528 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



recent congresses for this object in Paris, Rome, and Brussels 

 have opened a new world of information, have shown how misty 

 have been our ideas on the subject, how primitive our methods 

 have been and are, and what little hope for the future lies in a 

 continuance of them. 



This much, at least, we have learned : that the criminal forms 

 a class by himself, no matter whether he is born so or grows into 

 vice ; that not only in his acts but likewise in mind and body does 

 he vary from the healthy normal. For his tendency, as that of 

 all organic life, is to reproduce his kind. This fact should be 

 regarded as a rule that is as widely applicable and as unvarying 

 as any law of biology. It can not be otherwise, for every child 

 is a summing up and a manifestation of the traits of his ances- 

 tors. And so, in spite of our present efforts, each confirmed law- 

 breaker becomes an ever-fruitful fountain for wrong a moral 

 plague spot the limits to whose contagion are bounded only 

 by the amount of material that can be contaminated. The 

 most superficial glance will show how true this is, for if it 

 were otherwise one would rightly suppose that the vast efforts 

 for social amelioration throughout society must surely result in 

 an increase of the better and a decrease of the worse elements. 

 But as a matter of fact this is not the case. We spend tremen- 

 dous amounts of time and money and effort in the attempt to 

 eliminate the need of crime ; we strive to the last extent to do 

 away with destitution, unsanitary conditions, ignorance, and de- 

 pressing moral influences, and undoubtedly these efforts have 

 accomplished much good. But in spite of all this, in spite of aid 

 societies for discharged convicts, in spite of educational possibili- 

 ties that are as free as air, in spite of college settlements, protect- 

 ing associations for children, reformatories, and lavish charities 

 of all kinds in a word, in spite of vastly improved social sur- 

 roundings the criminal remains as he has always been. Crime 

 does not lessen, but on the contrary increases with the growth of 

 our cities, or even increases beyond the proportion which we 

 should naturally ascribe to it. 



The strange thing about all this is that the development in 

 crime does not necessarily depend for its beginning and growth 

 upon the elements which are popularly held responsible. Many 

 people believe that with the wider diffusion of knowledge wrong- 

 doing must necessarily shrink away that mental enlightenment 

 and moral darkness are incompatible. But this is merely a sup- 

 position, for the most part based on our admiration for education. 

 And, as a matter of fact, concrete examples constantly remind us 

 that the educated person, if wrongly minded, does not as the 

 result of his mental training become a law-abiding citizen, but 

 rather becomes a dangerous and capable criminal. Moreover, this 



