Psychology and Crime

by Thomas Holmes

None the less the poor fellow felt the indignity and cruelty of his position, and whenever committed to prison he never failed to communicate with the Home Secretary, and petition for release. In the pigeon-holes of the Home Office I have no doubt many of this man’s letters and appeals are carefully stored.

But unfortunately when epileptics marry the evil and suffering does not end with them, for when children are born, they often prove very strange beings.

I have watched the growth of such children; I have seen their strange whims and their oft-times irresponsibility. I have known the girls become hopelessly immoral and cleverly dishonest even at their school age. One of the cleverest thieves I ever knew was a girl of fourteen, whose father was an epileptic. She looked the picture of confiding innocence, but she robbed and cheated all sorts of people: doctors and clergymen were her special prey.

She was charged repeatedly; no reformatory would receive her, for she was flagrantly immoral. At sixteen she was a drab and a sleeper-out; at eighteen she became an inmate of a lunatic asylum, but at twenty her life came mercifully to an end.

I have watched the progress of boys born to an epileptic mother or father, and again, they are strange beings. I have not found them to be the equal of girls in lying or dishonesty, but I have found them to be idle and shiftless; incapable of giving sustained attention to study or work; sometimes becoming drunkards and vagrants before the days of full manhood were reached.

So far as my experience goes, I have not found that the children of an epileptic suffer from “fits” or manifest seizures. They do not bear on their bodies the cuts, wounds and bruises that are often found on the bodies of those who do suffer, but I have found, and certainly my experience does not stand alone, that they are often irresponsible creatures possessing strange minds, clever in certain directions and those directions not for good; capable of serious crime, but never exhibiting any sorrow, fear or remorse when convicted of any offence. They generally insist upon their absolute innocence, but go to prison just as unconcernedly as they would go elsewhere.

Not very long ago a wealthy gentleman wrote to me about his daughter, a beautiful and accomplished woman of twenty-two. He told me that she had been in prison and was again in the hands of the police, charged with fraud. His letter led to an interview; he candidly told me that his daughter had been untruthful and dishonest for many years, but now he was ashamed to say that she was grossly immoral.

He had been compelled to remove her from every educational establishment in which she had been placed, for her lies and dishonesty could not be tolerated. He had placed her with more than one private governess, but while she made excellent progress with her studies, and especially with music, even for liberal payment no one could be found to give her a home and supervision beyond a very short period.

The grief and shame of both father and mother were apparent; their daughter being in the hands of the police, they knew that I could not save her; but they wanted some hope and some guidance for the future. “Can nothing be done?” they repeatedly asked. I could give them but little comfort; I dared not create hope, for I had learned during our conversation that the mother herself suffered at intervals, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, from epileptic “fits.” In my heart I felt sure that this was the real cause of the daughter’s strange behaviour; I did not, however, add to their sorrow by telling them what I thought.

My experience of epileptics has been much larger than the ordinary run of my life would lead any one to imagine, for outside my police court and prison experience I have had frequent opportunities for gaining knowledge and forming judgment. Probably few men have a more varied post-bag than myself; rightly or wrongly, large numbers of people believe that I can give them advice or help in family and other matters.