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The Criminal & the Community

by James Devon · English · Gutenberg #43986 · 632,701 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Criminal & the Community

Author: James Devon


        
Release date: October 20, 2013 [eBook #43986]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY ***

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THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY

by

JAMES DEVON

Medical Officer of H.M. Prison at Glasgow with
an Introduction by Prof. A. F. Murison, LL.D.


  "GREAT MEN ARE NOT ALWAYS WISE:
  NEITHER DO THE AGED UNDERSTAND
  JUDGMENT.

  THEREFORE I SAID, HEARKEN UNTO ME;
  I ALSO WILL SHEW MINE OPINION."

  _Job_ XXXII. 10, 11.


Toronto: Bell and Cockburn
London: John Lane MCMXII

William Brendon and Son, Ltd., Printers
Plymouth, England




  TO
  MATTHEW G. KELSO
  AND
  SAMUEL GIBSON
  FRIENDS INDEED




INTRODUCTION


The importance of the subjects handled in this volume requires no
demonstration. Already, and for long, the treatment of them has naturally
engaged the sympathetic study of philanthropists, and more recently it has
attracted the earnest attention of scientific inquirers. Hitherto,
however, the results have been far from satisfactory; and there is ample
room for further discussion, especially from the standpoint of a
thoroughly practical man with large experience both of criminals and of
the social conditions that breed them.

Nowadays there is a growing sense of social interdependence; there is a
more general and a more definitely realized aim to elevate the condition
of the less fortunate of our fellow-citizens; there are express efforts of
scientific investigators to discover a firm basis for practical reforms;
and practical reforms are urgent. Such tendencies of thought and feeling
may be expected to go far to ensure a warm welcome to this volume.

Dr. Devon's book is executed on a breadth of scale never before attempted.
It has three distinct parts: The Criminal; Common Factors in the Causation
of Crime; The Treatment of the Criminal. His exposition is perfectly
clear; he sees precisely, and he states directly, simply, and definitely
what he sees and what he thinks about it, very frequently driving home a
point with epigrammatic force. If he throws overboard unceremoniously what
he regards as mere lumber accumulated by the industry of speculation
divorced from experience; if he betrays some impatience with existing
theories and systems; if he advances his own views with confidence--the
handling is at any rate piquant, and brings the matter promptly to a head.

We are supposed to have travelled far from the mediæval brutality of
prison life, but have the changes not been superficial rather than deep?
Setting aside the catalogue of minor regulations and regarding the broad
spirit of prison life, one cannot but recognize that the conditions still
prevailing have much in common with the past. If we look for the really
essential changes during a hundred years, we find just these: (1) a
surface cleanliness of apparent perfection; (2) conversation, prison
visits, and arrangements tending towards a decent sociability between
prisoners and prisoners and between prisoners and the public reduced and
rendered difficult by multitudinous bye-laws. On the one hand, a
cleanliness obtainable only by irritating industry disproportionate to its
proper value; on the other hand, a reduction of such facilities as are
most likely to prevent a prisoner from degenerating to a social alien, an
automatic machine, or a lunatic.

The after-effects of a long sojourn in prison are not readily realizable:
it would require a very lively imagination to picture the life and its
inherent possibilities. The fact that some prisoners do manage to get
through their existence without falling into despair may be taken rather
as a tribute to the chances of exception confounding rule than as a proof
of conversion to virtue through punishment. It is too much to expect that
an ordinary man that has been incarcerated for a period of seven, or five,
or even three years, can become, on his liberation, once more a
"respectable" member of society. His spirit has been cowed; his
self-respect has been annihilated; he has been disqualified for
reabsorption in the community; he has been prepared to gravitate once more
towards crime and prison.

Another unfortunate aspect is the position of the prison warder. Apart
from the care of those under him, he is subject to so much personal
discipline--is so much the slave of "Rules"--that his life often becomes
little superior to that of his charges. In point of social origin or of
intellectual attainments he is not inferior to the ordinary policeman;
but, while the policeman is taught by society, the warder spends most of
his time in an atmosphere of degradation, fatal both to character and to
intellect.

We are pretty well agreed that consideration and sympathy should be
extended to the first offender, except in case of sheer brutality--and, as
Dr. Devon points out, even a man that commits an act of brutality is not
necessarily a brute--for the first offender is usually the victim of
"accidental misconduct." In the case of the habitual offender, who returns
to prison time after time for various transgressions, it would seem
judicious to keep him permanently from actual freedom, but to treat him
more as a diseased and positively dangerous man than as a noxious animal.
At any rate, first offenders should not be herded together with
case-hardened criminals.

Dr. Devon argues stoutly for the liberation of prisoners when responsible
citizens come forward to undertake for necessary periods the guardianship
and care of them. On this point it is important to note his precise
position: it is not for a moment to be thought that he advocates any
reckless liberation of scoundrels upon society. Let us see his actual
words: "Unconditional liberation has ended in disaster to all concerned.
Conditional liberation can only be expected to produce good results if the
conditions are reasonable.... A prison ought merely to be a place of
detention in which offenders are placed till some proper provision is made
for their supervision and means of livelihood in the community.... The
prison in which they would be placed would not be a reformatory
institution where all sorts of futile experiments would be made, but
simply a place of detention in which they would be required each to attend
on himself until he had made up his mind to accept the greater degree of
liberty implied in life outside. The door of his cell would be opened to
let him out when he had reached this conclusion; but it would not be
opened to let him out, as at present, to play a game of hare and hounds
with the police." The argument hinges on the conditions.

Side by side with this, the State might well note the advantage of
pursuing the scheme of letting first offenders out on probation; giving
them guidance and help in welldoing, and impressing upon them the
inevitable consequence of restraint in case of violation of the law. In
this way the transgressor--unless he be of the stuff of which arrant
evildoers are made--seems more likely to feel repentance instead of
remorse. He is shown clearly the power and the certainty of the law; and
at the same time he avoids the stain a prison life must inevitably have
left, even though the imprisonment had been of a comparatively short
duration.

Dr. Devon expounds, with irresistible logic, an argument in favour of a
proper training of the class most in need of it. It must not be forgotten
that ignorance cannot be expected to reason, and that poverty is heavily
handicapped. Many offenders do evil simply because they have never known
good. To punish these with blind and brutish vehemence is only a little
less callous than ill-treatment of mental derelicts and little children.
The principal aims of a prison system are presumably to punish offenders
and to induce them not to offend again. In neither case can the present
system be regarded as successful: it provides neither a proper punishment
nor an effective deterrent. That the influence is brutalising cannot be
ignored: the savage become bestial, the refined become tragically shamed
outcasts.

It is not to be anticipated that Dr. Devon will at all points and at once
conciliate agreement. Probably he is the last man to expect it. Perhaps it
is even undesirable that his views should be accepted without keen
discussion. But Dr. Devon is a seasoned warrior, well accustomed to fight
his own battles; and no man is readier to acknowledge frankly a sound
criticism.

Dr. Devon begins and ends on the same note: absolute necessity for the
"recognition of social conditions as they exist." Yes, "as they exist";
and not otherwise. His official position as medical officer of a large
prison for more than half a generation, and a long experience as one of
the examiners for the Crown for criminal cases in the West of Scotland,
give him a right to a hearing on the medical and official aspects of the
subject. There have been other writers that could claim official knowledge
of the subject but Dr. Devon's qualifications on the social side are
exceptional. He was helping to earn his own living before he was eleven,
and his knowledge of the conditions of life among the working class has
not been acquired from the outside. He had a practical acquaintanceship
with the work of the unskilled labourer and of the artisan before he began
the study of medicine; and his professional life, spent mainly in the
poorhouse and the prison, has given him opportunities for outside
observation of conditions with which he had had an earlier and more
intimate acquaintance. He has been emphatically a man of the people, going
in and out among his fellow-citizens of all classes for many
years--lecturing, sharing confidences, advising and counselling every day,
and, in a word, familiarising himself with every aspect of the diversified
social life around him; an incalculable advantage when utilized by a keen
intellect and a sympathetic heart.

It will be found, then, that he has brought together the two factors of
the problem--the Criminal and Society--with a solvent power beyond any
previous effort. I believe that his book is the most illuminating and the
wisest that has ever been written on the subject.




CONTENTS


  PART I THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL

  CHAPTER I THE CRIMINAL AND THE CRIMINOLOGISTS

    Classification of criminals--The treatment of the criminal
    not a medical but a social question--Technical differences
    between crimes and offences--Changes in the law--Vice and
    crime--The beginner in crime--Common characters of the
    "criminal class"--Atrocious crimes exceptional--So-called
    scientific studies of the criminal--How figures mislead--
    Composite photographs and averages--Estimate of character
    from physical examination--Causal relationship to crime of
    these characters                                          _pages_ 3-17

  CHAPTER II HEREDITY AND CRIME

    Does heredity account for one quality more than
    another?--Impossibility of forecasting the conduct of
    others--Do criminals breed criminals?--The fit and the
    unfit--Unequal endowments--Ability and position--Inherited
    faculties and social pressure--Crime the result of wrongly
    directed powers--Original sin and heredity--Heredity
    behind everything                                                18-23

  CHAPTER III INSANITY AND CRIME

    Insanity and responsibility--Removal of the insane from
    prison--Crime resulting from insanity--Case of theft--Of
    embezzlement--Of fire-raising--Insanity and murder
    charges--The result of an act not a guide to the nature of
    the act--Observation of prisoners charged with certain
    offences--Insanity as a result of misconduct--Cases--The
    mentally defective--Cases                                        24-40

  CHAPTER IV PHYSICAL DEFECTS AND CRIME

    Physical defects beget sympathy--Rarely induce crime--May
    cause mental degeneration--Case of jealousy and murder           41-43

  CHAPTER V THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL

    The reliability of prisoners' statements--Deceit or
    misunderstanding?--Frankness and knowledge required on the
    part of the investigator--The prisoner's statement should
    form the basis of enquiry--Information and help obtained
    from former friends--The diffusion of knowledge so
    obtained--The prevention of crime and the accumulation of
    knowledge                                                        44-48


  PART II COMMON FACTORS IN THE CAUSATION OF CRIME

  CHAPTER I DRINK AND CRIME

    Drink commonly accredited with the production of crime--
    Minor offences usually committed under its influence--
    Drink a factor in the causation of most crimes against
    the person--Double personality caused by drink--Drunken
    cruelty--Drunken rage--Assaults on the drunken--Sexual
    offences--Child neglect--Mental defect behind the
    drunkenness of some offenders--Malicious mischief and
    theft--Drunken kleptomania--The professional criminal
    and drink--Thefts from the drunken--Amount of crime not
    in ratio to amount of drinking in a district--The vice
    existent apart from crime, in the country--And in the
    wealthier parts of the city--Drunkenness and statistics--
    Summary                                                          51-66

  CHAPTER II POVERTY, DESTITUTION, OVERCROWDING, AND CRIME

    The majority of persons in prison there because of their
    poverty--Poverty and drink--Poverty and petty offences--
    Poverty and thrift--Poverty and destitution--Case of theft
    from destitution--Poverty and vagrancy--Unemployment and
    beggary--Formation of professional offenders--The case of
    the old--The degradation of the unemployed to
    unemployability--No ratio between the amount of poverty
    alone and the amount of crime--A definite ratio between
    density of population and crime--Slum life--Overcrowding--
    Cases of destitution and overcrowding--Overcrowding and
    decency--Poverty and overcrowding in relation to offences
    against the person--The poor and officials--The absence
    of opportunity for rational recreation--The migratory
    character of the population--The multiplication of laws
    and of penalties--Transgressions due to ignorance and to
    inability to conform--Contrast between city and country
    administration--Case of petty offender--Treatment induces
    further offences--The city the hiding-place of the
    professional criminal--Crime largely a by-product of city
    life                                                             67-94

  CHAPTER III IMMIGRATION AND CRIME

    The stranger most likely to offend--The reaction to new
    surroundings--The difficulty of recovery--The attraction
    of the city--The Churches and the immigrant--Benevolent
    associations--The alien immigrants--Their tendency to hold
    themselves apart--Deportation--A language test required--
    The alien criminal--His dangerous character--The need for
    powers to deal with him                                         95-102

  CHAPTER IV SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND CRIME

    The millionaire and the pauper--Ill-feeling and
    misunderstanding--Social ambitions--Case of embezzlement--
    Preaching and practice--Gambling--The desire to "get on"--
    The need to deal with those who profit by the helplessness
    of others--Political action--Its difficulty--Legislation
    and administration--The official and the public--Personal
    aid--Fellowship                                                103-116

  CHAPTER V AGE AND CRIME

    The inexperience of youth--The training of boys--Case of a
    truant--Another case--Intractability--The foolishness of
    parent and teacher--The absence of mutual understanding--
    Recreation--Malicious mischief and petty theft--The cause
    thereof--The need for instructing parents--Pernicious
    literature--The other kind--The modern Dick Turpin--The
    boy as he leaves school--Amusements--Repression--
    Blind-alley occupations--The adolescent--Physical strain
    of many occupations--Unequal physical and mental
    development--The street trader--Hooliganism--Knowledge
    and experience--The perils of youth--Old age                   117-139

  CHAPTER VI SEX AND CRIME

    The position of woman--The posturing of men--Love and
    crime--Two cases of theft from sexual attraction--The
    female thief--Case--Blackmailing--Jealousy and crime--Two
    murder cases--Case of assault--Fewer women than men are
    criminals--Their greater difficulty in recovery--Young
    girls and sexual offences--The perils of girlhood--Wages
    and conduct--Exotic standards of dress--Ignorance and
    wrongdoing--The domestic servant--Her difficulties--
    Concealment of pregnancy cases--The culprit and the
    father--Morals--The fallen woman--Bigamy                       140-160

  CHAPTER VII PUNISHMENT

    The universal cure-all--The public and the advertising
    healer--The essence of all quackery--The quackery of
    punishment--Rational treatment--Justice not bad temper--
    Retribution--Our fathers and ourselves--Their methods not
    necessarily suitable to our time--Capital punishment--The
    incurable and the incorrigible--Objections to capital
    punishment apply in degree to all punishment--The "cat"--
    The executioner and the surgeon--Whipping and its
    effect--The flogged offender--The act and the intention--
    Pain and vitality--Unequal effects of punishment--Fines
    and their burden--Who is punished most?--Punishment and
    expiation--Punishment and deterrence--Social opinion the
    real deterrent--Vicious social circles--Respect for the
    law--Prevention of crime                                       161-185


  PART III THE TREATMENT OF THE CRIMINAL

  CHAPTER I THE MACHINERY OF THE LAW

    The police and their duties--Divided control--Need for
    knowledge of local peculiarities--The fear of
    "corruption"--The police cell--Cleanliness and
    discomfort--Insufficient provision of diet, etc.--The
    casualty surgeon--The police court--The untrained
    magistrate--The assessor--Pleas of "guilty"--Case--Apathy
    of the public--Agents for the Poor--The prison van--The
    sheriff court--The procurator-fiscal--Procedure in the
    higher courts--The Scottish jury                               189-209

  CHAPTER II THE PRISON SYSTEM

    Centralisation--The constitution of the Prison
    Commission--Parliamentary control--The Commissioners--The
    rules--The visiting committee--The governor and the
    matron--The chaplain--The medical officer--The staff           210-219

  CHAPTER III THE PRISON AND ITS ROUTINE

    Reception of the prisoner--Cleanliness and order--The plan
    of the prison--The cells--Their furniture--The diet--The
    clothing--Work--The Workshops--Separate confinement and
    association--Gratuities--Prison offences--Complaints--
    Punishment cells--Visits of the chaplain--Visits of
    representatives of the Churches--The gulf between visitor
    and visited--The Chapel--The Salvation Army--Rest--
    Recreation--The prison Library--Lectures--The
    airing-yard--Physical drill                                    220-242

  CHAPTER IV VARIATIONS IN ROUTINE

    The sick--Prison hospitals--The removal of the sick to
    outside hospitals--The wisdom of this course--The
    essential difference between a prison and other public
    institutions--The treatment of refractory prisoners--The
    folly of assuming that rules are more sacred than
    persons--The position of the medical officer in relation
    to the prisoner--The danger of divided responsibility--The
    untried prisoner--His privileges--Civil prisoners--
    Imprisonment for contempt of court--The convict--Short and
    long sentences                                                 243-257

  CHAPTER V THE PRISONER ON LIBERATION

    His condition--His need--Alleged persecution of
    ex-prisoners--Discharged prisoners' aid societies--Work--
    Temptations--The discharged female offender--The attitude
    of women towards her--"Homes"--The women's objections to
    them--Pay--The religious atmosphere and the harmful
    associations--The effect of imprisonment                       258-270

  CHAPTER VI THE INEBRIATE HOME

    The need to find out why people do wrong before attempting
    to cure them--Enquiries as to inebriety--The inebriates--
    Official utterances--Cost and results--The grievance of
    the unreformed--The time limit of cure--The causes of
    failure--The fostering of old associations--The prospect
    of the future spree--The institution habit                     271-283

  CHAPTER VII THE PREVENTION OF CRIMES ACT (1908)

    The Borstal experiment--Provisions for the "reformation of
    young offenders"--Is any diminution in the numbers of
    police expected?--Preventive detention--The implied
    confession that penal servitude does not reform and the
    insistence on it as a preliminary to reform--The prisoner
    detained at the discretion of the prison officials--The
    powers of the Secretary of State--The change under the
    statute--The necessary ignorance of the Secretary of State
    by reason of his other duties--The "committees"--The
    habits to be taught--The teaching of trades--The ignorance
    of trades on the part of those who design to teach them--
    The difficulty of teaching professions in institutions
    less than that of teaching trades--The vice of obedience
    taught--Intelligent co-operation and senseless
    subordination--The military man in the industrial
    community                                                      284-303

  CHAPTER VIII THE FAMILY AS MODEL

    The basis of the family not necessarily a blood tie--
    Adoption--The head and the centre of the family--The
    feeling of joint responsibility--The black sheep--
    Companionship and sympathy necessities in life--Reform
    only possible when these are found--"Conversion" only
    temporary in default of force of new interests--The one
    way in which reform is made permanent                          304-310

  CHAPTER IX ALTERNATIVES TO IMPRISONMENT

    What is required--The case of the minor offenders--The
    incidence of fines--The prevention of drunkenness--Clubs--
    Probation of offenders--Its partial application--Defects
    in its administration--The false position of the probation
    officer--Guardians required--Case of young girl--The plea
    of want of power--Old and destitute offenders--Prison and
    poorhouse                                                      311-328

  CHAPTER X THE BETTER WAY

    The offender who has become reckless--If not killed they
    must be kept--The failure of the institution--Boarding
    out--At present they are boarded out on liberation, but
    without supervision--Guardians may be found when they are
    sought for--The result of boarding out children--The
    insane boarded out--Unconditional liberation has failed--
    Conditional liberation with suitable provision has not
    been tried--No system of dealing with men, but only a
    method--No necessity for the formation of the habitual
    offender--The one principle in penology                        329-339

  INDEX                                                            343-348




PART I

THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL




THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY




CHAPTER I

THE CRIMINAL AND THE CRIMINOLOGISTS

    Classification of criminals--The treatment of the criminal not a
    medical but a social question--Technical differences between crimes
    and offences--Changes in the law--Vice and crime--The beginner in
    crime--Common characters of the "criminal class"--Atrocious crimes
    exceptional--So-called scientific studies of the criminal--How figures
    mislead--Composite photographs and averages--Estimate of character
    from physical examination--Causal relationship to crime of these
    characters.


