Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/551

 STUDY OF WOMEN CRIMINALS 535

each where it was not understood: principle, honor, truth, jus- tice, right, fellowship, sincerity, ambition, courage, purity, nobil- ity, strength, sympathy, love, friendship, virtue. The results were: honor, 32; principle, 30; truth and purity, each 21 ; love, 18; justice and ambition, each 17; virtue, 15; nobility, 13 ; strength, 12; sympathy, 11; friendship, courage, fellowship, each 10; sincerity and right, 9 each. It will be noted that the stronger, more masculine qualities are more frequently chosen. Thus honor, principle, truth, justice were selected more fre- quently than love, sincerity, friendship, purity. I found that they used two methods of selection : the first, choosing what they desired for themselves ; the second, what they desired for others, especially if through others they had fared badly. Thus prin- ciple, justice, truth often occurred because they felt their prose- cutors and judge had not treated them fairly. Friendship is far down in the list, for they know few unselfish ones, and its men- tion often elicits a sneer ; sympathy they appreciate, but it is often crowded out by the fierceness of the competitive struggle ; sincerity they think does not pay, because it is not current coin within their community.

The sensibility of the skin was taken upon the forearm with an aesthesiometer. The method consists in pressing the two points of the instrument upon the skin. The points are adjust- able and at the beginning are placed 30"™ apart. Ten impres- sions are made, the subject stating each time if she feels two impressions or one. If the judgments are accurate, the points are moved nearer together and ten tests made. This is repeated until the point is found where only one point can be felt. Then the experiment is repeated, only instead of starting with tiie points wide apart they are close together, and are gradually widened until two pressures are descernible. The subject's eyes are closed during the experiment.

The tests demonstrated that the sensibility is greater with the students. For the right and left forearms the average was 16""". For the criminals the average was, right, 24""" ; left, 21""". The lowest sensibility reached by a student was 26""", the highest 6"""; among criminals the lowest was 42"'"', the highest 16""".