| [untitled]       The recent development of anarchy 
              has been sufficiently discussed. Legal journals are now taking up 
              the question of its suppression. It may be said in passing that 
              neither England nor the United States can boast of having done in 
              the past all that they might have done in that direction. Being 
              free countries, they are naturally the resorts of political refugees, 
              and have become too much hiding places for desperate criminals of 
              the anarchist type. The rest of the world may well call upon them 
              to be diligent in the duty they owe to other nations in connection 
              with this matter. The United States especially, having now felt 
              the sting of the reptile fraternity, may be expected to take strenuous 
              measures to cope with the evil, especially in view of the part played 
              by American anarchists in the Italian regicide of last year. A consideration 
              of the subject naturally draws attention to the repression of crime 
              from a wider point of view, and suggestions appropriate thereto 
              are now in order. The Central Law Journal, in a recent issue, 
              published a summary of the views expressed on this subject by Prof. 
              Arthur McDonald, of the United States Bureau of Education, who has 
              made a special study of the criminal, pauper, and defective classes. 
              The conclusions he has arrived at are, as our contemporary remarks, 
              very pertinent at this crisis, and are commended to law makers [sic] 
              as a basis for a practical advance in the treatment of criminals. 
              These conclusions are as follows: 1. The prison should be a reformatory 
              and the reformatory a school. The principal object of both should 
              be to teach good, mental, moral, and physical habits. Both should 
              be distinctly educational. 2. It is detrimental financially, 
              as well as socially and morally, to release prisoners when there 
              is a probability of their returning to crime; for in this case the 
              convict is much less expensive than the ex-convict. 3. The determinate 
              sentence permits many prisoners to be released who are morally certain 
              to return to crime. The indeterminate sentence is the best method 
              of affording the prisoner an opportunity to reform without exposing 
              society to unnecessary dangers. 4. The ground for the imprisonment 
              of the criminal is, first of all, because he is dangerous to 
              society. This principle avoids [717][718] 
              the uncertainty that may rest upon the decision as to the degree 
              of freedom of will; for upon this last principle some of the most 
              brutal crimes would receive a light punishment. If a tiger is in 
              the street the main question is not the degree of his freedom of 
              will or guilt. Every man who is dangerous to property or life, whether 
              insane, criminal, or feeble-minded, should be confined, but not 
              necessarily punished. 5. The publication in the newspapers of criminal 
              details and photographs is a positive evil to society, on account 
              of the law of imitation. In addition, it makes the criminal 
              proud of his record, and develops the morbid curiosity of the people; 
              and it is especially the mentally and morally weak who are affected. |