People were never more anxious to reform their neighbours than they are in
our day. Everyone admits the widespread existence of misery, degradation,
and destitution; and many seem to think that the presence of these evils
is a modern phenomenon. Any man who has reached middle age and who has
lived and worked among the masses of the people knows better. The evils
are not new, but their widespread recognition is.

For ages the few have been the governors of the many, and the governed
have neither had the means nor the ability to communicate with their
rulers and with one another. In our day the ends of the earth have been
brought together by the invention of the engineer, and the schoolmaster
has been abroad among the people. The writer reaches a larger contemporary
audience, and the message of the speaker is carried over a greater area
than was ever before possible. Whether this has been wholly an advantage
may be questioned; but there can be no doubt that things that were hidden
have been made manifest, and one result has been that laws and
institutions which our fathers accepted have been placed on their trial.

Our system of dealing with criminals has not escaped criticism and has not
borne it well. Like all systems, it is based largely on the assumption
that men are, or ought to be, of one pattern. It is charged with failing
to reform those who come under its sway; but there is nothing to show that
it was designed for their reformation.

Men are brought under it as a punishment; and their acts, not their
personality, are the cause of their imprisonment.

Experience has shown that the military man who applies impartially a set
of rules to those who come under him has not been a success when placed in
charge of an institution for dealing with offenders. It is not that he is
less human than others, but that he is more rigid. Differences among those
placed in his charge have always been recognised; for instance, they could
not all be treated as though they were the same height, nor could it be
assumed that it was possible to secure uniformity amongst them in this
respect; but only the most obvious differences were regarded. Even
elementary classifications could not be left to the man whose duty it was
to administer rules, and so the doctor's aid was obtained in order to sort
out those who were physically unfit to do any but light work; those to
whom the diet was unsuited; and those who required to have special
privileges granted them lest the system killed them. It is sometimes much
easier to call in the doctor than to get rid of him; and largely on
account of his work it has been shown that all classifications hitherto
made have been inadequate. In the name of science he demands still further
classifications.

Men can only be placed in classes because of certain qualities they have
in common. Every classification must neglect individual differences; and
as it is these that mark men off one from another, any system or method of
dealing with men will fail in so far as they are left out of account. The
treatment of the criminal is not a medical question. It is a social
question.

A medical training is of more use to a man who is to study the subject
than a military training would be. It is important to be able to form a
rational opinion on the physical and mental capacity of a man; to know
whether he suffers from any disease which impairs his faculties and to be
able to direct treatment to the cure of that disease; but a considerable
degree of knowledge regarding these things may coexist with an amazing
amount of ignorance regarding the social conditions under which the person
examined has been brought up and formed. Give the medical man head and, so
far as he is merely a medical man, he will be a more expensive nuisance
than the military administrator.

A great deal has been written about the study of the criminal, but any
such study is defective and can only be misleading in so far as it is not
a study of offenders in relation to their circumstances. "Criminal" is as
loose a term as "tradesman." It may mean anything, but so far as any real
study is concerned it usually means nothing of any importance except to
the printing and allied trades. When the character of the prisoner is
estimated by men whose writings show no knowledge of his outside life, and
is confined mainly to an enumeration of the selected physical, and
imagined mental, characters of men while in prison, no study of the
subject has been made that is worth any consideration, save for the
purpose of formulating a theory without taking the trouble of ascertaining
the important facts.

The study of the criminal has mainly been based on observation and
examination of persons in prison; but in prison the criminal is not
himself. He whose obedience the law could not command, who kicked against
restraint, is now compelled to direct all his acts under authority. His
life has been arranged for him, and he might as well run his head against
the wall as refuse to obey. Everything is done with regularity and
quietness, and the monotony of it all oppresses him. His inclinations are
not consulted; his anger not regarded, except it transgress the rules.
Outside he may have a reputation for wit and sociability; in prison he has
no encouragement to show these qualities. Very likely he will talk freely
to any official person who is of an enquiring turn of mind; he may be glad
to have the chance; but he is on his guard, and will not communicate any
information that may get his friends into trouble and himself into bad
repute among them, unless he is going to gain a good deal by it; and not
always even then. He learns to take advantage of every opening that offers
any chance of increased comfort to himself, and he may readily make a
general confession of sin and promise of amendment if thereby he can gain
sympathy and obtain privileges. It is not surprising that he should behave
in this manner--the principle of making friends with the mammon of
unrighteousness is not unknown outside prison--but it is strange that
people who might be supposed to know the conditions in which he is placed
should talk as though the criminal were usually a stupid kind of person.

Any person who offends against the penal laws of the community in which he
lives may be sent to prison; whether he be called an offender or a
criminal will depend on consideration of points that are technical.
Generally speaking, persons convicted of offences against the person or
against property are classed as criminals, while those who have
transgressed against public order--as in breaches of the peace, etc.--are
classed as offenders. "An Act for the more effectual Prevention of Crime"
(34 & 35 Victoria, cap. 112, sec. 20) defines the word "Crime" to mean "in
Scotland any of the Pleas of the Crown, any theft, which in respect of any
aggravation, or of the amount in value of the money, goods, or things
stolen may be punished with penal servitude, any forgery, and any uttering
base coin, or the possession of such coin with intent to utter the same."
The Pleas of the Crown are murder, robbery, rape, and wilful fire-raising.
Those who have been convicted of crime as defined by the section quoted
would properly be called criminals, but it is obvious that the name is
applied and is applicable to many who do not fall under the definition. In
practice the treatment of prisoners who have been convicted of offences is
the same as that of those who have been convicted of crimes, when the
sentence is one of imprisonment. The distinction between them is a
technical one. If he is to be judged by the act of which he has been
found guilty, the same person may at one time be called a criminal and at
another time an offender.

As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to draw the line between crimes
and offences; and it is not uncommon to find that a man who has committed
a heinous crime is not so wicked a character as another who has never been
guilty of more than a petty offence.

The largest number of persons in prison have been convicted of minor
transgressions and have been dealt with in the police courts. Many of
these offences do not differ in character from those which engage the
attention of the higher courts. Their gravity is estimated either by the
result of the act, or the bad record of the person committing it, or both
factors together. Thus if in the course of a quarrel one person should
strike another and bleed his face, the police magistrate will assess the
damage done to society; but if the blow break the injured person's nose,
the case will pass to the sheriff. If a man in a drunken "spree" lift a
pair of boots from a shop-door, the bailie will probably deal with him;
but if, drunk or sober, he has been in the habit of taking other people's
property, he may be sent to a higher court.

The law differs in the same country at different times. It is the minimum
standard of conduct to which all members of the community are required to
conform, and, as public opinion changes, it undergoes alteration. Men who
in one generation have been executed as criminals have been honoured as
martyrs in the next, while acts which at one time have been regarded as
meritorious have at another time been severely punished. At no time will
an honourable man do all that the law permits him to do, for his standard
of conduct is higher than, and in advance of, the law. But a man may live
a thoroughly vicious life; he may lie, act dishonestly, be cruel and
vindictive--in short, break any or all of the ten commandments--and yet
keep within the law.

The law differs in different parts of the same country at the same time,
and a man may find himself brought under its operation in one district for
doing something which is permissible in another. This is a result of the
special powers given to corporations, or is due to the adoption by one
local authority of permissive legislation which a neighbouring authority
has not adopted. It may be very puzzling to a stranger, but the principle
of allowing the more enlightened districts freedom to improve their
administration is at the back of it; whether they could not find a better
way of carrying out their purposes than by sending to prison those who
offend against them is another question altogether.

Even under similar laws the administration may be different. The more laws
there are and the more rigid their administration, the greater will be the
number of offenders.

All kinds of people break the law. In some social positions there is less
opportunity for doing so than in others, but the conditions in which many
are placed make it easier for them to offend against certain regulations
than to conform to them.

All who are brought to prison for the first time are not first offenders.
In some cases they have had a long and successful career before being
apprehended, but even in these cases the physical and mental
characteristics that would mark them off from others among whom they have
been living are not apparent. A man's character and his characteristics
are the result of interaction between outside influences and inherent
faculties. He acquires habits of body and of mind, and they leave their
mark on him.

Vice and crime are not the same thing, nor have they any necessary
relationship. Though generally the result of a vicious impulse or
intention, there is hardly a crime in the calendar that might not be
committed by a person acting from a higher moral standard than that set by
the law. On the other hand, a vicious person may indulge in almost any
vice and yet keep clear of the law; it all depends on how he does it. A
dishonest person, if he puts his hand in the pocket of another and
abstracts the contents, may be sent to prison; but if by appealing to the
cupidity of his neighbours he can get them to put their hands in their own
pockets and hand him over the proceeds in order that they may share in the
El Dorado he has invented, he robs them just as effectively and is not
sent to prison. He may become a pillar of society and a legislator.

When people are sent to prison for the first time all that has been
determined is the fact that they have been guilty of breaking the law.
There is no justification for assuming that their characters are, on the
whole, worse than those of others. Some of them may have committed very
wicked crimes; but, except in a few cases, a thorough investigation of all
the attendant circumstances might modify any impressions derived from the
trial. Even the commission of a fiendish act is not incompatible with a
disposition that is usually and mainly good. We do not in practice assume
that a man is a bad man because he has done a bad thing, any more than we
credit him with being a good man because he has done a good thing. When
the evil he has done has taken a criminal form we are as little entitled
to judge the man by the act we condemn.

The fact that a person is in prison hinders any attempt to study him. The
investigator begins with a prejudice against him because of the crime he
has committed. Yet it is the most common thing to hear people who have
known a prisoner intimately for years say that they could not have
believed he would do the thing he has done. These people are quite as fit
to judge character as those who are called scientific investigators, and
they have better opportunities for doing so. They have not seen the
weakness of their friends in the form it has taken. The investigator
usually sees nothing else.

If those who come to prison for the first time were made the subject of
examination, it would be found that they are principally remarkable for
the absence of what the books call criminal characteristics.

Prisoners differ as much from one another as people who are law-abiding.
No two are alike even among those who have committed similar offences; and
those who enter prison for the first time are not distinguishable in
appearance from members of the same social class who have not transgressed
the law. That they may develop certain common characteristics as a result
of their way of living is true; and there is a criminal class in the same
sense as there is a professional class or an artisan class. The criminal
is born and made just as the policeman is born and made. See him early in
his career and it is impossible to tell what he is, but when he has
undergone his training it may be expected to leave its mark on him which
those who know may read with more or less success.

These common characters in the criminal have been laboriously sought for
and recorded; measurements have been made and tables compiled; ratios have
been calculated to decimals, and an appearance of scientific precision
has been given to the study of the criminal which has led many to the
assumption that the writers must know more about the offender than they
themselves do. Yet there are few men or women of mature years who have not
known with some degree of intimacy at least one person who has sunk into
the mire of vice and it may be of crime; and one such case thoroughly
known is a better basis for study of the subject than any amount of
tables.

It may be of importance to compare the peculiarities of habitual
offenders, but it is of greater use to learn how they acquired them. As
for the habitual himself, he is not really the problem. His life is seldom
a long one, and even if nothing other than is at present were done to, or
for, him, he would die out in a generation. I do not say that the question
of what we should do with our habituals is not important, but of much more
importance is the devising of means for preventing the wrongdoer from
acquiring the habit and joining their ranks. A study of confirmed
criminals may be interesting pathology, but it is the study of the
beginner in crime that will prevent the formation of the criminal class,
in so far as it affords means for enabling us to deal sanely with them.

When an atrocious crime is perpetrated there is intense public interest
shown in the criminal. He is examined in a distorted mirror and his parts
are magnified. The more extraordinary he is, the more monstrous he
appears, the greater the sensation. Yet the ordinary men and the ordinary
offences are at once the more common and the more important. Here and
there a person may be born with such a crooked disposition that it is
difficult to see how he could go straight; just as occasionally one of
great wisdom enters the world, or a child with more than the usual number
of heads or limbs; but the occurrence is quite exceptional, and it is
never profitable to generalise from it.

We have been reproached in this country with failure to make a scientific
study of the criminal; and the works of foreign writers have been
translated for our example and emulation. They contain a certain amount of
information, but its value is not apparent. The importance of a book is
not to be measured by the difficulty of understanding it. Big and strange
words may as easily mask an absence of useful knowledge as convey a
fruitful idea, and the man who has anything of importance to say regarding
his neighbour--even though that neighbour is a criminal--does not require
a pseudo-scientific jargon in which to say it. The criminal is a man or a
woman like the rest of us, and information about his head or his heels,
while it may have a special value in relation to his case, should not be
confounded with knowledge of himself. He is something more than a brain or
a stomach.

Either the so-called criminal characters are the cause of the man's
wrongdoing, the result of it, or have nothing to do with the matter. If
they are the cause of the criminal act, how is it that they are admittedly
present in others who are not criminals? It would certainly simplify the
work of the police if they knew that they could with any degree of safety
look for the perpetrator of certain kinds of crime among men with heads of
a given shape; but anyone who glances at the illustrated papers will see
for himself as many villainous-looking faces among notable people, even
among able people, as he will find in a prison. Our forefathers had a rule
that when two persons were charged with the same crime and there was a
doubt which of them was guilty, the uglier should be condemned. It is not
stated whether the officials and governing classes were at that time
chosen for their good looks. Fortunately the practice has long since
lapsed.

Unless a peculiarity is shown to have a causal relationship to crime its
mere existence proves nothing except the fact that it is there. That in
some cases physical defects do cause those who suffer from them to make
war on society, is undoubtedly the case; but it is very far indeed from
being the rule.

There are many people who are prepared to regard a book as learned if it
is sufficiently scrappy and contains figures arranged in a tabular form.
Yet figures when they deal with other than very simple things are almost
invariably misleading; and the more so as they have such an appearance of
exactness. It is easy for any two people to count the number of men in a
room and to agree as to the result; but ask them to say how many tall men,
how many with black hair, how many blue-eyed, how many straight-nosed--and
you will get a different result each time. The figures will be exact--they
cannot be otherwise--but your knowledge will be the reverse. If this is
apparent in such a simple matter as the recording of physical characters,
how much more apparent it is when an attempt is made to classify and
generalise on men. Most books admit that there are not sufficient data on
which to base conclusions, and then proceed to suggest conclusions. The
whole science of criminology is illustrated by the composite photographs
published gravely as contributions; for a composite is a photograph of
nobody at all. It is obtained by the superposition of photographs of
different persons, and is itself different from any of them. It may
represent them all as they ought to be, but it does not represent any of
them as he is. It is the criminal in the abstract--who does not exist. It
conveys in itself a warning against averages, for it is a pictorial
presentment of an average.

An average is the mean of different numbers. In dealing with masses of
people--feeding them, for instance--by providing a certain average supply
for each, all may be satisfied; but whenever the average is applied to
individuals it is misapplied, and one finds he has too much, another that
he has too little. Measure two men; one is 5 ft. 8 in., the other 5 ft. 4
in.; the average height of both is 5 ft. 6 in., which is the height of
neither. So when we have averages of height, weight, etc., given in the
case of criminals, we know that we have been told nothing about any of
them. The other physical characters of criminals in prison have been noted
without any attempt having been made to ascertain whether, and if so when
and how, they were acquired, and we are invited to contemplate a number of
twisted and bloated faces, many of which could easily be matched among the
non-criminals. See these men and women before debauchery has left its mark
on them and they are no uglier than some of us who are set over them.

As for the assessment of the mental characters of prisoners, the value of
it will largely depend on the ability of the examiner to place himself in
touch with them. Few people believe nowadays that by feeling the knobs on
the outside of a man's head you can tell the faculties within, far less
whether these faculties will be used for good or ill; and we are not
likely to advance the study of the criminal by founding conclusions on the
measurements of his head, facial angle, etc. The new phrenology differs
from the old in respect that it changes its terms and insists on more
exactness of measurement. Like the old, it may be fairly successful in
judging men after they have shown their qualities.

No one has yet discovered a reliable means of estimating the nature,
quality, and amount of a man's mental powers from his appearance. We may
learn what he says or does, but we can never be sure what he thinks. In
practice we are all continually forming estimates of those we meet. Some
judge by the clothes, some by the expression, most of us not knowing how.
So far as our impressions are concerned, however we think they have been
arrived at, we all make mistakes and have all to revise our opinions. The
man who prides himself on his ability to read character is usually the man
who makes the most mistakes; his confidence misleads his judgment. Even
the shrewdest are occasionally deceived after many and varied
opportunities of arriving at a correct estimate of their friends or
enemies, yet for his own purposes each man's judgment may be, in the main,
satisfactory and no one troubles about his neighbour's methods; but when
they are erected into a science it is time to protest.

The size and shape of the head, its malformations and asymmetry, may be
measured with a fair amount of success. This and more has been done with a
view to the future identification of individuals; but the theory
underlying the practice of taking such measurements is that no two
criminals are alike. The theory the criminologists seek to establish is
that they are all very much alike. It is stated that so many men who have
committed crimes have heads of a certain conformation, have peculiarities
in the character of their skulls. If these physical deviations have a
causal relation to their conduct, since the heads cannot be altered the
criminals are therefore outwith reform. The Church-people, on the other
hand, hold that all wrongdoing springs from "the heart"--not meaning
thereby the physical organ so called. You cannot give a man a new head
free from the objectionable shape; but men have developed a new spirit,
and from being bad have become good citizens without undergoing any
physical alteration; so that after all it would appear that "The heart
aye's, the part aye, That makes us right or wrong."




