22 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 178 



So very hasty a sketch of an important theory 

 is necessarily unsatisfactory. It may serve, how- 

 ever, to call attention to the fact that a change in 

 our view of crime and criminals seems about to 

 take place. 



The several interests involved in this change 

 of view are many and important. When a chemist 

 is called to court to give expert testimony, the law 

 accepts the results of science as final ; but when 

 the doctor testifies, it is at once evident that the 

 medical and legal points of view are essentially 

 different, and in conflict with one another. The 

 law is interested only in the question of responsi- 

 bility, and demands a 'yes' or 'no' when a truly 

 scientific answer cannot be given in that form. 

 A medico -legal case almost always presents 

 strange inconsistencies. The law should certainly 

 be as ready to accept the testimony of science 

 from the doctor as from the chemist, and should 

 remember that they may both be equally valuable 

 though not equally definite. If such views as 

 these urged by Dr. Lombroso ever become the 

 guiding principles of the law courts, a great and 

 beneficial change in the treatment of alleged insane 

 criminals is sure to follow. Our knowledge of 

 these marked classes is becoming sufficiently ac- 

 curate and scientific to warrant a practical appli- 

 cation of these views in the legal trials, and a 

 theoretical appreciation of them in our theories 

 of ethics. J. Jastrow. 



ANNALS OF THE OAKCHIQUEL8. 



The above forms the sixth volume of the editor's 

 ' Library of aboriginal literature,' and contains a 

 portion of a manuscript termed by Brasseur de 

 Bourbourg, its former i^roprietor, 'Memorial de 

 Tecpan Atitlan.' Its language is the Cakchiquel 

 dialect of the wide-spread Maya family: it was 

 composed by various members of the Xahila (a 

 clan or family once ruling among that tribe) dur- 

 ing the sixteenth century, and brought into its pres- 

 ent form, as Dr. Brinton assumes, between 1620 

 and 1650. Only that half of the manuscript was 

 published by him, with translation, which refers 

 directly to the legendary and documentary history 

 of the tribe. 



There are three ways open for the publication 

 of linguistic manuscripts of this sort. The first is 

 to print the text, tel quel, with all its faults and 

 inconsistencies ; the second, to emend the faulty 

 text according to the grammatic laws observable 

 in the language, and to place the readings of the 

 original, where they differ from the corrected 

 forms, on the lower margin. A third mode of 



The annals of the Cakchiquels. By Daniel G. Brinton. 

 Philadelphia, Brinton, 1885. 8°. 



proceeding, and the most scientific of all, would 

 be to embark for Guatemala, and there to compare 

 the old text with the pronunciation and wording 

 which the actual Cakchiquels would give to it. 

 This would enable the editor not only to present 

 the text in a scientific alphabet, but also to add a 

 correct translation to it. 



But none of these three courses was followed by 

 our editor. The inconsistent orthography of the 

 original prompted him to adopt the first two 

 courses simultaneously and eclectically, and thus 

 he succeeded in producing confusion in the text. 

 His excuse (p. 63) is, "I have felt myself free to 

 exercise in the printed page nearly the same free- 

 dom which I find in the manuscript. At first, this 

 will prove somewhat puzzling to the student of 

 the original. ... In the punctuation I have also 

 been lax in reducing the text to the requirements 

 of modern standards." 



Not less unfortunate than this method is the 

 incon-ectness of his proof-reading ; for on p. 107 

 we find the proper name Vookaok correctly writ- 

 ten, bvit on p. 110 he prints it ahauJi voo kaok ; the 

 adverb mahaniok (p. 66) appears in the vocabulary 

 as mahanick ; the Greco-English term allophylic 

 (p. 196) as allophyllic ; and in two French quota- 

 tions from Brasseur's translation he finds himself 

 prodigiously at variance with French accentuation 

 (pp. 197, 206). The appended ' Notes ' convey very 

 little information on grammatic or other subjects 

 which we have to know before we can understand 

 the text, and the condition of the vocabulary is 

 very unsatisfactory. "We look in vain for the terms 

 petebal, navipe, onohel, g'anel (the name of a 

 month); and even some of the frequently occur- 

 ring numerals, as vuo-o, voo (' five '), are not en- 

 tered. The translation is a mere paraphrase full 

 of gaps, and the text as printed does not by any 

 means render justice to its highly interesting con- 

 tents, which, in their historic importance, are sec- 

 ond only to those of the Popol Vuh. 



Peofessors Ayrton and Perry, the English 

 electricians, have accidentally observed that on 

 amalgamation, or coating with quicksilver, brass 

 expands ; so that, if one side only is amalgamated, 

 a plate of brass becomes curved. They imagine 

 that this may be the primary cause of the phe- 

 nomena of the Japanese ' magic mirror,' which 

 has cast on its back a pattern that is quite invisi- 

 ble on the polished face, yet is mysteriously dis- 

 tinct in the patch of -light reflected by the mirror 

 upon a screen. Amalgamation would affect the 

 thinner parts made by the pattern more than the 

 rest of the plate, giving the mirror the impercep- 

 tible unevenness that becomes plainly apparent in 

 the reflected image. 



