CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN ITALY. By Helen Zimmern. II.
PAOLO MANTEGAZZA is perhaps en titled to lay claim to the name he loves to sport, that of the father of Italian anthro pology : but, according to the more precise views of our day, he can hardly be regarded as a real scientist. As is often the case, the sons have outstripped the father, who now combats the views of his legitimate offspring. A reproach cast at Mantegazza, it would seem not without reason, is that he too closely follows Moliere's precept, " Je prends mon bien oft je le trouve" and that he has passed off as his own the conclusions and the work of German scientific men. Another reproach that is certainly well founded is his mani fest delight in handling obscene themes, and handling them not in the calm, scientific spirit that removes from them a real obscene character, but treating the details with a gusto that reveals how Enrico these prurient matters rather delight than disgust him, and what is worse, these works are written in popular language, frankly appealing to a popular rather than a scientific audience. To this class belong all his works on " Love," on "Women," on the "Art of taking a Wife," of "Being a Husband," etc. It may safely be as serted that his fame is steadily declining, and that his want of perseverance and observa tion is itself to blame for this. By nature
Mantegazza was endowed with a fine and versatile intelligence, but he has lowered it in the search after cash and easy success. This handsome old man, with the face and smile of a satyr, is a familiar figure on the streets of Florence. The number of men who are strict anthro pologists without being sociologists is ex traordinarily great in con temporary Italy, and there is none of them who has not done good and original work. Limits of space oblige us perforce to pass them by, in order to speak of yet others of the new school created by Lombroso's theories, and who take rank in the files of criminal anthro pology, a science far more interesting to the general reader than that which deals with biology pure and simple. To this sec tion in the first rank be long the alienists, besides a large number of law yers, judges, and jour Mokselli. nalists. The highest posi tion among them belongs indubitably to Enrico Ferri. His verdict, like that of Cesarc Lombroso, is constantly appealed to in complicated criminal cases where the sanity or the natural proclivity to crime of the person is in question. A man of really unusual physical beauty is Enrico Ferri, as well as of charm of manner and of eloquence which, when stirred to a theme dear to his heart, carries all before it. Enrico Ferri was