CHAPTER II

HEREDITY AND CRIME

    Does heredity account for one quality more than another?--
    Impossibility of forecasting the conduct of others--Do criminals breed
    criminals?--The fit and the unfit--Unequal endowments--Ability and
    position--Inherited faculties and social pressure--Crime the result of
    wrongly directed powers--Original sin and heredity--Heredity behind
    everything.


In the effort to assign a general cause for criminality an undue emphasis
may easily be placed on any one factor. There are those who seem to think
that heredity is the main cause, but they rarely attempt to define the
content of the term. In a sense heredity is the cause of everything, but
in that case it cannot be held to be the cause of one thing more than of
another. Suppose a man becomes insane at the age of thirty and it is shown
that a number of his relatives, direct and collateral, have also been
insane. If heredity accounts for his insanity what will account for his
sanity? Such a man under treatment may recover, but sane or insane his
heredity is not altered. The fact is that we none of us know enough
regarding the qualities of our ancestors to be justified in imputing our
inheritance of any special tendency to any particular one of them, and
every successive generation implies a mixing, if not a blending, of very
complex and sometimes opposing qualities.

If a man knows anything about anybody in this world surely it is about
himself. His knowledge is incomplete, but it is more full and varied than
his knowledge of any other body. He may be expected to know something
about the qualities and faculties of his wife. Yet all he knows of himself
and her, added to all he knows of the laws of heredity, does not enable
him to forecast with any degree of accuracy the faculties and tendencies
of his infant child, or to trace these back when they have developed.

In the case of criminals born and brought up in hotbeds of vice it is even
more hopeless to trace back family history, because there is often in
their case a grave uncertainty as to the personality of the male parent.
To say that as wolves breed wolves criminals breed criminals is nonsense
and mischievous nonsense. As canaries breed canaries do poets breed poets?

Criminals are men and women who have gone wrong; not necessarily because
of the possession of certain powers which they have inherited, but because
these powers have been used in a wrong direction. They come from all
classes; and there is nothing to show that if their children were taken
from them early in life and brought up in favourable surroundings they
would take to crime; but there is an abundance of evidence on the other
side.

There is a good deal of discussion nowadays regarding the fit and the
unfit among us, and a tendency to forget that a classification of our
fellow-citizens under one head or the other can only be made if we regard
the terms as relative to the conditions under which they live. That very
many prove their fitness to survive the continuous strain of economic
pressure, can as little be questioned as that others sink under the
ordeal. No one will deny that there is a good deal of unfitness shown by
persons in a comfortable position economically; and if some of the
Apostles of Fitness had any sense of humour they would hold their tongues
and hide themselves, for neither intellectually nor physically do they
show much claim to present an ideal standard.

Nobody denies that men are unequally endowed. Some have a powerful
physique; others have greater intellectual power. The usefulness of their
endowment to themselves and to others will largely depend on the position
in which they are placed. Put them to work unsuited for them, or place
them in positions where their faculties are not allowed free play, and
they may do very badly. The difficulty is to get the right man in the
right place. When he is in the wrong place he may be a nuisance to himself
and others; but it does not follow that placed in another position he
would not be a useful member of society.

An attempt has been made to show that certain faculties are inherited and
transmitted in certain families; but it is conveniently assumed that
position is of no importance. Everybody knows that, in the professions
chosen to illustrate the theory, promotion is not wholly dependent on
ability. That a father and son have both been judges offers no presumption
of special fitness on the part of the son. That high military rank has
been held by several members of the same family need not prove any of them
to be great soldiers; that the government of the State is now in the hands
of one family and now in the hands of another does not show anything more
than that these families have been in a position to secure the offices. It
would be a new and startling doctrine to assert that the man who is best
fitted for a position always obtained it. Everybody knows that the main
consideration in determining an appointment is whether a man has
influence enough to get it; and that influence need not depend on his
personal ability, but on his position in relation to those in whose gift
the appointment lies. Granted equal ability in two men, let one of them
start with family or social influence and the other with none, and there
can be no doubt as to what will happen. That an able man will obtain
influence in time is highly probable, but by the time he has gained
recognition he is likely to be too old to benefit much by it. The stupid
man who has a clever father has a better chance than the clever man whose
father has shown no special ability.

It is a very difficult thing for any man to learn the history of his
family. In the case of the eminent you get no two biographies that are
alike. An enquiry would show that this is equally true in the case of
those who are not eminent. A man may have one reputation inside his family
circle and quite a different reputation outside. We are all influenced in
our conduct towards others by our opinions regarding them. A man who has
pride in his ancestry will show it in his actions. There may be nothing to
be proud about, but that will not prevent him playing his part. On the
other hand, if he believes he has been disgraced by something that has
been done by some member of the family, his conduct is likely to suffer
from the belief. I have seen a woman whose brother was executed for murder
sink under the disgrace into a condition of recklessness verging on
insanity; and it is a matter of common observation that in some degree men
have been broken in spirit by the shame brought upon them through the
action of their relatives. It is impossible to discriminate between the
part played by inherited tendencies and social pressure, in the production
of certain acts.

Crime is not the result of inherited faculty, but of the direction in
which that faculty is exercised. There are some families where the parents
have been criminals and the sons have all done well; while the daughters
have followed in the footsteps of their parents. In these cases it is
probable that the determining factor has been the influence of the mother.
Her criminal acts and methods were more susceptible of imitation on the
part of the daughters than on the part of the sons, and the girls, even
though they had been willing to leave the house, would have had to face
life outside under greater difficulties than the boys.

The practice of singling out heredity as the cause of certain things to
the exclusion of others has no sanction in experience. Our forefathers
recognised that all men showed imperfections. They saw that one man was
given to envy; another to lust; another to covetousness; another to wrath;
and so on through all the deadly sins. They attributed these defects to
our heritage of Original Sin. The theologian has been displaced by the
scientific man, and if heredity is a newer name for our ignorance it does
not fit the facts any better.

We inherit all the faculties and powers which we possess, but what they
are only the event shows. Nothing can be taken out of a man but what is in
him, but there may be a good deal in him which is never taken out. We may
develop certain faculties, but not unless they are first present; and the
stimulus that they obey at one period in our lives may fail at another. We
may estimate the capabilities of a man who is dead from observation of
what he has done, but we cannot say that he might not have done better or
worse had his life been prolonged. In the case of great men this is
recognised, and we have laments over their early death and speculations
as to what they might have done, or regrets that they lived too long for
their fair fame. It is the same in the case of small men as of great.

Heredity is behind everything; not merely behind some things. If it
explains a man's disease, in the same sense it must also explain his
antecedent health. It cannot account for one part of his life more than
another. Even those who attribute disease or misconduct to heredity seek
to cure the diseased person and to correct his bad habits. Any success
with which they meet is not obtained by altering his heredity, but by
changing the conditions under which he has been living in such a way and
to such an extent that he reacts favourably to the change. We are not
warranted in saying of anybody that he is doomed by heredity to a life of
vice or of crime. The conditions that suit one person may not be suitable
to the healthy development of another, and the problem with regard to
those who transgress our laws is to ascertain under what conditions they
would behave best and place them there. Though their family history may be
of the blackest; though their ancestors may have been vicious, it by no
means follows that it is impossible for them to be otherwise. When a man
has done wrong it does not help him to be informed that he cannot do
better. He is often more than willing to transfer the blame to the
shoulders of others. It is more profitable to teach and help him to do
well than to encourage him to curse his grandfather.

There is only one way of finding out why people commit crimes and that is
by making a patient enquiry in each case. The causes in many cases may be
similar, but the part they play may be different.




CHAPTER III

INSANITY AND CRIME

    Insanity and responsibility--Removal of the insane from prison--Crime
    resulting from insanity--Case of theft--Of embezzlement--Of
    fire-raising--Insanity and murder charges--The result of an act not a
    guide to the nature of the act--Observation of prisoners charged with
    certain offences--Insanity as a result of misconduct--Cases--The
    mentally defective--Cases.


There seems to be a widespread opinion that all criminals and offenders
are more or less insane, but those who hold it have nothing to say in
support of their view save that they cannot understand how certain crimes
could be committed by any sane person. This is to beg the whole question,
which is, how many persons who are charged with committing offences are
found on examination to be unsound mentally?

Insanity has never been satisfactorily defined, but it is a term which in
the legal sense connotes irresponsibility. Yet if all insane persons had
no sense of responsibility it is difficult to imagine how they could be
suffered to live. Even in lunatic asylums the great majority of the
inmates can be induced to behave in such a way as to make it unnecessary
to tie them up. They have a very large amount of liberty conceded to them
without serious inconvenience to their neighbours and greatly to their own
advantage. If they simply did what any stray notion impelled them to do
this would not be possible. Their affliction frees them from
responsibility to the law for their actions; but in practice they have to
show by their conduct that they can and will obey the rules of the
institution in which they are placed before it is safe or reasonable to
let them go freely about in it. The physician does not demand from them
better conduct than their mental condition warrants him in expecting; but
they learn, in so far as they are capable of learning, that their own
actions will determine the degree to which they will be free from
interference, and that the necessary result of misconduct will be
increased restraint. Only in so far as they show a sense of responsibility
is it safe to allow them to be free from supervision. A person may suffer
from such a degree of mental unsoundness as will free him from
responsibility for his actions in the eyes of the law, and yet be able to
conform to the rules laid down for the guidance of his life by an asylum
superintendent.

A very small proportion of prisoners are persons of unsound mind, and in
most cases the mental unsoundness is the result of their own misconduct.
In Scotland there is no difficulty in freeing insane persons from prison.
By section 6 of the Criminal and Dangerous Lunatics (Scotland) Amendment
Act, 1871, it is provided that "When in relation to any person confined in
a local prison in terms of the Prisons (Scotland) Administration Act,
1860, it is certified on soul and conscience by two medical persons that
they have visited and examined such prisoner, and that in their opinion he
is insane, it shall be lawful for the sheriff, on summary application at
the instance of the administrators of such Prison, by a warrant under his
hand, to order such prisoner to be removed to a lunatic asylum." The
matter practically rests with the prison surgeon, for the prison
commissioners on his report never raise any objection to the transfer of a
convicted prisoner who is found to be insane. Yet the same persons return
again and yet again.

The warrant for detention in an asylum expires with the period of the
sentence of imprisonment, and the asylum authorities must obtain new
certificates before they can continue to keep the patient. When the degree
and kind of mental unsoundness is very marked there is no difficulty in
getting the necessary documents; but when the patient has been benefited
to the extent of being able to behave and speak no worse than many of his
fellow-criminals, it is different. He is sent for examination to a man who
is not acquainted with him. The doctor has to state facts observed by
himself as a ground for certification; quite properly he is not permitted
to ensure the detention of anybody on evidence that is second-hand. The
patient is quiet and on his guard, and his examiner can make nothing of
him. Accordingly he goes back to his haunts and his vices, impatient of
restraint, and is soon in the hands of the police again. Clearly there is
need of some modification in the law or its administration to permit of
such persons being dealt with.

Insane offenders may be divided into two classes: those whose wrongdoing
is the result of their insanity; and those who have been sound enough to
begin with, but who have become insane, just as they have contracted
physical diseases, as a result of vicious indulgence and its treatment. Of
the first-named class there may be one in about a thousand admissions. The
crimes charged are of all kinds and degrees of gravity, as the following
examples will show:--

X 1.--A man is brought to prison for the first time charged with a series
of petty thefts committed while under the influence of drink. He shows
signs of alcoholism, and is too dazed to give any account of himself. In a
day or two the alcoholic symptoms have passed off and his general
condition suggests enquiry. He has signs of mental disease which cannot
now be confused with drink. It is found that, until a year before, he had
been in business in an industrial town; that he had been a reputable
citizen, quiet, peaceable, and abstemious in his habits; that he began to
take to drink, and sold off his business, which realised several thousand
pounds; and that he had since been lost to the knowledge of his friends.
What happened in the interval I do not know. He was taken in charge by the
police for stealing glasses from a public-house, weights from a
shop-counter, and such-like things, which were certainly of no use to him
and which he could not sell. The charge was dropped and he was sent to a
lunatic asylum.

X 2.--A young man is imprisoned on a charge of fire-raising. He is brisk,
talkative, and cheerful, and laughs at the charge as ridiculous. Beyond
showing a high appreciation of his own qualities he does not do or say
anything to attract attention, and as he is really "bright" his conceit
only provokes a smile. He has no physical symptoms of brain disease, and
it is not suggested on his behalf that he is mentally unsound. A decent
workman who was interested in him called to say how well-behaved he had
always been, and to ascertain what ought to be done by way of assisting
his defence; and some things he said suggested the need for special
enquiry. It was found that prisoner had always been energetic and bright
at his work, and that he had good reason for boasting of his skill. His
fellow-workers admitted that, though they disapproved of his bounce. He
had been a teetotaler all his life and was a prominent member of a
militant temperance society. He was very industrious and thrifty. He
married a quiet, reputable girl who shared his opinions and ideals. He had
saved some money and he suddenly made up his mind to start in business for
himself. His wife did not approve of his doing so, as she did not like the
risk and was quite content to go on in their accustomed ways. He
persisted, and she yielded the point, but only when she saw her opposition
was causing domestic strife. He rented a small workshop and furnished it.
He got as much work as he could undertake--not a great amount--but before
he had time to see how his venture would prosper, he conceived the idea of
removing to a larger house. His wife was unable to see how he could safely
do this, as she did not think he had money sufficient to justify such a
course. Her opposition only made him more insistent, and on one occasion
he lost his temper so completely that she became alarmed. He threatened to
kill her, and looked as though he meant it. When she spoke to him about
this afterwards, he apologised and laughed it off; and as he had always
been a most affectionate and dutiful husband she dropped the subject.
Things went on as before till one day there was a fire in his workshop. It
was not got under till some damage was done, and it might have resulted in
serious loss of life and property, as there were dwelling-houses
adjoining. It was quite obviously the work of an incendiary, and he was
arrested on a charge of fire-raising, as he could give no satisfactory
account of his movements. On closer investigation it became quite apparent
that he was a person of unsound mind. Little things that had passed as
peculiarities, receiving only a passing comment, when dovetailed into the
story as I have related it left no room for doubt. The charge was dropped,
he was sent to an asylum, and there he died two years later from general
paralysis of the insane.

In his case his fellow-workmen, seeing him from day to day, failed to
observe more than a slight accentuation of the qualities they had been
accustomed to see in him. He talked a lot about what he could do; he
always did that. He offered to make certain articles for a man better than
any other could; very likely he was able. He started business on an
altogether inadequate capital; others have done the same thing. He wanted
to set up in a higher style of living; he was always ambitious--and so on.
Until he set fire to his workshop they had never known him do anything
inconsistent with his character, and while they laughed at his boasting
they did not doubt his sanity. It was the same with his wife. She
distrusted his judgment but did not doubt his sanity. His sudden murderous
threat she put down to his temper. His temper she attributed to his want
of sleep; for she admitted that he got up at night, and worked or moved
about. On one occasion, she confessed, he had proposed that he should cut
her throat and his own. He was quite quiet at the time and she thought it
an ugly kind of joke, as he woke her to make the proposal; but she
explained it to herself on the ground of overwork and sleeplessness. Those
who are coming most in contact with persons afflicted like this man are
the last to see the significance of the changes taking place before them,
because the transition is so gradual. This is true of people in all social
classes.

X 3 was a professional man in a very good line of business. Late in life
he was arrested on a charge of embezzling large sums of money. When I saw
him first he had a paralysis of the muscles of one hand, which was
withered in consequence; and he could not articulate owing to paralysis of
the muscles of the mechanism of speech. He put or answered questions in
writing. Enquiry showed that for many years he had been much respected and
trusted. He had amassed a considerable fortune, and had been upright and
honest in his dealings with others. He lived in the country and kept up a
large establishment. His business was one which dealt in large sums of
money. Some years before his arrest he married for the second time, and
there was trouble between his second wife and his family by her
predecessor. He had always been an open-handed man, but latterly his
public gifts had excited comment by their number and character. His mental
condition, however, was never suspected by his family. They assumed his
ability to afford anything he chose to buy. His wife left him as a result
of his conduct to her and in doubt as to his sanity, but these doubts were
not shared by his family. She said he had become capricious and sometimes
cruel to her, and quite different from his ordinary self. He would
sometimes bring in parcels of costly jewellery for which there was no
need. In the end she became frightened to stay with him; but though she
feared he might injure her, as he seemed to have taken a dislike to her,
she never suspected that he was frittering away his substance. When the
crash came it was found that he had within a short period thrown away tens
of thousands of his own, and as much belonging to others who had trusted
him. He had bought and sold property in a reckless way and without any
authority to do so, his reputation enabling him to do things which in
another would have been questioned. He was sent to an asylum. In his case
the paralysis from which he suffered, gradual as it was in its onset, had
attracted attention to itself and had actually masked the mental condition
which accompanied or followed it.

There are some crimes which in themselves shock us to such an extent that
we find it difficult to believe that any sane man would commit them. In a
book such as this I can only refer to certain sexual offences without
discussing them, but even in these cases the crime need not infer
insanity. We are no more justified in saying that a man is mad if he does
a mad-like thing than in calling him wise if he does a wise-like thing. A
man's criminal acts are only to be judged in relation to his other conduct
if we would form a rational opinion as to his mental condition; and that
again has to be considered in relation to the social condition in which he
is placed before anything approaching a fair opinion as to its adequacy
can be formed.

If a man's criminal act were to be taken as sufficient to infer his
insanity there are certain crimes for which we should never have anybody
tried. Every murderer would straightway be sent to a lunatic asylum on the
plea that he must have been mad or he would not have done it; and yet that
is precisely one of the most important points that have to be examined in
the course of a trial for murder in Scotland.

Murder is practically the only crime for which the death sentence is
passed. Scottish jurymen have shown a strong repugnance to be parties to
the death of a criminal. They may favour capital punishment in theory,
but, no matter how bad he may be, they shrink from handing a culprit over
to the hangman; and they will seize any opportunity to escape from doing
so if it is given them. They may be told they have nothing to do with
results; that their duty is to find a verdict on the evidence; but they
might as well be told to pull the bolt. They know what will happen. They
do not seem to believe that they are not responsible for the necessary
consequence of their acts, and in spite of the assurance of the law the
verdict is a worry to them. Few homicides are hanged in Scotland, and
there are few verdicts of murder, mainly for this reason. If the death
penalty were abolished--if it were even made only a possible
penalty--brutal murders would have a chance of being called by that name
and not by "Culpable Homicide."

