“Lambroso thinks that these indications prove that the prisoner is a degenerate and only slightly responsible for the crime.”

Cesare Lombroso was a pioneering criminologist in the 19th century who helped establish the field, but his methods and assumptions were often somewhere south of bizarre. An excerpt about some of his quackery from an article in the August 4, 1907 New York Times:

“Paris–Prof. Cesare Lombroso, the well-known Italian criminologist, has written to Le Temps on behalf of Soleilland, the man under sentence of death in Paris for assaulting and murdering a little girl, the daughter of a couple with whom he was on friendly terms.

Lombroso calls attention to the peculiar shape of Soleilland’s right hand, the outer edge of which, instead of being slightly convex, is quite straight and forms a continuation of the line of the forearm. There is a wide gap between the third and fourth fingers, and the second and third are the same length. Instead of two oblique lines on the palm, there is only one straight line. All these signs are peculiar to what is called in neuropathology the monkey hand, as usually found in the lower apes, epileptics, idiots, and born criminals.

Lambroso thinks that these indications, taken in conjunction with the peculiar shape of the iris of Soleilland’s eye, prove that the prisoner is a degenerate and only slightly responsible for the crime. The professor suggests that President Fallieres ought to weigh the matter very carefully before ordering his execution.

“All these signs are peculiar to what is called in neuropathology the monkey hand, as usually found in the lower apes, epileptics, idiots, and born criminals.”

Unfortunately the weak point in Prof. Lombroso’s argument is that Bertillon, the head of the Police Anthropometrical Department, says that he has never photographed Soleilland’s hands, and it is extremely probable that the distinguished Italian is the victim of a practical joker.

This is not the first time. He had a similar mishap years ago. Lombroso asked Prince Roland Bonaparte to obtain photographs of hands of female criminals. Through a misunderstanding the Prince in applying to the Anthropometrical Department asked for photographs of the hands of workwomen. The photographs appeared a year later in a work by Lombroso, who described the hands as showing all kinds of criminal tendencies, whereas they really belonged to respectable, hardworking women employed at the Central Markets.

Since the Chamber of Deputies has disallowed the executioner’s salary, thus indirectly stopping capital punishment, thirty-four criminals have been sentenced to death and none of them has been guillotined. A marked recrudescence of crime has since occurred in Paris, with quite an epidemic of offenses against women and children. The Soleilland case has brought public feeling to a head, and now there is a strong demand for the revival of the death penalty.

Meanwhile, Soleilland’s spirits are reviving and he is telling his warders that when his sentence is commuted and he is sent out to New Caledonia or Guiana he hopes to settle down, lead a new life, and own a donkey cart.”