472 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not merely primitive or old-fashioned, but in many cases shame- 

 fully absent. In reply to requests addressed to the Secretaries of 

 State of various States for official statistics of crimes committed 

 in their respective jurisdictions, the answers I received were in a 

 number of cases negative. The officials mentioned replied that 

 no statistics were published by the State in Illinois, Georgia, New 

 Jersey, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Vermont, California, 

 Idaho, Missouri, South Carolina, Connecticut, Texas, "Wisconsin, 

 Nebraska, Mississippi, Virginia, Colorado, and Kansas. It is true 

 that in some of these States this lacuna is filled in by special prison 

 reports or reports of commissioners or of the attorneys-general. 

 But even in these cases, as well as in those published officially by the 

 State (Ohio, Indiana, New York, Massachusetts, and Louisiana), 

 the information furnished is a monument of antiquated methods 

 and of very little value to the student of criminology. How, then, 

 can we study the grave questions of crime and criminals without 

 a basis of computation? 



It may be true, as some claim, that Continental jurists have 

 refined the criminal law to an unpractical degree and too much 

 on classic and theoretic lines, but it will not be claimed that by 

 adhering to an old-fashioned and obsolete criminal jurisprudence 

 the Anglo-Saxons are safeguarding their fundamental liberties. 

 That there is something essentially wrong, or at least antiquated, 

 with our criminal law is evidenced by the popular discontent against 

 it, which is too widespread and insistent to be the result of igno- 

 rance or sentiment. If there is inertia as to changes in the law 

 it is probably because, while feeling that there is something wrong, 

 the people either can not define it or the conservatism of centuries 

 in this field is unconsciously affecting their better intentions. Who 

 will deny (and I address this question to lawyers and judges) that, 

 under our system, guilty men escape and innocent men suffer in 

 larger numbers than it should be, even allowing for the defects 

 inherent in all human systems? — that technicalities and not facts 

 often save scoundrels; that unscrupulous lawyers do not avoid 

 them, and the best of judges are obliged by legal dogmas to respect 

 them? Who will deny (and I address this question to sociologists 

 and penologists) that the penal provisions of our present laws are 

 inappropriate, inelastic, and unscientific; that they neither pre- 

 vent nor reform; and that the basic principle of our penal codes 

 is still retribution and punishment? Can it be that the right of 

 life, liberty, and property is becoming a pious fraud? Of course, 

 it is not claimed that we have less liberty now than our fathers 

 had three centuries ago; progress never stops, and each day is 

 something gained; but it seems clear that the juridic basis and 