For a time it was almost a matter of routine to set up a defence of
insanity in murder cases where the facts could not be seriously contested.
Now in most assaults there is an element of accident. The assailant is in
a state of rage and hits out wildly. The blow that will kill one man may
only stun another. Blows inflicted on one part of the body may cause
little more than inconvenience, but if the same amount of violence be
applied to another part death may result. I have known cases where as a
result of assault the victim seemed to have sustained injuries sufficient
to kill him, even though he had the nine lives sometimes attributed to a
cat, and yet he recovered--maimed and permanently unfitted to support
himself. That was not murder; in some respects it was worse; but there was
no attempt to prove the assailant insane. If death had ended the suffering
of the victim there would have been a plea of insanity set up. The
determining factor in the plea was thus the physical condition of the
assailed, not the mental condition of the assailant.

In Glasgow special care is taken in all cases of murder to enquire into
the mental condition of the accused. From the time he is admitted to
prison he is placed under observation with this purpose in view, and any
evidence bearing on the subject is carefully examined. His conduct in
prison may be perfectly sane, but if there is any reason to believe that,
when at liberty, he showed signs of insanity, the medical officer
personally makes an investigation and reports. The prisoner may be
penniless, but he suffers no prejudice thereby, as the work is undertaken
at the expense of the Crown; and at the trial the necessary witnesses are
usually produced on his behalf if the reports show that he is insane. This
is true in other than murder cases to this extent, that the procurator
fiscal informs the prison authorities of any allegation as to the
prisoner's mental condition and asks for a report. He also puts before the
judge any statement by the prison doctor as to the health of a prisoner
mental or physical, even although the report may not have been asked for.

Insanity may be a result as well as a cause of misconduct. A life of
alternate indulgence and repression tends to unsoundness of mind; and I
have seen men and women, who when first they fell into criminal courses
were free from any suspicion of insanity, gradually degenerate and become
insane. When the kind of life they lead is considered the wonder is that
so many of them do not become mad.

X 4 was a girl of the labouring class. She was handsome and of a fine
figure. Good-tempered and of an easy disposition, she was rather indolent;
and as she was not trained in any very strong regard for morality and had
plenty of admirers, she soon gave up working and took to the less
restricted life of the town. She got into the hands of the police and was
sent to prison, where her behaviour was beyond reproach. She did the work
required of her and was always even-tempered and orderly. She took to
drinking rather heavily, and during one imprisonment had a bad attack of
delirium tremens, from which she recovered only to fall into a condition
of dementia which remains and, though it has become less marked, leaves
her unfit to take care of herself. Her insanity is the direct result of
her excesses.

X 5 got into bad company and was encouraged rather than corrected by her
mother, who found her profit in her daughter's misdeeds. She left her work
but did not take heavily to drink, and by and by came to prison charged
with theft. She contracted disease in the course of her misconduct and
began to take fits. She gradually became worse, as she gave herself no
chance of recovery and neglected treatment when at liberty. She was in
prison for short periods during two years and finally became insane and
died. When first I saw her she was free from any mental or physical
infirmity. Her disease and death were the direct result of her way of
living.

X 6 had always been a wild and uncontrollable lad. He entered the army and
was soon found to be one of the bad bargains. He was ultimately
discharged. He got into a lawless set in Glasgow and picked up a living,
sometimes honestly, sometimes otherwise. He suffered imprisonment on
several occasions and was always a troublesome man to deal with. Gradually
he showed delusions of suspicion and had attacks of violence; and finally
he had to be dealt with as a criminal lunatic. In his case there was from
the beginning a condition of mental instability, which showed itself in
his restlessness and impatience of restraint. It unfitted him for a
soldier's life, and the discipline incident thereto was much more likely
to aggravate than to remedy his condition. Having no friends capable of
directing him, he flew to excesses and was punished for the crimes in
which he took part. Than life in prison there could be nothing imagined
that would be worse for him; and the monotony of it and the quiet would
tend to develop the delusions which afterwards dominated his mind, and
influenced his conduct to such an extent that under their influence he
committed assaults and proved himself to be a dangerous lunatic. His case
is different from the last two in respect that the very means adopted to
deal with his excesses were largely the cause of his final insanity.

Short of cases of certifiable insanity there are a number of prisoners who
are mentally defective. The total is small, but the individuals command an
amount of attention, and cause an amount of trouble to the public, out of
all proportion to their numbers. In some cases the defect consists of
delayed development; the body and the passions have grown at a greater
rate than the mental powers, but time and training would be likely to
establish an equilibrium.

In other cases there seems to be something wanting in their mental
outfit--they "have a want," as it is put colloquially and expressively.
Many of them are capable of behaving themselves when under the guidance of
well-disposed persons; and more may be found about religious meetings than
in prison. They have come under the influence of the Churches and have
benefited thereby, and it is largely because no such healthy influence has
been obtained over those others that they are in prison. They are usually
quite tractable and pay obedience to stronger-minded persons. When these
are law-abiding they cause no trouble, but when the influence is evil it
is otherwise.

Mental powers that may be sufficient to enable a man to work and live in
conformity with the law in one social position may be quite inadequate to
enable him to support himself in another. There are men holding positions
and discharging the duties required of them to the satisfaction of their
employers, who would sink to a very low level if cast adrift. Any fixed
standard of mental capacity is irrational, since it leaves out of account
the conditions under which the person examined has to live. The question
is: Is the person by reason of mental defect unable to bear the stress of
life under the social conditions in which he is placed? Is he fit to take
care of himself and abstain from offending against the laws?

Whatever may be the view of lawyers on the matter, no business man expects
the same conduct from a boy as from a man; nor will he trust a young man
to the same extent as an old man. The younger man may possess more
knowledge, but there is a difference between knowledge and experience, and
a man may know right from wrong without having the experience of life that
enables him to discount his passions and follow his knowledge. A person
who is mentally defective, and who has the additional misfortune to be
born into a family of poor people and brought up in a slum, if he
transgress the law can only be dealt with as though he were as fully
endowed as his neighbours. If he is not mentally unsound to such a degree
as to justify his certification as insane, there is only the prison for
him; with the prospect of hardships on liberation and imprisonment when he
offends, till he is sufficiently mad, or his record and his condition
combined are bad enough, to enable him to be placed under the treatment
he ought to have received from the first.

This is not necessarily the fault of those who administer the laws. The
police are not justified in permitting offences to be committed; and
whether the person who offends is sane or mentally defective it is their
duty to arrest him. The medical men who may see him can only certify if
they find him insane from their examination of him. Even if he is sent to
an asylum the medical superintendent cannot detain him if his condition
improves so far that he behaves sanely there; and out he goes to the old
struggle that he is quite unfit to face, with no one to help him or to
exercise authority over him when he has a wayward turn.

X 7 is congenitally mentally defective, and he has been neglected. He has
a stutter which makes it more difficult for him than for others equally
weak-minded to get in touch with those around him and, asking questions,
to learn. When he does make himself understood he has nothing of any great
interest to say, and he is bound to find in the impatience of the ordinary
man a barrier when he tries to speak. He cannot get work and there is not
much he could do. He haunts outhouses at night for shelter and is arrested
for trespassing in doing so. He is in a filthy condition and is a nuisance
and an offence to those with whom he comes in contact. He is sent to
prison for committing an offence which he cannot avoid committing and
which is the direct result of the destitution incident on his mental
defect and friendlessness.

X 8 is a quiet, peaceable, and rather attractive young woman. She was
married to a respectable young man with a small wage. She behaved very
well and seemed to be managing their home in a satisfactory manner, but
to his surprise and horror she was one day arrested, and was afterwards
convicted, for obtaining goods under false pretences. She had been unable
to make her income serve for the support of the household, although she
was not extravagant, and she had played up to her appearance and got
certain articles by a story that was fraudulent. Had she appealed to his
friends she would have been assisted, but she took the other course from
sheer mental incapacity to deal with her situation. Her case was
thoroughly investigated while she was in prison and arrangements were made
for directing her on her liberation. She is quite tractable, has no vices,
is anxious to do well, but is not fit to bear unaided the responsibilities
of her position. The Church to which she belongs has constituted itself
her guardian now that her condition has been shown; and she is not likely
to transgress so long as interest in her is sustained, nor to cost much in
money to those who are looking after her.

X 9 is a lad who has got out of parental control and seeks adventures. He
answers questions intelligently, if somewhat insolently, and so far as a
merely professional examination would show is not defective mentally. He
is to all appearance simply a bad boy. Observation of his conduct in
prison and enquiry outside, show the mental defect behind it. He has
recurrent outbursts of temper without apparent cause, and while showing no
sign of confused intelligence, he proceeds to smash things. He has been in
prison for malicious mischief and for offences against decency as well as
for theft. He is not given to drink, but is beginning to indulge when he
can get a chance. He works intermittently, but cannot stay at anything for
more than a short period. He was charged with housebreaking, but on a
report from prison as to his mental condition he was certified as insane
and was kept in an asylum for about a year. He had improved so much in
conduct that he was discharged, but the medical superintendent expressed
the opinion that left to himself he would probably break back; and he did;
resuming his old practices within a short period of his liberation. He can
do well enough under proper conditions, but is unfit to look after
himself.

X 10 is a young woman who is strongly built and of a pleasant manner and
appearance. She has been a domestic servant, but falling into bad company
has given up work. At first she only appeared to be "soft" a little, but
drink and excess have contributed to cause or to show--for in her case it
is difficult to say which--mental deficiency. She is quiet and
well-behaved in prison, and is of fair intelligence, but on liberation she
resorts to the lowest haunts and indulges in such excesses that when
brought back to prison she is in terror of death, she feels so ill. She
was induced to place herself under control for a time, and she did well,
working hard and cheerfully; but she returned to the city and resumed her
old courses. All who know her recognise that she "has a want," but the
defect is so slight that there is no possibility of having her dealt with
for it, as the laws at present only enable her to be punished for its
results. Unless her excesses produce some marked degeneration--and, as she
is reported to be having "fits" occasionally, that seems probable--all
that can be done for her is to arrest and imprison her when she offends.
When she is a wreck she will receive the kind of treatment and the
guardianship that might save her were it possible to give it now.

Just as some prisoners become insane as a result of their criminal and
vicious life, some undergo mental degeneration to a degree not
certifiable. In the case of the older ones this is accompanied by such an
amount of physical disability as compels them to seek refuge in the
poorhouse, and they are only back to prison on the rare occasions that
they leave its gates, induced thereto by a feeling of improvement and a
renewed desire to visit their old haunts. Taking insane and mentally
defective prisoners together, their number is small relative to that of
those who suffer from no mental deficiency. Clearly then insanity will not
account for crime in any except a very small number of cases. In fact the
proportion of insane among prisoners generally is not greater than among
the population outside, but in the case of females admitted for cruelty to
children it is enormously in excess.




CHAPTER IV

PHYSICAL DEFECTS AND CRIME

    Physical defects beget sympathy--Rarely induce crime--May cause mental
    degeneration--Case of jealousy and murder.


Just as some degree of mental deficiency is not incompatible with the
ability to live a peaceable and useful life, physical defects do not
necessarily unfit a man to discharge his duties as a citizen. In either
case the sphere of his usefulness is limited, but that is all that can be
said. Much will depend on his social position.

When a person who is physically defective falls into evil courses, it
appears likely that he should find it more difficult to return to the
right path than one who is healthy and complete in all his parts; but this
expectation leaves out of account the fact that the more pitiable and
abandoned a man is the more does his condition appeal to the charitable.
His very helplessness attracts attention and begets for him a
consideration not given to those who are stronger; and if he will but
place himself in their hands, there are many willing to look after the
lost sheep whose condition is so pitiable. In some respects, and as things
are at present, there is less need for anyone who suffers from physical
disability taking to crime than for an ordinary citizen; for the law
provides for him and prevents him suffering from destitution in respect
that he is disabled.[1]

    [1] In Scotland able-bodied destitute males are not eligible for Poor
    Law relief.

Physical defects are in very few cases the cause of offences. They narrow
the opportunities of employment, and they lessen the chances of work even
though the defect may not be of such a nature as to unfit a man for it;
but except in so far as they may result in destitution--which, if due to
disability, must be relieved by the Parish on application--they rarely
induce crimes. In some cases, however, serious crime can be traced to this
cause.

X 11 was an energetic and industrious man. He was a teetotaler and took an
active interest in local affairs. He was respected and trusted by his
fellow-workmen and took a leading part in the trade and friendly societies
to which he belonged. He also had an interest in books; read a good deal,
considering his opportunities; and exercised his intelligence beyond most
of his neighbours. He married a suitable partner and their family life was
an evenly happy one. In the course of his employment he sustained an
accident whereby he lost his arm. When he left the hospital his employers
found a suitable place for him; and his income did not suffer appreciably,
while his prospects were actually brighter in the new than they had been
in the old situation. He began to brood over the loss of his limb, and by
and by he became jealous of his wife. One day he made a murderous attack
on her and was sent to prison. He was very penitent there, and quite
reasonable. He explained that he had ceased to be the man he was when he
married, and that since the loss of his arm his wife had regretted their
union. She had never said so, but though she tried to hide her change of
feeling he could see it. He detailed the causes of his jealousy; and when
it was pointed out to him that, granting the facts, his inferences may
have been all wrong, he admitted the force of the argument. At most he was
unreasonably jealous, but not insane; and on going over certain incidents
with him and supplying the explanations of them, he agreed that he had
been too hasty in coming to the conclusions on which he had acted. He said
that he could not blame his wife, even while he believed she had been
unfaithful; that he could not bear to lose her and that was why he had
attacked her; but that he was very sorry he had done her the wrong of
suspecting her. He was convicted and sent to prison for a period and he
behaved rationally and well. His wife was warned that his jealousy might
reassert itself and that there was a probability that he would become
certifiably insane if he continued to brood on his accident; and she was
advised not to live alone with him. He behaved so well that the warning
was forgotten. About a year after they had resumed housekeeping he nearly
killed her and committed suicide.

In this case the crime was traceable to the accident which caused the loss
of the man's arm. The cause is exceptional only in respect to the
seriousness of the crime, but it is not at all unusual for persons who
have the misfortune to be lame or deformed to show a morbid sensitiveness
on the subject. Their defect overshadows their lives and colours their
view of things, sometimes causing them to become reckless in their
behaviour and offenders against the law. On the other hand, many develop a
strain of piety and tenderness for their fellows. The presence of the
defect proves nothing beyond its own existence.




CHAPTER V

THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL

    The reliability of prisoners' statements--Deceit or
    misunderstanding?--Frankness and knowledge required on the part of the
    investigator--The prisoner's statement should form the basis of
    enquiry--Information and help obtained from former friends--The
    diffusion of knowledge so obtained--The prevention of crime and the
    accumulation of knowledge.


Any study of the criminal based on observations made when he is in prison
must of necessity be partial and misleading. It is like writing a Natural
History from a study of caged birds. Parts will be right, but the whole
will be wrong.

Advantage might be taken of his presence there to find out something of
the antecedents of the prisoner. The opinions of experts may be of value
with regard to him, but they are not nearly so useful as his own opinions
on how he comes to be in prison, nor are they more reliable.

Prisoners are no more truthful than other people, but they are not
generally purposeless liars. When a man is in trouble and is called on to
give an account of himself he makes the best of his case; but people who
have never been in prison have been known to make no disclaimer when
praised for qualities they do not possess, preferring to let time correct
any false impression that may be to their advantage. It is not reasonable
to expect any higher standard of behaviour from a prisoner than we look
for from others.

Much of what is harshly called lying on the part of prisoners is due to
misapprehension on the part of their questioners. Most of them do not
waste lies. If the truth will serve, it is easier to tell it, to put the
matter at its lowest; but they are frequently worried with questions they
do not understand, put by persons whom they distrust, with the result that
they leave an impression of stupidity and untrustworthiness that is not
deserved. I remember a gentleman who considered himself a very acute
observer, informing me with regard to a certain prisoner whom he had been
questioning, that the man was weak-minded. I had very good reason for
holding another opinion, but wishing to find out how the visitor had
arrived at this conclusion, I interviewed the prisoner, and after some
talk approached the subject of his recent examination. A smile overspread
his face as he explained that he had been asked all sorts of questions by
the stranger and had not been allowed to answer in his own way, so he got
tired and let the other have it as he wished. His opinion of his examiner
I obtained as a personal favour, for as he put it, "It's no for the like
o' me to say onything aboot the like o' him--at least no here." I cannot
print his words, all of them. He said, "He's a ---- of a flat." Each had a
poor opinion of the other, and how far each was right others may judge.
The incident suggests several reflections.

It is not reasonable to expect that a prisoner will take the trouble to
understand and answer the questions of a stranger whose object in quizzing
him he does not know. Few of us would care to unbosom ourselves to the
first visitor who chose to interest himself in our affairs. He might count
himself lucky if he did not find himself violently expelled. The prisoner
cannot throw an unwelcome visitor out, but sometimes he would like to; and
the attitude of some who seek to do good is at times provocative. When the
enquirer is known it is a different story. Get the name of being "all
right" and you will learn, but you must first deserve confidence.
Frankness begets frankness, and for my own part I have found very few
prisoners who wilfully sought to deceive me when they knew why I sought
information from them. It was either freely given, or withheld with the
plain statement that they could not fairly give it. The information given
has not always been accurate, but there are not so many people who are
accurate in their statements--not through want of desire to be truthful,
but because their perception, their memory, or both, are blurred.

But more than frankness is required; there must be some ability to see
things from the standpoint of those who are questioned, and a sufficient
knowledge of their language to understand an answer when it is given.
There are very many people who think they know the English language, and
who do not seem to have realised the fact that a different significance is
attached to words in different districts and among different classes.
There are not merely slang words, but words used in a slang sense, and
when these are taken literally the result is misunderstanding. Yet we are
sometimes treated to the result of investigations by people who have had
no training, and who in a marvellously short time can obtain voluminous
and striking information; how much it is worth is another question. Try to
get by question and answer a short record of the antecedents of any of
your friends, and you will find that it cannot be done in a few minutes,
that it will not be free from inaccuracies, and that it will require
explanation before you understand it as they would like. To obtain such
information from a stranger is a more difficult task.

In the case of the prisoner the advantages to be gained are worth the
effort to overcome the difficulties. Having obtained his statement, it
might form the basis of an enquiry into his case and an attempt to help
him on his discharge. There are few men who have not some friends who are
persons of goodwill. They may be relatives, or employers, or
fellow-workmen; but their will may be greater than their power. Their
patience may have been tried to the limit of endurance or their interest
may have become languid; but if they will not or cannot help, they can at
least tell what they have done and prevent a repetition of the treatment
that has failed. There are very many people who would never dream of
joining a society for aiding prisoners, but who will willingly assist in
helping a person whom they have known in his better days. The societies
have their use, but that is no reason why a man's fellows should not be
enlisted in his aid; though they have no interest in the general question,
they may take an interest in the special case. In the attempt it will be
found that, even though the efforts made to help a given prisoner should
fail, a knowledge has been gained of the existence of conditions that
favour ill-doing.

