner.
The honour of the family and its well-being were
being ruined little by little, but the worst prospect
of all to her was that if she died her children would
have the other woman for a stepmother. To avert
such a catastrophe Madame Du Tilly determined
to disfigure her rival by throwing vitriol in her face.

In a similar case Madame T. inflicted a hailstorm
of blows upon the prostitute for whose sake her
husband had sold everything, even the domestic
utensils.

Madame Daru, a very well-conducted woman, was
exposed to continual brutality on the part of her
drunken husband. One day, when he had threatened
both herself and the children with a knife, she fled
with her little ones from the house, then, returning
when the man was asleep, stabbed him to death.

Another woman, whose portrait Mace gives, a
person of refinement, education, and gentle nature,
who had fallen from prosperity into extremest want,
committed a theft that she might pay her son's
school-fees. When arrested she refused to give her
name in order not to dishonour the boy, and her
identity would never have been known had a lawyer
in court not recognised her. She died a few days
later of a broken heart.

254 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

One is disposed to wonder at first at the rarity
of offences committed through maternal love, since
that is woman's strongest sentiment. But maternity
is, so to speak, a moral prophylactic against crime
and evil ; for a mother hesitates to commit an offence
which might separate her temporarily or permanently
from her child. The idea of such a risk leads her to
forgive injuries inflicted on the child himself rather
than resort to violent means of revenge ; and she will
urge the child to forgiveness in preference to losing
him as she might do if he resented his wrongs.

Moreover, maternity is pre-eminently a physio-
logical function ; while criminality, even when in-
duced by passion, is pathological ; and it is rare for
the two things to be confounded.

Maternity is an intense normal feeling, and cannot
therefore become a perturbing element ; but the case
with love is different.

In the normal woman love is weak, and only
becomes intense when it has reached the stage of
a pathological phenomenon.

This theory finds confirmation in the fact that
maternity is largely a cause of madness. The pro-
portion of cases in which domestic sorrow has pro-
duced insanity is as follows : —

Percentage.
Men. Women.

In Italy (1866-77) r6o 8-40

In Saxony (1875-78) 2-64 3'66

In Vienna (1851-59) 5*24 11*28

In Turin three times more women (12) than men
(4) go mad from the loss of a child ; and grief at
sterility will render three women insane as against
no man.

CRIMES OF PASSION. 255

There is yet another restraining factor which
accounts for the small number of crimes arising
out of maternal passion. A woman regards her
child as a part of herself, providing for him and
resenting in her own person the injuries inflicted
on him, especially while he is little and cannot provide
for himself. But when the child grows up and can look
after himself, he separates from his mother, and she,
while following his actions, his struggles and attempts,
with affectionate interest, no longer feels bound to
interfere as protectress or avenger. A wrong to her
child will grieve her profoundly, but it will no longer
excite her as in his infancy. To a certain degree, in
short, she recalls the behaviour of female animals
who abandon their little ones as soon as they can fly
or walk alone.

And if a crime committed out of maternal love is
possible only when the children are small, for this
very reason it must be rare, since an infant not
having entered upon the struggle for life has few
enemies, and is exposed to few injuries or persecu-
tions. Almost the only person against whom they
have to be protected or revenged is a bad or careless
father, and he fortunately is not a very common
phenomenon, elementary duty to his family not
being the relation in which the civilised male shows
himself most frequently wanting.

7. Dress and adornment. — It is a singular fact that
connected, and sometimes even confounded into a
whole with maternal love, is that passion for dress
which we found so characteristic of the born criminal.
Madame Du Tilly confessed that one of the things

256 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

which most exasperated her against her husband
was that he arrayed his mistress in her garments.
Madame Raymond was irritated by the frequent
presents of jewellery made by her husband to his
paramour, and which contrasted with his avarice
towards his wife. T. told us that she went to
visit the kept mistress of her husband with a heart
full of rage, but no intention of assault ; but when she
saw the woman wearing her own wedding-veil she
leapt upon her and killed her with blows.

Sometimes the same irritating effect is produced
by objects which have some peculiarly dear or sacred
associations of ideas.

8. Analogies with male criminals. — Up to this point
the analogy between male and female criminals from
passion has been nearly perfect, but we have now to
consider certain characteristics which, while essential
to the type of the male offender, are only found in
some women. Such, for instance, is the almost
instantaneous explosion of vindictiveness following
on the provocation. Madame Guerin, hearing that
her husband was at Versailles with his mistress, flew
there and stabbed him. Madame Daru, on being
threatened, together with her children, more seriously
than usual one evening by her drunken husband,
waited till he was asleep, then thrust a knife into his
heart. Spinetti cut her lover's throat immediately
on his making the proposition which we have already
described ; and similar instances of rapid action are
offered by Provensal and Jamais.

Only in some women, again, does sincere and violent
remorse follow on their crime. Noblin ran shrieking

CRIMES OF PASSION. 2$7

through the village roads and spontaneously gave
herself up to the authorities. Madame Daru tried to
commit suicide, but her courage failing she gave her-
self in charge. A. B., after setting fire to her house
to obtain the insurance money, remained paralysed at
the idea of what she had done. It was only at the
instigation of her brother that she went to claim the
money ; she took what the agent gave her without
remark, then made a full, unasked confession.
Madame Du Tilly only wished to disfigure her rival,
and was horrified to hear that she had caused her the
loss of an eye. Of her own accord she paid her a
large indemnity, and continually asked if she were in
further danger, showing great pleasure when the
doctor gave a good account of his patient.

And only in occasional instances is the suddenness
of the impulse betrayed by the choice of any weapon
within reach, as in the case of Madame Guerin and
Madame Daru ; injury being even inflicted sometimes
with the teeth or the fists, as in the example of
Madame T., who attacked her husband's mistress
with these natural weapons.

Finally, it is occasionally only that we find un-
certainty in the execution of the crime, as in the
cases of Jamais and Provensal, who fired off several
shots without aiming properly at their respective
victims, whom they barely touched.

9. Differences between the two sexes. — The women
are as a rule not previously quite immaculate. Often
they have bad traits which contrast with the exagge-
rated goodness of the male criminal, and cause them
to approximate on the one hand to the born criminal,

258 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

and on the other to the occasional criminal. Fre-
quently they brood for months and years over their
resentment, which is even susceptible of alternations of
forbearance and even liking towards their victim.

That is to say, that often premeditation in the
woman is longer than in the man ; it is also colder
and more cunning, so that the crime is executed with
an ability and a gloating which in the deed of pure
passion are psychologically impossible. Nor does
sincere penitence always follow the offence; on the
contrary, there is often exultation ; and rarely does
the offender commit suicide.

That B., to whose excellent conduct, as we have
seen, the whole neighbourhood testified, and who
was so good a wife and mother, on learning that her
husband had a mistress, hid a stick under her skirts
one night, and after lying in wait for the couple, fell
upon them with threats, and finally beat them.

The husband later formed an intimacy with another
woman, a servant in his house ; and towards her B.'s
conduct was very hesitating. Sometimes after a
furious scene she drove her away — sometimes, especi-
ally when short of cash, she allowed presents and
money to enter which could only come from her
rival.

But in the midst of these alternations of behaviour
B.'s resentment simmered and rose ever higher as her
husband's ill-conduct plunged the family into greater
want. Finally, one day when he had carried off the
last penny, and she learnt that the paramour was in
a neighbouring clandestine establishment, B. dressed
herself as a man, and, on pretence of being a client,

CRIMES OF PASSION. 259

sought out the servant and beat her ferociously.
Here the delay in the explosion, the preceding
periods of acquiescence, the manner of the offence,
all differentiate this woman (of a nature really good)
from the true passionate criminal.

Madame Laurent, on discovering that her husband
had an intrigue with the servant-girl, dismissed the
latter ; but the memory of the affront rankled ever
more in the mind of the wife, who at the end of six
months sought out the offender and killed her. No
man guilty of a crime of passion would have deferred
his vengeance so long. The use of vitriol, too, which
as we saw was employed by Madame Du Tilly (and
others), is opposed by its insidiousness and inhumanity
to the nature of the true crime of passion. The
refinement of cruelty in the method, and the coolness
necessary to its employment (for the fluid must be
well aimed), are contrary to the supposition that the
woman is very much excited at the moment of execu-
tion.

B. R., whom we have already described as married
to a former lover of her mother's, a brutal old man
who beat her and made her suffer cold and hunger,
at the end of her patience one day mixed some
sulphate of copper, given her by her lover, in her
husband's food. But when her husband, who found
the dish bitter, ordered her to give it to the fowls, she
obediently threw it away at once. A few days later
her husband, after a fresh quarrel, found a piece of
polenta of a suspicious colour and accused her of an
attempt on his life, to which she at once confessed.
Heie, then, is another example of a slow and deliberate

260 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

crime (for such is the nature of poison) suggesting
itself as a means of getting rid of a justly detested
husband.

A peasant woman of Bergamo (also of irreproach-
able morals), being betrayed by her husband, dressed
herself in men's clothes, and accompanied by an old
hag of her acquaintance, hid herself in a wood till the
rival passed, then fell upon her and wounded and
disfigured her (the elder woman aiding). Here passion
was the origin of the crime, and the criminal, as we
have seen, was of good moral character : nevertheless
the disguise, the premeditation, the studied barbarity
of vengeance, and, above all, the choice of an accom-
plice, distinguish the offender from her male proto-
type, who always executes his deeds of passion
unaided.

