| Normal Women | Criminal Women | ||
| Receding foreheads | 8 per cent. | 11 per cent. | |
| Enormous lower jaws | 9 per cent. | 15 per cent. | |
| Projecting cheek bones | 14 per cent. | 19.9 per cent. | |
| Murderesses | 30 per cent. | ||
| Projecting ears | 6 per cent. | 9.2 per cent. | |
| Flat nose | 40 per cent. | Thieves | 20 per cent. |
Gradenigo (quoted by Lombroso) gives the following table showing the peculiarities of the ears of 245 criminals as compared with 14,000 normal women:—
| Normal | Criminal | ||
| Regular external ear | 65 per cent. | 54 per cent. | |
| Sessile ear | 12 per cent. | 20 per cent. | |
| Scaphoid fossa prolonged to lobe | 8.2 per cent. | 21.2 per cent. | |
| Projecting ears | 3.1 per cent. | 5.3 per cent. | |
| Prominent anti-helix | 11.5 per cent. | 14.2 per cent. | |
| Darwin's tubercle | 3 per cent. | 2.9 per cent. |
Other anthropometrists notice different proportions.]
If Lombroso's theory, that a man was born a criminal, was to be taken as the rule, Manouvrier declares that it must then be universal, and that men thus born must inevitably commit crime. If it be a rule then it must operate in all classes, and since it does not so operate, proof is given that it is not the rule. Manouvrier declares that the man possessed of characteristics the very opposite of Lombroso's criminal, if subjected to the conditions, influences, and temptations, which lead to crime would as likely commit crime as he who possessed all the characteristics which Lombroso describes as typical. Manouvrier regards the social life of a person from childhood as being the most important factor in moulding character. He emphatically denies that there is in the embryo a predisposition to crime. Dr Magnan likewise refuses his assent to this theory.
It may be rather daring to suggest a theory which would reconcile the differences between these eminent men: but as the facts presented by each side are indisputable, some such reconciliation must exist. Possibly if we interpret Lombroso's phrase, "inherited tendency towards crime" or "predisposition towards crime" in the same way as we interpret the term ("predisposition towards disease") when speaking of tubercular persons (or, as Mercier speaks of the insane), that is as persons, who in a given favourable environment, are more likely to commit crime than persons without that inherited tendency, we may find these theories to be more in accord with one another. Lombroso insists that there must be an inherited tendency, Manouvrier insists that there must be environment. As in the case of tubercular persons (of tubercular ancestry) these two causes are complementary, may it not be also the case with criminals of criminal ancestry? The INHERITED IMMORAL IDEA seems to be really what Manouvrier rejects. A vicious conception of life which makes the man inevitably, incurably, and irresistibly a criminal, is apparently the interpretation he puts on Lombroso's theory. But from Lombroso's works and speeches, the interpretation does not appear to be at all a necessary one. The transmission of a disordered nervous system with its consequences, as one cause, the "hypnotic influence of circumstances" as another cause, and these two causes acting sometimes separately and sometimes conjointly, will very possibly account for the phenomena Lombroso observes. A most important factor, and one which cannot be disregarded, compels the acceptance of some such theory. This factor is the success resulting from reformatory effort. It is not only Lombroso and Manouvrier that need to be reconciled, but Lombroso, Manouvrier and Brockway. This latter gentleman is the founder of the famous Elmira Reformatory which has reformed 82 per cent. of 12,000 felons which have been committed to it for treatment.
We come then to this conclusion that heredity plays an important part in the production of the criminal; but that there are other very important factors which are often confused with it and when separated from it reduce the popular estimate of its influence to the scientific one, which is considerably the lesser one. Furthermore, as a consequence of this investigation, the true foundations upon which reformatory science is to be built are clearly indicated.
This statement, that heredity plays an important part in the production of the criminal, needs to be carefully guarded. It means precisely this and nothing more:—That where an hereditary influence (such as above described) making crime easier, has been transmitted, there that influence is an important factor in the production of the criminal. It does NOT mean that this influence is invariably transmitted by the criminal parent, neither does it mean that the majority of criminals are "born" criminals.
The following is an extract from a letter upon this subject which the author has received from Dr. Arthur MacDonald, one of the leading criminologists of to-day:—"There is no proof of any scientific value that criminality is inherited." By criminality we understand "the moral basis of crime."
The famous "Jukes" family that lived in the State of New York, afford one of the most interesting studies in heredity to be found in the annals of criminology. Of this numerous family (some 709 persons of which were clearly traced in five generations) the elder sons took to crime and the younger sons to vagabondage. There was indeed a proportion of honest and industrious persons among them. Of the women 52 per cent. were prostitutes. That a proportion of honest men among the sons, and a fair number of virtuous women among the daughters is recorded, clearly proves that an hereditary taint is not, in all cases, necessarily transmitted from parent to child. Latency in one generation, with activity in the next, is frequently observed in the transmission of disease; but in the case of crime, as distinguished from vice, this is rarely so.