Every official knows that in a great city there are occasions of
misconduct which the ordinary citizen does not suspect. Such knowledge, so
long as it is confined to officials, is comparatively sterile. They may
speak, but some other matter distracts public attention before it has been
focussed long enough on the subject to do any good. At most they may get
further powers to do for the citizens things which the citizens could far
better do for themselves. Talk of slums to a man who is comfortable is
often only talk, but set him to live in them and the effect is different.
In the same way, if you can, through his personal interest in a man, get
another to examine into the causes of his wrongdoing; to go over the
ground for himself; to see the process and the means of his degradation;
that man will note how many occasions of offence exist that might be
removed, and if only for the safety of his own family will give assistance
in removing them. Incidentally and in process of time a large mass of
information regarding the history of criminals and offenders would be
collected, and some generalisations of importance might be made. At
present those who generalise do so without any such careful study of the
persons whom they deal with as that I recommend. For sixteen years I have
been looking for the offender of the books and I have not met him. The
offender familiar to me is not a type, but a man or a woman; and we shall
never know nor deserve to know him till we are content to study him, not
as the naturalist studies a beetle, but as a man studies his neighbour.




PART II

COMMON FACTORS IN THE CAUSATION OF CRIME




CHAPTER I

DRINK AND CRIME

    Drink commonly accredited with the production of crime--Minor offences
    usually committed under its influence--Drink a factor in the causation
    of most crimes against the person--Double personality caused by
    drink--Drunken cruelty--Drunken rage--Assaults on the drunken--Sexual
    offences--Child neglect--Mental defect behind the drunkenness of some
    offenders--Malicious mischief and theft--Drunken kleptomania--The
    professional criminal and drink--Thefts from the drunken--Amount of
    crime not in ratio to amount of drinking in a district--The vice
    existent apart from crime, in the country--And in the wealthier parts
    of the city--Drunkenness and statistics--Summary.


Though the differences among prisoners in antecedents and faculties must
be taken into account if they are to be treated in a rational manner,
there are factors which are common to the causation of crime in many
cases. Their influence may vary in strength, but it cannot be disregarded.

Drink is denounced--and consumed--by all classes. There are many who
attribute all evils to its use, and some of these take the logical course
and advocate the prohibition of its manufacture and sale. Others make the
theory an excuse for doing nothing to remedy social conditions; for "you
never can stop men from drinking," and if drink be the cause of social
evils, and you cannot stop its use, why should they worry?

Any theory of the causation of evil will be fashionable if it offers a
superficial explanation of the facts and affords an excuse for doing
nothing more troublesome than giving good advice to the poorer classes.
Drink has brought misery and degradation on many, through their own
indulgence or that of those on whom they have been dependent; if it does
not cause, it is often an aggravation of poverty; and it is with no wish
to minimise its ill effects that I protest against exaggerating them. Our
social troubles are not traceable to any one cause, and it is not
profitable to single out a particular vice and place all evil to its
account; nor is the practice more laudable when the vice is not one to
which we are ourselves inclined. By all means let temperance be taught and
drunkenness be discouraged; this too we shall do better when we search for
the causes of intemperance.

One of the statements most frequently made is that the great majority of
crimes are due to drink. It would be more accurate to say that most
prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the
breach of the law for which they have been convicted. The great majority
are petty offenders. Strike them off and our prison population would at
once be reduced by more than a half. They have been drunk and incapable of
taking care of themselves, or they have committed a breach of the peace
through drink. Their sentences are short and their number is large. Many
of them are regular customers and return again and again in the course of
the year. Whether we are dealing wisely with them will bear discussion.
They do not seem to be any the better for it so far as their conduct
shows. They are enabled, in consequence of the rest and regular living of
the prison, to start on their next spree in a better condition physically
than would be the case if they were not detained there for a time; but
this is rather a personal than a public gain. At present they swell our
prison statistics and are a burden on the exchequer. That they should be
mixed up with criminals is no advantage either to us or to them. The cause
of their conviction is drink; but it does not make for clearness of
statement to add their numbers to those of criminals who have committed
crimes against the person or against property.

Crimes against the person are generally committed by people under the
influence of drink, or on persons who are intoxicated. A man takes liquor
to get out of himself, and is then in a condition to do or say things from
which he would refrain if sober. Some are not improved in temper as a
result of their drinking, and are more prone to quarrel and less able to
control their passion. It is commonly observed that a man can and does
develop a double personality, showing one set of characteristics when
sober and another when under the influence of drink. In both states he
receives impressions, and his actions when sober show that the impulses
which direct his acts are different from those which dominate him when he
is intoxicated. Just as his sober self is forgotten when he is drunk, his
drunken self is forgotten when he is sober--not wholly, it may be, but in
part. He seems more readily to remember violence suffered than violence
inflicted by him. Impressions received in one condition tend to be revived
when the person is again in that condition. If when he gets quarrelsome
and hits out he finds he has struck one who will strike back, he generally
gets out of the way and avoids the danger from that kind of person on a
subsequent occasion. Just as he learns to keep clear of lamp-posts and
other resistant objects, he learns to stop short of striking one who is
likely to hurt him.

The most serious assaults are not so much the outcome of drunken anger as
of drunken cruelty; and, pent up in one direction, it finds vent in
another. This passion seems to possess some men regularly, and it is
indulged at the expense of those who offer least resistance to it, viz.
the female members of their household. With them a habit is formed of
assaulting their women-folk, and the habit grows in force and intensity.
In most cases of brutal wife-murder that have come under my observation,
the fatal assault has simply been the last of a series committed regularly
when the culprit was under the influence of drink, and the woman's death
was the final incident in a long-drawn-out martyrdom.

In other cases men who are ordinarily peaceable find themselves in prison
charged with assaults of which they have no distinct recollection, the
result of sudden passion that has swept their minds when they were
intoxicated. Others become so pugnacious when they take drink that they
are not content till they are in a row and do not seem to mind whether
they get hurt or not. In their case--which seems to be the most common--it
is not the lust of cruelty but the delight in battle that stirs them, and
though they may get fully as much as they give, it does not deter them
from repeating their conduct.

Another class of assaults is that committed on persons who are under the
influence of drink, and who by their misconduct have provoked their
assailant. They are relatively few, and the assault is rarely so brutal in
character or so serious in result; though occasionally it may end
tragically. X 12 was a young man who married a girl of respectable
character. They were both sober and industrious. She had been engaged in a
factory before her marriage and had very little practical experience of
housekeeping. She was not accustomed to household routine, and as her
husband did not get home for his meals she had a lot of time on her hands.
Her house was in a different part of the city from that of her parents,
and she had to make friends for herself. Unfortunately she got into the
company of some who gossiped together and moistened the talk with drink.
At first she abstained, but by and by she began to do like the rest; and
unlike them she could not control herself. She showed a tendency to excess
which they tried to discourage for their own sakes as well as hers. Her
husband discovered her misconduct, and in order to break her of it removed
to another district. For a time she did well, and her relatives helped
her. But again she drifted in her search for company into that of those
who took the "social glass." It is wonderful how a woman when she has once
taken to drink finds a difficulty in making friendships with other women
who have not done so, unless she becomes a militant teetotaler. In the
present instance the young wife had relapse after relapse over a series of
years, and her husband seems to have done all in his power to save her.
She had two children, and when sober she attended to them adequately; but
her fits of drinking began to occur more frequently, and in them she
became more reckless. After one, in which she had sold out the household
furniture and disappeared, she returned penitent and he set up house again
with her. She kept sober for some weeks, they were getting things
together, and he was trusting her with some money. One Monday evening he
went home from his work to find the house partially stripped, the children
neglected, dirty, and in tears, and his wife in a dazed condition waiting
to receive him with maudlin apologies. In his anger he pushed her from
him. Her body struck the corner of the table, and shortly after she fell
and died. She had sustained rupture of an internal organ and she bled to
death in a few minutes. The result was altogether disproportionate to the
amount of violence used and was in a sense accidental, but her death could
as truly be attributed to drink as many of those which result from the
assaults of drunken persons.

Drink plays an important part in the commission of sexual offences, but it
is not more generally a factor in such cases than in those of simple
assaults. In the great majority of these charges against men under middle
age it is found that the assailant was at the time under its influence,
however; and in the most atrocious and unspeakable cases it is rarely
absent unless when there is insanity present.

Of late years there has been an increasing desire on the part of the
legislature to secure proper care for children, and to punish those who by
negligence or cruelty allow their offspring to suffer. Cases have been
reported that reveal a shocking state of affairs, and parents have been
prosecuted and sent to prison for their callousness and cruelty. Of all
prisoners these are usually the most hopeless and useless; the most
entirely selfish in their outlook; the most inclined to grumble and shirk
work; the persons with the keenest sense of their rights and the lowest
sense of their responsibilities--this from a merely superficial
observation of them. The care of the children falls naturally to the
women; the provision for them to the men. The men have excuses to offer
for the condition of the children, and these excuses are sometimes valid;
for a man cannot be at the same time working outside to support his family
and looking after them in the house. If the woman is given the money to
defray the necessary expenses, and neglects their care, it is difficult
for her to stand excused. In practically all the cases drink enters into
the question, and its presence explains but does not excuse the neglect.

It is a good thing for the children that they should be removed from the
care of parents who are cruel to them either by neglecting or by
maltreating them, and it is well that those who are inclined to
carelessness should know that their conduct may form the subject of
complaint; but a person may be physically fit to have children and
mentally incapable of taking care of them. A large proportion of those
women who have been convicted of cruelty to children are in this sad case.
The evidence has been of the clearest that they have squandered their
substance, indulged their appetites, and shamefully ill-used their
offspring, but only after they have been placed out of the reach of drink
is it possible to say whether at their best they are capable of
undertaking the obligations they have incurred by becoming mothers. In
some cases their mental condition has been so bad as to justify their
removal to lunatic asylums; in other cases the mental defect is quite
perceptible and is obviously such as to unfit them for their duties, but
is not sufficiently marked to enable them to be cared for by the lunacy
authority. Drink has been held accountable for their conduct and it has
had a share in its causation, but it has masked the permanent flaw behind
it, whether that defect has existed before the subject gave way to drink
or has resulted from drink. In the case of these women it is a serious
matter to allow them to return to duties they are unfit to discharge,
especially as there is a probability that the condition of the family may
be aggravated by its increase. Among women convicted of cruelty to
children there are very few who are not mentally defective as far as my
experience goes.

Just as drink causes some people to become savage, it incites others to
mischief. If a man lift things that do not belong to him and carry them
off, that is theft and punishable as such. If the culprit could state the
case to the magistrate as a lawyer would, it would be classed as malicious
mischief; but if he had the necessary training, or could afford to pay a
lawyer, he might not be in court at all. It is not yet an uncommon thing
for young bloods to destroy or take away the property of others, but they
are not charged with theft as a result of their exuberance. They are not
usually charged at all if they compensate the owners. Students of medicine
have been known to return from a symposium with a miscellaneous collection
of articles which they had conveyed without authority from shop-doors, in
addition to an occasional door-bell handle or knocker. If any of them had
been convicted of theft in consequence of this conduct, he would as a
result have been struck off the register and been prevented from entering
the profession for which he was training. A conviction for malicious
mischief would have no such grave result. The consequence is quite as
serious in the case of a labouring man. It is not merely that the sentence
is heavier; that is the least of it; it is the reputation of being a thief
that is attached to him on his discharge which he will find difficult to
overcome. It is bad enough for his prospects of honest employment that he
should have been in prison, but if the cause was not dishonesty he may be
regarded as merely foolish. If his offence has been theft it is another
story. Explanations are not wanted--nor thieves; and the dog with the bad
name may set about in despair to deserve it, becoming a recruit to the
ranks of the professional criminals. In such cases the man's downfall may
be attributed to drink; but he might reasonably attach some of the blame
to our stupidity in dealing with him.

Apart from those who are led into sportive acts when they are in liquor,
there are some who take to theft pure and simple. X 13 was a most
respectable man about thirty years of age. He was honest and industrious,
and except that he occasionally gave way to intemperance he appeared to
have no faults or follies. He was not very fond of company, and after his
work was done he spent most of his time at home in his lodgings, where he
had the reputation of being a quiet, peaceable, and somewhat studious man.
He was arrested one night when under the influence of drink, in possession
of property which had been stolen by him. On his room being searched the
proceeds of several thefts were found, and the remains of articles which
had been stolen and partially destroyed. It became apparent that he had
been responsible for quite a number of thefts from public places during
the two preceding years. His story was that he had no recollection of
stealing; and on the Sunday morning after his first theft he was horrified
to find a bag containing articles of clothing in his room. He ascertained
from his landlady that he had brought it home the night before, and he
told her some story to explain his questions. He made no attempt to sell
the property, but destroyed it in detail. He kept off drink for a time,
but falling in with some old friends one night, he took too much and again
he stole. It preyed on his mind to such an extent that he went on a spree,
with the same result. He could tell nobody of his trouble, and he got into
despairing and reckless moods in which he flew to drink, nearly always
returning with something. He was remonstrated with on account of his
growing intemperance, but with very little result; and it was a relief to
him when he was found out. How many thefts he had committed was never
known, but he had never made a penny by them. He was not a kleptomaniac
when sober, and his case is an uncommon one in respect more to the freedom
he enjoyed from arrest than to the nature of the impulse which he obeyed;
for there are a good many occasional thieves who are quite honest when
sober.

Others have fallen from a position as law-abiding citizens, and have lost
their self-respect, as well as their position, through habitual
intemperance. Their one passion is drink, and they will do anything to get
it. They cannot get work and could not keep it if they did, because of
their unsteadiness; so they live off others by begging or by stealing.

The most troublesome criminal to those whose duty it is to protect the
public, and the most dangerous to the property of his fellow-citizens, is
the professional; and no more than other professional persons does he go
to business the worse of drink, for that would be taking an unnecessary
risk. There are few occupations in which sobriety is not required to
ensure and maintain success, and this is true whether the business be an
honest or a dishonest one. Not that the thief need be a teetotaler; in his
hours of relaxation he may be found proving the contrary; but he cannot
afford to drink during business hours. In prison he may say that he is
there on account of the drink, but the statement, though it may be true,
is misleading. It is a convenient formula, and serves to prevent further
enquiry. He knows that those who question him have their prejudices, and
he is aware that it is the fashion to trace all crimes to drink--and no
further. Let him frankly confess his failing for liquor and he will
obtain some sympathy which may materialise on his liberation. It is
literally true in many cases, the statement: "If it hadna been the drink I
wadna been here." But it is also true that he has not been honest when
sober. For every time he has been caught there are many thefts he has
committed and escaped capture. Continue the enquiry and it is found that
what he means is that if he had not obscured his judgment with drink he
would not have attempted the job he undertook; or he would have kept a
better look-out before he did take it in hand. He is not a thief because
of the drink, but a thief who is caught because he has been intemperate.
The drink in this case has not proved an ally to crime, but an auxiliary
of the police; it has not caused the theft, but has enabled the thief to
be caught.

In many cases, however, it assists the professional criminal; for the
intoxicated man is an easier prey to him than the sober citizen. He can be
assisted home by willing hands that will go through his pockets with skill
on the road. He can be lured into dens that when sober he would avoid, and
there be robbed at leisure and with little risk. He may even be relieved
of his property without any pretence of friendliness, with small chance of
his offering effective resistance or causing a hot pursuit. In all these
ways he affords opportunity to the thief, and to the extent that the drink
places him in this condition it is a cause of crime.

It appears then: (1) that the great mass of prisoners were under the
influence of drink at the time they committed the offence for which they
have been convicted; (2) that of these the "crime" of the majority is
drunkenness, or some petty offence resulting therefrom; (3) that nearly
all the crimes against the person are committed by, or upon, people who
were intoxicated at the time; (4) that many offences against property are
partly the result of drink; (5) that the majority of crimes against
property are not due to drunkenness on the part of the criminal.

But the amount of crime in Scotland is not in proportion to the amount of
drinking in any district. The consumption of drink is not confined to our
cities and towns, and excessive indulgence sometimes takes place on the
part of people who live in the country, yet no considerable proportion of
our prison population comes from the courts of country districts or of
small towns. The vice may be present without issuing in crime, though the
drink itself has the same effect on the drinker whether he be living in
the town or in the country.

In the country and in small towns, where the population is stable and
where people are not packed together, they have opportunities each of
knowing his neighbour, and they take some interest in one another. Indeed,
one often hears complaints of villagers taking too much interest in their
neighbours' affairs. If a man drink more than he can carry, there is
usually someone about who will see him home; or at worst he finds rest
until he recovers, without the necessity of interference of an official
kind. In the town, although a man may have friends who would be willing to
look after him, he is separated from them, not by green fields, but by
rows of tenements and multitudes of passers-by who have no personal
interest in or knowledge of him; and if he lie down he obstructs the
traffic and has to be taken in charge. He need not be any more drunk than
the man in the country, but he is a greater public nuisance.

In the country if a man have his evil passions stirred or inflamed by
drink and seek to indulge them, friendly hands restrain him from doing the
injury he might otherwise do, and the crime which has been conceived may
never be executed; but in the city a man may, and sometimes does, brutally
assault and even slay another person, while people are living above,
below, and on each side of him; and no one troubles to look in and
ascertain what is going on. Men do not know their neighbours and do not
care to interfere in the affairs of strangers. They have learnt to attend
to their own business and to leave other things to their paid officials.
The officials likewise attend to their business; and the prison cells are
filled with men and women who have taken liquor to excess and have had no
friendly hand to assist them or to keep them out of mischief. In the
absence of this restraint and help, crime is just as likely to result from
excessive drinking in the country as in the town.

There is another difference in favour of the country toper that is worth
noting. The man who sells him the drink is usually a member of the
community in which he lives, and he cannot afford persistently to outrage
the sentiments of those among whom his lot is cast. He will not find it to
his comfort to obtain the bad opinion of his neighbours; and if he get the
name of filling his customers full he may run the risk of losing his
license. It is not to his interest to disregard the welfare of his patrons
even were he so inclined. Each district has its own standard of what is
fair and allowable, and no publican can safely continue to fall below it.
In the large towns the licenses are not usually held by men who live in
the district. Many of them are in few hands. The licensee is represented
by barmen who have a most harassing and exacting time; who work long hours
for wages that are seldom what could be called high; who are engaged
selling drink to men the majority of whom they do not know; and who are
expected while keeping within the law to sell as much liquor as possible.
Public opinion in the district can only touch the publican on his
financial side; and then only by a campaign directed to ensure regulations
that are sometimes as futile as they are vexatious, and that attack
indiscriminately the man who is really trying to conduct his business in a
reasonable way and him whose only care is to get as much out of it as he
can.