The crime of Madame Raymond showed great
coolness and power of calculation. She went to the
house where her husband and his mistress were in
the habit of meeting, and to gain admittance resorted
to a very clever stratagem. She rang the bell and
slipped under the door a note addressed to her
husband, and which said : " Paul, open. Lassimonne
(the mistress's husband) knows everything. He is on
his way. I come to help you. Do not be afraid."

Madame Brosset was separated from her husband
for incompatibility of temper, but jealousy tormented
her all the same. One day she repaired, armed, to
his habitation, and finding him there with another
woman (a little humpback), she stabbed him to death.
Even Madame Daru, who is one of the most genuine
types of the criminal from passion, was not prevented

CRIMES OF PASSION. 261

by anger against her husband from planning to kill
him with most security during his sleep.

Dumaire, if on one side akin to criminals from
passion, on the other resembles the born delinquents.
She had led a profligate life, but was intelligent and
frugal enough, strange to say, to have enriched her-
self by her gains ; and she showed the utmost dis-
interestedness of character in relieving the wants of
her relatives, and so on.

She fell in love with Picart, and was faithful to
him for many years ; had a daughter by him ; helped
him in his studies ; and did not ask him to marry
her, but only to continue to live with her.

But Picart, on finishing the course of instruction for
which she had paid, contemplated leaving her to
marry a rich heiress, and then Dumaire killed him.
The purity of her passion and the unworthy conduct
of her love would incline one to regard her crime as
impulsive, but against this theory we must place the
long premeditation (shown in the warning addressed
to Picart's family, " If it be necessary to kill him, I will
do it ") ; the absence of remorse evident in her declara-
tions to the judge that if the crime were to be done
again she would not shrink from it, since she preferred
to see her lover dead than married to another ; and
finally her resolute, energetic way both of committing
the offence and justifying it, which contrasts with the
stormy but uncertain and hesitating action of true
passion.

Dav. . . . was seduced by a sergeant whom she
passionately loved, and who had promised to marry
her. He deserted her when she was pregnant, and
she threw vivrio] over him.

262 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

Now here was no cocotte or prostitute, who alleges
desertion as the cause of a vengeance to which she
has been really moved by egotism. Here is a girl
who had been gravely injured, and in whose offence
passion was a strong factor.

Nevertheless, there are in the case certain particu-
lars opposed to the crime of pure impulse. Before
seduction she threatened her lover with death should
he desert her, thus showing that theoretically she had
already conceived the deed before anything had
happened to provoke it. Also she sought out her
lover in a low masked ball to which she went accom-
panied by another man, thus showing some lightness
of conduct ; and finally she chose vitriol as her
weapon, because, as she declared, she wished her
victim to feel all the pain of death ; and, so far from
evincing remorse, she eagerly asked the prison doctors
if the man were dead.

Equally balanced between the two sorts of crime
(that ascribable to impulse and that proper to the
born delinquent) is the deed of the girl Santa, who
three times at a distance of months endeavoured to
wound her most unworthy lover (who had seduced
and abandoned her), and finally did kill him with a
knife.

Clothilde Andral, an actress (who certainly was
not new to equivocal adventures), became the mistress
of an officer who eventually deserted her and her child.
She was left in great want, made all the greater by
the fact that she could not nurse the infant ; and at
last, exasperated by misery, by the sufferings of her
child, by the base conduct of her lover, who never

CRIMES OF PASSION. 263

even answered her letters, she threw vitriol at him,
but only wounded him slightly.

In this instance, again, the previous impure life of
the woman and her long preparation (for three times
at long intervals she came to spy upon the officer)
are against the theory of mere passionate impulse ;
but, on the other hand, the motive for the offence was
a grave one, and the sentiment from which it sprang
was not ignoble.

In all these cases, then, we find not the sudden
fury of passion which blinds even a good man and
transforms him temporarily into a homicide, but a
slower and more tenacious feeling, which produces
a ferment of cruel instincts and allows time for
reflection in preparing and calculating the details
of the crime. It may be said, in answer to this,
that the women we have described are naturally
very good ; and it is true that they differ but little
from normal women. But this apparent contradic-
tion diminishes when we reflect that the normal
woman is deficient in moral sense, and possessed of
slight criminal tendencies, such as vindictiveness,
jealousy, envy, malignity, which are usually neutralised
by less sensibility and less intensity of passion. Let
a woman, normal in all else, be slightly more ex-
citable than usual, or let a perfectly normal woman
be exposed to grave provocations, and these criminal
tendencies which are physiologically latent will take
the upper hand. But then the woman does not
become a criminal through the intensity of her pas-
sions (these being colder in her), but through the
explosion of a latent tendency to crime which an
iy

264 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

occasion has set free. That is to say, a normal or
quasi-normal woman may commit a crime of passion
without being a typical criminal from impulse. Her
passions are weaker (than the man's), yet strong
enough to drive her to a criminal act when some out-
rage to her dearest feelings sets free her latent
tendencies to crime. Her deed then is ascribable
partly to passion and partly to an innate depravity
(malvagita), which yet does not detract from the fact
that the offender is generally a good and even a very
good woman.

The same may be said of those offences in which
passion enters as a very important factor, but
would be impotent unaided to produce the par-
ticular effect, to achieve which the suggestion of a
man is necessary. Lodi stole at the instigation of
her lover, who threatened to leave her if she did
not obey him. Noblin was the mistress of a man
called Sougaret, who one day confided to her that he
had committed a crime. After many years of life in
common Noblin found herself deserted for another
woman, and in her grief she threatened Sougaret
with the revelation of his terrible secret. He had
confided this also to his new mistress, and in order to
save himself he conceived the idea of getting rid of
one woman and binding the other to him by making
her an accomplice in murder : and it was the latest
mistress that he determined to sacrifice. For a
whole month he incited the reluctant girl to the
deed. " He drove me on," she related, " torturing
me for weeks, now exciting my hatred by telling me
how much the other loved him, now defying me to

CRIMES OF PASSION. 265

strike her and reproaching me with cowardice. I
hesitated a whole month, but he returned constantly
to the charge, telling me I could not love him since I
would not kill the other woman."

We see, then, that passion alone would not be
sufficient to produce a crime, but must be reinforced
by suggestion This only means in other words that
suggestion is necessary in the case of women whose
criminal tendencies are more latent, but for that
reason profounder and more tenacious. A man who
commits a crime when driven to it by strong passion,
may have a great natural repugnance to the offence,
which is momentarily suffocated by feeling ; but a
person who, even when under the influence of passion,
is induced by suggestion to commit a deed of blood —
that is, with leisure to calculate and to feel a horror of
the action demanded — must have a lower degree of
organic repulsion to crime. The latent fund of
wickedness existing in the normal woman renders
possible a hybrid form of criminal impulse which
admits also of complicity.

10. Crimes of passion from egotism. — Egotistic
criminal impulses prove even better that crimes of
passion must be the effect of a slow fermentation of
the wickedness latent in the normal woman. There
is a class of pure, good, affectionate women in whom
the only motive for their crime is the egotistical
sentiment of jeakusy bred in them by illness, accident,
&c. Their offence may be regarded as originating
partly in passion ; but it lacks a grave cause, and is
also entirely unprovoked by the victim ; thus show-
ing an analogy with the deeds of the born criminal.

266 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

We will proceed to instance a case which happened
in Belgium. A man loved and was loved by a
dowerless girl whose cousin, an heiress, was herself
in love with the same individual. The man, good at
heart, but weak, and alarmed at the idea of a struggle
for life, decided eventually to engage himself to the
heiress. She, a short time before the date fixed for her
marriage, fell dangerously ill ; and as on her death
the cousin would succeed to the property and be in a
position to marry the man of her choice, the dying
woman was so possessed by jealousy that she deter-
mined to destroy her promised husband's chances of
happiness by taking away his character. She
swallowed a very valuable diamond, and then con-
fided to her father that the young man had stolen it.
After her death her father, who regarded the con-
fidence as an effect of delirium, looked, partly from
scrupulousness, into her jewel case, and found the ring
without the diamond. The young man was then
arrested and would have been condemned only that,
fortunately for him, common report accused him of
having poisoned his affianced in order that her
cousin might inherit The authorities ordered an
autopsy, and the expert found the diamond in the
body of the dead woman.

Mrs. Dervv — , very happily married and much
attached to her husband, was attacked by phthisis
and brought in a few months to the verge of death.
Her love for her husband turned to violent jealousy :
she made him swear again and again that he would
never marry a second time, never look at another
woman ; she implored him to die with her, and one

CRIMES OF PASSION. 2b J

day, after receiving from him fresh assurances that he
would always be hers alone, she snatched a loaded
gun from the wall and shot him dead.

Madame Perrin, bedridden for five years and in-
curable, became extremely jealous of her husband,
reproached him perpetually with his infidelities, and
finally determining to put an end to the situation, she
called her husband to her bedside and wounded him
with a revolver which she had hidden under the
sheets. The crime, she declared, had been premedi-
tated for a long time.

In all these instances the motive for the offence is
the noble feeling of love ; and the offenders are
naturally good women. Yet they are impelled to
crime by an outburst of the wickedness latent in
every woman, by the sharp pangs of a jealousy which
resents happiness in others as a personal injury.
The sudden destruction of their own felicity renders
them unwilling that others should marry the man
they are leaving. No doubt the motive is a strong
one : their sorrow is great ; and in normal circum-
stances they would have remained excellent women.
But all the same the offences we have detailed
prove the likeness between women and children, since
they might be described as offences committed by
big children of developed intelligence and pas-
sions.

The crime then is one of passion, but is entirely
egotistical, since it springs from jealousy and envy
instead of from the sentiments called by Spencer
ego-altruistic, such as love and honour, which drive
men to crimes of passion.

