re free from inherited
infirmities. The undoubted tendency of physical infirmity is to
disturb the temper, to weaken the will, and generally to disorganise
the mental equilibrium. Such a tendency, when it becomes very
pronounced, leads its unhappy possessor to perpetrate offenses against
his fellow-men, or, in other words, to commit crime. In a recent
communication to a German periodical, Herr Sichart, director of
prisons in the kingdom of Wurtemburg, has shown that a very high
percentage of criminals are the descendants of degenerate parents.
Herr Sichart's inquiries extended over several years and included
1,714 prisoners. Of this number 16 per cent. were descended from
drunken parents; 6 per cent. from families in which there was madness;
4 per cent. from families addicted to suicide; 1 per cent. from
families in which there was epilepsy. In all, 27 per cent. of the
offenders, examined by Herr Sichart were descended from families in
which there was degeneracy. According to these figures more than one
fourth of the German prison population have received a defective
organisation from their ancestry, which manifests itself in a life of
crime.

In France and Italy the same state of things prevails. Dr. Corre is of
opinion that a very large proportion of persons convicted of bad
conduct in the French military service are distinctly degenerate
either in body or mind. Dr. Virgilio says that in Italy 32 per cent.
of the criminal population have inherited criminal tendencies from
their parents. In England there is no direct means of testing the
amount of degeneracy among the criminal classes, but, in all
likelihood, it is quite as great as elsewhere. According to the report
of the Medical Inspector of convict prisons for 1888-9, the annual
number of deaths from natural causes, among the convict population, is
from 10 to 12 per 1000. Let us compare those figures with the death
rate of the general population as recorded in the Registrar-General's
report for 1888. The annual death rate from all causes of the general
population, between the ages of 15 and 45, is about 7 per 1000. I have
selected the period of life between 15 and 45 for the reason that it
corresponds most closely with the average age of criminals. If deaths
from accident are excluded from the mortality returns of the general
population, it will be found that the rate of mortality among
criminals, in convict prisons, is from one third to one half higher
than the