I pass over in silence, and for good reasons, the tattooings spread over all the remaining parts of the body.
In the _Revista de Antropologia Criminal_, a new publication which has just appeared in Madrid, Mr. Sallilas has published an excellent study relative to the tattooing of Spanish criminals. According to him, this is a frequent custom among murderers. The predominance of the religious character is there noticeable, but always with the seal of lewd obscenity, universally observed. I have lately had occasion to verify up to what point the impulsion which leads criminals to inflict on themselves this strange operation, is atavistic. One of the most incorrigible thieves I have met, who has six brothers tattooed like himself, begged of me, notwithstanding he was half covered with the most obscene tattooings, to find him a professional tattooer who should complete what might well be called the carpeting of his skin. "When the tattooing is very odd and grotesque, and spreads over the whole body," he said, "it is for us thieves what the black dress coat and the decorated vest is to society. The more we are tattooed the greater is our esteem for one another; the more an individual is tattooed, the more authority has he over his companions. On the other hand, he who is not much tattooed enjoys no influence whatsoever with us; is not considered a thorough scoundrel, and has not the estimation of his fellows." "Very often," another told me, "when we visited prostitutes, and they saw us covered all over with tattooings, they overwhelmed us with presents, and gave us money instead of demanding it." If all that is not atavism, atavism does not exist in science.
Of this characteristic, of course, as of all the other characteristics of criminals, one may say that it is to be met with among normal people. But the chief thing here is its proportion, its commonness, and the exaggerated extent to which it is practised. Among honest, respectable people its peculiar complexion, its local and obscene coloring, and the useless, vain, and imprudent display of crime are wanting.
Again, it will probably be objected that this is not psychology, and that only through the latter science can we trace out the picture of the criminal. I could well answer here, that these tattooings are really psychological phenomena. And I may add that Mr. Ferri, in the introductory part of his work on Homicides, has given us in addition to a real statistical psychology, an analysis of all criminal propensities and of their extent before and after the crime.