268 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

And it is worth while to note here that Marro x
states jealousy to be the cause of madness in 17 per
cent, of women as against 1*5 per cent, of men, which
shows the preponderance oi the feeling in the female
sex.

1 " Madness in Women," 1893.

CHAPTER XVI.

SUICIDES.

I. To complete our study of crimes from passion we
must investigate suicides ; for, even setting aside
legislative and juridical considerations, the affinity
and analogy between criminal impulses and suicide
are so great that the two offences may be considered
as two branches of the same trunk.

Suicide resembles crime in its variability, but the
number of deaths self-inflicted is four and five times
less among women than among men.

Here are the percentages : —

Italy (1874-1833) ...
Prussia (1878-1882)...
Saxony (1874-1883)
Wurtemberg (1872-1881)
France (1876-1880) ...
England (1873-1882)
Scotland (1877-1881)
Ireland (1874- 1883)...
Switzerland (1876- 1883)
Holland (188(^1882)
Denmark (1880- 1883)
Connecticut (1 878-1 882)

And if out of all these figures we separate the

suicides caused by passion from the others, we find

the same proportion as among crimes of passion.

260

Men.

Women

... 80-2

19-8

. .- 83-3

167

... 807

I9'3

... 84-6

I5'4

... 79-0

21*0

... 75-0

I9*0

... 70*0

30-0

... 730

27'0

... 85-0

I5-0

... 81 -o

I9'0

... 78-2

21'8

... 70*0

30-0

270 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

2. Suicides from physical suffering. — The smaller
number of suicides from passion (among women) is,
so to speak, prefigured in the smaller proportion of
suicides from physical suffering, that is to say, the
revolt of the organism under pain.

Out of a hundred suicides of both sexes the pro-
portion resulting from physical suffering is as follows
(Morselli) :—

Men.

Women.

Germany (1852-1861)

9"6l —

8-o8

Prussia (1869- 187 7)

6 +

Saxony (1875-1878)

4"6i +

6'2I

Belgium

i'34 -

0-84

France (1873-1878)

14*28 —

13-56

Italy (1866-1877) ...

670 +

8-50

Vienna (1851-1859)

920 +

1004

„ (1869-1878)

773 +

10-37

Paris (1851-1859) ...

10-27 +

11*22

Madrid (1884)

3i'8i -

31'25

There is consequently a relative superiority of the
woman in this respect in Prussia, Saxony, Italy,
Vienna, and Paris ; and an inferiority in Germany,
Belgium, France, and Madrid.

But even the superiority is relative, for the quotas
give the proportional percentages of the suicides in
both sexes ; and the greatest difference is found in
Vienna, where the suicides of men stand to those of

women as 773 to 10*37 — tnat is> as l to r34 J and as
suicide among men is always 3 to 5 times more
frequent than among women, we see that, in reality,
when the figures for the two sexes are compared, the
number of suicides from physical pain is infinitely
greater among men than women. Women feel pain
less than men, consequently are less impelled by it to
suicide, in spite of the fact that they are more fre-

SUICIDES. 27I

quently exposed to physical pain — are physiologically
bound to endure it, indeed. And as physical sensi-
bility forms the basis of moral sensibility, and
physical pains may almost be described as the
passions of the organism, we find ourselves face to
face here with the original reason why women
commit fewer suicides from passion than men.

3. Want. — Want is also a cause which drives more
men than women to suicide. The percentages of
suicide from want are low in both sexes relatively
to the total of self-inflicted deaths ; and this inferiority
is doubled and tripled by the fact that women commit
suicide two and three times less frequently.

The proportion per cent, of suicides from want is as
under : —

Men.

Women.

Germany (1852-1861)

3775

18-46

Prussia (1869-1877)

—

Saxony (1875-1878)

6-64

I'52

Belgium

4-65

4*02

Italy (1866-1877)

4-60

,, ,, (financial reverses)

12-80

2'20

Norway (1866- 1870) „

10-30

4*50

Vienna (1851-1859)

6-64

3'IO

These results are the more striking inasmuch as
the probability of falling into want is as great for the
one sex as the other — that is to say, that loss of means
almost always affects a husband and wife, or a father
and daughters, &c, &c. Women, however, bear
misery much better than men, and that for many
reasons.

Woman represents the median type of the species,
and can consequently adapt herself much better to
varying social conditions. As Max Nordau remarked,

272 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the difference in nature between a duchess and a
washerwoman is only superficial, so that a duchess
can adapt herself to new surroundings and become a
washerwoman much more easily than a man can
transform himself under analogous conditions.

We have all seen women of high rank who have
easily accepted the position of maids or companions,
&c, but a man who has to descend from a high place
does not bend with such facility beneath the iron
hand of destiny ; more often he breaks. Moreover,
a woman having fewer needs and a lower degree of
sensitiveness is better adapted than a man to support
not only moral suffering, but even physical privations,
such as insufficient food, absence of comforts, and
so on.

There is the additional fact, too, that in cases
of financial ruin the woman has often only an in-
direct responsibility, and is consequently much less
overcome by remorse than the man. Maternity,
again, has a beneficent influence, for a mother who
sinks into poverty is less affected by the grief of
ruin than impressed with the necessity of providing
for her children, whom she cannot leave on the
streets, while a father, in the paroxysm of his pain,
much oftener forgets the innocent victims of his
errors and his faults.

Finally, a woman having less pride than a man
has less difficulty in resorting to begging, an ex-
pedient to which the sterner sex often prefer death ;
and it frequently happens that a woman, with her
weaker moral sense, will have recourse at last to the
facile relief offered by prostitution. It follows from

SUICIDES. 273

all this that many more factors are necessary before
a woman can be driven by want to suicide.

When poverty, in her case, has reached the acutest
stage of privation, when all means of relief fail, and
age or innate chastity render prostitution impossible,
then she also is impelled to commit this form of
suicide from passion.

" I have tried in a thousand ways to find work,"
wrote one before her self-inflicted end, " and I have
only met with hearts of stone or vile characters to
whose infamous propositions I would not listen."

A beautiful young girl left a letter saying that she
had nothing left, all she possessed being in pawn. " I
might have had a well-stocked shop," she added, " but
I prefer death to the existence of a fallen woman."

4. Love. — Love contributes largely to suicide as to
crime. The statistics of female suicides from love
show a preponderance in this respect over the sterner
sex, the percentages being as follows : —

Men.

Women.

Germany (1852-62)

. ... 2-33

8-46

Saxony (1875-78)

1-83

5-18

Austria (1869-78)

. ... 5-80

17-40

Vienna (1851-59)

. .... 5-89

14-13

Italy (1866-77)

. ... 3-80

7'5o

Belgium

• -. 953

12-08

eptions to the rule are,

lowever, furnished

Men.

Women.

.Prussia (1869-77)

I2-50

France (1856-68)

I5'48

13*16

These figures show that the passionate woman
flies to suicide as a relief to the disillusions and the
pangs of love ; and this fact, through the well-known
law of antagonism between suicide and crime, must

274 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

tend to diminish considerably the number of crimes
committed from passion.

This predominance among women of suicide over
homicide for love is in perfect harmony with our
view of the nature of love in women. We saw that
in women love is a species of slavery, a sacrifice
gladly made of the entire personality. These
elements, even when very strong, sometimes allow
egotistic sentiments to triumph in the average
woman, but are so exaggerated in passionate natures
that ill-treatment on the part of their lover only
increases their fury of self-sacrifice.

In such natures it is evident that the most violent
love cannot impel the subjects of it to crime. To
suppose, for instance, that Mrs. Carlyle, Mademoiselle
Lespinasse, or Heloise would have killed the object
of their adoration because neglected or ill-treated,
is a psychological absurdity, since their love and
devotion only grew more intense under ill-treatment.
There are many ignorant Heloises who, when putting
an end by suicide to the agony of an ill-requited
affection, express in their last words a feeling of
self-sacrificing devotion towards the man who
should inspire them only with vindictiveness.

A girl writing to her lover says : " You have
deceived me. During two years you swore to
marry me, and now you desert me. I love you,
but I cannot survive the loss of your affection."

Another writes, under similar circumstances : " I
have done everything morally possible to live
without the affection which comprised my whole
life ; but the effort is beyond my strength. Cer-

SUICIDES. 275

tainly my fault is great, and my memory will be
cursed even by my child, the very thought of whom
sets all the chords of my being vibrating ; but still
without the other half of myself, without him whom
I have lost, my life is insupportable. I had thought
of throwing myself at his feet, but he would have
spurned me. I pray that he may pardon my in-
justice of character, my violence, and only remember
the happy hours which he passed with me."

One of two deserted women wrote to her friend :
" Assure him (the lover) that I pray for his happiness,
and die adoring him."

Another said, " Death will soon divide us. I hope
thus to make you happy."

" What have I done," asked yet a third, in her
last letter to her faithless lover — " what have I done
to deserve this misfortune ? Perhaps you desert me
because I loved you more than my life ? " *

Desertion, in short, awakes no resentment against
the deserter. He is looked upon as lost through
death, which causes so much grief, that for the
woman no other consolation is possible but to die
in her turn. And she dies when she does not go
mad.

Marro, in this respect, has furnished the following
figures : —

Men.

Women.

Unrequited love causes madness in

1*5 per cent.

2 -5 per cent

Betrayed love

o-3 >»

17 ,•

Desertion, or the death of husband

or wife

o-6 „

3 '2 M

1 Sighek, " Evoluzione dall' omicidio al suicidio nei drammi
d'amore." "Arch, di psich," 1891. Brierre de Boismont, " Du
Suicide," 1S60.