But not only is there drinking in the country as well as in the town.
There is no district of the town that has a monopoly of temperance. There
are fewer public-houses in the wealthier than in the poorer districts, but
there are more private cellars. There is no bigger proportion of
teetotalers among men who have money than among men with none; and
business men are as much given to drinking as artisans or labourers. There
is a difference in their methods of consumption, the one judiciously
mixing his potations with solids, the other taking his amount in a shorter
period of time and running a bigger risk of getting drunk. Even when he
does get beyond the stage of being quite clear in the head, the wealthier
man has the means of getting home quietly, and there may be no scandal and
no arrest. Though there may be as much drinking in the district in which
he lives as in some of the congested parts of a city, there is less crime
in proportion to the number of inhabitants; so that there are other
factors than drink necessary to the commission of crime, even when drink
is present.

In Glasgow we are accustomed periodically to learn from the testimony of
English visitors that we are the most drunken city in the kingdom; and
tourists write to the newspapers and tell their experiences and
impressions of sights seen in our streets, quoting statistics of the
arrests for drunkenness. This alternates with panegyrics of the city as
the most progressive in the world--"the model municipality." We are
neither so bad nor so good as we are sometimes said to be. That the
streets of Glasgow--or rather some of them--are at times disgraced by the
drunkenness of some who use them, is quite true; but the fact that some
travellers at some times see more drunk people in a given area than may be
seen in any English city does not justify the inference that the
inhabitants of Glasgow are more drunken than those of other cities. In no
English city is there so large a population on so small an area. If there
are more drunk in a given space there are also more sober people; but only
the drunks are observed. In Glasgow, moreover, the ordinary drink is
whisky, which rapidly makes a man reel. It excites more markedly than the
beer consumed so generally in England, which makes a man not so much drunk
as sodden. If it were worth the retort, one might point out that even if
it be true that in Scotland you may see more people drunk, in England you
see fewer people sober.

As for the statistics of arrests they are absolutely useless for purposes
of comparison, if only because of the different practices that prevail in
different parts of the country in dealing with drunks. It is also well
known that a comparatively small number of persons is responsible for a
very large number of arrests.

The facts show (1) that drink puts a man into a condition in which he is
more liable to commit an offence or crime than he is when sober; (2) that
while drinking is common in all parts of the country, police offences and
crimes occur mainly in closely populated districts; (3) that the amount of
crime and police offences in Scotland is not dependent on the amount of
drinking alone, but is mainly dependent on indulgence in drink under
certain conditions of city life; (4) that the major portion, and the most
serious kind, of crimes against property, are not attributable to drink.




CHAPTER II

POVERTY, DESTITUTION, OVERCROWDING, AND CRIME

    The majority of persons in prison there because of their poverty--
    Poverty and drink--Poverty and petty offences--Poverty and thrift--
    Poverty and destitution--Case of theft from destitution--Poverty and
    vagrancy--Unemployment and beggary--Formation of professional
    offenders--The case of the old--The degradation of the unemployed to
    unemployability--No ratio between the amount of poverty alone and the
    amount of crime--A definite ratio between density of population and
    crime--Slum life--Overcrowding--Cases of destitution and
    overcrowding--Overcrowding and decency--Poverty and overcrowding in
    relation to offences against the person--The poor and officials--The
    absence of opportunity for rational recreation--The migratory
    character of the population--The multiplication of laws and of
    penalties--Transgressions due to ignorance and to inability to
    conform--Contrast between city and country administration--Case of
    petty offender--Treatment induces further offences--The city the
    hiding-place of the professional criminal--Crime largely a by-product
    of city life.


While the majority of prisoners were under the influence of drink at the
time they committed the offences for which they are convicted, it is
equally true that they are in prison because of their poverty. They are
there because they are unable to pay the fines imposed on them. Their
offences may be attributable to drink, but their imprisonment is due to
want of money. There are many who are most estimable citizens, though
poor; poverty alone does not lead them to prison. On the other hand, there
are many people who drink to excess and do not transgress the law; their
drunkenness alone does not lead them to jail; but while a man may be poor
and virtuous, his poverty will compel him to live under conditions in
which any vices he has may easily develop into crimes or offences.

It is sometimes said that poverty, and especially the poverty of the
masses, is the result of drink, but no statement was ever more grotesquely
untrue. That drink aggravates poverty is obvious; but no one can shut his
eyes to the fact that all poor people do not drink, and that all
teetotalers are not rich. Drink is often a cause of poverty; but to
attribute poverty mainly to drink is wantonly to libel thousands of our
poorer fellow-citizens who live far cleaner lives than many of their
critics. On the other hand, it is equally unsafe to attribute drinking
mainly to poverty, for many who indulge freely are possessed of
considerable means, and the practice is not peculiar to any social
condition. That some are driven to drink as a refuge from the monotony of
their lives is undeniable; but if poverty makes some men drunkards it
makes others teetotalers. They see that their chances of "getting on" are
less if they take drink than they would be if they kept strictly sober,
and they abstain till they have attained their object; though they may
make up for their abstinence afterwards.

Of prisoners convicted for committing petty offences--the largest
number--many have been driven to offend by the squalor of their
surroundings. Poverty tends to limit a man's choice in work and in
recreation. He is on the verge of destitution, having nothing in the way
of reserve, and he is forced to take work that may and often does result
in an income that is much less than the expenditure of energy necessary to
obtain it. If he is a member of a family or has friends in the district
where he is living, he can usually obtain assistance in the time of his
distress; and he is himself counted on to render help when required. That
such help is commonly given by the poor to the poor is a commonplace, but
its importance in preventing destitution in places where poverty is always
present is not sufficiently recognised.

The majority of working-class families live almost from hand to mouth. The
utmost to be expected from them in the way of thrift is provision for pay
in time of sickness from a friendly society; and even that is not possible
for all the members of a household. Provision may also be made for aliment
from a trade union in time of unemployment; and in some cases for some
period there may be something saved and set aside in the bank. They are
accustomed to hear of their improvidence from people who have never known
what it is to suffer from ill-health and consequent loss of income, and
who would find their place in a lunatic asylum if they tried to live for a
year under the circumstances of those whom they criticise and direct.
Their lamentations and advice are sometimes echoed by the man who has
risen from the ranks to comparative opulence, and who forgets that if his
neighbours had been like him he would never have been where he is. The
only capital they have is their health, and anything may happen to set
aside the principal member of the family and throw the others into a
struggle that may lame them.

The life of the individual worker is nearly always one of interdependence.
In his early years he is dependent on his parents and his elder brothers
and sisters. When he is able to work his wages go into the common stock,
and by the time he can earn enough to support himself he may have to
contribute to the support of his parents. Thrift in the case of any
family cannot be estimated by the money saved, and in many of the model
thrifty families it may be found that the cash saving has been made at the
expense of starving the bodies and minds of the children. Time and again,
well-doing families have become destitute after a severe and prolonged
struggle, or after a short period in which they have suffered blow after
blow, as a result of sickness or loss of work; and as there is no public
provision made for helping such people until they are quite destitute, and
then only the minimum of relief is given them and they are set adrift to
recover under conditions that render recovery almost impossible, it is
wonderful that so many manage to survive.

Those who sink are not therefore to be condemned on that account as worse
citizens than those who survive; the time at which they have been struck
by calamity may account for all the difference between them. We are all
liable to sickness and death, but if either comes at one time rather than
another it may make a very considerable difference to our families. When a
man who is in a steady situation with a fair wage dies leaving no
provision for his wife and family he is condemned. It is in vain to point
out that he used his pay towards their comfort and in such a way as to
ensure their fitness; he ought to have been more careful; and the very
people who preach faith are the first to blame him because he took no
thought of tomorrow, but did the best he could in the day that was his.
The fact is that every man who thinks, among those that are dependent on
the wages they earn--usually under a precarious tenure of their
situations--sees that his choice lies between securing the best conditions
in his power for his family in order that they may be the more fit to do
their work in the world, and doing something less in order to lay by some
money for them; between starving them in essentials during his lifetime to
secure them from starvation should he die, and giving what he has while he
is there to give, in the hope that he may live to see them develop
healthily.

From poverty to destitution is in many cases but a short step, and it may
be taken by those who have done nothing to deserve it. Sickness, loss of
employment, absence of friends who can assist, may drive a man to
extremity; and then it is a hard task indeed for him to keep within the
law and live. His sickness may enable him to qualify for parochial relief,
but as soon as he is recovered so far as to be able to go about he may be
cast adrift without means of support.

If a man does not live by working he can only support himself by the work
of others; being destitute he must beg or steal. X 14 was a man of
thirty-five years of age who was charged with theft. He was somewhat
"soft," and had managed to support himself during the lifetime of his
relations by casual labour. He was physically in good health and mentally
not bad enough to obtain care from any public body. On the death of those
who had looked after him he drifted to the common lodging-houses, but he
had not enough devil in him to be attracted by any of the vicious or to
indulge in any vices. He began to find difficulty in obtaining employment.
Under the stress of his condition his mental defect became accentuated,
and, though not prominent enough to call for official recognition, it
hindered him in his efforts to obtain work. Asked why he had stolen, he
gave a reply that in its reasonableness was striking. He said, "What was I
to do? I tried the parish, but they could do nothing for me, for I'm quite
weel. I tried beggin', but I didna get much, an' I was catched. You're no
sae often catched when you steal." He did not want to steal, but it was
the easiest thing to do. In begging he took a risk of apprehension for
everybody he approached, and from most he would get nothing in the way of
help. He took the same risk when he lifted something, but at any rate he
drew no blanks. He had some very orthodox views on punishment; for he
believed that the proper thing to do with a man who stole--when you caught
him--was to send him to prison for so many days, the time to depend on the
value of the property stolen; but he thought that the man who had suffered
imprisonment for theft, and so paid the penalty, ought to be allowed to
enjoy the proceeds of his theft; and he complained that though he had
served so many days for the theft of a pair of boots, he had not been
given back the boots on his liberation. I cite his case here, in spite of
the fact that he was mentally defective, because he really stated
correctly the dilemma into which a person is driven when destitute; and
because he appeared to be one who, had it not been for his poverty and
destitution, would not have required attention either as a mentally
defective or a criminal. His social condition gave no opportunity for the
proper development of his mental powers, but stunted their growth. As for
their quality, it is in no wise different from that of many who, thanks to
better chances, are able to get themselves accepted as public leaders on
the strength of an absence of showy vices, and the exposition of a logical
and narrow view of things; solid men and safe, free from levity and
serious-minded.

Poverty is no crime, but it is something very like a police offence if the
poor person is destitute. Everybody needs food, clothing, and shelter, and
they cannot be had without money or its equivalent. A man may starve and
go in rags rather than beg or steal, but he must sleep somewhere. He
cannot pay for a lodging, and to sleep out is to qualify for sleeping in a
cell. If the police were not better than the law in this respect our
prisons would always be full. There are many men out of work who are far
from anxious to get it; indeed, and for that matter, most people are quite
content to do no more than they need; and in spite of all that has been
said of the blessedness of labour, there are few of the most earnest
preachers against the idleness of others who would prefer to work longer
hours for less pay rather than shorter hours for more.

We must discriminate; the objection to the man who will not work is that
he is not content to want. When he gets like that he is so far from being
an unemployed person that he has adopted the occupation of deliberately
living off others; that is his profession, and I am not at all sure that
it is quite as easy as it is assumed to be by those who have not tried it.
Certainly the amateur beggar makes but a poor show with the professional.
His is, at any rate, a dishonourable and an illegal profession; but while
in some cases he has been brought up to it, in many he has drifted into it
through destitution. We ought to have no professional beggars and no
professional thieves; but as they are in some way made, it does not help
to an understanding of the question to label them "habitual," condemn
them, and neglect to ask, if they "growed," how it was they began their
career. Many of these full-blown specimens have been offered work at
remunerative rates and have scorned it, which shows--that they did so;
that is all. It does not show that if in the beginning they had been taken
in hand they would have refused to do their share of labour. All
experiments of that kind only prove that the sturdy beggar finds it easier
and pleasanter to beg than to do the kind of work offered to him; they
teach nothing as to the causes which led him to begging; and poverty and
destitution are the most common causes.

In our large cities there are numbers of children who are destitute
because of their parents being unable to provide for them, or failing to
do so. They are cast on their own resources from a very early age, and
have sometimes to assist in the maintenance of others. When they can, some
of them leave the homes which have been far from sweet and take to living
in common lodging-houses--in Glasgow we call them "Models," with a fine
sense of humour, for they offer the best of opportunities for the
formation of citizens who will not be models. If the boy grows up as he
can, and in the process develops anti-social qualities, it is not he who
is most to blame; and when we condemn his conduct, as we must, we might at
least admit that his course has largely been shaped by the destitution
which it would have paid us better to prevent than to punish, when as its
result we have allowed him to develop into a pest.

At the other end of the ladder there are men who are refused work because
they are or seem old, and who are driven down through destitution to
become petty offenders. I remember when I was employed in the poorhouse a
man was brought to be certified insane. He had attempted to sever a vessel
in his arm in order that he might bleed to death, but his ignorance of
anatomy--he was a pre-school-board man--had caused him to make an ugly
gash at the wrong place. He was talkative, and his story was clearly told.
He was about fifty years of age and was unable to follow the only trade he
knew. He was an iron-worker and had done hard work in his day. He had
never been a teetotaler, but he had always attended to his work. At times
he made good wages, but he had suffered from periods of depression.
Sometimes he had been able to save money, but it had always melted. He
could get work when work was to be had, but for some year or two now he
was physically unable to take a place. He had contracted a disease of the
heart. His son had got married and had two children. He was a well-doing
and industrious young man; sober, steady, and a good workman. He had been
supported by this son, of whom he spoke in the highest terms. He also was
an iron-worker. The son had never grudged him his keep, nor had his wife.
Why then had he attempted to kill himself? His explanation was as clear as
it was unexpected. He said, "Doctor, do I look unhappy?" He did not;
indeed he was rather cheerful. "Well, I never had ony melancholy, if
that's the name for't. My son's a good lad. He slaves as I slaved, and at
the end he'll drap tae. I'm done. I've enjoyed my life on the whole, but
I'm fit for naething but to be a burden on him. He disna object; but
there's the weans. Every bite that goes into my mooth comes oot o' theirs.
If they're to be something better than their faither or me, they'll need
mair of the schule; and what wi' broken time an' low wages they'll no get
it. I want them to be kept frae work till they're educated tae seek
something better. He and I have had our share of hard work. I've had my
sprees, but he's a better man than I was--no a better tradesman; I'll no
say that--an' I want his weans to hae a better chance than he had. No, I'm
no a Socialist; I'm a Tory if I'm onything, but I never bothered wi'
political questions, though I've heard a heap o' blethers on a' sides.
What? Hell? Noo, doctor, does ony sensible man believe in that nooadays?
God's no as bad as they make Him oot to be, an' at onyrate I believe that
death ends a'." There was no shaking him. All he wanted was some lessons
in anatomy--which he did not get. He insisted that he was as sane as any
of us, and asserted that he could not be certified; but he was wrong
there. The law takes most elaborate precautions to prevent people killing
themselves, aye even when it has sentenced them to death, but so far it
has not made any provision for enabling them to work for their living.

We hear of the unemployable who could not work even if he were willing,
but apart from those who labour under mental or physical disabilities--and
many of them can and do work--I have not met many of this class. There are
many on distress works who make a very poor show; they are not fit for
that kind of work, but that is a different thing altogether from saying
that there is nothing they can do that is useful. Certainly in the
ordinary sense it cannot be said of the man who is too old to secure
employment that he is unfit for work. He is shut out by competition, the
employer quite naturally preferring what he believes to be the more
efficient workman. Few of the older men who are thus thrown on the
scrap-heap take things in such a way that they try the open door of death,
but the fact that they are condemned to forsake their occupation does prey
on the minds of many and embitter their lives; and the fear of dismissal
increases in intensity as their hair turns white. When the blow falls, if
they have no resources what is to become of them? There are all sorts of
schemes proposed for dealing on the one hand with the young and keeping
them longer at school, and on the other hand with the older men and
providing them with work. To an outsider it would seem that if the number
of men employed is sufficient to produce what is required, and there is a
large surplus of unemployed labour, those who are working are working too
long. A stranger might be excused for thinking that if one man is working
eight hours and another not working at all it would be better for both
that each should work four hours; but if he said so he would only show his
simplicity. The man who is employed would quickly point out that this
would reduce his wages. Yet when a man gets promotion, whether in the
public service or in private business, his salary and his responsibilities
are increased--the former certainly, the latter in such a way that it
becomes less easy to get rid of him--but his hours are usually reduced;
for more money would be of little use to him if he did not get time to
spend it. This is merely an observation, not a doctrine; but it is
difficult to see how employment is to be found for those who are willing
and able to work unless we cease to improve machinery and produce less
economically; or increase our production enormously; or divide the work
and the proceeds more evenly. In any case, and while that matter is being
settled, we might recognise the dilemma into which those are thrust who
cannot find work and are destitute.

They must beg or steal, and if they get into the way of doing either they
are liable to become less fitted and less inclined for other occupations.
X 15 was an artisan earning a fair wage and enjoying good health. He was
married to a woman who was a good housewife and manager. When he was about
thirty-eight he was thrown out of work by a strike in an allied trade. A
commercial crisis ensued and there was general distress. He managed for a
time to keep his head above water, but his resources gradually were eaten
away. His employers wound up their business, and when the local difficulty
had passed he found that he had to look out for another place. While idle
he had formed the acquaintance of others in like case. He had been a
steady, stay-at-home man, but in their company he took to amusements which
were harmless in themselves and new to him. He also imbibed a taste for
beer, but he did not get drunk. The company was not bad company, but it
was different from any he had been accustomed to, and it was not good for
him. For a time he looked for work, but he did not find it. Others got
settled, but the luck was against him, and he became discouraged and
despairing. By and by he looked about in a half-hearted way, and gave more
time to loafing than to seeking rebuffs. He was not destitute, as his
family was able to keep the wolf from the door. In two years he was only
interested in getting drink from anybody who would treat him, and in
discussing public affairs with others who had fallen like himself. He had
given up the idea of work and had degenerated from a good citizen to a
loafer and, later, to a drunkard. He was never convicted, but he had to be
warned because of his conduct towards his wife; and he died as a result of
exposure when drunk--to the relief of his family, who were in danger of
being dragged into the mire by him. In this case his family saved him from
destitution, but the loss of his work drove him almost imperceptibly into
the ranks of the derelicts, in spite of the counter-influences of home. In
many cases there is no family to do what his did for him, and the process
is more certain and easy.

