Criminology.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 284, 11 December 1901, Page 1

Criminology.

’ARIS, Oct. 2d.—Professor Caesar unbroso, the eminent Italian crimi-

nulogist, has spent three weeks in Paris on iiis way back to Turin from Amsterdam, where he attended the recent sitting of the Congress of Crimonology. Dr Pozzi gave a reception in honor of the famous pyschiatrist, at which the latter examined a lot of plaster casts of heads which had been sent to Dr. Pozzi by the noted German cranium specialist, Virchowt For the edification of the physicians Professor Lombroso delivered an exand surgeons present at the reception, temporaneous lecture, in which he attributed lunacy to the Czar, the Sultan of Turkey, the Kaiser, King Edward, Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Archduke Otto, the heir to the Austrian throne, and King Alfonso of Spain. Professor Lombroso made an examiation before his distinguished auditors of a piaster cast of the Czar’s head made at, Compiegnc lately during the latter’s visit to France, by Sculptor Denis Pinch for a bust. Lombroso explained the various bumps and wound up thus : “ The ruler of Russia is not a criminally inclined lunatic, but an innocent, melancholy idiot, the easiest possible tool in the hands of a flattering influence. “ lving Edward’s humps show incapacity to comprehend ahstiact concepts or imagine distant tilings ; a mind evidently rebellious to philosophy and metaphysics.” The Professor predicted growing sell’ indulgence and passivity in eke case of the King of England. In regard to both the Kaiser and the Sultan of Turkey the specialist went further, declaring them irresponsible, because horn irretrievable criminals. He said that if they had moved in the lower walks of life the Sultan might have been a bank sneak, while the German Emperor’s gay instincts would have involved him in frequent: brawls, inevitably leading him to the gaol and scaffold. When Professor Lombroso had finished his discourse som* one in the notable company remarked that Europe was at the "mercy of crazy rulers. Thereupon Dr Championiere, another famous criminologist, suppmted Professor Lombroso, saying “ It is appalling to consider the real mental level of most of those people who have inherited or achieved political or other prominence.” Then Napoleon 111., Emile Oilivier, Joseph Chamberlain, Cecil Rhodes, Rudvard Kipling, and Felix Faure were discussed, and they also were pronounced mental,y unsound.

Another remarkable assertion made

incidentally during the talk was that President Roosevelt is descended from a Franco-German Hebrew family called Rosenfeklt, members of which emigrated to Holland, where the name took its present form. Caesar Lombroso, the Italian criminologist and alienist, is one of the foremost leaders of modern science.

s speciality is the science of crime which he has no rival.

He was born in Venice sixly-fivo years ago, and in youth was a military surgeon. He was the first to point out that men are sometimes criminals through hidden irresponsibility, and need correction of mental misfortune instead of punishment. He laid the foundation for his science 80 years ago, and for twenty years hat been a professor in the University of Turin. While a surgeon in the army a 5..dier was put to death for the murder of an officer. Lombroso exam-aed Ins brain and discovered in the emil an occipital dimple not. ordinardy developed in man, but characteristic of Die skulls of monkeys. The idea occurred to the young surgeon that the crime was the result of an incomplete development of the brain indicated by the cranial peculiarity. He acted upon the suggestion, and has continued to act upon it ever since. In ehis manner mankind has been taught how crime originates and is propagated,