276 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

the proportion being doubled and sextupled for
women.

Now, if we connect all these remarks with the
frequency of virile characteristics in female criminals
from passion, we shall find ourselves in possession of
the key of our enigma. Women who kill their lovers
from passion have a virile strength of sentiment.
And this is the reason why even the woman guilty
of a crime of passion so rarely offers the complete
type of her class. Love alone does not excite
her to crime : she is less moved by it than by
egotistical sentiments which disillusion has set
fermenting. Pure, strong passion, when existing in
a woman, drives her to suicide rather than to crime.
If the contrary be the case, then either her natural
latent fund of wickedness has been set free, or
virility of disposition has infused into her feelings
a violence, and consequently a capacity for mur-
derous assaults, to which the true woman, the finished
woman, is a stranger.

The true crime of love — if such it can be called
— in a woman is suicide ; all her other crimes of
passion are of a hybrid sort.

It is remarkable that marriage causes more
suicides among men than women. Fourteen women
commit suicide when deserted by their husbands,
and the same number when widowed against fifty
men in the first case and forty-one in the second.

This fact is partly explained by the predominance
of maternal over conjugal love already insisted upon,
and partly by the circumstance that, as we have
seen, so many women go mad from love. We must

SUICIDES. 277

take into consideration that the love which drives
women to violent measures is frequently illicit or
legally forbidden. And matrimony, like all social
institutions, having been created for the average
specimen of humanity, the woman who tranquilly
casts anchor in the port of marriage belongs to
the great army of normals, and loves too feebly to
commit suicide when widowed. On the other hand,
the passionate woman finds in the very barriers
erected by society to the satisfaction of her instincts,
the rock on which her love and her life go to
wreck. Hence the number of passionate women who
commit suicide or go mad.

5. Double and multiple suicides. — In a double
suicide the predominating partner is almost always
the woman. Where two lovers commit suicide, thus
expiating what is generally an infraction of social
laws, the woman is usually the more resolute.

In the Bancal-Trousset case it was she who, after
reading Indiana, conceived the notion of dying with
her lover. He resisted, and she reproached him, say-
ing, " You do not love me enough to make this
sacrifice." Bancal ended by consenting, but when
the time came he hesitated to open her veins, and
she urged him to it, begging him to make haste.
When she fainted, Bancal felt a horror of his deed
and tried to stop the bleeding, but Trousset, de-
termined to die, insisted that he should give her
poison, and, when that was not enough, that he
should stab her. " Make an end of it," she said ;
"you must kill me."

Similarly in the case of C. M. and P. L. it was

278 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

with the girl that the idea originated, and as he
hesitated and began to weep, " Child," she said, " you
have no courage. See ! I will kill you and then
myself. It is time to finish with pretences."

Brierre de Boismont relates that a young girl of
tranquil nature, who was in the habit of reading
neither romances nor plays, on hearing that the
parents of her affianced refused their consent to
the marriage, became all at once possessed with the
idea of a double suicide. She urged the young man
to it with affectionate caresses. " I am determined
to die," she said, " rather than give you up. Give
me also this proof of love."

Bertha Delmas and Emile Gasson had engaged
themselves to one another without thinking of the
military service which he had to perform. The day of
his departure came, and he left, consoling himself with
the idea that at the new year he would be able to see
his promised bride again. But when the moment
arrived his leave was denied him in punishment for
an infraction of discipline. When the girl learnt
this, she pawned her earrings for nine francs, and
wrote to him to come at all costs, as she could no
longer live without seeing him. Gasson deserted and
rejoined Bertha, with whom he passed a week. But
as he was in constant danger of being arrested,
Bertha conceived the idea of suicide, persuaded him
to consent, and fixed the day and hour for the deed.
He was continually for putting it off, but she ordered
him to fire. The attempt failed, and when Gasson
was brought up for trial, the contrast between his
character and the woman's shone forth as clear as

SUICIDES. 279

noonday. He was timid, irresolute, stammering, and
showed that he had been under the influence of
suggestion. She, resolute, firm, virile, proved by her
attitude that she had planned and prepared every-
thing.

R. C, of Turin, was forced by her parents to marry
a rich man whom she disliked, during the absence on
military service of her previous affianced. She was
in despair, and when her lover returned on a day's
leave she fled with him to San Bernardo. They
spent a few hours there ; then, tying their feet and
hands, threw themselves into the lake. The woman
left a letter for her family, in which she said that
she had been constrained to make a marriage she
detested, and that rather than be unfaithful to her
husband, or false to the man she loved more than
life, she preferred to commit suicide.

Not many years ago in Ivrea dwelt two large,
patriarchal families of neighbours. The day came
when a son of one household had to leave for Turin
to finish his studies. He begged his mother to pre-
pare a particular dish for his supper ; he joked with
his father ; but when the evening arrived he had
disappeared. A daughter of the other household,
between whom and the youth there had long been
great affection, had asked her mother for the same
dish. She arrayed herself for the first time in a
dress that she had purposely embroidered many
months before, and said, " Do I not look like a
bride?" — then by the evening she also had dis-
appeared.

The two fathers, seized with the same suspicion,
20

280 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

met at dawn, and having found a letter from the
student, in which he declared that he preferred death
to separation, they ran to the canal, and, causing the
water to be turned off, found the girl and boy locked
in each other's arms, and smiling as if death had found
them in the happiest hour of their lives. The girl's
mother, searching her room, found a diary in which
the fatal determination was already recorded, and
wherein the writer alluded with pleasure to the
thought of " that day."

Moralists and theologians may say what they will,
but in this money-making, sordid age, such incidents,
so far from inspiring us with horror, fill our eyes
with tears and our hearts with the deepest com-
passion ; for they prove that we can still feel strong,
ideal disinterested passions, and are even ready to die
for them.

Suicide for love, which as we see is so common,
has certainly a physiological root, being the effect of
an elective affinity strengthened by the reproductive
organs and the peculiar repugnance to separation
induced by these in the molecules of the organism.

The Indian Suttee has a physiological root which
accounts far better for the rite than any masculine
tyranny or than the sanction which religion usually
accords to any time-honoured custom. (The Vedas,
indeed, prohibit suicide.) We know that when the
English first attempted to put an end to the bar-
barous usage, or at least to prevent the priests from
encouraging it, they met with great opposition.
Lieutenant Earle endeavoured to dissuade a widow,
who was smilingly preparing to ascend the pyre,

SUICIDES. 28l

by urging her at least to try the effect of the
flames by first holding a finger in them ; and she,
with a smile of scorn, plunged the member into
a lighted oil-lamp, and watched it burning un-
moved. " You may say what you choose," she
replied to the officers, " but I must belong to him
and to nobody else ; I loved him and could not love
another." She went seven times round the pyre, then
mounted it, and laying her dead husband's head on
her breast, herself set fire to the pile, of which in a few
hours there remained but a heap of ashes, over which
the Brahmins were muttering their prayers.

The truth of the explanation we have offered is
proved by the fact that in countries where there is
no religious ordinance of the kind — as, for instance, in
China — yet childless widows will hang themselves
publicly, believing that they go to join their dear
deceased at once. In New Zealand the daughter of
the conqueror Hongi, seeing her father returning
from battle unaccompanied by her husband, jumped
into his boat, snatched his sword, and after running
sixteen prisoners through, tried to shoot herself, but
being wounded merely, proceeded to strangle herself,
and thus went to join her husband in the land of
shades.

We see, then, that it is almost always the woman
who conceives the suicide, and carries it out with
most resolution.

In a double suicide — that of R. F. and G. B. — it
was the woman who fired the first shot which killed
her lover. And Bourget, in the * Disciple," makes
the man fail in courage at the supreme moment,

282 THE FEMALE OFFENDER,

while his companion never wavers in her fell in-
tent

All this is quite natural. Love being, even in the
normal woman, a very important element, even
though as a rule she does not feel the sentiment with
excessive intensity (we may here recall the celebrated
dictum of Madame de Stael), for the passionate
woman it must necessarily constitute almost her
whole existence. To separate her from her lover is
to kill her ; while a man, even when very much in
love, finds life too attractive on other sides to feel
that his whole existence is shattered because deprived
of the object of his affections. The exasperation of
unsatisfied desire may bring him for a moment to
accept suicide as a condition of appeasing himself;
but the desire past, as Bourget well divined, his joy
in life, and in all the aims in which the loved woman
has no part, reassert themselves.

That is why so many men, like the Robert Greslou
of the French novelist, hesitate to commit suicide
when the impelling cause is removed, while the
woman only shows herself more determined than
before. Add to all this that in illicit connections,
such as those which we have been considering,
women risk social consequences of much greater
moment to themselves than to their lovers, and under
these circumstances the resolution to commit suicide
is reinforced by the reflection that their families, their
husbands, their whole world, in short, is lost to
them.

A class of suicides peculiar to women is that of
a mother who, reduced by want or other causes to

SUICIDES. 283

despair, kills her young or infirm children and then
herself.

Madame Arresteilles, who adored her son of 29,
an epileptic idiot, fearing that the rest of the family
might treat him harshly after her death, killed him
and committed suicide. Madame Berbesson also
killed her daughter, whom she worshipped, who
had gone mad and was to be sent to an asylum ;
then, unable to support the idea of separation,
the mother put an end to herself. Madame
Monard, worn out by the brutality of her husband,
who continually beat herself and her two children,
tried to kill the latter. Madame Souhine, a very
respectable working woman, whom the imprison-
ment of her husband and an industrial crisis had
reduced to the greatest misery, sold all she had,
bought good dresses for her children, gave them a
comparatively sumptuous repast, and then when they
were asleep she strangled them and tried to commit
suicide.