Poverty compels men to live under conditions in which their vices may
easily develop into crimes or offences; and it makes those who have
transgressed the law less able to recover from the effects of a conviction
and more liable to become habitual offenders; but it cannot be said that
the amount of convictions in Scotland is in relation to the poverty of any
given district. In some parts of the highlands and islands, where poverty
is pronounced, there is an entire absence of crime.

While no ratio can be traced between the amount of drinking or the degree
of poverty and the number of crimes or offences in Scotland, there is a
very definite relationship between the density of the population and the
incidence of breaches of the law. Not only is there more crime in the city
than in the country, but from the densely populated parts of the city
there are more committals than from the less crowded districts. The
sanitary reformer has shown us that our city slums are breeding-places for
diseases that do not confine their operation to the people who dwell
there, but may easily infect those who live under more wholesome
conditions; and substituting vice and crime for disease and death the
statement is equally true.

By letting in light and fresh air to the houses where so many dwell we are
able to save lives which would otherwise be crippled or destroyed by the
insanitary conditions in which they are placed; and just as surely we
could break up the aggregations of people whose acquired way of living is
fatal to the proper development of an enlightened civic spirit, if we were
as eager to prevent as we are to punish wrongdoing. There they are; born
into little boxes of houses which are packed together in rows and built in
layers one above the other in the air. Their home life is passed in
similar boxes; and when they die they are put in smaller boxes and placed
in layers under the earth. The health officer would speedily interfere if
we tried to house as many pigs to the acre as human beings; but we eat the
pigs and cannot permit them to be raised under conditions that would be
likely to result in their contracting disease. Also there are fewer people
making a living by furnishing accommodation for pigs than for men; and it
is easier to regulate an occupation when those who are engaged in it are
not influential, than when they are; for we have a traditional dislike to
interfering with the rights of property. It is therefore much easier to
punish a slum-dweller for breaking our sanitary regulations than a slum
landlord for living off rotten dwellings.

It is well known that the worse the building is, the bigger the rent
charged in proportion to the accommodation supplied. If a man owns house
property he expects to make a profit when he lets it, from the difference
between what he has paid for it and the rent he receives from it. X 16 is
an old woman who is past work and has no resources. She has been in the
poorhouse, but will not stay there, though better housed and better fed
and kept cleaner than when outside. She is too old to settle down to the
ordered life of the institution, and when all its advantages are
enumerated to her and all available eloquence has been expended on her
with a view to persuading her that in her own interest she ought
gratefully to accept its shelter, she sullenly and silently shows that her
opinion of the place as a desirable residence does not coincide with that
of those who are in no danger of being forced to live there. She rents a
small house and takes in lodgers, intending to make her living from the
difference between what she pays and what she receives in rent. Under the
Glasgow sanitary regulations certain houses are "ticketed"; that is to
say, their cubic content is measured, and a card is fixed on the door
stating the number of cubic feet in the place and the number of persons
who may be lodged therein. One adult is the allowance for every 600 cubic
feet; and half that space is allowed for every person under twelve years.
The sanitary inspector is entitled to demand admission at any hour in
order to ascertain whether there is overcrowding. He calls one night and
finds that the limit has been exceeded, and she is sent to prison, in
default of paying a fine, for overcrowding. Of course there is a
difference between her and her landlord, for she has broken the law.
Precisely; but what kind of law is it that can reach only the poorer
transgressor and allows the partner in profits to escape?

X 17 is a woman of forty-two who has never been in prison before, and is
under sentence for overcrowding. On a midnight visit the sanitary officer
found six adults in a room ticketed for three and a half--a bad case. The
woman's story was that her daughter had been married to a young man some
twelve months previously. He was an iron-worker and seemed decent enough.
He lost his situation through bad trade and was unable to get another.
Meantime a child was born. The young people wrestled along for a time; but
after exhausting all the channels of aid which were open to them, they
were turned out of their house for failing to pay the rent. Their
furniture had been disposed of. The girl's mother took them in to shelter
them. She admitted she had kept them in lodgings for some weeks before the
"sanitary" came down on her, and I suspect she had been warned, but as she
said, "What was I to do?" Asked if she had informed the magistrate of the
facts, she said she had not. "I pleaded guilty, because if ye dae that ye
get aff easier." She could not even make the best of her case, but if she
had been able to employ a lawyer she would not have required to transgress
the law; and as for stating her own case, that is what few are able to
do--till by experience they learn. Even when a person of education and
means finds himself in conflict with the law, if he is prudent he gets an
experienced lawyer to appear for him and present the truth in the way that
will appeal most strongly to the judge.

Overcrowding not only breeds disease, but it tends to destroy the sense of
decency, and affords opportunities for the commission of crime which ought
not to exist. Now and again cases come before the courts that have to be
heard with closed doors, and in every one of them this factor of
overcrowding is present, affording the opportunity and inducing to the
commission of the crime. The subject is so foul that it cannot be
adequately treated here without grave occasion of offence. Unspeakable
corruption is easy and possible, and it goes on because it is unspeakable.

It has often been said that poverty and destitution are not likely to lead
to the commission of crimes against the person, but rather to crimes
against property and _a priori_ there is something to be said for the
statement; but whatever the likelihood we need not concern ourselves with
it when the facts are before us for examination. In the first place, the
great majority of persons in prison for committing assaults of all
descriptions are poor persons. It is a rare thing for one in a good
position to be convicted of assault, and even the most cursory examination
of those who are in prison for assaulting others will show that their
social condition was a factor in the causation of the crime. I have
pointed out the part that drink plays in the matter, and incidentally
shown that it is mainly operative under the conditions which exist in
closely populated districts; but many of the minor assaults are committed
by persons who are not under the influence of drink. Next to drink, among
the women, the most common cause assigned by them for their imprisonment
is "bad neebors." They do not lose their tempers and fight with each other
because they are poor or destitute, but poverty makes strange bedfellows
and forces people to rub against one another in such a way as to give
occasion for trouble; and to leave the fact out of account is simply to
attempt to study man apart from his surroundings and to ignore the effect
they have on his conduct.

In some parts of Glasgow--much as it has been improved during the last
generation--there is literally no room for the people to live. A place to
sleep in, to afford shelter from the weather, to take food in? Yes. Room
for recreation or for quiet rest? No. The forbearance, the good-humour,
the willingness shown to stand aside and allow another member of the
family to monopolise the scanty accommodation, are wonderful; and they are
the rule. Now and then, here and there, a breakdown occurs; and if it
result in a breach of the peace, we are not concerned to recognise the
cause, but only to punish the wrongdoers. "What's done we partly may
compute, but know not what's resisted," and are not disposed to find out.

A stair-head quarrel is a stock subject for the humorist; but try to live
for a week in such close and constant contact with anyone, earning your
living the while with exhausting labour, and your wonder will be that the
peace is so well kept. The fact is that those people put up with a great
deal more than their censors would stand, and that is one reason why they
are so badly off. If they were as impatient of our smug mismanagement as
we are of their transgressions we should have learned how to regulate our
cities long ago. There is a great effort made to evangelise the poorer
classes, and it is well supported by earnest men who are better off; it
would not be a bad thing if the slums returned the compliment and started
a mission to the West End. The _a priori_ reasoner would then perhaps
learn that while he might expect that crimes against property would in
part be the result of poverty and destitution, because such crimes would
relieve the poverty, though in an illegal way; crimes against the person
are also frequently a result of poverty, not that they are committed with
a view to its relief, but because discomfort, irritability, impatience of
restraint, and other mental conditions which lead to assaults, are as much
an outcome of poverty as it exists in the slums of our great cities as are
hunger and want.

There is no slum district in Glasgow that does not contain a larger number
of well-disposed than of evil-disposed persons; but a tenement may get a
bad name through the misconduct of one or two of its inhabitants, and a
street may be regarded as wild although there is only a minority of rowdy
people living in it. We take no account of those who do not annoy us, and
when the noisy people anywhere assert themselves we forget all about the
others. When we interfere officially it is to find that, good and bad,
they stand by one another. In this respect they are like gentlemen; they
do not give one another away to outsiders; and it is an interesting
sidelight on their view of the law that they do not look on its
representatives as their friends. So often its interference results in
making their condition worse that they distrust it; and it is often a
greater terror to those who do well than to the evil-doer. It is no
uncommon thing to see a woman who has been assaulted by her husband plead
with the court to let him go, and make all sorts of excuses or tell the
most incredible story to account for her injuries. Then we hear
exclamations and reflections on the power of human love and the forgiving
spirit of even a degraded woman. Human love is wonderful, but it is no
more marvellous than human stupidity; and in these cases the woman is
moved not so much by love of the man as by knowledge of the results to her
and hers of our way of dealing with him. On the whole, she prefers to run
the risk of ill-usage from him when he is at liberty, being assured of his
protection against the ill-usage of others, to having to wrestle on in his
absence and suffer from the disapproval of others who are as badly off,
because of her disloyalty. See that her condition is really improved by
his conviction and she will be less likely to perjure herself in the
attempt to save him from the penalty of his brutality.

In every slum district there are some living who could afford to go
elsewhere, but who remain where they are because it has never occurred to
them that they should remove. They have gone to the district in its better
days, and the change in its character has been so gradual that they have
not taken much notice of it. They stay on just as men stay on at business
after the need has passed, because they cannot think of doing anything
else and are loth to seek fresh fields. It is not good for them that they
should do so, but it is not bad for the slum; for old inhabitants of this
kind exercise a good influence on many of the others.

Most slum-dwellers are not there because they prefer slum life, but
because they are unable to pay for better accommodation. The smallness of
their dwellings makes healthy home-life difficult and in some cases
impossible. Having no room in the house for the recreation required after
work, the man goes out to seek change. The opportunities offered to him
are few, except those provided by private enterprise. There are the parks,
and great advantage is taken of them; but in Glasgow they are nearly all
at considerable distances from the most crowded districts. The public
bowling-greens are used to the utmost in the evenings, but are only
available for a part of the year. The libraries attract comparatively few
of those whose labour has entailed much physical strain on them; and
picture-galleries and museums appeal to only a very limited number of our
fellow-citizens, working-class or otherwise.

It was once the idea of those who pleaded for the public provision of
means of recreation that these should be of such a character as would
"improve" the working classes. The intention was excellent, but the people
themselves were left out of consideration, as is usual when efforts are
made to recreate men instead of providing opportunity for them to amuse
themselves. Perhaps they do not believe that it would be an improvement to
conform to our ideals; at any rate, the great majority have not shown any
eagerness to take advantage of the means for studying science and art
which we have placed within their reach; and they remain as regardless of
the worship of these deities as the great mass of the richer people who
quite honestly have sought to elevate them. The private caterer has found
a way to interest them, for if he failed to do so he would lose his means
of livelihood, and that fact may have helped to sharpen his powers of
perception. He has to amuse men as they are, not as he thinks they ought
to be; and our regulations quite properly debar him from doing so in an
objectionable way. The entertainments provided may not be of a very high
order, but the purpose of recreating thousands is served. If we regret
that they do not seek something better, let us remember the monotony of
their lives, the numbing effect of the conditions to which they are
subject, and be thankful they do not seek worse.

The small house of one or two rooms in a tenement is what the majority
have for a home, and when there is a family it is insufficient to enable
them to evolve a complete and healthy home-life in it. Social intercourse
is of necessity restricted, for there is no room for the gathering of
friends; and though public entertainments, while valuable adjuncts, are
poor substitutes for social intercourse, they are better than nothing. The
public-house is almost the only place where the mass of town-dwellers can
meet in a social way with their friends, and the perils attendant on such
meetings are evident to all men. The effort to provide some substitute for
it has taxed the ingenuity and baffled the attempts of many temperance
advocates and social reformers. Much as they have been criticised, the
music-halls and such places have been a powerful counter-attraction, but
any means of public entertainment cannot in the end supply the need for
social intercourse between kindred spirits. Some day the fact will have to
be faced that the only real substitute for the public-house is the private
house; and when that is fully realised the slums will go.

Many have to migrate from one district to another because of the nature of
their work. They have not "steady jobs," and though they may not suffer
from unemployment, they may be engaged now in one part of the city and now
in another. The result is that they have no abiding dwelling-place, and
as a rule have only the barest acquaintance with their neighbours; for
when people are moving about in this way they have neither the same
opportunity nor the same desire to form friendships with those around
them. Improvement in the means of locomotion has contributed to send
employers and well-to-do people out of the crowded areas of the city and
away from the parts wherein their employees reside. They see less of their
workmen than did a former generation, and their wives and families know
nothing about the men whose co-operation is required to secure their
comfort. There is less of personal contact than there was and more chance
of mutual misunderstanding. The bond between employer and employed becomes
more and more a mere money bond; each seeks to get as much as he can out
of the other; and with it all there arises a general feeling of
instability and insecurity, the necessary result of the absence of a
spirit of fellowship such as can only spring from the existence of a
personal as distinct from a pecuniary interest between man and man.

Where people are crowded together regulations are required for their
health and comfort, and the liberty of each has to be restricted in the
interest of the community. The more closely they are packed the more
interference is required. Practices which in the country might be harmless
or even laudable would be intolerable if permitted in the town. To make
our rules operative we enact penalties against offenders--and sometimes
enforce them. There are so many now that it is questionable if there is
anybody in Glasgow who has not at one time or another been a transgressor.
The man from whose chimney black smoke has issued, or who has obstructed
the footpath by leaving goods outside his shop-door, does not worry over,
because he is not seriously worried by, such laws. He may swear a little
when summoned, and say evil things about the officiousness of the
authorities, but it is a small matter to him even though he is fined. The
man who finds himself in court for using strange oaths in public or for
spitting in or upon a tramcar has more worry over the business. Even a
small fine makes a serious inroad in his day's earnings, and the loss of
time attending the court docks him of the pay by which he might discharge
the fine. However much it may be required, every extension of the police
regulations for the government of a city implies an increase in the number
of offences and offenders dealt with; and while it is necessary that
transgressors should be made to cease to do the things the law condemns,
it does not follow that the wisest means are always taken to secure this
object.

A crusade against consumption will meet with hearty approval everywhere;
but if the crusaders allow their zeal to direct their energies wrongly
their good intentions cannot be held as an excuse for the harm they do. In
a city that is ordinarily covered with a haze, and sometimes with a cloud,
of smoke; where the inhabitants for the most part live in tenement houses
that by no stretch of fancy could be called spacious; where the workers
are in many cases subjected to severe physical strain by the nature of
their work; and where the weather is variable and trying; it is not
surprising that many should suffer from "colds." They are under the
necessity of spitting, and they spit not out of joy of spitting, but
because they have to. The practice is filthy--it is all the evil things
that can be said of it; and it should be discouraged. The best way would
be to alter the conditions that occasion it; the worst way is to make the
spitter a comrade of the criminal before the bar of a police court.

As with this so with many other offences; they are manufactured without
due regard to the injury that may be caused by their enforcement. It is an
easy thing to place burdens on the backs of others, but in fairness to
them it should first be ascertained whether they can bear them. Many of
our laws are transgressed because of ignorance or helplessness; and
neither is an excuse. We are all supposed to know the law, and surely no
greater irony could there be than such a hypothesis. If everybody knew the
laws there would be no need for lawyers; and if the lawyers were agreed as
to what is the law at any time there would be little need for judges. So
well is it recognised that even the judges differ, that one set is
employed to correct another; and a final decision is only arrived at
because there is not another set yet provided to differ from them. If a
layman does not know the law he may be punished for his ignorance; but if
a judge does not know it the person in whose favour he has given a
decision may be punished by payment of the costs of appeal. Let us not be
too hard then on the ignorance of the man who has transgressed one of our
numerous commandments.

In the country, and where people are not crowded together, there are
offenders against good government; but there each one knows the other, and
when a man commits a petty offence, though the local constable sees it, he
may be judiciously blind if in his judgment that is the best course to
take. He knows the inhabitants--they are his friends--and he reacts to the
opinion of the district. If he makes an arrest the matter is discussed,
and when the offender comes before the court, magistrate and prisoner
meet as persons who know one another. Judgment is given on a knowledge not
only of the offence, but of the offender, and all parties in the case are
tried by the public. In the city it is not possible for the policeman to
know the people who live in his district, nor for them to know him. This
is a great disadvantage to begin with, for he is not able to distinguish
between those who may be corrected and restrained by their friends without
the need for their being charged and those who cannot be so dealt with. He
arrests a person whom he does not know for committing an offence. The
prisoner is brought before a judge who knows neither of them, save
officially, and judgment is given according to scale. As for informed
public opinion directed on the proceedings, there is none. In the city as
in the country, however, if an offender is known as being ordinarily a
well-behaved man he may not be prosecuted. If he is overcome by drink
someone may see him home or send him there. It is not so much a question
of his being well-to-do; it is a question of his being known. If not
known, no matter what his means he cannot be sent home in a cab; but he
may be taken to the police station in a wheelbarrow.

What else can the police do? We take men of good physique and character,
many of them country-bred and unacquainted with the complexities of city
life. They are paid the wages of a labourer, and with a uniform invested
with powers and duties of the most varied kind. They must be able to keep
people from offending, or to arrest them if they do offend; they must know
the law; they must be prepared to act as doctors on emergency--what must
they not be able to do? We multiply our complaints, and cast on their
shoulders duties we ought to perform ourselves; blaming them not only for
any blunders they may commit, but also for our own. We compel them to make
arrests and then lament the result. X 18 is sent to prison in default of
paying a fine, on conviction for using obscene language. She is seventeen
years of age, but does not look more than fifteen. In years she is a young
woman, but in body and in character she is a big girl. She is the eldest
of a family, the father of which is a casual labourer. The mother does
occasional charing. Both take drink, but neither has ever been convicted
or charged. The girl is employed in a factory and earns about enough to
support herself. At night she wants some fun after her day's work, and she
does not want to assist all the time in the household. She plays with
other and younger girls and is probably their leader. There is no
playground for them but the street corner, except they take the "back
close," which is not lit and which might be a source of greater evil than
the street. A complaint is made to the police of the bad language used by
the girls. It is certainly lurid; but where have they learned it? The
decorative expressions complained of are part of the current vocabulary of
many in the district, but are used with more restraint by the elders. We
have all our pet adjectives, which differ in different localities and are
of the nature of slang. In the West End a thing may be "awfully nice,"
though nothing can be at once awful and nice; in the East End the
adjective may be quite as inappropriate, but everybody knows its
signification; and so with other parts of speech. True, their language is
filthy, but it does not shock those who use it; and that is perhaps the
saddest thing about it. The girls are warned, but they persist in speaking
their own language, and in bravado ornament it profusely and shout
opprobrious words at the policeman. One is caught. She has not
necessarily been worse than the others in her behaviour, but she has
either run in the wrong direction or not fast enough to escape. She is
taken to the police station and warned. The complaints persist. Again she
is arrested. She is the bad one; she was taken before.

