SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1886. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 

 The large number of persons who are in- 

 terested in the subjects of prison labor and prison 

 management generally look forward to the sec- 

 ond annual report of the national bureau of labor 

 with great interest : for it has been announced 

 that in this report Col. Carroll D. Wright, the 

 able and experienced chief of the bureau, will 

 give the results of his investigations, made per- 

 sonally and by special agents, into the question 

 of labor in prisons in all its forms and its rela- 

 tions to labor outside. In his circular of instruc- 

 tions to agents, Colonel Wright enumerates foiir 

 systems of prison labor in the United States, and 

 defines them, — the contract system, the piece- 

 price system, the public account system, and the 

 lease system. The inquiries made cover the kind, 

 grade, and value of the goods produced, the num- 

 ber of hours of daily labor required, the number 

 of convicts employed in productive labor, the 

 number of free laborers necessary to perform the 

 work, and the average wages of free laborers. 

 Colonel Wright also wants to know the number 

 of convicts idle or employed in prison duties, the 

 aggregate number, their average age, the average 

 length of sentences, the amount received by con- 

 victs for working over-time, and the receipts and 

 expenses of the institution. The inquiry is meant 

 to throw light upon the following points : 1'=', the 

 influence of the labor of convicts upon free labor ; 

 2*^, the influence of the various systems in use 

 upon the criminal : 3°, the general conditions 

 under which the work is carried on. This ques- 

 tion of convict labor is a wide and complicated 

 one, concerning which we need, above all else, to 

 know the exact facts, inasmuch as it has of late 

 taken on a political aspect as a result of the repre- 

 sentatives of certain classes of the community. 

 We can trust Colonel Wrights ability and integ- 

 rity to procure and lay before us these facts. 



a theme, by the way, not at all suggestive of a 

 scientific article ; namely, ' Falling in love.' The 

 article was called out by the following sentence in 

 the address of the president of the anthropological 

 section. Sir George Campbell, at the recent meet- 

 ing of the British association : " Probably we have 

 enough physiological knowledge to effect a vast 

 improvement in the pairing of individuals of the 

 same or allied races, if we could only apply that 

 knowledge to make fitting marriages, instead of 

 giving way to foolish ideas about love and the 

 tastes of young people, whom we can hardly trust 

 to choose their own bonnets, much less to choose 

 in a graver matter in which they are most likely 

 to be influenced by frivolous prejudices." The 

 question is a serious one ; for it raises the issue 

 whether the time-honored instinct of falling in 

 love is a useful one or not ; whether an artificial 

 system of pairing would accomplish the object, 

 the amelioration of the race, better and more 

 directly. 



The popular geniality of Mr. Grant Allen's 

 scientific writings has perhaps seldom found so 

 approj)riate a theme as the one discussed by him 

 in the October issue of the Fortnightly review, — 



No. 194. — 1886. 



Mr. Grant Allen decides that this most involved 

 exemplification of the universal selective process 

 is thoroughly efficient : for we cannot fall ill love 

 with everybody alike ; and the person with whom 

 we do fall in love, as is shown by the fact that in 

 nine cases out of ten it is a reciprocal affection, is 

 to some extent our physical, moral, and mental 

 complement. In this way too close likeness is 

 avoided, and the great means of betterment — 

 variation— is insured. Moreover, it is the bio- 

 logically excellent traits that are sexually attrac- 

 tive, — youth, beauty, strength, health. So strong 

 ought our faith to be in the efficiency of this 

 cm'ious, vague, and unfathomable instinct, that it 

 should be our aim to discountenance all but mar- 

 riages on the principle of spontaneous affection. 

 It is the marriage on the basis of money, of rank, 

 or other practical reasons, that results in deteriora- 

 tion. In short, the old theme of the novelists and 

 poets is justified against the rather crass precept 

 of the modern scientist. But a word for the lat- 

 ter should be added. It is, that, without any arti- 

 ficial interference, the pubhc sentiments, so influ- 

 ential in the guidance of the sexual selections, can 

 be unconsciously guided into the channels which 

 science points out as the best. Science should and 



