Gestures.—It is an ancient habit among criminals to communicate their thoughts by gestures. Avé-Lallemant describes a set of gestures used among German thieves,—a real language executed solely with the fingers, like the language of the deaf. Vidocq says that pickpockets, when they are watching a victim, give each other the signal of Saint John, which consists in putting their hand to their cravat or even in taking off their hat. But Pitré especially has published the most important information on this point. In his "Usi e Costumi della Sicilia" (Usages and Customs of Sicily,) he describes 48 special kinds of gestures employed by delinquents. This phenomenon is explained by the exaggerated mobility with which born criminals are endowed, as is the case with children.
MORPHOLOGICAL ANOMALIES.
The Skeleton.—Mr. Tenchini, having made studies upon 63 skeletons of criminals, has found in the proportion of 6 out of 100 cases, the perforation of the olecranon (the bony prominence at the back of the elbow) which one observes in 36 out of 100 Europeans, and in 34 out of 100 Polynesians; he likewise observed additional ribs and vertebræ in 10 cases out of 100 of them, and also too few, in the same proportion; which reminds us of the great variableness of these bones in the lower vertebrates. Lately he has even found in a criminal 4 sacral vertebræ too few, made up by 4 supplementary cervical vertebræ.
Madame Tarnorosky in her study of prostitutes, female thieves, and peasant women has demonstrated,[39] that the cranial capacity of prostitutes is inferior to that of female thieves and peasant women and particularly to that of women of good society;[40] vice versa, the zygomas (bones of the upper jaw) and the mandibles (lower jaw) were more developed among the prostitutes, who also exhibited a greater number of anomalies, in the proportion of 87 to 100, while the proportion of the female thieves showing anomalies was 79 to 100, and the proportion of peasant women was 12 to 100. The prostitutes had 33 in 100 of their parents addicted to drink, while the female thieves had 41 in 100 and the peasant women 16 in 100. Mr. De Albertis has found tattooing among 300 prostitutes of Genoa in the enormous proportion of 70 in 100.[41] He has also found the tactile sensibility of the women very much diminished: 3·6 millimetres to the right and 4 millimetres to the left.
[39]
50 100 100 50 50 50
PROSTITUTES. PROSTITUTES. FEMALE PEASANT PEASANT LADIES OF
MEASUREMENTS. THIEVES. WOMEN. WOMEN. GOOD
(NORTH.) (SOUTH.) SOCIETY.
Anteropost. diam. 17·7 17·8 17·9 18·3 18 18·3
Max. trans. diam. 13·9 14·4 14·9 14·5 14·5 14·5
Max. circumference 52·9 53·3 53·5 52·7 53·6 58·8
Zygomatic dist. 11·4 11·3 11·2 10·9 11·4 11·3
Mandib. biang.
distance 10·1 10·18 9·1 9·1 9·9 9·8
[40] Archiv. di Psichiatria, Mierjeivki, 1887.—Ibid., 1888, p. 196.
[41] Arch. di Psichiatria, x, 1889.
Among criminal women, Saloalto has made studies altogether new; he has recognised among 130 female thieves the degenerative character, anomalies of the skull and of the physiognomy, in a less degree than among the men; he has found brachycephaly in 7, oxycephaly in 29, platycephaly in 7, the retreating forehead in 7, strabismus in 11, protruding ears in 6; the sense of touch was normal in 2 out of 100, the reflexions of the tendons decreasing in 4 out of 100, exaggerated in 12 out of 100.
Marro and Marselli have explained by sexual selection this enormous difference, which one also finds among epileptics and particularly in insane people; the men in fact do not choose ugly women with degenerative characters, while the women have no choice, and very often an ugly man, criminal, but vigorous, for this reason triumphs over all obstacles; sometimes he is even preferred. (Flaubert, "Correspondance," 1889.) Let us add that the cares of maternity soften the character of women, and augment in them the sentiment of pity.
Dr. Ottolenghi[42] has studied in my laboratory the wrinkles of 200 criminals and 200 normal persons (workingmen and peasants), and he has found that they occur earlier and much more frequently among the criminals; in fact, two to five times more so than among normal persons, with predominance of the zygomatic wrinkle (situated in the middle of each cheek), which wrinkle may well be called the wrinkle of vice, and is the characteristic wrinkle of criminals.