Way back of Civil War days, a gentleman-horseman of Rhode Island changed the gait of the saddle horse of the lady of his choice to the pace, agreeably with the fastidious taste of the lady. Then, it was, the “pacer” made his bow to the horse world. To-day, he speeds better than fifty-fifty with trotters through the “Grand Circuit,” and almost surely transmits the instinct to pace. Hopples now are employed mainly to prevent “breaking”; in fact, pacing champions have been leg-free of them.
What’s the answer, if not transmitted instinct, and who is to draw the boundary line thereof? If the instinct to play a base horn, why not the instinct to play a base part? If the instinct to play a base part, why not the instinct to brood and abnormally berate oneself, or flippantly break laws, or froth over fol-de-rol, or “fake” the whole human scheme?
At any rate, the instinctive intent of the habitual criminal is summed up in the last phrase of the preceding paragraph. Therefore, we needs must sharpen our tools of amendment and repair accordingly.
Sharpening, we shall learn on the one hand that bloviation brands the surface-sign, self-seeking examiner; and on the other hand, that be his lip-service never so fulsome in favor of this or that man, method, or régime of reform, the examined is dealing from the bottom of the deck if he does not hearken unto “The stern daughter of the voice of God.”
The subject is hearkening if he has the grit to pass up “gutter guff” always circulating in the criminal crowd, while he puts forth earnest efforts for fundamental averages. Contrariwise, if he juggles those averages with his mind clamped to the sporting schedule of the place, he is “faking”; he is faking, even though he cunningly steers clear of the house disciplinarian. Hence, the rational régime of reform will require him to do the one, while making it practically impossible for him to do the other, and make an early parole—as he now does.
Save for congenital deviates the like of those named by Dr. Jacobi, determination of his reactions is but the first step in the social rehabilitation of the recidivistic felon; in truth, the determination so far is in appreciable measure self-evident. By the very fact that he elects to be and remain a lawbreaker, he is somewhat of a mental dud, and more of a moral pervert. Moreover, whether he was slated mainly by nature to play the part, or it was pressed upon him by the cumulative weight of spiteful circumstance, he plays the part.
The part is the part of the predal parasite, the which he likes fully well and will not cast aside lightly at call to carry his rightly weighted share of the social load, be that never so light.
Opinions differ as to the capacity of the criminal to adjust to social exactions, but there can be no two judgments as to the duty of the State to require of him that he shall make earnest bid for the best social expression of which he is capable. Thereof his number in the average is not so close to zero as it is commonly marked. Added to his positive mental response, a certain cleavage in favor of his brain and betterment must nearly always be allowed, since he usually plays possum in prison for “easy pickin’” in line with his anti-social predilections.
Furthermore, mental search made in a strange and stressed atmosphere, with tools utterly foreign to the subject’s attention, will get on his nerves to a degree, and may prove baldly misleading; misleading not only as to his latent mental content, but as well upon him, if negative procedure following the search causes him to throw up his hands in deep-seated disgust.
Under restrictive conditions, for which a bungling operator may be primarily responsible, a hyperesthetic might suffer close to acute sensory aphasia; and he who bears the burdens of hebetude would probably fare no better if the clicking of his mind were clocked to an arbitrary time allowance.