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50
had been recognised as morally though not educationally defective. Of the 7 provincial
girls admittedly known to their teachers as defective, only 2 had enjoyed
the benefit of a special school education.
Of the 37 girls not recognised as defective, no less than 14, including some who
had never learnt a letter, had failed to acquire Standard II attainments. Two
country-bred women had never been to school. Twenty-three were found to be above
Standard II in reading, and might reasonably have escaped notice as far as their
educational attainments were concerned.
The interesting feature of these figures is the small number, 12, of ex-specialschool
girls who have come to notice through the police.
Considering the group as a whole previous occupations were limited to low
class domestic service, factory work and odd jobs. Industrial inefficiency was very
marked and was sometimes the determining factor which brought offenders into the
hands of the police. They had been leading a "harried existence," constantly
losing jobs for reasons over which they had little real control, constantly at loggerheads
with relatives for being unable to keep work.
Nineteen had lived promiscuously of whom 6 had had no employment at any
time but had lived by prostitution and pilfering. Six of the women had suffered
from venereal disease.
Of the 50 unmarried girls, nine had borne children. Of these, 6 had had one child
each, 1 two children and two had had 3 children each. The 8 married women had
borne 20 children, three of them were childless and the remaining five women had
families of 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7, respectively. Of the 34 children eight were
dead, 2 only were known to be defective, 2 more were probably in this category
although information on this point was incomplete because many of the children were
in the care of guardians or relatives at a distance. Of the 32 London cases, however,
it is possible to say definitely that they had only 2 defective among their offspring,
who had attained school age. Information about family histories was insufficient
to justify an opinion as to how many of the parents of the 58 prisoners were themselves
defective. In at least twenty instances there was evidence of grave social
incapacity and moral failure on the part of one or both parents. Careful enquiry was
made as to the mental status of brothers and sisters of the defectives, but only 3
of the whole number had a sibling who had been certified or provided sufficient
evidence to justify a diagnosis of deficiency.
The following table shows the nature of the offences with which the women
were charged and the relation between offence and mental age of the culprit:—

It will be noted that those with a mental age of 6 and 7 years were relatively
few. They were almost without exception country cases or elderly women who had
escaped the care of the Mental Deficiency Acts. The ten and eleven year old
groups were undoubtedly feeble-minded and mainly owed their high rating to the