How to Become Rich: A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and MatrimonyWindsor, William
Science
How to Become Rich: A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony
Windsor, William
Phrenology
Prof. William Windsor, LL. B., the phrenologist whose lectures, in Los
Angeles, last January, excited such general interest, returned to the
city yesterday, _en route_ for San Diego. He visited the jail yesterday
and made an examination of Fritz Anschlag, the noted murderer of the Mr.
and Mrs. Hitchcock. A representative of the _Tribune_ called on
Professor Windsor at the St. Elmo and requested him to give the readers
of this journal the results of his examination of the man whose
atrocious crime has absorbed the attention of the public ever since its
committal.
"Anschlag is a moral idiot," said Professor Windsor, in answer to the
first interrogatory of the scribe. "He belongs to a class of beings who,
from the circumstances of birth and education, are destitute of the
requisite amount of sense necessary to form a correct judgment on moral
questions as well as many others.
"It is a popular error to suppose that phrenology depends upon 'bumps,'
so called, or protuberances or hollows in the conformation of the skull.
The conclusions of the phrenologist are based upon estimates of brain
fiber, their quality and length from a point in the base of the brain
directly between the ears, to the surface. This measurement in different
heads will show a comparative difference of three or four inches in many
cases, though the heads may be smooth in contour and destitute of
'bumps.' Just look at these two skulls, for instance," placing two
ghastly objects on the table, which, by actual measurement, differed
more than three inches.
"Does Anschlag's head resemble either of these?"
"Not in all particulars. This," holding up the broader of the two, "is
the skull of Andrew J. McCannon, executed in Mississippi, more than
forty years ago, for the murder of the Adock family, two adults and
three children. It is a case of moral idiocy more pronounced than
Anschlag's."
"What distinction do you make, Professor, in the case of Anschlag or
this murderer, and a case of total idiocy such as we all recognize?"
"The difference is partly in degree, and partly in the fact that a man
may be idiotic in one faculty and have all or a majority of the other
faculties in the mind in good working order. Cases of color-blindness
furnish a familiar example. Color-blindness is not a defect of the eye,
but a defect of the brain. In other words, the party is destitute of the
sense of color, and it may be readily detected by a deficiency of brain
just above the eye.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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