On her liberation from prison she had lost her work. She was shunned by
the other girls, whose mothers forbade them to associate with one who had
been in prison, lest they should be taken in charge also. It is an offence
to associate with some classes of offenders and criminals, and the
cautious among the dwellers in these districts do not care to take risks,
so they try to keep clear of anyone who has been in the hands of the
police. The law may be right enough, but you will not get them to believe
that the innocent person is safe; not if he is poor. "Keep awa' frae
Jeannie. She's been in the nick; an' if they see you wi' her they'll maybe
think you're as bad, and land ye there tae." They would help her if they
could, but they fear that association with her would only hurt themselves
and do her no good. Those who have been in prison themselves will go with
her, and those who are reckless; to their company she is confined, for she
will not take to religion and the help of its professors. She is soon back
again; as cheerful and as tractable as any girl could be.

In essence it is a common story. The police could have done nothing else
in the circumstances, and she had no grudge against them, but admitted
that they had treated her fairly; can as much be said for those who by
persistent nagging force the hands of their officials, and who are more
bent on punishing offenders than on mending their bad manners? We have
lost the personal interest we ought to have in our neighbours; we have
gone out from among them; we have cast on officials duties we ought to
undertake ourselves as citizens, and the result is an increase in the
number of offences. In themselves these offences are small matters, but
the offenders in many cases find themselves in prison for the first time
as a result; and it is the first time that counts. Every time a man is
sent to prison for a small offence committed he has been given a push
towards the life of a habitual offender; and the poorer and more destitute
he is the greater difficulty will he have in overcoming the effect of that
conviction. His first appearance may be on account of a small
transgression, but there is a common saying that is often taken to
heart--"As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb."

The absence of personal interest in their neighbours on the part of men in
crowded districts not only permits atrocious assaults and homicides to
take place in the very heart of a densely populated district, but it
allows thieves to exercise their profession unmolested because unknown. It
also enables them to escape observation when they are being sought for.
The city is their hunting-ground and their refuge.

Crime is largely a by-product of city life. It might be mitigated if we
were more public-spirited; but it will always be an evil crying out
against us, so long as we permit conditions to exist which shut men into
dens under circumstances that make decent communion and fellowship between
them difficult if not impossible, and compel them to remain there till
they can pay a ransom to the man who holds up the land for his profit or
his pleasure.




CHAPTER III

IMMIGRATION AND CRIME

    The stranger most likely to offend--The reaction to new
    surroundings--The difficulty of recovery--The attraction of the
    city--The Churches and the immigrant--Benevolent associations--The
    alien immigrants--Their tendency to hold themselves apart--
    Deportation--A language test required--The alien criminal--His
    dangerous character--The need for powers to deal with him.


A majority of the prisoners dealt with in Glasgow police courts are not
Glasgow-born; and this holds true of outlying towns. It is the stranger
who is the "bad one."

The town-bred man more readily accommodates himself to the conditions of
life there. He grows up among them and his life is rooted in them. While
he is yet young his steps are directed for him, and he learns to avoid
dangers into which the stranger may fall. There can be no association of a
man with his neighbour anywhere without some degree of conformity to a
common standard of conduct. No one can outrage the social customs of his
companions with impunity; and everybody is more or less influenced by the
opinion of those for whom he has a regard; so he conforms to the standard
of behaviour set by the circle in which he moves and is steadied thereby.
If, as is generally the case, his companions are not ill-disposed, he is
likely to be a law-abiding citizen; if otherwise, he will get an impetus
towards crime. In any case he is of the soil, and his growth can the more
easily be watched and directed.

The man from the country finds himself living under new conditions that
may rapidly make or mar him. He is away from the friends to whom he looked
for guidance; he is cast on his own resources and must exercise an
independent judgment; a temptation is not checked by the consideration of
what the family would think; and having nothing but his own inclinations
to consult, he is more likely to run loose than he would be when at home.
He is not necessarily more vicious or more foolish than his town-bred
brother; but he is not accustomed to the same kind of temptations, and can
neither resist them as well nor yield to them as gracefully. He is
therefore more likely to succumb, and more likely to suffer severely from
the consequences if he is found out; for just as he is handicapped by the
want of guidance, being a stranger he is not so likely to get proper
assistance if he falls into trouble.

Men are attracted to the city by the hope of increase in pay and pleasure;
and though in some respects the life seems unattractive enough, they still
come. The only people who are certain not to come, and perforce to stay,
are those who have a home in the country and fixity of tenure there. Their
sons may and do invade the towns, but when they do not succeed there they
return to the land. Workmen in the country are as liable to lose their
situations as townsmen; their work is hard and their hours of labour are
long; they think their pleasures are few and dull compared to those men
may have in the city, and they gravitate to it. They are drawn in by its
glitter, and driven in by the drabness of country life; sometimes also by
the clearance of men to make way for the huge pleasure-grounds that
disgrace Scotland, and have resulted in the replacement of men who drew
their subsistence from the soil (living a hardy life and rearing a healthy
race) by deer and their keepers. When the landless man comes to town and
fails to find steady work, he cannot go back to the country unless the
family of which he is a member have some hold on the land. The children of
crofters do go back in times of depression, returning to their father's
holding and working there; but the others swell the ranks of the
unemployed and are in peril of degeneration into the loafer or criminal.

The Churches play an important part in helping those young people from the
country who are recommended to them; but many never connect themselves
with Churches when they come to town at first. Some make a beginning, but
drop off, not so much because they dislike religion, but because they like
occasionally to talk and think about something else; and in comparatively
few of the Churches is the need for providing social intercourse
recognised. A man filled with the missionary spirit can find numerous
outlets for his energies, for there are evangelistic meetings held in all
districts and on all nights, and they welcome new-comers; there are also
temperance societies engaged in the propagation of their ideas; but the
majority of people who migrate to our towns are not prepared to engage in
that kind of occupation in their leisure hours, and they have just to
drift for the most part.

There are Benevolent Associations of the natives of one county and another
which have a powerful influence for good in aiding those who come under
their care, but that they do not cover the whole ground is evident from
the fact that many of their compatriots are never heard of by them. That
they stand by one another in an admirable way is undeniable, and their
influence is so strong that for certain kinds of public appointments in
Glasgow the Glasgow man has a poor chance--there being no Society of the
Natives of Glasgow in that place yet.

The absence of family counsel and constraint which may lead to the
degradation of the man who takes the wrong turn, may be a powerful aid to
his rise if he gets on the right track. He has to think and act for
himself; and his freedom from ties enables him to attend more exclusively
to his business. The immigrant to the city from the country is largely
represented in prison; but he is also largely represented in the town
council--and the one place may be held to be as typical of the reward of
the ill-doers as the other is of the well-doers.

There is another immigrant whose conduct usually receives more attention
from the public, viz. the alien. In the West of Scotland foreigners are
present in large numbers, having this in common, that they tend to form
little colonies wherever they settle, retaining many of the habits they
have brought with them, and remaining aliens in the sense that they are
not absorbed in the community as they ought to be. In the collieries in
various parts of the West of Scotland large numbers of aliens are
employed. Their names, which in many cases are difficult either to
pronounce or to spell, have been set aside by somebody or other and local
names substituted; so that it is not uncommon to find a man with a
familiar name who is quite unable to speak the language of the country.
They keep themselves apart, and do not usually interfere with others, but
some of them get into trouble through fighting among themselves.
Ordinarily peaceable and tractable, they contribute a fair quota to the
number of serious assaults committed, though the person assailed is
usually another alien. Their ignorance of the language also makes them a
source of danger to others.

When they have done some wild or criminal thing the culprits are deported,
after they have served their term of imprisonment; but their isolation
from the life of the district has in many cases contributed to the
offences committed, since it has prevented them from acquiring the point
of view of natives of this country and has caused them to follow the
customs of their own land. Any proposal to prevent their settling here
would come with a very bad grace from us, whose relatives are scattered
all over the globe and who pride ourselves on the fact. They are healthy;
and are neither wild nor intractable, but are generally industrious and
steady. In their interests and our own it is surely not advisable to
permit them to continue as colonies apart, separated from us by the bar of
language.

It would be no act of tyranny or hardship to insist that every alien
settling here should, within twelve months of his arrival, satisfy the
local authority of his fitness to speak the language sufficiently well to
enable him to understand others and be understood by them. At present it
is no uncommon thing to find men who have been in the country for years
and are yet unable to engage in the simplest conversation in English--or
Scotch if you like. In one homicide case the accused had been in the
district for sixteen years, could only speak a broken dialect, and
required to have the simplest statements interpreted to him. In the city
this condition of things is less marked, but as a general rule
aliens--apart from the professionals--who are committed to prison do not
speak the language intelligibly, even though they have been some time in
the country, and that for the same reason--they get on all right without
it. The Italians and others who are largely engaged in trading, pick up
enough to enable them to understand and be understood; their occupation
makes this a necessity; but even among them the interpreter is far too
often required. People are generally given to save themselves trouble; and
to learn a language is troublesome. If they can escape the necessity they
will do so, and there is no need to blame them for it. But their ignorance
is a trouble and a possible danger to us, and it does not seem to be
unreasonable to ask that it should cease.

There are other immigrant aliens who do speak the language and who are
present in the large cities. These are the professional criminals who
import their vices, and work their business, in a very systematic way.
They are more remarkable for their knowledge of the law than for their
ignorance of the language; and they are a very dangerous although not a
very large element in the population. They have an organised system of
correspondence and go from one part of the country to another, where they
have connections. They employ skilled lawyers for their defence when they
get into trouble, and within certain limits assist each other in the way
of business. There are some of them capable of any atrocity, and they are
all quite different from the ordinary criminal of the professional class
familiar to us here. They have a certain amount of polish, and an aptitude
for appreciating the standpoint of others sufficiently well to get on
their blind side. As for moral sense as we understand it, it does not seem
to exist in them.

Crime is their business and they place business first. When they are
convicted they are deported, but their resources and organisation enable
them to escape conviction very often. They require to be dealt with in a
much more drastic way than the law at present permits; for they are not
only a danger because of their depredations, but their presence and
conduct incite our own undesirables to do things they would not otherwise
attempt. As the law stands the onus of proving their undesirability rests
on the police, and it is very difficult to get positive evidence. If they
were required, on the initiative of the police, to prove to the
satisfaction of a court that they were earning an honest living, they
would find it impossible to do so. It may be objected that this is like
assuming a man to be guilty till he proves his innocence, which is
contrary to practice and a bad principle on which to act. As a matter of
fact, it is acted upon with our native thieves, once they have been
convicted; they may be charged with being found in possession of property
and required to account for having it or go to prison; and they can be
summarily tried.

In respect that a man is an alien he might reasonably be required to show
that he is not living off the proceeds of crime, as a condition of his
being allowed to remain in the country. He may be refused permission to
land if his character is known; but these people know how to get past the
immigration authority. Why they should then be free to transgress until
they trip and are caught it is difficult to see. If an alien seeks
citizenship here he must satisfy the authorities that he has lived for at
least five years in the country and during that period has been a
reputable citizen. The onus of proof is on him, and it is not assumed that
because he has never been convicted he should be naturalised. The
examination to which he voluntarily submits in order that he may become a
British subject he need not undergo if all he wants is the protection of
our laws while he is living by breaking them. I suggest that just as some
aliens have to submit to examination before being allowed to land, those
who have given the authorities occasion to suspect that they are living by
illegal means should be cited to appear before and satisfy a court that
their conduct is such as to justify their being permitted to remain in the
country; and failing their appearance, or their being able to do so, that
they should be arrested and deported.




CHAPTER IV

SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND CRIME

    The millionaire and the pauper--Ill-feeling and misunderstanding--
    Social ambitions--Case of embezzlement--Preaching and practice--
    Gambling--The desire to "get on"--The need to deal with those who
    profit by the helplessness of others--Political action--Its
    difficulty--Legislation and administration--The official and the
    public--Personal aid--Fellowship.


Our social inequalities are the cause of much serious crime. That such
inequalities always have existed is undeniable, and that they may continue
to exist is at least likely; at any rate, there is no immediate prospect
of their abolition; but the form and degree they take are variable. Within
recent times the gulf between the wealthy and the poor has been widened.
The pauper is an old inhabitant, but the millionaire is a new portent. The
rich man of our grandfathers' day was a local magnate who might be
capricious, but who could be personally approached. His successor is
cosmopolitan. The poor in those days were not so well informed as they are
now that the ends of the earth have been brought together, and the
mechanical inventions that have brought wealth to many have enabled the
multitude to get a wider outlook on the world. A rich man may be courted
for his riches, but they do not now gain him reverence from the poor.

If free education has not educated the masses any more than the expensive
kind has educated many of the rich, it has enabled them to read. They know
more than they did, and with the access of knowledge discontent with their
condition has increased. For good or ill many of them have lost the fear
of hell, but the fear of the poorhouse is still with them as with many who
are better off. The desire to make money dominates all sorts of people,
and in the effort men are marred. Each sees the greed of his neighbour,
but fails to see that he shares the vices of those he condemns. The man
who is "successful" is critical of the faults of those less fortunate; and
they in turn are often too ready to attribute his position to his absence
of scruple rather than to any ability he may possess. There is envy on the
one side and distrust on the other; but out of, and in spite of, it all
there is steadily growing an effort towards co-operation and mutual help.

In the welter of conflicting interests there is much done that every man
would disapprove if he saw it done by his neighbour. Yet those whose
conduct is most shady are often not conscious of the enormity of it, being
too much engrossed in the end they seek to be particular as to the means;
and that end is not always an ignoble one. They mean to do great things
and kind when their ships come home; and they do not see that the question
for each of us is not, What would we do if we had what we desire? but,
What are we doing, being what we are and where we are?

In the thirst for wealth dishonest practices are condoned in business, and
within the law robbery is allowed. There is a disposition to take more
account of what a man has than of what he is; and this cannot fail to have
a vicious effect. X 19 was a young man who held a position of trust and
received a small salary. He had no showy vices and, so far as could be
ascertained, not many others. He was strong in the negative virtues; being
an abstainer from drink, tobacco, and such things as are affected by
pleasure-seekers and cost money. His employers were quite satisfied that
they had in him a model servant; but they found their mistake, and were as
unreasonably indignant as they had been unreasonably pleased; for he had
been conducting a very ingenious system of fraud upon them. With the money
he had abstracted he had been speculating in shares, and he had been
successful up to a point. If his last venture had turned out well he would
have been able to resign his situation and live virtuously ever after,
first paying back to them their money. This is what he calculated would
take place, and if his expectations had been realised nobody would have
known of his misfeasance; but he lost on his venture and there was a
crash. He pleaded guilty to embezzlement and was sent to prison for a long
period. He had disposed of a considerable sum of money, but the curious
thing about it was that he claimed that he was simply doing what his
employers lived by doing--using other people's money without consulting
them as to details; though he admitted that in their case they were in a
position to meet claims, and their clients knew that their money was not
lying in a safe. He took his sentence quite philosophically, with the
remark that he had observed that people who had defrauded certain kinds of
commercial corporations, such as banks, always got longer terms of
imprisonment than those who merely robbed poor people; and as the firm
that employed him was a big concern he would have to be made an example
of. He was shrewd in his observations, however wrong-headed they were in
some respects, and he is not the only young man who has taken the risk in
the attempt to acquire riches and who has argued in the same way. The
number of those who are tempted to do so will diminish when it is shown
that the successfully dishonest person is as much condemned by the opinion
of those whose society he seeks as the failure is condemned by the law.

Men young and old go wrong in the endeavour to make a show. They want
position and are willing to pay for it even at the expense of others;
indeed, there are many who spend as much effort and energy in intriguing
to get a position they could not fill as, if properly applied, would
enable them to qualify for it. Some want to be social leaders, and exceed
the limits of their income in the attempt. So long as they merely get into
debt their creditors are the losers, but there are limits to credit and
their situation may offer them facilities for peculation. The intention is
to repay the money; but the honourable intention may be out of their power
to execute, and the criminal act brings them to disgrace and ruin. In all
cases where the process has gone on for years without discovery, the
offender is found to be firmly persuaded that he is rather an ill-used
person, and that if he were only allowed time he would be quite able to
show a balance on his side of the account. This suggests the reflection
that his conduct must have been often under review by himself, and a
wonder as to how long he has taken to twist his mind to a belief in his
own integrity in face of the facts; yet it is only some such belief that
has enabled him to continue his defalcations. It is sometimes matter for
surprise to the public that men who have continued to embezzle funds for
years should have appeared so respectable; but they are not acting a part;
they have convinced themselves of their uprightness through it all, and
that is a very important step towards convincing others.

Even the Churches are not free from the imputation of making the end
justify the means; and with lectures against gambling they sometimes run
lotteries to obtain funds. This does not show bigotry against gambling,
but it can hardly help to drive home the objection to the vice. Example is
worse than precept in these cases.

The Press, which reaches a wider audience than the pulpit, is becoming
more a means of making money for its proprietors than a medium for the
formation of reasoned opinion; and some papers have organised sweepstakes
under the thinnest disguise. As for betting, there are numerous papers
that depend on it for their profits. Workmen and women pore over the
betting news and run into debt to back a horse. The misery that many
entail on themselves and their dependents by this conduct is widespread,
and efforts have been made to check it, but it does not seem to be
diminishing. As a rule it is safe to assume that people do not bet with
the intention of losing, but with the hope of winning. It is not harmless
excitement they seek; it is money they want; and they argue that they are
doing nothing different from what is done by wealthier people on the Stock
Exchange. They know as little about horses as those who speculated in
rubber knew about that substance; and they have no interest in improving
the breed. They want to be rich without working, and they see that some
men manage it. The losers are forgotten; and what do they matter anyway if
_we_ win?

This spirit of selfishness and greed is not confined to the gambler,
though it shows itself nakedly in his pursuit; and before it can be
exorcised a better conception of our duty to each other will 

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