Not Guilty: A Defence of the Bottom Dog

Now, bearing in mind that the unfortunate children of drunken, diseased, criminal, vicious, and insane parents may, and in very many cases will, either become criminal or immoral, or, becoming imbecile or diseased, will breed other degenerate children who will become criminal or immoral, let us consider the following plain facts taken from a London daily paper of the present year (1905).

It is estimated that there are 50,000 epileptic children in the United Kingdom, and that one child in every 100 of the population is feeble-minded.

In the last few years special schools have been opened for these children, and they are trained until they are sixteen years of age. At that age they are turned out into the world. A few are able to look after themselves. The majority drift into imbecility and vice, and flood the workhouses and prisons.

At a meeting in the Guildhall, London, called to discuss the means of dealing with imbeciles and epileptics, a speech was made by Dr. Potts, of Birmingham, of which the following is a condensed report, cut by me from the Daily Express:

Terrible facts with regard to feeble-minded and defective women were given by Dr. Potts. He paid a visit to a girls' night shelter, and investigated the first twelve cases he found there. Here is their record:

1. Consumptive, both parents died of the disease.

2. Neurotic drunkard, with a family who had suffered from St. Vitus' dance.

3. Normal.

4. Deaf and mentally defective.

5. Neurotic and mentally defective.

6. No congenital defect, but health ruined by drink.

7 and 8. Feeble character.

9. Suffering from persistent bad memory.

10. Twice imprisoned for theft; daughter of drunken loafer.

11. Normal.

12. Mentally defective and suffering from heart disease. Thus, out of twelve only two were normal individuals. Yet the ten were free to go as they liked, and to bring up defective children.

"It is well known," said Dr. Potts, "that a large number of the inmates of penitentiaries are feeble-minded women."

We see, then, that a great many poor imbeciles are regularly sent to prison as criminals. On that point allow me to put in the evidence of Sir Robert Anderson, late of Scotland Yard. Speaking of the feeble-minded, Sir Robert said (I quote again from the London Press):

My deliberate, conviction is that our present prison methods and prison discipline are absolutely brutal to these poor persons. People say the law of Moses is brutal, but it is not so brutal as the present criminal system of England.

No one who has not been behind the scenes can understand in any measure the misery and cruelty of it. It is "seven days' hard labour," "a month's hard labour," time after time for these poor creatures, who ought to be dealt with like children. In prison they spend their miserable lives. Out of gaol they add to the number of their own species, and commit offences which send them back once more.

Our magistrates simply send them for another month or six months. But it is not the magistrates' fault. It is the fault of the law. And this goes on in what promises to be the most intellectually conceited age since God made man upon earth. Surely we might have some pity for these poor creatures! If we have no pity for them we should have regard for the public.

That is the testimony of the late head of the Criminal Investigation Department: an Assistant Commissioner of Police, and Barrister at Law.

Let us now return to Dr. Potts, of Birmingham, for a moment. In the speech above quoted Dr. Potts gave the causes of mental defects – which are the causes that lead these poor creatures to immorality and to crime, as follows:

1. Defective nutrition in early years of life.

2. Hereditary tendency to consumption.

3. Descent from insane or criminal stock.

4. Chronic alcoholism of one or both parents.

We have here, added by Dr. Potts, another cause of degeneracy: that is, defective nutrition in early life. In plain words, improper feeding, or semi-starvation.

Later, when we come to deal with environment, I shall show that there are many other causes of degeneration and of crime. But here I only point out that atavism and degeneration account for from thirty to forty per cent, of the criminals of the present day. That atavism and degeneration are forced upon the unborn child by heredity; that therefore these forty per cent, of our criminals are unfortunate victims of fate, and are no more blameworthy nor wicked than the victims of a railway accident, or an earthquake, or an epidemic of cholera or smallpox.

They should, as I claimed before, be pitied, and not blamed; they should be helped, not punished.

Unhappy, unblest atavistic man, that in lieu of love has only lust, in lieu of wisdom only cunning, in lieu of power violence; and with a whole world to walk in, as in a garden fair, lies wallowing hideously in the foul dungeon of his own unlightened soul.

