Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/683

 habits which are eventually to become automatic mental phenomena, it is of immense importance that every means should then be adopted to eradicate hereditary tendencies to abnormal action of that organ, for while there is growth there may be change of direction, while every year after maturity lessens the chances of this. It may likewise be understood that to a permanent cure of hereditary tendency to crime separation from contaminating example is essential, and this separation must be permanent. Criminals who have acquired habits of industry and self-control during the discipline of a term of imprisonment might reasonably be expected to retain them if placed on their release in conditions which insured paying work and a pure moral atmosphere; but they will inevitably relapse if thrown back into their old circle, where crime and its contrivance are the main business of life. Therefore all discharged convicts, more especially those of the chronic sort, ought to be encouraged, and if necessary aided, to seek a new residence, and by all means persuaded to avoid their old haunts.

That the hereditary taint may be overcome by subsequent training and a lengthened discipline of a judicious kind is proved by the fact that the convicts sent out to Botany Bay by the British Government in general reformed, through the new hopes inspired by new circumstances in a new land, away from their old haunts and habitudes, and their children have reverted to honest and respectable lives. Medical science also shows that the instinctive or ante-natal qualities may be outweighed by the cultivation of the post-natal or reasoning.

It is shown by prison registers and statistics that sporadic crime among the educated, and those of honest parentage—that is, in families which have no examples of criminal courses in their direct ancestry—amounts to but two per cent.; an overwhelming argument in favor of preventive measures and their value above corrective penalties.

That crime usually coexists with ignorance and an ill-balanced brain is shown in the fact that in the large majority of criminals the faculty of arithmetical calculation is almost wholly lacking. Extensive experimental investigations have shown that the average prisoner can not answer the questions, "How much do you make?" "What pay or income would keep you honest?" The reflective qualities are more or less lacking or enfeebled in all descendants from neurotic stock.

Of all the means best adapted for the propagation of crime is that of herding criminals together, especially in juvenile asylums. Several witnesses from the House of Refuge in New York testified that they had there learned from more expert criminals tricks in stealing, picking locks, and in the concealment of stolen goods, which they had never learned outside.

The labors of many philanthropists for the last quarter of a century have shown conclusively that, if the young are seasonably removed from unfavorable environment, but a very small percentage deliberately return to vicious courses; but that they willingly learn