Lombroso and the Italian school say that they have discovered a type of man who is born a criminal, and who may be recognized by a Mongolian face, abnormal features, ill-shaped ears, unsymmetrical skull, and various psychical peculiarities, which are the result of bad organization. This doctrine is illustrated by descriptions of criminals who have the abnormalities, and in the hands of skillful writers the case is made very plausible. The theory is in harmony with so much popular modern thought, which loosely interprets the doctrine of evolution by a crass materialism, that it has infected American prison literature, while it has never misled those men to whom practical experience has given the most right to have an opinion on the subject. The sense of personal responsibility is still the foundation of social order, and if in truth there is no such thing, the world is awake at last from its dream of morality; righteousness is resolved into heredity, structure, and habit; living is a mere puppet show, and the wreck of things impends. If Lombroso is right, modern scientific methods are sure to prove him so, and we shall have at last sound theories; but we shall have no world in which they can be used, for the dissolution predicted by Herbert Spencer will have come. [Illustration: Group 1, No. 1.] [Illustration: Group 1, No. 2.] [Illustration: Group 1, No. 3.] Exceptional opportunities for the study of the abnormal classes in the institutions of this country and Europe have given me a personal interest in the question of the criminal type. I have discovered that the criminal anthropologists do not choose for comparison with the prison population their normal men from the ranks where the criminal classes are recruited. Blackwell's Island has no more peculiar inmates than abound in sections of New York near the East River; the residents of the Whitechapel district of London may be compared with the inmates of Pentonville, to the distinct credit of the latter; and the man in Roquette is no worse off in body than scores whom I have seen in certain localities south of the Seine. The fact is, no human body exists which is not in some respects abnormal. The number of abnormalities and their extent depend upon a variety of circumstances, among which are food, climate, occupation, and the incidents of birth itself, as well as the various forms of infantile disease. I will undertake to find enough physical peculiarities, in any locality, or among the members of any profession, to establish any physical theory which may be propounded. [Illustration: Group 2, No. 1 (forger).] [Illustration: Group 2, No. 2.] [Illustration: Group 2, No. 3.]