Dr Chapple failing to illuminate us upon this point we inquire, does a criminally defective ancestry invariably convey to its offspring a taint disposing it towards crime? Or can it ever be ascertained that a certain given ancestry will certainly produce criminals?
In the treatment of the subject of heredity it has been made clear that on account of the vicious habits of the criminal he is apt to transmit to his offspring a physical defect which will make it difficult for him to adapt himself to the conditions of the society in which he is placed. This difficulty becomes almost, though not quite, insurmountable when the environment is one in which the practice of vice and dishonesty is easier than that of virtue and thrift.
The transmission of a taint which is a cause of criminality cannot be denied, but the close investigation of the criminal and of his family has revealed the fact that among the comparatively few criminals who are parents they do not all transmit a taint or defect to their offspring, nor among those from whom a taint has been transmitted has it necessarily been transmitted to every child.
The "Jukes" family being the most exceptional of all cases in which criminal heredity may be observed can be investigated for the purposes of discovering the extreme affirmative which the question proposed can give. The answer is an emphatic no. When the "Jukes" intermarried there was, strange as it may seem, almost an entire absence from crime in the family following upon such union. When they married into other families, crime frequently made its appearance. This, at least, shows that an hereditary taint is not invariably conveyed. It may be claimed that it proves that, under certain conditions, such taint is conveyed; but in cases of this nature we do not reach our particular and exclusive affirmatives anything like so rapidly as we reach our particular and exclusive negatives. The negative is often obvious, the affirmative generally remote. It may be that by cross marriages the element of virility, necessary to maintain criminality, is sustained: but if that were so it would be expected that pauperism would necessarily result from consanguineous marriages which is not so far the case as to indicate cause and effect. A more plausible suggestion is that in consanguineous marriages there is a tendency for the family ties to be reunited and the family ideal restored. Such, of course, effectively disposes of criminality. Of the three grandsons of Ada Jukes, who were themselves the sons of her one illegitimate son, their family report is as follows:—The first was licentious, a sheep-stealer, quarrelsome, and an habitual drunkard. He married a disreputable woman and had several children. Of his seven boys, five were criminals. The second grandson kept a tavern and a brothel and was a thief. He married a brothel keeper. Of his six sons, two were criminals. The third grandson was industrious but occasionally intemperate. He married a woman addicted to the opium habit. Of his four sons, none were criminals. These are fairly average cases, and they, at least, affirm very distinctly that the criminal does not always transmit a taint to his child which will dispose that child towards crime.
Although in the cases cited above only some 40 per cent. of the children were criminals, it must, however, be observed that a great deal of criminality goes unpunished, so that we might fix the average at 75 per cent. and be more exact. Of the 75 per cent. we must find out whether their heredity or their environment was the cause of their being criminal. Dugdale's observations led him to conclude that heredity is a latent cause which requires environment for its development. These 75 per cent., however, will be referred to again. There being 25 per cent. honest and industrious, brings us face to face with a question affecting the morality of Dr Chapple's proposal.
Since then all the children of criminal ancestry are not themselves criminal or likely to become criminals through an hereditary taint, can a proposal be accepted which would not only prevent the birth of the hereditary criminal, but would also prevent the birth of several persons who would have become good and useful citizens.
Thus far only the criminal descended from a criminal ancestry has been considered, whereas, as was stated previously, there are a considerable number of criminals termed "hereditary" criminals who are descended from a drunken ancestry. The proportion of these is about 33 per cent. of the whole. The impossibility of the success of Dr Chapple's remedy is very apparent from the insurmountable difficulties that would be experienced in determining with exactitude when a person was so degenerate in his own system as to make it positive that his prospective offspring would be born a criminal defective. Uncertainty, in this matter, reigns supreme.
There must remain then but very little support for Dr Chapple's proposal when we discover firstly:—that the criminal is very rarely a parent, and secondly:—that in every case a taint is not transmitted from parent to child. Its sphere of effectiveness is restricted by the very circumstances of the case, and even within that restricted sphere its operation would be most clumsy for it would prevent the birth of all a criminal's children, good and bad alike. Thus it would become both a moral and economic failure.
Dr Chapple has taken it for granted that a criminal's rate of increase is at least equal to the average if not indeed, for certain reasons, considerably greater, and that he in all cases transmits an hereditary taint to his offspring. Then he seeks for a remedy whereby the transmission of this taint may be avoided and he can find none other than one which prevents the very possibility of the prospective child being born. Before coming to such a drastic conclusion enquiry might have been made to discover whether there might not exist a remedy which would be a remedy in the truest sense. That is a remedy which would, while it would prevent the transmission of the taint, yet it would not interfere with reproduction. Such a remedy would be in fact a method for the reformation of the criminal, for if the criminal were reformed the problem would be solved. If he were transformed into an honest and industrious man then the transmission of the criminal taint is at once prevented. There are some, however, who maintain that the criminal is incorrigible and that reformatory agencies have invariably failed. They look upon all attempts on behalf of the criminal as a useless expenditure of energy and money. This question of the possibility or otherwise of the reform of the criminal must now be settled before we can proceed further.
Is the criminal incorrigible? Some criminals do not ever reform because they cannot. These are insane. Some do not because they will not; but these may. The many who pass through our gaols and show no signs of reform does not prove that although they may reform they never will. If nine hundred and ninety-nine cases were observed of men resisting reform it would not prove the impossibility of reforming the thousandth. It would point to the difficulty, the remote probability or the need of different methods; but it would not determine the impossibility. When the term "incorrigible" is applied to certain criminals it does not mean that these men are incapable of reform; but they are RESISTING reform; and no one can tell when or whether the most obstinate of these will surrender his will to the dictates of conscience and commence a life of reform. The possibility is always an open question. No better testimony can be brought forward than that of Mr Z. R. Brockway, late Superintendent of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Mr Brockway is one of the pioneers in reformatory work and is considered the greatest living authority upon the subject. Some 10,000 felons have passed through their hands. Speaking at the Fourth International Prison Congress held in St. Petersburg in 1890 he said:—"There is a sense in which nothing that lives is incapable of betterment, and so strictly speaking there are no incorrigible criminals. If it is possible to grasp the thought and cherish it, we should endeavour to discover in the very worst characters some spark of humanity which unites us all in ties of relationship, some secret soul-chambers where superhuman influences may find lodgment, and so with good leaven pervade the whole man; at least we may find in our sphere a field for most fascinating scientific research and experiment.