Prof. Lombroso writing the introduction to Dr Arthur's "Criminology" says:—"This point as to the type, is scarcely recognized even by the most respectable savants. The reasons for this are many: above all, there are the criminals by occasion or by passion, who do not belong to the type and should not, for in great part it is the circumstances, and often the laws, which make them criminals and not Nature. And then some have strange ideas concerning the type."
No doubt if the acceptation of the idea of type is carried out in its complete universality, it cannot be accepted; but as I have already said in my previous writings that it is necessary to receive this idea with the same reserve which one appreciates averages in statistics.
When it is said that the average of life is 32 years, and that the month least (? most) fatal to life, is December, no one understands by this that all or almost all men should die at the age of 32 years and in the month of December; but I am not the only one to make this restriction. In order to show this I have to cite the definition which Monsieur Topinard, himself the most inveterate of my adversaries, gives in his remarkable work "The Type," says Gratiolet, "is a synthetic expression." "The Type," says Goethe, is "the abstract and general image" which we deduce from the observation of the common parts and from the differences. "The type of a species," adds Isidorus St. Helaire, "never appears before our eyes but is perceived only by the mind." "Human types," writes Broca, "have no real existence, they are only abstract conceptions, ideals, which come from the comparison of ethnic varieties, and are composed of an ENSEMBLE of characters common to a certain degree among themselves." I agree with these different points of view. The type is indeed an ENSEMBLE of traits, but in relation to a group which it characterises, it is also the ENSEMBLE of its most prominent traits, and those repeating themselves, whence comes a series of consequences which the anthropologist should never lose sight of either in his laboratory or in the midst of the populations of Central Africa." Manouvrier opposes Lombroso's theory and denies the existence of the type. He argues that if it exist at all it must be universal, whereas the peculiarities noted by Lombroso are present in honest as well as in criminal persons, the latter having, however, the greater proportion.
The doctrine of Fatalism seems at first sight to be bound up in the acceptance of Lombroso's theory: but such is not the case. Lombroso himself declares that the type belongs to the born criminal only, and that the born criminal can be nothing more than an epileptic; criminality being a neurosis. It would thus seem that the type was but the indication of an organic defect which physically or psychically rendered the subject unable to adapt himself to the social condition; but not that unchangeable ideas, contradicting pure morality, were innate. Lombroso goes no further than to state definitely that the type exists, and that there are very clear indications that a different type will be found to correspond with the different forms of criminality. That the peculiarities are found also in persons living honest lives, proves nothing against his theory. For instance, there are many persons of distinctly criminal instincts who are kept in the paths of honesty merely by circumstances; and again, scientific investigation has not yet completed its work, and while certain typical peculiarities may be noted in the criminal and in the non-criminal alike, it is more than likely that the type will be found to consist in different combinations which will be discovered to exist in the criminal (not necessarily, the convict) exclusively. Or the type may consist in the peculiarities plus expression. The following typical peculiarities have been noticed by different criminologists:—
The Cranium.—The more frequent persistence of the metopic or frontal suture. The effacement, more or less complete, of the parietal or parieto-occipital sutures in a large number of criminals. The notched sutures are the most simple. The frequency of the wormian bones in the region of the median and in the lateral posterior frontal. The backward direction of the plane of the occipital depression. (Dr A. Corre.)
Feeble cranial capacity; heavy and developed jaw; large orbital capacity; projecting superciliary ridges; abnormal and assymetrical cranium; the presence of a median occipital fossa. (Lombroso.)
The Face.—Scanty beard; abundant hair, prognathism, thick lips, dull eye, lemurian appendix to the jaw, pteleriform type of the nasal opening, projecting ears, squinting eyes, receding forehead and deformed nose. "Those guilty of rape (if not cretins) almost always have a projecting eye, delicate physiognomy, large lips and eyelids, the most of them are slender, blond and rachitic. The pederast often has feminine elegance, long and curly hair, and even in prison garb, a certain feminine figure, delicate skin, childish look, and abundance of glossy hair parted in the middle. Burglars who break into houses have as a rule woolly hair, deformed cranium, powerful jaws, and enormous zygomatic arches, are covered with scars on the head and trunk, and are often tatooed. Habitual homicides have a glassy, cold, immobile, sometimes sanguinary and dejected look; often an aquiline nose, or, in other words, a hooked one like a bird of prey, always large; the jaws are large, ears long, hair woolly, abundant and rich (dark); beard rare, canine teeth, very large; the lips are thin. A large number of swindlers and forgers have an artlessness, and something clerical in their manner, which gives confidence to their victims. Some have a haggard look, very small eyes, crooked nose, and the face of an old woman." (Dr MacDonald, page 40.)
The following proverbs, collected by Lombroso, show the recognition in the popular mind of the criminal type:—"There is nothing worse than a scarcity of beard and no colour." "Pale face is either false or treacherous." (Rome.) "A red-haired man and a bearded woman greet at a distance." (Venice.) "Be thou suspicious of the woman with a man's voice." "God preserve me from the man without a beard." (France.) "Pale face is worse than the itch." (Piedmont.) "Bearded women and unbearded men, salute at a distance." (Tuscan.) "Men of little beard of little faith." "Wild look, cruel custom." "Be thou suspicious of him who laughs, and beware of men with small twinkling eyes." (Tuscan.)
It must be remembered that while physiognomy gives valuable hints it is by no means absolutely certain. Further investigation may add materially to its value. It is also to be remembered that habits play an important part in the physiognomy. So much so is this true that it has been said of the reformed criminals from Elmira, that their faces have changed.