“And then, if we are arrested, we live at the expense of others, who clothe us, feed us, and warm us, all at the cost of those whom we have robbed!
“I will say more. During our detention in prison we think out and prepare new means of success.
“If I regret anything, Mr. Prefect, it is that I am condemned to only a year. If it had been for five I should have been sent to a central prison, where I should have met some old hands, who would have taught me some new trick, and I should have returned to Paris clever enough to live without working.
“They talk of thieves as of persons always in misery, and who always finish their lives in prison; but they think of those whom they have seen in their apparent state when arrested. They do not consider that many have secret resources, and that most of them are clever enough to get on without ever having anything to do with justice.” This man, it is clear, had aspirations and ideals which, though they found satisfaction by a different method, were much the same as those of ordinary persons. He represents the professional criminal.
“Ah! too often it is forgotten,” wrote G. Ruscovitch, a prince among forgers, the accomplished student of science, the perfect master of half-a-dozen languages, “too often it is forgotten that criminals are members of society. All these bodies, sometimes abandoned by all except the satellites charged to guard them, are not all opaque; some of them are diaphanous and transparent. The vulgar sand which you tread under foot becomes brilliant crystal when it has passed through the furnace. The dregs may become useful if you know how to employ them; to tread them under foot with indifference and without thought is to undermine the foundations of society and to fill it with volcanoes. The man who has not visited the caverns, can he know the mountain well? The lower strata, for being situated deeper and farther from the light, are they less important than the external crust? There are deformities and diseases among us to make one shudder; but since when has horror forbidden study, and the disease driven away the physician?”
CHAPTER V.
THE RESULTS OF CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY.
So far I have been summarising the chief results obtained in the investigation of the criminal up to the present date by many workers in various lands. There is not very much doubt about the results here recorded; even when they do not agree among themselves, it is still generally possible to account for the divergency by the special character of the group to which the individuals examined belong. But when we come to consider the significance of the facts we are no longer on such safe and simple ground. There is, however, no reason here for surprise when we remember how youthful a science criminal anthropology is. Even the related science of general anthropology is still young, and much of our progress in it still lies in the unlearning of our errors, so that, as Virchow recently remarked, we know considerably less about anthropology to-day than we knew some years ago. The same is true of another related science, the study of insanity. If therefore my conclusions as to the place of the criminal in nature may seem to be somewhat cautious and tentative, it must be remembered that we are still slowly feeling our way to firm ground. Few as are the general conclusions which we may boldly assert, they are yet sufficient to throw a flood of new light on the nature of the criminal, and on his treatment and prevention.