While no final word can be spoken in the matter as yet, most scientists agree that the criminal tendency is not inherited directly or indirectly, but at the same time they acknowledge that those weaknesses of mind and body, which, in a contaminating environment may express themselves in the one instance as feeble-mindedness and in another as inebriety, may in still a third, declare themselves. in criminal activity. Therefore, to staunch the flow of such recessive characters through the veins of the human race means the lessening of all these manifestations and reactions which argue a fountain-head contaminated.

Feeble-mindedness is never crime-proof in any environment. However, a less degree of mental defectiveness may be made practically so in a controlled environment. It is not true that feeblemindedness alone is potentially criminal; in a very well defined but limited sense, all defective mentality is potentially criminal and the further it deviates from the normal the less likely is it to respond to high ideals of social relationship. Hence there is great need for that environment which will give to even the weakest among us the largest chance for moral development. So far as social institutions are concerned, without doubt they are guilty of the charge of contributory negligence at least. Too long they have sought to ameliorate conditions, to relieve suffering and to punish waywardness with little or no serious attempt to "study the organ before the function and the physical before the moral". We seem scarcely to have heard the question of Ferri when he asked, "Is the criminal-and in what respect is he-the normal or the abnormal man, and if abnormal, whence is his abnormality derived?" nor yet the query which is being put by scientists today, "What are the conditions out of which the criminal comes, and in what respect are they good or evil. and if evil what is their origin and how can they be made good"?

As for the clearly feeble-minded, there seems to be but one opinion among men worthy to be classed as authorities because of their exhaustive and painstaking investigations, and that is that feeblemindedness is inherited. Acting then in the light of this conclusion there is but one thing to do, and that is to make an increase in the population from such defective sources impossible. Federal marriage laws encouraging eugenic unions and preventing the

wedding of those who, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, are wholly unfit to establish homes and to become the parents of a new generation; segregation, which would keep in permanent custodial care those so far below the accepted standards of normality that, not only can they not do their part in maintaining life and health in society, but by their very presence there must constitute a menace of proportions horrible to contemplate; the practice of sterilization upon such as show themselves, by physical and mental examination, to be utterly incapable of passing on to the coming generations those desirable characters upon which the race must depend for its healthy development and perpetuity; all of these methods must be put into operation, and that at once. The feeble-minded certainly are not material upon which reformatory education, measures of punishment or periods of probation will have any curative effect.

In all our efforts along these lines we shall meet constantly with both parental objection and sentimental protest. Such, of course, must be treated with respect and due consideration, but it must not be forgotten that to a certain extent all progress must be passionless: "Neither bitterness nor tenderness', as Mr. Brockway says, "should spoil scientific procedure": public safety and the future happiness and prosperity of the race must dictate our policy.

In the case then of the clearly feeble-minded our course might seem to be plain, but what of other defectives whose condition and reactions manifestly grow out of the poor environment with which they are surrounded? In infancy and youth, and, not at all unlikely, even before birth, the contaminating influences of alcoholism, poverty and disease operate so as to render the subject most seriously handicapped, and to force upon him influences so permeated with filth and immorality as to make of him the criminal of our institutions. Crime has been called a "filth disease". The average criminal is not the vicious man which the lay mind usually pictures him to be, but in the large majority of cases he is the weakling upon whom a vicious environment plays, finding little to inhibit the working of its evil processes. This is not to excuse the individual criminal, but it is to say that the blame for his conduition does not rest with himself alone. Clean up the strongholds of filth, let in the sunshine and the pure air of heaven, and the drooping souls of

the sick, the poor and the hopeless must take new courage and new strength. Clean up dirty alleys and dirty tenements and you will go a long ways towards cleaning up dirty morals.

Perhaps this is neither the time nor the place to discuss alcoholism, but it is fair to say that a very generous proportion, probably ranging above fifty per cent. of the criminals incarcerated in our penal and correctional institutions, are victims of drink whose crimes range from mere theft to the most coarse and brutal outbreaks. The condition of the alcoholic approaches that of dementia, exhibiting a total disregard for the obligations of life, wholly concerned with his own selfish and sensual indulgence. The dipsomaniac, in his periodic debauches, exhibits reactions more nearly resembling those of the true maniac. His crimes, while perhaps not so revolting as those of the alcoholic, are likely to run the whole gamut from petty outbreaks of irritation and hypersensitiveness to taking his own life or that of another. Since both of these classes are so largely represented among our institution populations and reveal conditions approximating positive psychoses, it is not farfetched to conclude that their offspring is made to suffer directly through inheritance the weakness of their fathers. In our own institution an investigation covering the past ten years brings out the fact that fifty-nine per cent. of our men have been more or less addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors. Dr. Sleyster in a study of over seven hundred inmates of the Wisconsin State Prison shows only about ten per cent. to have been total abstainers.

