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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    I ^’^1 Per r % !,> & tlie c» ** £«£''* Pffceni; Iage 1 »e tout ^ands l 1 °f Ada, to-, e ^ouse °f Effie received i .°De 01 Efe's seven criminals was liCtat3°- Ebe contrast as to tie three children in the poor-house en, Effie’s are all; rould seem that the distinctively than the criminal, that crime of THE JUKES. 49 tardy. He compounded this suit by marrying the girl; at 38, out- door relief ; at 41, petit larceny, county jail 30 days; assault and battery when drunk, county jail 20 days. This year I saw him at the house of the poor-master, making application for an axe to do wood-chopping, bringing a friend along to ask for a pair of boots. The axe played the ostensible part of honest intentions to work, so that the boots might be forthcoming. Both were denied, and justly. Apparently he realizes in his own person the prepotency of a first child and the weakness of an invalid, as if it might be a conflict between vitality and death, but the side upon which the bal- ance must ultimately fall was decided at 13. He cannot escape being an alms-house pauper except by the interposition of sudden death, because the disability under which he labors is a deep-seated dis- ease, which year by year with cumulative force adds to his ineffi- ciency. Although the eldest child of his generation, he has received out-door relief at an earlier age than his brothers, his disease stand- ing as the equivalent of weakness, and inducing an apathy which destroys both physical activity and pride. Tentative Inductions on the Relations of Crime and Pauperism: 1. Crime as compared to pauperism indicates vigor. 2. With true criminals pauperism either occurs in old age or in childhood, and is not synchronous with the term of the crime career. 3. Imprisonment of the parent may produce induced pau- perism in the children, especially if they be girls who are thrown into the alms-house and remain inmates long enough to become mothers. 4. Criminal careers are more easily modified by environment, because crime, more especially contrived crime, is an index of ca- pacity, and wherever capacity is found, there environment is most effective in producing modifications of career. 5. The misfortune of one generation which throws the children into an alms-house, may lay the foundation for a criminal career for that generation if the children are of an enterprising temperament, for paupers if of low vitality and early licentious habits. 3 D L