THE CRIMINAL FACE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 28

THE CRIMINAL FACE

IF YOU HAVE ONE, DON’T WORRY! IT MAY BE A PHILANTHROPIST’S “Lately there has been much concern with what is called 'The Criminal Face.’ It appears that there is a certain type and shape of head and features that always goes with the commission of crime. If you have' it, there is no escape. You might as well go right away and ask to board in the penitentiary,” writes Mr. Stephen Leacock, in a new book. “Experts can explain to you this criminal face, feature by feature and line by line. But the real trouble with the expert is that he always knows beforehand that the face he is analysing is that of a man who has committed a crime. That colours his conclusions. What if we w-ere to put before him, as a criminal, the face of a philanthropist? What then? "Thus we take the picture of a certain face, and we know that it is in reality the face of a kindly old professor. Indeed, we have recently, let us say, seen it described on the occasion of a presentation of his portrait to the city in the following terms: Portrait of a Sage “ 'The face of this distinguished scholar is known and loved by thousands who have listened to his inspired and inspiring words. It is a broad face, a kindly face, the face of a man with a wide heart, whose broad lineaments seem to indicate a corresponding breadth of sympathy. But there is a firmness, too, in the wide mouth, and character in the large but firmly chiselled nostril. The brow slopes nobly from the projecting frontal bones, the head is wide, of a width that tells of the capacious brain within. The ear is large, noble and mobile, and the scant and snow-white hair remains as the mark of honour of a life spent in the service of mankind.’ “But put the same portrait before the graphofacial expert, or facial graphologist, and tell him that it is a picture of a criminal recently sent to gaol for life plus 10 years, and ask him where he can see the tendency to crime, and this is the analysis you will receive of the countenance of the venerable scholar: Dangerous Criminal “ 'The photograph is that of a male about sixty years of age, with marked criminal tendencies. Note the flat face, indicating complete absence of thinking power. There is something almost simian or ape-like in the width of the mouth, while the low, sloped forehead is but little higher in development than that of the most degraded

savages. Such brain as this man could have would be sunk so low toward his neck as to be of little use to him. The premature loss of practically the entire capillary growth of the scalp, with the utter loss of pigment in the remaining part, indicates a life evil and irregular to the last degree. . .

“In other words, my dear readers, my advice is—never mind your face. What if you do look like a criminal of the most dangerous type? You may not be really fitted for it at all.”