These women were all very moral ; and their act,
although it looks at first sight like infanticide followed
by suicide, is in reality, so to speak, only the com-
pletion of their own self-inflicted death. To die
alone and leave their children is impossible for them,
the children being almost an organic portion of them-
selves, so that to leave them seems like killing them-
selves but in part. An affectionate mother does not
think her own sufferings ended if those of her children
must continue, and the proof of this is that these
infanticides followed by suicide always take place
when the children are small or unable to look after

284 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

themselves — that is, imbecile or otherwise incapable.
For maternity is a function which exists for the pro-
tection of the weak, and a mother feeling that her
children are a part of herself, as long as they are
unable to provide for themselves provides for them
by every means in her power, such means including
at times the pathological phenomenon which we are
at present considering.

When the child grows up the mother can separate
from him, and although she continues to love him
(thus differing from the lower animals which abandon
their offspring), she no longer feels bound to him
by that common life which, so to speak, makes of two
beings but one organism.

Madame Souhine, when asked why she had killed
her children before trying to kill herself, replied :
" I wished to go with them."

This view is confirmed by the fact that when the
child is still young enough not to be, as we might
say, entirely disjoined from his mother, but sufficiently
old to undergo suggestion, then his mother does not
actually kill him, but persuades him to commit
suicide in her company.

E. and E. B., whose cases were examined by Garnier,
persuaded the one, a boy of 13, the other, a boy of
10, to kill themselves at the same moment as their
respective mothers put an end to their own lives.

Sometimes, however, the double maternal suicide is
determined not by misfortune leading to despair, but
by more egotistical sentiments, and the crime then
becomes analogous to a suicide of the passionate-
selfish sort, and is the equivalent (offered by natures

SUICIDES. 285

of another kind) to the infanticide committed by good
women and affectionate mothers. E., a prey to
neuropathic affections (persistent headache, giddiness,
insomnia, nightmare, &c), and of a very melancholy
temperament, belonged to a family originally noble
and rich, but fallen into decay, and was married to a
man of good instincts, but inferior in education to
herself and in poor circumstances. The woman was
fretted by the existence she had to lead in one room,
which served as bedroom, sitting-room, and kitchen,
and where constant poverty reigned. She perpetually
accused her husband of ill-treating her, although such
was not the case, and finally, in a moment of greater
irritation than ever, she decided to kill herself and
the son whom she adored. If, instead of being a
woman not naturally bad, but neuropathic, she had
been wicked and wanting in maternal love, she would
have revenged herself for all the privations and
pains of her life by tormenting her child, as did
Madame Stakembourg, and perhaps by poisoning
her husband. But being of a better nature, she
chose suicide in company with the boy, thus yielding
to an egotistical impulse instead of to the ego-
altruistic feeling which constitutes the sentiment of
maternity.

Double suicides in two women are extremely rare.

We have found one incomplete instance in the
death of Olga Protaffow and Vera Gerebssow They
were very intimate friends and lived together in ex-
treme poverty. Tired of their misery, Vera made
her friend promise to kill her if within two months
their condition should not have improved. Olga

286 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

promised, and when the two months were over,
after much hesitation, kept her word. The rarity
of such an act corresponds entirely to the rarity of
female suicides from friendship, and is to be ex-
plained by the same cause — the small degree of
friendship which women can feel for one another.

Double suicides among married couples are also
extremely rare ; and for the third time we have to
observe that matrimony being an institution adapted
to normal women, such women, with their weak
passions, naturally pay but a small toll to suicide,
while, on the other hand, passionate women find in the
customs, the prejudices, and the laws of marriage the
very rock on which they perish. We know of only one
very sad case of a double suicide of husband and wife,
which happened at Bologna. A youth of 20, an only
son, adored by his parents, of great intelligence, loved
by his companions, admired and encouraged by an
illustrious living poet, and to whom a magnificent
literary future seemed promised by the examples of
talent which he had already given, died suddenly
during an epidemic of diphtheria ; and his parents,
thus deprived of their one great object of affection,
committed suicide together by asphyxia a month
later. In this instance the intense paternal and
maternal love of the pair had bred a new bond of
union, a kind of second love for their son into which
entered all the pride and all the hopes they had
centred on this offspring of the mutual tenderness of
their youth : and in this sentiment we must seek the
explanation of such a strange phenomenon as a
suicide between two old people.

SUICIDES.

287

Suicides

"rom Madness.

Men.

Women.

30-17

50-77

23-50

26'59

48-40

8-2o

10 -So

41-22

81-94

15-48

13-16

16-30

27-50

17-90

28-40

6. Suicides from madness. — Confirmatory at once
and explanatory of the affirmation that suicides from
passion are comparatively rare among women, is the
fact that 50 per cent., and sometimes more, of suicides
in the female sex are due to madness.

These are the statistics : —

Germany (1852-61)
Prussia (1869-77)
Saxony (1875-78)
Austria (1869-78)

Belgium

France (1856-68)
Italy (1866-77) •••
Norway

These differences can only be partly explained by
the predominance among women of causes producing
acute mania, such as puerperal fever, which affects
them exclusively, and pellagra, which attacks them
in preference. Together these two causes counterbal-
ance or exceed the effects of alcoholism in the other
sex ; but the fact remains that violent passion in a
woman leads rather to madness than to suicide or to
crime. Only when grief is so intense as to produce hal-
lucination or delirium, only when an extreme anomaly
has stirred her spirit to the depths, does the woman
resort to suicide equally with the man, and even more
than the man. This phenomenon in respect to
suicide is analogous to that which we observed with
regard to crime. An infinity of variations in the
character, passing from a slight hyperesthesia and
vivacity of passion to positive madness, may conduce
to suicide ; and the woman, as less sensitive and less
variable than the man, must contribute fewer ex-

288 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

amples of those suicides from passion which in men
arise from the multiple variations, the numerous
slight psychical anomalies which occur in this or that
individual.

Woman being less variable remains more normal,
but when anomalous is almost always so to a graver
degree, being then, indeed, an example of a double
exception. And that is why in her case suicides
from passion, which represent slight variations of
character, are rare, while more frequent are suicides
from madness arising when anomaly has reached its
highest point.

The woman, as distinguished from the man, in other
words, stands at one or other extremity of the pole,
being either perfectly normal or excessively anoma-
lous. And when the anomaly is excessive, suicide
and madness are one. Consequently women are
very rarely criminal when compared with men,
but when criminal they are infinitely worse. That
is to say, the two poles are respectively normality
and extreme degeneration, and the intermediary
variations which should connect the two do not exist.

CHAPTER XVII.

CRIMINAL FEMALE LUNATICS.

I. Statistics. — In Italy, between the years 1871-86,
there were 1,753 criminal male lunatics and 96
criminal female lunatics, being 5*6 women against
100 men, which is a lower proportion of women
than that found among criminals, these being for
the decade 1870-79 as 7*3 women against 100 men.1

From Sander and Richter's observations we learn
that out of 1,486 male lunatics 13*9 per cent, were
criminal, while out of 1,462 female lunatics the
criminals were 2*6 per cent.2

In some recent investigations made together with
Busdraghi, one of the writers found the following
figures : —

Out of 100 incendiaries ... 63 males ... 37 females.

„ „ homicides ... 75 „ ... 25 „

„ „ thieves 62 „ ... 38 „

» » guilty of rape... 30 „ ... o „

And these had all gone mad out of prison.

This smaller proportion of lunatics among female
criminals is certainly ascribable to two causes — one
being the minor degree of alcoholism (drink, as

1 V. Rossi, "Criminal Lunatics in Italy," 1887.

2 Drs. Sander and Richter, " Die Beziehung Zwischen Geisterstorung
und Verbrechen," Berlin, 1886.

389

290 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

we shall see, furnishing the largest contingent of
male criminal lunatics), and the other, the smaller
prevalence of epilepsy, together with the tendency
which that disease when existent in women has to
assume the forms of prostitution or lasciviousness,
both offences which, however reprehensible, are less
criminal and less dangerous, and therefore do not lead
ix> sensational trials and jealous reclusion. Ninety-
nine out of a thousand of our female criminal lunatics
were prostitutes, and 212 servants, or of no profession.

Out of 24 female criminal lunatics observed by
Sander 1 1 were thieves, 6 prostitutes, 2 beggars, and
2 swindlers.

As to the nature of the madness, the following
results are given for the decade 1870-79, in Italy; —

Melancholia and monomania of persecution

... 33

Mania

... 22

Imbecility and idiotcy

... 10

Hallucinatory monomania ...

... 7

Megalomania

Suicide

... 4

Moral folly . .«

... 4

showing an evident prevalence of the forms (halluci-
natory monomania, melancholia, suicide) generated by
prison life, and on account of detention, or of those
congenital affections, such as imbecility and idiotcy,
which ought to guarantee the subject from incarcera-
tion ; while the diseases so common in the male
criminal, such as epilepsy and moral folly, are rare.

Esquirol says that even among moral women the
most common forms of madness are melancholia and
furious mania.

In Italy, however, the female melancholies were

CRIMINAL FEMALE LUNATICS. 2gi

inferior to the male as 1,657 to 3>4X4> but the female
maniacs (especially furious maniacs) are as 1,843 to
1,836.

If among the minor criminals, who form the largest
proportion of the incarcerated, there is but little mad-
ness, the contrary is the case among the worse sorts
of criminals.

