CRIPPLE CREEK genital habitual criminal is marked by conspicuous physical and mental defects. Arrested cranial development and de- formity, heavy jaws, ugly features, and many other miner abnormal physical characters, are associated with moral in- sensibility, low intelligence, vanity, and irregular emotional peculiarities verging on insanity. The occasional criminal who yields to severe or special tempta- tions is treated as belonging to a wholly distinct category. The acceptance of these anthropological views would natu- rally lead to somewhat sweeping changes in the treatment of criminals, with a view to their reclamation somewhat on the lines of the treatment in use at Elmira. See also Bertillon System. CRIPPLE CREEK, a town in Teller CO., Col.; on the Florence and Cripple Creek and the Midland Terminal rail- roads, 50 miles W. of Colorado Springs. It is the trade center for the Cripple Creek mining district, which was one of the richest gold-mining districts. It has several cyanide mills, smelters and other mining industries, a National bank, and daily and weekly newspapers. It was founded in 1890, and was nearly de- stroyed by fire in 1896. Pop. (1910) 6,206; (1920) 2,325. CRISHNA, in Hindu mythology, an incarnate deity of perfect beauty. King Canza, being informed that a child of the family of Devaci would overturn his throne, gave orders to destroy all the male infants that were bom. When Crishna was born, his nurse attempted to poison him, but failed, and the mother and child fled, and were taken care of by a shepherd. As he grew up, his beauty was so divine that all the princesses of Hindustan fell in love with him, and even to the present hour he is the Apollo of India and the "idol of women." CRISIS, ECONOMIC, a term em- ployed to denote the succession of phe- nomena, recurring at regular intervals in the industrial cycle, arising from disturb- ances and general depression in business following a period of prosperity. This alternation of prosperity and depression has become so marked a feature of recent economic history as to wear the appear- ance of a natural law, and, though the causes that lie at its foundation have not been fully ascertained, students of eco- nomics have begun to look on it as an inevitable accompaniment of the existing industrial order. The course of the crisis has been so pronounced that its characteristics are easily described. There is first of all the current of pros- perity with growing business and expan- ,8ion m industry and commerce, and then 199 CRISIS ' the period of uncertainty arising from the great increase in cost. A diminished volume of operations follows, with less demand for material and labor. So the decline of demand is felt in ever widen- ing circles until the whole industrial world becomes sensible of the commer- cial depression. A condition of general anxiety supervenes, in the course of which a catastrophe of some kind, the failure of a great mercantile firm, drags the depression to a lower level by bring- ing down with it other firms having relations with it. The repercussion is felt in many direc- tions throughout the business world, con- fidence undergoes a process of further demoralization, creditors call in their debts, debtors, however solvent, find it harder to get credit, and the whole sys- tem of credit shows signs of crumbling. The demoralization may take on huge proportions and business may become almost stagnant. Then follows a period of quiescence, during which the psycho- logical influences at work are apt to run their course. Then follows a general sense that the worst has passed, and since a state of quiescence becomes in time intolerable, the wheels begin to work again, and out of the depression confidence and credit begin to build their structure again. So the cycle runs its course, the period of prosperity again being followed by a period of depres- sion and disturbance, and this again having run its course, confidence and in- creased production return. Crises of the kind described are of course more rare than the disturbance regularly referred to in the press. There are crises of a less important kind, those leading to and resulting in panics in the money market. These do not always affect the commercial or industrial world in any appreciable degree. Of more import are crises having their intrinsic causes in the commercial and industrial world, for these last affect the actual wealth of a country, while a stock ex- change crisis is apt merely to affect the sjmibols of wealth. A crisis in the in- dustrial world generally betokens a period of hard times, which often extends itself, owing to the tightening of inter- national relations, to several countries. A succession of bad harvests, for ex- ample, would be quite apt to cause enor- mous distress and dislocation of trade, with the result of successive periods of crises in different countries. One of the worst crises in the history of United States business was that of 1873. It exhibited in full-blown investiture all the characteristics of crises that have oc- curred before or since, the great indus- trial activity following the Civil War,
