The Jukes : a study in crime, pauperism, disease, and heredity / by Robert L. Dugdale ; with a foreword by Elisha Harris ; and an introduction by Franklin H. Giddings.

Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Jukes : a study in crime, pauperism, disease, and heredity / by Robert L. Dugdale ; with a foreword by Elisha Harris ; and an introduction by Franklin H. Giddings. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Tentative Inductions respecting Crime : 1. The burden of crime is found in the illegitimate lines. 2. The legitimate lines marry into crime. 3. Those streaks of crime found in the legitimate lines are found chiefly where there have been crosses into X. 4. The eldest child has a tendency to be the criminal of the family. 5. Crime chiefly follows the male lines. 6. The longest lines of crime are along the line of the eldest son. Crime and Pauperism compared.—The ideal pauper is the idiotic adult unable to help himself, who may be justly called a living em- bodiment of death. The ideal criminal is a courageous man in the prime of life who so skilfully contrives crime on a large scale that he escapes detection and succeeds in making the community believe him to be honest as he is generous. Between these two extremes there are endless gradations which approximate each other, till at last you reach a class who are too weak to be contrivers of crime, and too strong to be alms-house paupers ; they are the tools who execute what others plan and constitute the majority of those who are found in prison during their youth and prime, and in the poor-house in their old age. These men prefer the risks and excitements of criminality and the occasional confinement of a prison where they meet congenial company, to the security against want and the stag- nant life of the alms-house. To more fully illustrate this we give table X., in which is made a comparison of the distinctively criminal branch of Ada, with the distinctively pauper branch of Effie, so that the difference can be contrasted. It will be seen that while the criminal branch shows 35 percent of out-door relief and 21 percent of alms-house pau- pers, with 60 per cent of crime, the pauper branch shows 61 per cent of out-door relief, 38 per cent of alms-house pauperism, and 53 per cent of crime. But when we come to study the intensity of crime, we find that while nine offenders of the line of Ada have been sent to State prison-for 60 years, only one has been sent for five years of the line of Effie. Again, contrasting the crimes against property, against person and vagrancy, the percentages show great dis- parities. While Ada’s offspring perpetrate 54 per cent of crimes