Salsotto studied the cases of 409 female criminals
in the prison of Turin, and found that 53, or 12*9 per
cent, out of the number were affected as follows :
Epilepsy 1 1 (2*6 per cent.), hysteria 19 (4*9 per cent),
alcoholism 13 (3*1 per cent), and idiotcy 10 (2*5
per cent).

The proportion of the different crimes to madness
was as follows (adding the figures given for male
criminal lunatics by Marro): —

26 p.

in murderesses ( 1 30) — male criminal lunatics 40 p. c.

poisoners (20) — ,, ,,

)»

»>

wounders (10) — ,, ,,

26 „

)»

guilty of assault (10) — ,, „

23 »»

>»

swindlers (20) — „ ,,

23 „

incendiaries (4) — ,, ,,

85 „

guilty of rape (25) — „ „

33 »>

thieves (90) — ,, „

3i »

Here there is an evident prevalence of madness among
the worse criminals, and a certain parallelism with the
males.1

x The various species of mental disorder were distributed as
follows : —
Out of 130 murderesses —

5 epileptics, being 4 per cent,
9 hysterical, „ 7*2 ,,

6 drunkards, „ 5 „

1 somnambulist, ,, 0*9 ,,

2 cretines, „ 1 *8 „
2 idiots, „ 1 *8 „
X religious maniac, ,, 0*9 „

292 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

At Broadmoor the greatest number of lunatics are
to be found among the homicides and wounders (103
in 141) ; next comes incest, 19 ; parricides 6, and
burglary 3.

The greater number of female lunatics are married
women, while the greater number of male lunatics
are single (see " L'Uomo Delinquente," vol. ii.) ; and
this fact confirms the observations made on healthy
criminals in all countries.

The lunatic asylums for females receive more
inmates in summer (25) than in winter (21), while the
figures for spring and autumn are respectively 11-14.
The statistics of male criminals are about the same.

Out of 100 infanticides —

2 epileptics, being 2 per cent.

3 hysterical, „ 3 „
3 idiots, „ 3 „
3 drunkards, „ 3 „

Out of 10 wounders —

3 hysterics, being 30 per cent.

Out of 10 guilty of assault —

I epileptic, being 10 per cent.

1 hysteric, ,, 10 „

Out of 20 poisoners —

2 hysterics, being 10 per cent.
2 epileptics, „ 10 ,,

1 drunkard, „ 5 „

Out of 20 swindlers —

2 hysterics, being 10 per cent.
I epileptic, „ 5 „

Out of 4 incendiaries —

3 ere tines, being 80 per cent.

Out of 25 guilty of rape —

3 drunkards, being 12 per cent.
I hysteric, „ 4 „

CRIMINAL FEMALE LUNATICS. 293

We may conclude that the history of female criminal
lunatics is that of female criminals in general. And
the same may be said of the characteristics of their
madness, which simply serve to accentuate the nature
of their crimes.

2. Premeditation. — Although to a less marked
degree than in the male, the graver cases of moral
insanity or congenital criminality in females present all
the most essential features of epilepsy (see following
chapter). And the ability displayed in the commission
of the crime, its premeditation, the steps taken to
establish an alibi, and the efforts at dissimulation, are
equal and sometimes greater than similar phenomena
in the simple criminal.

One of the most extraordinary instances of ability
was given by Euphrasie Mercier, who carried through
a series of most complicated forgeries in order to
gain possession of the fortune of Madame Menetrier,
then killed her victim, and destroyed all trace of the
corpse ; doing the whole thing so well that, in spite
of all the efforts of the rightful heirs and of one of
the best police systems in Europe, the crime was only
discovered at the end of two years, when a nephew
of the murderess revealed it. And yet Mercier was a
mystic and a monomaniac, religious, but mad probably
from her birth, being the daughter of a religious
lunatic, who believed that he could cure all illnesses.
And her sisters and nephews and nieces were afflicted
with the same delusions (Ball, " De la Responsabilite
partielle," 1886).

A lady of wealth, aged 26, with no hereditary
history, after becoming a prey to fixed melancholia,

294 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

stole sheets, &c, from patients whom she tended as a
nurse, and effaced the marks to escape detection.
She protested remorse, but relapsed again immedi-
ately (Savage).

There are (says Savage) pathological female thieves
who steal, knowing what they do. They feel, especially
at certain periods, an irresistible temptation to thieve,
or to break things, or to plunge their hands into
particular liquids. Nothing will deter them from the
accomplishment of their desires, which they achieve,
if by no other means, then through violence. There
are women whose appetite can only be appeased
with stolen food. (See also vol. ii. of "L'Uomo
Delinquente.")

One peculiarity of the female criminal lunatic,
which is, however, only an exaggeration of her
normal state, is that her madness becomes more
acute at particular periods, such as menstruation,
menopause, and pregnancy.

Esquirol, Algeri, Schroter, and Ball have all noted
instances of this peculiarity, which sometimes exhibits
symptoms resembling epilepsy. In other cases there
will be morbid irritability, melancholy, erotic excite-
ment, delusions as to sins committed, persecutions
undergone, &c.

Brouardel has recorded many examples of incen-
diary and homicidal impulses in pregnant women,
and relates the case of one, the mother of five
children, who sent poison to one child who was at
school, and after despatching orders for the youngest
one, who was with a wet nurse, to be brought to her,
threw herself with the remaining three down a well.

CRIMINAL FEMALE LUNATICS. 295

" In short," writes Icard, " when in this state a
woman is capable of anything. Passionately loving
mothers will cut their children's throats ; and others,
naturally good, will pose as victims, and invent
infamous calumnies against their dear ones ; while
chaste women will talk and act in the most indecent
manner."

"A kind of animal instinct reigns supreme in the
pregnant woman (writes Cabanis, vol. iii. p. 344), and
may drive her to any excess. And the same pheno-
menon is possible at the first return of menstruation,
and during the nursing period."

We see, then, that another characteristic of the
female lunatic, and consequently of the criminal
lunatic, is an exaggeration of the sexual instincts.
These which in male lunatics are almost always in
abeyance, lead in women, even in very old women as
in quite young girls, to the most disgusting and
unnatural excesses. (" Arch, di psich.," vol. vi. p. 219.)

Marro writes, " The majority of female lunatics
at the period of menopause are subject to erotic
delirium. They have ideas of strange marriages
and monstrous births, and are subject to sudden
obscene delusions. One will be seized with a
delirium of jealousy ; another feels herself swarmed
over by little imps, who hang on to her apron, play
her every kind of trick, pinching and pricking
her. Hallucinations, in short, abound, presenting
every variety of delirium springing from the one
basis of sensuality." " Under the influence of mania "
(writes Schtile) " women relieve themselves by inces-
sant chatter, in which there is a mixture of true and
21

296 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

false perceptions, and especially of momentary fan-
tastic ideas accompanied by grimaces and erotic
gestures."

Nymphomania transforms the most timid girl into
a shameless bacchante. She tries to attract every
man she sees, displaying sometimes violence, and
sometimes the most refined coquetry. She often
suffers from intense thirst, a dry mouth, a fetid
breath, and a tendency to bite everybody she meets,
as if affected with hydrophobia, and sometimes she
even shows a horror of liquids, and feels as if she
were being strangled.

One of the writers knew of a case in which these
morbid erotic symptoms appeared in a woman,
previously absolutely chaste, after an attack of diph-
theria. The instance remains unique (Lombroso,
" Amore nei pazzi," 1880).

More common is a milder form of the same mania
in which the subject shows either an excessive clean-
liness or an excessive dirtiness, also a tendency to
strip herself, or tear off her clothes, or to talk of her
own marriage, or that of other people (Emminghaus,
" Allgemeine Psichopathologie," 1878). Sometimes
she is taciturn, melancholy, obstinate ; the presence
of persons of the opposite sex heightens her breath-
ing, makes her pulse beat more rapidly, gives her a
more animated expression. At first reserved, she
will later throw off all restraint, and only think and
talk of sexual things.

Female lunatics in general surpass their male
prototypes in all sexual aberrations and ten-
dencies, and, after long years of observation, I am

CRIMINAL FEMALE LUNATICS. 297

disposed to agree with Hergt (" All. Zeit. Psych.,"
xxvii.), who affirmed that two-thirds of female
lunatics suffer from maladies of the reproductive
organs, which, by increasing reflex action and impair-
ing psychical activity, bring on convulsions and
produce abnormal sensations, which are transformed
into illusions, hallucinations, delirium, or obscene
impulses.

A third characteristic of the female lunatic com-
pared with the male is greater acuteness and im-
pulsiveness, so that in the Italian statistics furious
mania in women is as 669 to 524 in men.

KrafTt Ebing remarked also that in women madness
is usually more turbulent and indecent in its mani-
festation than in men. Briefly, in female criminal
lunatics we find to a more marked degree that which
we had already noted in the ordinary female criminal,
namely, an inversion of all the qualities which spe-
cially distinguish the normal woman ; namely, reserve
docility and sexual apathy.

CHAPTER XVIII.

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS AND MORAL
INSANITY.

I. Epileptic delinquents. — We have discovered the
same relation between moral insanity and epilepsy in
women as in men ; the difference, however, being that
both maladies are infinitely rarer in the female
prisoner.

Marro in the same connection shows that motor
epilepsy also is one-third less frequent in female than
in male delinquents. According to his statistics,
during six and a half years, out of 23,333 male
criminals in the prison of Turin, there were 0'66 per
cent, of epileptics, and 0*22 similarly affected out of
3,358 female offenders ; while, if we take the averages
of the calculations made by Morselli and Sormani,
we find from 0*25 to 0*27 of male epileptics in Italy,
and 0*27 in France (Charvin) among the normal
population.

