124Section I.A. Marro.
own powers; in consequence, calculation, suspicion, and avarice tend to
take the upper hand if the good education received in youth, mature reflec
tion and the practice of virtue in the preceding years do not come to constitute
a solid check against the new tendencies which the progress, of the years
develops. These psychical alterations proper to old age, according to the researches
made by Kostjurin in the laboratory of Obersteiner at Vienna, should have
an anatomical basis consisting of a fatty pigmentary degeneration of the
nerve cells of the cortical substances of the cerebral hemispheres, with
porous atrophy of the nerve tubes, atheroma of the vessels, condensation of
the connective tissue, and the appearance of amyloid corpuscules on the
surface of the brain.
Now, the result of my researches as regards the character of criminals
in relation to the age of parents at the time of their birth, corresponds to
theoretical provisions.TABLE I.
PROPORTION OF FATHERS OF NORMAL SUBJECTS, CRIMINALS, AND INSANE IN
VARIOUS AGES ACCORDING TO THE TIME OF BIRTH.
Period of full
of immaturity.development.of decline.
Normal ....................................8-8% .66'l%249%
Total number of criminals10-9% .•• 56'7%32-2%
Assassins ...................................2-9 % .• • 44‘i%52-9%
Blows and wounds .................••• I3‘5% ••• 45 '9%40-5%
Rape ........................................2‘7% .66'6%30-5%
Thieves ...................................••• 15-5% ••■ 57'2%2 7 ’1 %
Swindlers ................................... 2-8% ..6o'o%37-i%
Insane ......................................... !7'o%■ 47'°%36-o%
Amongst crimes against property we find a large number of children of
young parents, and this was natural. The first motive for theft is not
an impulse due to mischievousness which drives an individual to have a
prejudice against other people, but rather the love of pleasure, of dissipa
tions and of idleness which are characteristics of youth in which the passions
reign and which lacks the curb capable of restraining and controlling them.
I have, however, found one exception. In the class of criminals against
property, swindlers, the children of aged parents we find in a notable pro
portion, whilst the children of young parents were not numerous.
It could not be otherwise. Swindling usually entails long pre
meditation, and, besides, a great deal of malice, united with a special
condition of mind, by which he who commits the crime shows himself
rather inclined to bring into action psychical faculties, namely, simulation
and hypocrisy in place of physical force, agility, dexterity, and violence.
