Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF THE CRIMINAL. Anthropometry of Children. FroM 79 children less than 12 years of age confined in houses of correction, among whom were 40 thieves, 27 vagabonds, 7 homicides, and 3 whose crime is not stated, Lombroso finds as predominating anomalies: 30 with deformed ears, 21 with small, retreating foreheads, 19 plagiocephalic, 16 with projecting cheek bones, 14 with prominent jaws, 7 with raised frontal sinuses, 6 hydrocephalic, 5 crosseyed, 14 with facial asymmetry, 10 with physiognomy of cretins, 9 goitrous, and 9 with deformed nose. The striking thing is the large number of anomalies among children which subsequently disappear. A little less than half of the children (44 per cent.) present abnormal moral tendencies, such as extreme irritability, love of vagabondage, persistence in lying, an odd propensity to move oneself continually, and to tear clothes. The morbid physical characters in criminal children are 69 per cent., or double those without any moral anomaly; here the physical anomalies are 30 per cent. The semi-delinquents, masturbators and thieves have 72 per cent, to 83 per cent- of physical anomalies; morbid heredity reaches inthese children 70 and 66 per cent. Out of 100 rich pupils in the International College at Turin, 53 were absolutely normal physically and morally. Of 44 with evidences of physical degeneracy, only 6 had immoral tendencies. The very small proportion of psychical anomalies is due to the selection of pupils and to superior training. In general, the , moral anomalies, which in adults would constitute ) a criminal, are much larger in proportion in chil- fS" dren, but disappear through education. The men-' tal anomalies are double in proportion in criminal children, and reach a still higher figure in thes...