536 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



punish ; no matter how grievous the methods we may adopt to 

 prevent crime or other evils, we ought not to regard them in that 

 light. It is very difficult to eliminate from the injured individual 

 a feeling of anger and a desire for revenge, but our organized 

 courts of j\istice should not by any word even appear to entertain 

 or to strengthen such motives. 



In the amputation of any portion of the body on account of 

 gangrene or other morbid condition, there is no idea of punish- 

 ment. The surgeons who are assembled in consultation to decide 

 upon the treatment of the diseased member do not consider 

 whether the morbid state is the result of transgression, but the 

 simple question for them to decide is, " Will the other parts of 

 the body be better if the diseased portion is removed ?" All men 

 of a scientific turn of mind who have made a study of criminal 

 anthropology are fast approaching the physician's position re- 

 garding such questions. Every criminal is more or less a dis- 

 eased portion of the body politic : some can be saved, some must 

 be removed, and some must be destroyed, but the notion of punish- 

 ment should not complicate the judgment in deciding what dis- 

 position is to be made in either case. The insane were formerly 

 regarded with feelings of hatred and vindictiveness, but to-day 

 this is only a shameful recollection. With the advance in the 

 study of criminology and the more merciful era of humanitarian- 

 ism that must follow, the like sentiments toward the criminal will 

 be eliminated from our courts of justice. Prof. Austin Flint, the 

 distinguished President of the New York State Medical Associa- 

 tion, in his annual address to the association said, "Scientific 

 progress will lead us finally to abandon the ancient idea of pun- 

 ishment of crime and substitute for it treatment and correction." 

 Quetelet writes, " Every society has the criminals that it deserves." 



There are very few persons who are not possessed by an intense 

 desire to kill when they are suddenly confronted by a snake. Most 

 of us have a hereditary prejudice against snakes, and can hardly 

 talk about them without a shudder. Somewhat the same spirit 

 possesses us when we hear of a murder : we are at once seized with 

 a vengeful desire to hear of the murderer's capture and execution ; 

 but, as when, like reasonable human beings, we study the snake 

 family, we find that there are differences among them, and some 

 have qualities in consideration of which they might be spared, so 

 with murderers they are not all the same. The Hannigan trial 

 is fresh in our memories; the motive that caused this man to 

 commit a crime was the result of the very conditions which con- 

 stitute our normal society ; it was the deep sense of injured chas- 

 tity, violated vows, a ruined life, broken home ties ; this was 

 made plain ; the public demanded his release. Under the intense 

 feeling engendered in society as to whether this man was to be 



