Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/547

 STUDY OF WOMEN CRIMINALS 531

years, while in New York the percentage is 3?^."' He ascribes this great difference in longevity to the different social customs and economic necessities.

With regard to strength, Lombroso says there is no proof of extraordinary muscular force, which I found true. The student's tests with the dynamometer showed a stronger hand grasp than did those for the criminals. He finds, however, a greater per- centage of left-handedness. My number was small.

From observations of the women measured, and of those resident in the workhouses, I am able to refer to other state- ments of Lombroso's.

He asserts that prostitutes possess, more frequently than normals, enormous lower jaws, projecting cheekbones, projecting ears, virile and Mongolian physiognomy, prehensile feet, mascu- line voices and handwriting. I am unable to verify these, and think that, especially in the first-named, racial influences again operate. I found faces with hard expressions, and voices harsh and cynical, but they did not possess the peculiar masculine quality, and I do not believe that harshness, cynicism, coarse- ness make them masculine. The handwriting, by reason of the difficulty with which many of them write, and the attention they give to mechanical construction, tends to make the letters larger and more uneven, but I should not characterize it as masculine.

Lombroso also states that the pilosity among prostitutes is more excessive, and there are more receding foreheads than among normals. Again I am unable to concur in this statement.

When the classes from which these people come, who are not criminal, but who have the same cultural and educational acquirements, are observed, it is difficult to determine any marked differences.

Mantegazza, another European investigator, who has given especial attention to physiognomy, says: "Women criminals are almost always homely, if not repulsive ; many are masculine ; have a large, ill-shaped mouth ; small eyes ; large, pointed nose, distant from the mouth; ears extended and irregularly planted."

'Sanger, History of Prostitution, p. 485.