The female offender / by Cæsar Lombroso and William Ferrero.

  • Lombroso, Cesare, 1835-1909.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The female offender / by Cæsar Lombroso and William Ferrero. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    child, and for a long time passed for a cousin of the Queen of Spain. P. W., who was guilty of stabbing and probably of poisoning, managed political newspapers, organised political conspiracies, and published novels and poems. Madame Tarnowsky also remarked with reference to Theodosia W., a celebrated receiver of stolen goods in St. Petersburg, that in the management of her business she required much astuteness and discern- ment in order to distinguish between her different customers, who were sometimes poor wretches bring- ing their last possessions to pawn, sometimes real thieves, and sometimes spies.. Another proof that born criminals are often of great intelligence lies in the frequent originality of their crimes. M., already alluded to (Ottolenghi), enriched herself by a remarkable combination of prostitution, pandering, and blackmail. Lacassagne induced her accomplice in the murder of her illegiti- mate child, to take all the guilt upon himself by promising to marry him as soon as he had worked out his sentence, but when he presented himself to exact the fulfilment of her agreement, she murdered him with the assistance of her brother. Gras not having money enough to marry an artisan, caused the latter to throw vitriol at another lover of her own, who was in delicate health, her plan being to marry him when thus disfigured by persuading him that no other woman would take him, then to ruin his already shattered constitution, and, on being left a rich widow, to marry the man of her heart. The superior ability of born criminals is explicable