Science: Quick on the Draw

Redheads, who have been given a hammering by the jokesmiths, got no comfort from science last week. In the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Dr. Hans von Hentig of the University of Kansas City told of his researches on U.S. frontier outlaws. A disproportionate number, Dr. von Hentig reports, had red hair.*

The outlaw Big Harpe, who terrorized the Ohio Valley about 1800, had "coarse hair of a fiery redness." William Clarke Quantrill, the murderous Civil War guerrilla, was a redhead. So was Wild Bill Hickock, and Jack McCall who killed him. The records, Dr. von Hentig says, are thick with...