|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 50
[40] _Daily News_, June 12, 1890.
But apart from the prison type of countenance, it is highly probable
that a distinct criminal type also exists. Certain professions
generate distinctive castes of feature, as, for instance, the Army and
the Church. This distinctiveness is not confined to features alone, it
diffuses itself over the whole man; it is observable in manner, in
gesture, in bearing, in demeanour, and is constantly breaking out in a
variety of unexpected ways. In like manner the habitual criminal
acquires the habits of his class. Crime is his profession; it is also
the profession of all his associates. The constant practice of this
profession results in the acquisition of a certain demeanour, a
certain aspect, gait, and general appearance, in many instances too
subtle to define, but, at the same time, plain and palpable to an
expert.
The slang of criminals is also explicable on the same principle. Every
trade and calling has its technical terms. The meaning of these terms
is hidden from the rest of the world, but the origin of their
existence is not difficult to explain. The jargon of the criminal
arises from the same causes and is constructed on exactly the same
principles as the technical words and phrases of the man of science.
When a man of science is compelled to make frequent use of a phrase,
he generally gets rid of it by inventing some technical word; it is
precisely the same with criminals. With them technical words are used
instead of phrases, and short words instead of long ones in all
matters where criminal interests are intimately concerned, and on all
topics which are habitually the subjects of conversation among the
criminal classes. The language of the Stock Exchange with its Bulls,
Bears, Contangos, and other short and comprehensive expressions for
various kinds of stocks, is on all fours with the slang of criminals,
and it is not necessary to resort to atavism in order to explain it.
It arises to supply professional needs, and criminal argot springs up
from exactly the same cause.
Summing up our inquiries respecting the criminal type we arrive, in
the first place, at the general conclusion, that so far as it has a
real existence it is not born with a man, but originates either in the
prison, and is then merely a prison type, or in criminal habits of
life, and is then a truly criminal type. As a matter of fact, the two
types are in most cases blended together, the prison type with its
hard, impassive rigidity of feature being superadded to the gait,
gesture and demeanour of the habitual criminal. In combination these
two types form a professional type and constitute what Dr. Bruce
Thomson[41] has called "a physique distinctly characteristic of the
criminal class." It is not, however, a type which admits of accurate
description, and its practical utility is impaired by the fact that
certain of its features are sometimes visible in men who have never
been convicted of crime. The position of the case, with respect to the
criminal type, may be best described by saying that an experienced
detective officer will be sure in nine cases out of ten that he has
got hold of a criminal by profession, but in the tenth case he will
probably make a mistake. In other words, face, manner and demeanor are
no infallible index of character or habits of life.
[41] _Journal of Mental Science_, vol. xvi.
When crime is not an inherited taint, but merely an acquired habit,
this fact has an important practical bearing upon the proper method of
dealing with it. Acquired habits, we are now being taught by Professor
Weismann, are incapable of being transmitted to posterity, and Mr.
Galton is of the same opinion.[42] This is not the place to elaborate
the theory of inheritance, as understood by those writers; its
essence, however, is that we only inherit the natural faculties of our
forebears, and not those faculties which they have acquired by
practice and experience. The son of a rope-dancer does not inherit his
father's faculties for rope-dancing, nor the son of an orator his
father's ready aptitude for public speech, nor the son of a designer
his father's acquired skill in the making of designs. All that the son
inherits is the natural faculties of the parent, but no more. Hence it
follows that the son of a thief, on the supposition that thieving
comes by habit and practice, does not by natural inheritance acquire
the parent's criminal propensity. As far as his natural faculties are
concerned he starts life free from the vicious habits of his parent,
and should he in turn become a thief, as sometimes happens, it is not
because he has inherited his father's thievish habits, but because he
has himself acquired them. It is imitation, not instinct, which
transforms him into a thief; and if he is removed from the influence
of evil example he will have almost as small a chance of falling into
a criminal life as any other member of the community. It will not be
quite so small, because no public institution, however well conducted,
can ever exercise so moralising an effect as a good home, but it will
be much smaller than if he grew up to maturity under the pernicious
surroundings of a criminal home.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|