554 



SCIEJSrCJE. 



[Vol. Vlll., No. 203 



cities, should be rigidly watched by experienced 

 veterinarians, who should be on duty continuous- 

 ly at these slaughter-houses, in order that no 

 single animal can be sold for meat until it has 

 been examined. A long experience in this matter 

 has satisfied the writer that no confidence can be 

 safely put in the slaughterers as a class. They 

 will, without any compunction whatever, kill and 

 sell the most diseased animals, and do not hesitate 

 to put upon the market even the flesh of new-born 

 calves, and of those that have died from disease. 

 It will be an expensive matter, it is true, to station 

 a competent veterinary surgeon at each of the 

 slaughter-houses in these great cities ; but the 

 interests of the public health demand it, and they 

 should be kept there continuously. The work 

 will then not be done as efficiently as if pviblic abat- 

 toirs were established on the river-front, and the 

 slaughter-houses now scattered throughout the 

 cities abandoned. 



It is well known that the senses are subject 

 to normal deceptions (sinnes tailchungen), which 

 seem to be inborn in the structure of the nervous 

 system and the sense-organs. In some respects 

 the world that we piece together from our judg- 

 ments and sensations proves to be somewhat dif- 

 ferent from the world to which we apply the foot- 

 rule and plumb-line, which we w^eigh and measui'e 

 by objective standards. The science whose busi- 

 ness it is to discover the nature of these discre- 

 pancies is psychophysics. M. Sorel, in a recent 

 article (Revue philosophique, October, 1886), calls 

 attention to the wide practical bearing of this 

 study, shows bow it was taken into account by 

 the Greek architects, and how it modifies our aes- 

 thetic conceptions. He looks forward to the time 

 when all these deceptions will be quantitatively 

 determined, and applied in every-day life. Not 

 only will we have a real psychophysic law (or 

 laws), but perhaps also the signs of practical con- 

 sulting psychophysicists will grace our streets. 



The meeting of the National prison associa- 

 tion at A.tlanta this year seems to have been very 

 successful. The opening addresses by ex -President 

 Hayes and Mr. Henry W. Grady of the Atlanta 

 constitution were very well received, the latter 

 especially calling forth strong expressions of 

 approval. The various discussions on prison archi- 

 tecture, prison diet, the prison physician, the 

 paroling of prisoners, reformatories, and prison 



labor, were ably introduced and well conducted. 

 The debate on prison labor seems to have excited 

 most interest. Warden McClaughry of Joliet had 

 the courage to defend the contract system, and 

 i-egretted the action of the people of Illinois in 

 adopting at the last election a constitutional 

 amendment prohibiting it. Warden Brush of 

 Sing Sing made an eminently sensible remark 

 when he said that discussions about forms of 

 piison labor were of little use just now, when a 

 cyclone is sweeping over the country, and agita- 

 tors are striving to put an end to all prison labor, 

 whatever its form. It was in this discussion that 

 Dr. Tucker created a sensation not only by defend- 

 ing the lessee system as practised at the south, 

 but by pronouncing a panegyric on it. He claimed 

 that the lessee system is the best possible, and 

 made a number of extremely foolish and absurd 

 remarks about the ' psychological repulsion ' be- 

 tween races, and in closing demanded the utmost 

 severity of pxmishment compatible with the con- 

 victs' physical health. He went so far as to de- 

 clai-e that the chain-gang is the negro's paradise. 



Dr. Sims of Chattanooga, who had two days 

 before made an argument for the abolition of the 

 lessee system, which is reported as being very 

 cogent, made a brief answer to Dr. Tucker, and, 

 whUe granting that the lessee system in Georgia 

 is better managed than elsewhere, repeated the 

 conclusions reached by his previous argument. 

 Dr. Tucker had asserted, after telling his hearers 

 that the penal features of the lessee system are 

 too severe for whites and not severe enough for 

 colored persons, that the death-rate of Georgia 

 prisoners was 8.8 in the thousand. Warden Brush 

 called attention to the official report of the state 

 penitentiary, which showed a death-rate of 30 per 

 thousand ; but all the answer Dr. Tucker would 

 vouchsafe was, • My arithmetic is right.' The 

 truth is, that the lessee system of convict labor is 

 barbarous and inhuman ; and the wonder is, that 

 any self-respecting man could publicly defend it, 

 especially before such a body as the National 

 prison association. 



Mr. Wines, writing in the International record 

 of charities and correction, says that the tendency 

 of thought in the prison association becomes more 

 apparent each year. The keynote of all the dis- 

 cussions is that felons who pursue crime as a voca- 

 tion, or are driven to it by an irre.sistible natural! 