Much rarer is psychical epilepsy or epileptic mad-
ness, as we may convince ourselves by studying the
statistics of epileptic lunatics in the prisons.

According to the decennial statistics of Beltrani

Scalia, and the investigations of Virgilio Rossi

298

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. 299

(" I. Pazzi criminali," Rome, 1891), out of 349 criminal
lunatics confined in the Italian prisons between 1880
and 1891, 25 were epileptic, and 35 morally insane;
while out of 36 female criminals none were epileptic,
and only three morally insane.

Between the years 1866 and 1882 out of 877 male
lunatics in penal establishments, 9 were epileptic and
49 morally insane ; and out of 20 female lunatics,
none were epileptic, and only one was morally
insane.

In Germany in 188 1 there were 22 epileptics
among 65 male lunatic delinquents (or 33 per cent.) ;
out of 24 female lunatic delinquents, 3 were epileptic
(12 per cent).

This fact, which is very important as regards the
criminality of women, is observed also out of prison
in the ordinary mad-houses.

In Italy, in the year 1878, according to official
statistics, there were in the different mad-houses
1,658 cases ol frenetic epilepsy, of which 1,041 were
men, and 617 women (100 men as against 59*1
women) ; in 1886-88 the female epileptics were 58*0
as against 100 males ; and the predominance in this
respect of men over women appears more marked in
Southern and Central, than in Northern Italy.

Men.

Women.

Out of 100 Men,

N. Italy

.• 515

351

68-i

C. Italy

.. 312

192

61 *4

S. Italy and the Islands

.. 214

38-0

Male epileptics constitute 87 per cent, of all maniacs,
and female epileptics only 5 *8 per cent.

In Germany, Sommer found that out of 100

300 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

epileptics, 607 belonged to the masculine, and 39*3 to
the feminine sex.

In Servia, in the asylum of Belgrade, there were
in 1890 16 male and 6 female epileptics.

In New South Wales (according to statistics
furnished us by the Government of Australia),
between 1887 and 1891 epilepsy was noted as
determining madness 11 1 times in men, and 70
times in women.

The greater number of male epileptics to be found
in the asylums is all the more significant that the
longevity of males so affected is less than in females.
As Kohler justly observes (" Lebensdauer der Epilep-
tiker; Allg. Zeitsch f. Psych," 1877), female epileptics
usually die after the age of 25, and male epileptics
earlier.

Nevertheless, in France and England the majority
of writers maintain that epilepsy is more common in
women. Gowers thinks that the proportion among
100 epileptics is 53*4 males for 46-6 females.
Esquirol believes that the number of female epi-
leptics surpasses the males more than 1*3. But
neither the first nor the second writer give the exact
number of lunatics received into the asylums ; and
it is this number, far more than that of the living
denizens at any given moment, which we ought to
have, for the reason already mentioned, that women
live longer than men.

The extraordinary difference which we have noted
is not in harmony with the observations made upon
motor epilepsy, and can only be explained by the
fact that the cerebral cortex is in women much less

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. 301

irritable than in men with respect to the psychical
centres, although there may be equality of the
motor centres in the two sexes ; and the reason lies
in the inferior psychical activity of women.

Tonnini remarked that epilepsy in the female
more often causes dementia and imbecility than
madness ; that is to say, it produces fewer psychical
anomalies just as it produces fewer degenerative
anomalies, there being 16 of these in women as
against 27 in men, while the contrary happens with
female lunatics, their anomalies being more numerous
than those of male lunatics, in the ratio of 8 to 12.

One of the writers, having already demonstrated
that the greater part of sexual psychopathic phe-
nomena, especially the graver and more monstrous
forms, are epileptoid varieties which, beginning at
puberty, continue throughout the life of the indi-
vidual, we must conclude once again from their
almost total absence in women (who yet in a life of
prostitution would have so many occasions, pretexts,
and reasons for such excesses), that the particular
cortical irritation which results in psychical epilepsy
is much less common in the female than in the
male.

In short, the predominance of the male sex over
the female is evident once more even in that moral
insanity which, as we have proved, presents so many
affinities with congenital criminality and physical
epilepsy.

The subject of criminality in the female receives
illumination from this rarity of epilepsy and moral
insanity among women. It explains why they are

302 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

so much oftener merely occasional criminals, and
why, even when criminals from passion, they hardly
ever commit their crimes in one of those sudden
impulses which are always partly epileptoid ; also
why, in common crimes, they exhibit a premeditation,
a gloating that are the very antithesis of the offence
which springs instantaneously from an epileptic
movement. It throws light on the tardy action of the
female offender, and while confirming the theory of
the relation between congenital criminality and
epilepsy, serves also to explain sexual differences.

On the few occasions where a woman is a born
criminal, I have always discovered in her as in her
male prototype the symptoms of an epileptic ten-
dency ; and naturally these are the more marked the
graver the offence.

Out of 405 women condemned to prison in Turin
for important crimes, Salsotto found epilepsy in 2*6,
which is 13 times higher than the results furnished
by minor offenders. For instance —

In 20 poisoners epilepsy was present in 10 per cent.

10 guilty of murderous assault ,, ,, io ,,

20 swindlers ,, ,, 5 »»

130 murderesses ,, t, 3*9 »»

while in

100 infanticides „ ,, 2 ,,

10 wounders ,, „ o ,,

25 offenders against morals ,, ,, o ,,

90 thieves „ „ o „

Here, then, we see epilepsy prevalent in the worst
congenital criminals, while it gradually diminishes
and disappears as we reach the class of occasional
offenders.

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. S°3

Again, among the worst criminals the motor forms
of epilepsy are rarer and less frequent than with
men, while the psychical forms predominate, as in
the following instances : —

T. P., aged 19, a painter's model, expelled from
France, where she had been a year in prison for
homicide, repeated the offence of stabbing so many
times that she was confined on 26 occasions in
one year in the prison of Turin. She was 1*59 m.
in height and weighed 54 kgs. Her lower jaw was
much developed ; she had orbital margins, prominent
cheek-bones and sinuses, a regular nose and ears,
black hair (scanty from long-standing scald), very
large, sparkling dark brown eyes ; enormous median
incisors (with diasthema), and canine lateral teeth
sloping internally and backwards like all the other
lateral teeth. The total circumference of her cranium
was 570. Its probable capacity, 1616. Cephalic
index, 84. She was tattooed with the entire name of
an Italian lover, whom she had known in Paris, and
a date, both ornamented, and on her left arm bore
the initials of another lover, and the words, " faime
Jean?

General sensitiveness : she felt the Faraday
current at 66 mm. on the right side (normal 70) and
at 55 on the left. Sensitiveness to pain : 30 on the
right side (normal 36) and 30 on the left. Tactile
sensitiveness : 2 mm. on the right, 2'5 on the left ; in
the tongue, 1*5. Great meteoric sensitiveness: she
showed much irritability during atmospheric changes.
Magnetic sensitiveness : she felt a strong burning
sensation when the magnet was applied to her fore-

304 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

head. Sense of taste, small. Sense of smell, dull.
Sight : 30*20 in both eyes. Exact chromatic per-
ception. Hearing: she perceived a watch at 140
cm. on the right and 131 cm. on the left.

She had been very precocious, and was a mother
(of a dead child) for the first time when only 16.
Her movements were easy, prompt, and very rapid ;
and her muscular agility most remarkable. Her
muscular force was exceptional, the dynamometer
marking 55 on the right and 50 on the left ; and
although bound she succeeded in tearing the strait-
waistcoat which had sometimes to be applied to her.
Her greatest force lay in her teeth, with which she
could reduce wood, glass, and other things to the
smallest pieces. Her voice was sonorous and har-
monious ; her perception and ideation rapid. She
could remember distant events, but not recent ones.
She was very dissolute, and chose her lovers among
the worst characters. When she had money she
consumed it in drinking, smoking, and gluttony. Of
a mule-like obstinacy, she was also extremely
capricious, and demanded the satisfaction of every
fancy which she took into her head even when in
prison. Her hatred knew no limits, and she gloated
over revenge with voluptuous delight. Having been
betrayed by one of her lovers, she tattooed his name
and the date of her acquaintance with him on her
right arm, at the same time swearing vengeance on
him. And one day, having enticed him to visit her,
she spat in his face a paste composed of glass and
tobacco, which she had kept in her mouth, and which
blinded him completely. Another lover, having

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. 305

beaten her when drunk, she allowed him to fall
asleep, and then set fire to the mattress on which he
was lying.

When she entered prison for the 26th time in one
year she was covered with wounds, but would not
give up the name of the man who had attacked her,
saying that she wished to work her own revenge, and
she did not conceal even from the judge the intention
of wounding her assailant as soon as she should be
at liberty again. She always carried a knife, which
she used on the smallest provocation and with the
utmost indifference. She was quite insensible to the
consequences of the wounds she inflicted, and recalled
with pleasure a man whom she killed, as we shall
see, in Paris. She often found that to stab was not
satisfaction enough, and preferred to blind her
victims.

She was, however, kind to her female companions
when in need, and she was passionately fond of
children. While not really a thief, she appropriated
with great facility anything which came in her way.
She spoke French and Piedmontese slang with
great facility, and sang forbidden songs in a pleasing
manner.

Prison life had no terrors for her ; on the contrary
she dominated the situation and insisted on the best
treatment.

