The criminal / by Havelock Ellis.

  • Havelock Ellis
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The criminal / by Havelock Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    53/396 page 35
    Prison for Scotland at Perth, published in the Journal of Mental Science a summary of his observations on over 5000 prisoners. From the decisiveness of his utterances and the large number of prisoners of whom he was able to speak, this summary gave a stimulus to the study of the criminal throughout Europe. Thomson enumerated some of the physical characteristics of the instinc- tive criminal now generally recognised, pointed out the semi-imbccility prevalent among the juvenile criminals under his observation, the frequency of accumulated morbid appearances at post-mortem examinations, and the large proportion of cases at Perth needing treatment for mental diseases soon after admission, apparently from congenital causes. Thomson's facts and opinions were too curtly, and, probably, too emphatically stated. Dr. Nicolson, writing also in the same joui-nal from 1873 to 1875, dealt with the morbid psychology of the criminal, the unstable, emotional element in him, his proneness to delusions, his insensibility, and his weak-minded- ness. Dr. Nicolson's papers, all written before the latest and most fruitful ei'a of criminal anthropology began, were, so far as I have been able to trace, the latest original contributions from the scientific side made in England to the study of the criminal. Such knowledge as has been furnished since has come from writers who have, almost of necessity, dealt with what may be called the mental and social symptomatology of criminals. Among the books which supply more or less valuable or interesting information of this kind may be mentioned the Rev. J. W. Horsley's Jottings Jrom Jail, Ivlichael Davitt's I^eaves from a Prison Diary, and the Scenes from a
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