§ 7 Tattooing
The practice of tattooing is very common among criminals, and is frequently carried to an extraordinary extent, twenty or thirty designs being occasionally found on the same subject. Lombroso was the first to point out the full biological and psychical significance of this practice.
Arms of criminal whose whole body was
more or less tattooed. (Lombroso.)
Alborghetti found 15 per cent. of the inmates of the prison at Bergamo tattooed. Lombroso examined 100 children at the reformatory at Turin, and found 40 of them tattooed. Among 235 other youthful criminals he found 32 per cent. tattooed. Among the ordinary population tattooed children are very rarely seen. Rossi found 23 tattooed among the 100 criminals whom he has so carefully studied. Lacassagne among 800 convicted French soldiers found 40 per cent. tattooed.35
The designs vary in character, but certain emblems are frequently repeated. Tardieu out of 160 designs found 20 relating to love, 20 to war, 8 to religion, 8 to occupation, 6 to obscene practices.
A French glazier, thief, deserter from army; had been in Africa.
The chief figure on breast is St. George. (Lombroso.)
Dr. Greaves, the medical officer of Derby Prison, has kindly noted details of the tattoo marks observed on the prisoners received there during three months. Out of 555 persons admitted, 41 (40 men and one woman) were tattooed; i.e., 7.3 per cent. The tattooed individuals were chiefly soldiers, with a few miners and sailors. The favourite devices were flags, ships, anchors, female figures, bracelets, and initials. There were two inscriptions, “Love” and “Jesus wept”; and among the less common devices were a crucifix, Maltese crosses, a ballet girl, a mermaid, and Chinese flower-pots. The most numerous and complex figures were all found on soldiers.
The designs most frequently found by Rossi among his 23 tattooed criminals were—portrait of mistress or nude woman (8); initials, either of self, mistress, or friend (9); a transfixed heart, an emblem sometimes of love, sometimes of vengeance (5); flowers, comets, swords, serpents, etc.
Tattooed inscriptions, as noted by Lacassagne, who has given special attention to this matter, are frequently characteristic of the criminal’s mental attitude; here are a few of the commonest: “Son of misfortune,” “No luck,” “Death to unfaithful women,” “Vengeance,” “Son of disgrace,” “Born under an unlucky star,” “Child of joy,” “The past has deceived me.”
The favourite position for tattooing, among the ordinary population, is the front of the forearm; to a less degree the shoulders, the chest (especially sailors), or the fingers. All who are tattooed on the back or the sexual organs (according to Lombroso) have without exception either been among the Pacific islands or sojourned in a prison. The greater number of tattooed criminals are naturally found among recidivists and instinctive criminals, especially those who have committed crimes against the person. The fewest are found among swindlers and forgers, the most intelligent class of criminals. There is evidence that criminals frequently refrain from tattooing themselves because they know these marks form an easy method of recognition in the hands of the police. It appears that, in Italy at all events, the connection between tattoo marks and crime has been of late recognised by the common soldiers. In 1848 the soldiers of the Piedmontese army considered tattooing a mark of virility. Recently, when Lombroso asked a soldier why he was not tattooed, he replied: “Because those are the things that lead to the galleys;” and an army doctor assured Lombroso that tattooed men were considered a priori as bad soldiers.
Right arm of G., French thief, etc.,
expelled from France, and wandered
in Africa and Australia.
(Lombroso.) M. J., French sailor and deserter;
the nature of his crime is unknown.
(Lombroso.)
The causes that produce tattooing are doubtless of a complex kind. Religion, formerly and still among some races a chief cause of the practice, was up to 1688 practised at Bethlehem by the Christian pilgrims, and still survives at Loretto. Of 102 tattooed criminals, 31 bore religious emblems. Vengeance frequently leads to it among criminals, and among the feebler ones the spirit of imitation. Idleness often explains it among prisoners, shepherds, and sailors.36 Vanity is almost as powerful a cause among criminals as among savages. “The more one is tattooed,” said a Neapolitan soldier to Rossi, “the more one is esteemed and feared by one’s companions, because it shows greater progress in the path of crime.” Higher emotions always play a considerable part; and recollections of childhood and the memory of loved friends are thus recorded. Lacassagne attributes considerable importance to tattooing as a species of heraldry used by uneducated people, analogous to the banners and seals of corporations. Erotic passion is a very frequent—probably the most frequent—cause of tattooing. All sorts of symbols of love, from the initials of the loved one to the grossest emblems of unnatural passion, are very common. The tattoo designs among prostitutes are usually of this character; and such emblems are common among pæderasts and tribades. Among savages nudity is of course one of the predisposing causes, and the same cause acts among sailors and prostitutes. Lombroso attaches prime importance to atavism. In the strict sense of the word, however, I doubt very much whether we can legitimately accept the atavistic explanation. The criminal is exposed to many of the influences which lead the savage to adopt the practice, the chief of which have been already enumerated; this is a sufficient explanation of the similarity of habit, and it seems scarcely accurate to describe it as atavism. It is better described as a survival. “I regard it,” Lacassagne well says in his instructive work, Les Tatouages, “as the uninterrupted and successive transformation of an instinct. The construction and material expression of metaphor and emblematic language were first adopted by the most elevated classes, who had no other means of communicating or materialising their thoughts. Little by little this method took refuge with those lower classes who have as yet no better means of expressing what they feel and experience. It is in these classes also that vanity, or the need of approbation, predominates, and this has a marked influence in maintaining the custom.”
Tattooing is exceedingly rare among women. Out of 300 women criminals at Turin, Gamba found only five tattooed. Soresina, who examined 1000 prostitutes at Milan, did not find one tattooed. Lombroso, out of 200 criminal women, found only one tattooed; she came from Chioggia, was an adultress who had killed her lover from jealousy, and she had associated much with sailors.37
Among the insane tattooing does not seem always to be uncommon. In the lunatic asylum at Ancona, we learn from Dr. Riva,38 out of 184 men and 147 women no fewer than 16.30 per cent. of the former, and 6.80 of the latter, were tattooed. It is worthy of note that it was chiefly among the more severe and incurable cases of mental degeneration (dementia, alcoholism, epilepsy, congenital mental weakness) that these signs were found. In character and position they differed from those usually found among criminals, by being exclusively worked on the arms and hands, and consisting only of religious symbols, especially the Madonna of Loretto.