The first Jukes of whom anything is known were five sisters of obscure parentage who lived in Ulster County, New York, in the second half of the eighteenth century. At least four of the five took early to a life of vice, and eventually all married and had children. Many years afterward a visitor to an Ulster County jail noticed that among its inmates, awaiting trial on various charges, were six members of one family, including two boys accused of assault with intent to kill. Inquiry showed that the six were directly descended from the oldest Juke girl, and that more than half of their male blood-relatives in the county were likewise in some degree criminal. Impressed by these facts the jail visitor, Mr. R. L. Dugdale, determined to make a genealogical research into the life histories of as many of the descendants of the five Juke sisters as could be traced. Altogether it was found possible to obtain pretty complete data concerning seven hundred and nine of these, with the following astonishing results: Of the entire seven hundred and nine, not twenty had been skilled workers, and ten of these had learned their trade in prison; only twenty-two had been persons of property, and of this number eight had lost the little they acquired; sixty-four had been in the county alms-house; one hundred and forty-two had received outdoor relief; one hundred and twenty-eight had been prostitutes, and eighteen keepers of houses of ill-fame; finally, seventy-six were reported as criminals, with one hundred and fifteen more or less serious crimes to their discredit. All this in seven generations of a single family. Surely one might well be tempted to find here “the most striking proof of the heredity of crime,” as Cesare Lombroso did not hesitate to pronounce this sad history of the Jukes. But there is something to be added. Following the publication of Mr. Dugdale’s book, “The Jukes,” giving the family record, there came under the care of a charitable organisation an eighth-generation descendant of the oldest Juke sister, a foundling baby boy, cast upon the tender mercies of the world with all the burden of “innate depravity” transmitted from his vicious ancestors. Instead of taking it for granted that he would inevitably come to an evil end, the charity-workers decided to give him the benefit of a refined environment and good family care. Accordingly a home was found for him with a kind-hearted widow, whose own sons had grown to a worthy manhood, and from her for ten years he received the loving and intelligent training which is the birthright of every child.