Born near Caserta, she was stolen by some stroll-
ing mountebanks at the age of two years ; and grew
up without knowing that she was not among her own
kindred. Having quickly learnt to sing and dance,
she was forced under pain of merciless beatings to

306 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

beg through the streets, and began this life at 14
years of age. At last, when with her companions in
the neighbourhood of Paris, she learnt that the man
whom she had always regarded as her father did not
stand in that relation to her, and was, on the contrary,
deeply in love with her. Frightened and much
grieved, the girl escaped and went to Paris. She
lived for some days by singing, then became the
mistress, for two years, of a young man, a model,
from Catanzaro, by whom (at 16) she had a dead
child. She eventually left her lover, who, she dis-
covered, had been unfaithful to her ; and from that
moment she began the habit of carrying about the
knife which she wielded, often in drunken affrays,
with such facility.

She killed a painter who had refused to pay her,
and it was after her imprisonment for this crime
that she began to be a model ; but her life became
ever more profligate and bestial, and she frequented
the worst company. Even when out of prison her
unruly conduct caused her to be arrested for wound-
ing alone 12 times in one year. The police said that
she ought to be arrested every day. In affrays she
almost always came out victorious, being so active
and daring as to put men as well as women to flight.
When in prison she clamoured and shrieked for days
together, and broke everything within her reach. No
punishment sufficed to correct her. The slightest
cause would provoke this condition, the only way of
calming which was to give her something that she
wanted. She only remembered the crisis very con-
fusedly when it had passed, but sometimes an allu-

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. 307

sion to the outbreak provoked a fresh one in
her.

At intervals of two or three months she had been
seized with true motor epilepsy, to the great terror of
her cell-companion (whom it may be mentioned in
passing she had corrupted).

Another of our examples is M. B., aged 47, whose
type of face is Mongolian. Capacity 1,426 ; touch
somewhat dull, 2*8 on the right side, 2 on left (left-
handedness) ; slight sensory deadness, also slight
insensibility to pain ; sight affected by peripheral
scotomata in the internal superior quadrant.

From her early youth she had drunk 5 or 6 litres
of wine a day, and eight wine-glasses of aquavita.
At the age of 20 she stole a thousand francs, which she
squandered in articles of adornment and in wine.
Later she wounded a lover who had left her for
another woman, and strung herself up to the act by
drinking, because, as she said, " He who has most
thread spins most cloth." Even now she dwells with
delight on the idea of having punished him, and talks
of doing as much for her relatives who refuse her her
share of inheritance. In any case she says she will
cut down their vines and their grain.

She does not know that she was ever epileptic, but
many times when at her work in the kitchen she has
cut her hand without noticing it. She has had attacks
of giddiness without cause, and has fallen to the
ground in them ; and finally she has on three distinct
occasions shown that she did not know what she was
doing by acts of unusual eccentricity, one being an
attempt to light the fire with a note for 50 francs

308 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

which she took from a drawer, and which her mis-
tress only succeeded in snatching from her just in
time.

She has no recollection of these acts any more than
she was conscious at the time of performing them, and
she relates them as they were told her.

Yet another case is that of a woman whom at first
sight we took to be an occasional delinquent. She
had but few characteristics of degeneration, only over-
hanging brows, a heavy lower part to her face, alveolar
prognathism, and anatomical and functional left-
handedness. She took part with her lover in an
audacious robbery committed upon a dealer in
second-hand articles : then tried to escape, but, when
arrested, confessed everything (having, however, the
stolen article in her hand). She declared that
when released she would choose prostitution rather
than crime. Her capacity was remarkable ; her
physiognomy pleasing. Her touch was dull on the
left side, 3 mm. ; her sensibility to pain normal, and
normal also her taste and smell ; visual field of left
eye slightly limited. There was something virile and
energetic about the woman. She had quarrelled with
her father, and was filled with hatred for the lover
who had been the cause of her misfortunes. Her
rages were most violent, and because the prison-sister
briefly reproved her she muttered, " One day I
shall take her by the hair and throw her from the
window."

This subject, who is a middle type between crimi-
naloids and born criminals, had only one real attack
of motor epilepsy, and that was caused by the deep

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. 309

annoyance of seeing her brother's mistress, who was
also in prison, receive presents, while for herself there
were none.

2. Prostitutes. — According to Parent-Duchatelet's
statistics, the cases of epilepsy among prostitutes are
as 0*98 per cent, which is higher than the figure
which we found for minor born offenders, but lower
than the average among the worst sort of female
criminals. In Turin among 480 slightly criminal
prostitutes we found 1*5 per cent, of epileptics.

But these figures as a whole do not correspond to
the important part played by prostitutes in criminal
anthropology, and we saw, moreover, that out of 25
women condemned for corruption of morals not one
was epileptic, and only in one case, which was com-
plicated by hysteria, did we find a true epileptic
equivalent in the ranks of prostitution.

Here, then, is another of those contradictory facts
of which we have met so many in the course of our
work, but which becomes largely comprehensible when
we reflect on the indecency, the lasciviousness, the
semi-imbecility constituting the special character of
prostitutes, as well as of the morally insane in the
female sex (see following pages), and when we re-
member that the courtesan reproduces the atavistic
condition of the primitive woman.

Seeing the passive and retrogressive nature of the
prostitute one can understand how an atavistic return
of moral insanity accounts for her appearance on the
scene without the intervention of that cortical irrita-
tion which produces psychical epilepsy and leads to
the graver crimes and the more striking cases of
sexual perversity.

Out of

Men.

Women.

100 Men.

56-8

63-6

i8-6

310 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

3. The morally insane. — In 1888 there were 148
cases of moral insanity in the Italian lunatic asylums,
105 being men and 43 women ; that is to say, for 100
men 40*9 women. In the years 1886-88 there were
155 females and 274 males, or 5 5 '6 of the former for
100 of the latter ; and predominance of the male sex
is more marked in Southern than in Northern Italy,
just as we saw was the case with epilepsy.

N. Italy

C. Italy

S. Italy (and the Islands) ... ,

" Moral insanity," writes Schiile, " shows itself in
women especially during the first period of matri-
mony. They show an open aversion to their hus-
bands. If they have children they treat them with
undisguised indifference, and give them over care-
lessly to a wet nurse, so as to preserve their own
beauty ; and if their husbands do not gratify any
one of their many caprices they revenge them-
selves by ill-treating their children. She declares
herself neglected and ill-treated by her husband,
and to revenge herself does not hesitate to calum-
niate him to her friends, and to reveal all the
secrets of domestic life. She maintains always
that she alone is right, and her fluency in inventing
and misrepresenting is inexhaustible. She is ex-
travagant, and levies small tolls on the accounts ; she
perpetually buys costly clothes, loves strange fashions,
is extremely vain, and very anxious to appear young.
If remonstrated with she threatens to commit suicide
or to leave the family roof. She neglects to train

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. 3II

her children, gives them a pernicious example of
uncontrolled temper, and insinuates in them a hatred
of their father. When such women become profligate
they claim all possible license for themselves, and often
threaten to enter a house of ill-fame, and yet are
not rarely subject to a delirium of jealousy, in which
they threaten their husband's life. When calm returns
they retire to a corner and sit there brooding, sus-
picious and melancholy."

There is a more constant relation between prosti-
tution and the commoner forms of moral insanity
such as lead to confinement in an asylum. Here the
symptoms are still anger and excessive hatred, but
joined to these are obscenity and unnatural vices*

C. di B., who had lateral analgesia, cranial capacity
greater than the female average (1445), and was epi-
leptic, hated everybody who approached, even those
who were kind to her : and one day she begged to be
allowed to beat two dogs because it irritated her to
see other people caress them.

C. di S. P. wanted to drive her own daughters
to vice, and not for gain, but simply out of a
perverted desire to give them pleasure. She was
subject to unnatural vices, feigned a hundred maladies
to avoid the necessity of working, and had created a
positive association of calumniators among the hys-
terical women in her ward.

I knew a woman of high family, well-educated, and
a poetess, who had led the most profligate existence,
but nevertheless accused her husband of dissolute
conduct with such plausibility, that she succeeded in
drawing the attention of the authorities to him. In the
22

312 THE FEMALE OFFENDER.

asylum she boasted of her former profligate life, and
twitted the matrons for having observed a different rule
of conduct. She was already an old woman, but suc-
ceeded nevertheless in getting up intrigues within the
asylum, then turned on those who had abetted her
and calumniated them as she calumniated the medical
attendants, thereby causing them the gravest annoy-
ances. She composed magnificent verses on the
beauty of platonic love, and on the very same day
would resort to disgusting eccentricities of food — a
perversion of appetite which was her only sign of
madness.

Another poetess of great intelligence showed the
same profligacy in her love affairs, of which she made
shameless confessions to the men themselves. She
was rich, but induced everybody to give her promis-
sory notes, of which she always exacted full pay-
ment ; and what she most desired in her intrigues
was publicity, with its concomitant scandal.

Another woman, with all the characteristics of de-
generation (enormous jaw and sinuses, but a great fine-
ness of touch, rimm.),had been sold by her mother to a
man who honourably married her. From the very day of
her marriage she poisoned her husband's life, accusing
him before the syndic and the doctors of infidelity,
even of incest And when he wished her to undergo
an operation for internal polypus, she maintained that
he only desired it to kill her. She spent the whole
day in idleness, only interrupted by excesses in drink-
ing and profligacy, and by card-playing, the latter
being resorted to by her for the purpose of divining
the intentions of her husband and her lovers. Her

EPILEPTIC DELINQUENTS. 313

habits and conversation in the asylum were most
indecent. Like many persons of obscene habits, she
also showed at times a desire for disgusting food ;
but she was clever enough before the doctors and
judges to justify everything she did, and succeeded
at last in getting her husband prosecuted.

(i)

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