Venereal disease, too, is a condition which an investigation shows to go hand in hand with crime. How much of the lack of inhibitory power of the present generation is to be ascribed to syphilis in the parents it is impossible to say, but there can be no doubt that weakness of character which reveals itself in sensual excesses both natural and unnatural is directly traceable to the vicious influence of this fearful disease.

Among those physical ailments which seem to bear a more or less direct relationship to crime should be mentioned dental deformities, pulmonary and cardiac lesions, defective sight, defective hearing, migraine, phimosis and hernia. While here, too, we may not hold to the existence of any causative relationship, it can be shown clearly that a correction of the conditions which tolerate and

ofttimes encourage the development of serious physical defects is the first step necessary to combat the growth and development of criminal tendencies. It is not unreasonable to hope that the social consciousness which made possible the medical inspection of our schools will in time become a social conscience which will demand such medical inspection of our homes as will make it possible for the young of our communities to enter upon the responsibilities of life with at least a fair chance of success. Eye troubles could be remedied through consulting an oculist; the nervous strain caused by astigmatism, strabism and myopia gives rise to that condition of nervous instability which may be directly responsible for criminal life. Dental deformities, which in early life could be corrected through the wise and timely efforts of an orthodentist or a dentist, are everywhere noticeable among the criminal class, doubtless causing poor digestion and, through impaired digestion, a lack of nourishment, which handicaps the subject to a more serious extent than we are likely to think. Nasal troubles might be relieved by a widening of the arch; adenoids might be removed, doing away with mouth breathing and its accompaniments of loss of sensitiveness both of hearing and of understanding, as well as the serious results of poor oxidation of the blood. Phimosis gives rise to that irritating condition which is more or less responsible for excessive and unnatural sexual excitement. All these ailments, and more which might be mentioned, could be attended to by the visiting physician, who instead of being a nuisance, and an interloper, would soon come to be regarded in the communities in which he practiced as the stanchest friend of the people.

The presence of such conditions as I have mentioned make for irregular attendance upon schools, interrupted attention to labor and perhaps a total disregard for those agencies among us which make for high ideals and elevate moral standards.

Some such step as is here indicated is both practical and of the most serious necessity. We are our brother's keeper in a sense never fully appreciated in this country, entailing a responsibility which up to the present time we have refused to acknowledge. But "come, let us reason together" and, having reasoned, let us act together for the preservation of our racial honor and for the fulfillment of our racial destiny.

A GRAPHIC METHOD OF ILLUSTRATING SITUATIONS IN PENAL INSTITUTIONS.

JESSIE D. HODDER AND EDITH R. SPAULDING, REFORMATORY FOR WOMEN, FRAMINGHAM, MASS.

The great difficulty of demonstrating conditions and situations in prison life to those who do not come into close contact with them, has often been a drawback in obtaining much needed legislation. Graphic methods of one kind or another have been of great use in presenting such situations. To represent some of the situations, however, which occur with our psychopathic individuals, and to demonstrate the need of the segregation of such types, moving picture exhibits and phonographic records would be necessary. The former method has already been utilized before the legislature of one State with excellent results.

It was with such an end in mind that the method which is here described was attempted. It does not aim to fill a scientific need but is suggested as a method of explaining to the public (too often influenced by the emotional side of such questions) what the student with his studies of mental, physical and social characteristics is trying to discover regarding fundamental causes and permanent remedies of criminalism.

The symbol used (a house) is intended to represent the institution to which the individual has been committed or from which he has received help.

The fourteen charts (see Appendix) are briefly as follows:

CHART I. The present condition of delinquent women where the congregate prison system is in use.

CHART II. The ideal classification of delinquent women at a reformatory with the cottage system.

CHART III. The court made into a "clearing house" with the aid of a sociological laboratory.

CHARTS IV, V and VI. These represent the careers of three feeble-minded women who should have received permanent custodial

care.

CHART VII. The result of not having segregated a feeble