Unhappy criminal born, most pitiful dreadful of developed creatures; lonelier and more accursed than banded wolf or solitary tiger: a waif, a spoil, a pariah "born out of his due time":

A scribe's work writ awry and blurred,

Spoiled music, with no perfect word, a wretched, horrible Ishmael with his hand against the hand of every man, and every man's hand implacably against his.

On him, it would appear, has fallen the doom of the prophet, and instead of sweet spices there is rottenness, instead of a girdle a rope: branding instead of beauty.

In the barren garden of his mind no flowers will blow, his trees will bear no fruit All human pleasure is to him a Circe cup; he finds no pathos in the children's laughter, no beauty in the dawn-shine; no glory in the constellations.

What are we to do for this wretched desperate brother who will not love us though we whip him with whips of wire, who will not make friends of us though we spurn and spit upon him; who, though we preach to him, cannot understand; who, though we teach him, cannot learn; who, though we hang him high as, Haman, will "die game," cursing us with his strangled breath, mocking us with his blinded eyes; and in spite of all our intellect and righteousness going back from us unbettered and untamed into the abyss of eternity and the laboratory of evolution, whence he and we were drawn: going back from us a savage still, and in his angry heart and baffled mind holding our half-fledged knowledge and green morality in derision.

Well, he is dead; his stiff neck broken, and his body wrapped in a winding sheet of lime.

And we? We remain the superior persons we are. We are civilised, and holy. We punish weakness with blows, and misfortune with chains. We teach sweet reasonableness with the cat-o'-nine-tails – steeped in brine. We exemplify gentleness and mercy with the gibbet and the axe. We brand the blind, and torture the imbecile, and execrate the miserable, and damn the diseased, and revile the fallen; we set our righteous heel upon the creeping thing, and thank our anomalous and hypothetical God of Love and Justice that we are not as those others – our atavistic brother and his degenerate children.

And our atavistic brother, the criminal born! He does not understand us, he does not admire us, he cannot love us. We fail, in some inexplicable way, to charm the deaf adder, charm we never so wisely.

But some day, perhaps, when the superior person has achieved humility, even the outlawed Bottom Dog may come by some crumbs of sympathy, some drops of the milk of human kindness, and – then?

CHAPTER SIX – ENVIRONMENT

|WHAT is environment?

When we speak of a man's environment we mean his surroundings, his experiences; all that he sees, hears, feels, and learns from the instant that the lamp of life is kindled to the instant when the light goes out.

By environment we mean everything that develops or modifies the child or the man for good or for ill.

We mean his mother's milk; the home, and the state of life into which he was born. We mean the nurse who suckles him, the children he plays with, the school he learns in, the air he breathes, the water he drinks, the food he eats. We mean the games he plays, the work he does, the sights he sees, the sounds he hears. We mean the girls he loves, the woman he marries, the children he rears, the wages he earns. We mean the sickness that tries him, the griefs that sear him, the friends who aid and the enemies who wound him. We mean all his hopes and fears, his victories and defeats; his faiths and his disillusionments. We mean all the harm he does, and all the help he gives; all the ideals that beckon him, all the temptations that lure him; all his weepings and laughter, his kissings and cursings, his lucky hits and unlucky blunders: everything he does and suffers under the sun.

I go into all this detail because we must remember that everything that happens to a man, everything that influences him, is a part of his environment.

It is a common mistake to think of environment in a narrow sense, as though environment implied no more than poverty or riches. Everything outside our skin belongs to our environment.

Let us think of it again. Education is environment; religion is environment; business and politics are environment; all the ideals, conventions, and prejudices of race and class are environment; literature, science, and the Press are environment; music, history, and sport are environment; beauty and ugliness are environment; example and precept are environment; war and travel and commerce are environment; sunshine and ozone, honour and dishonour, failure and success, are environment; love is environment.

I stress and multiply examples because the power of environment is so tremendous that we can hardly over-rate its importance.