The Fertility of the UnfitChapple, W. A. (William Allan)
History
The Fertility of the Unfit
Chapple, W. A. (William Allan)
Eugenics; Involuntary sterilization; Population
Consider what a burden is the criminal. Every community is more or less
terrorised by him; our property is liable to be plundered, our houses
invaded, our women ravished, our children murdered. To restrain him we
must build gaols, and keep immense staffs of highly paid officials to
tend him in confinement, and watch him when he is at liberty.
Notwithstanding these, crime is rife, and is rapidly increasing. Says
Douglas Morrison:--"It is perfectly well known to every serious student
of criminal questions, both at home and abroad, that the proportion of
habitual criminals in the criminal population is steadily on the
increase, and was never so high as it is now.... The population under
detention in reformatory institutions is increasing more rapidly than
the growth of the community as a whole, and, as far as it is possible to
see, the juvenile population in prisons is doing the same thing."
Havelock Ellis ("The Criminal," p. 295), Boies, and McKim, all
corroborate this testimony. "Among the three or four millions of
inhabitants of London, one in every five dies in gaol, prison, or
workhouse." ("Heredity and Human Progress," p. 32.)
All these defectives are prolific, and transmit their fatal taints. "In
a certain family of sixteen persons, eight were born deaf and dumb, and
one at least of this family transmitted the defect as far as the third
generation." ("Heredity and Human Progress.") A murderer was the son of
a drunkard; of three brothers, one was normal, one a drunkard, and the
third was a criminal epileptic. Of his three paternal uncles, one was a
murderer, one a half idiot, and one a violent character. Of his four
cousins, sons of the latter, two were half idiots, one a complete idiot,
and the other a lunatic.
There is an agricultural community of about 4000 in the rich and fertile
district in the valley of Artena, in Italy, who have been thieves,
brigands, and assassins since 1155 A.D. They were outlawed by Pope Paul
IV., in 1557, but they still live and flourish in their crime, the
victims of a criminal inheritance. The ratio of homicides in Italy and
Artena is as 9 to 61; of assault and battery as 34 to 205; of highway
robbery as 3 to 145; of theft as 47 to 111. Professor Pellman, of Bonn
University, has traced the careers of a large number of defectives, and
shown their cost to the State. Take this example:--A woman who was a
thief, a drunkard, and a tramp for forty years of her life, had 834
descendants, 709 of whom were traced; 106 were born out of wedlock, 142
were beggars, and 64 more lived on charity. Of the women, 181 lived
disreputable lives. There were in the family 76 convicts, 7 of whom were
convicted of murder. In 75 years, this family cost their country in
almshouses, trials, courts, prisons, and correctional establishments
about £250,000. The injury inflicted by this one family on person and
property was simply incalculable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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