vailing go nearly to these extremes. A decree of court is required in all the states, but in many of them it may be obtained for slight cause and under few restrictions. The Hebrew law allowed the husband to divorce his wife at will, and Mohammed announced the same rule in substance. The objections to divorce do not appear so serious where there are no children of the union, but a child has claims on each parent for love, care and protection, and a right to a home with both father and mother in it, bound together by love. Parents of little children cannot divide the home without violating the moral law. But when husband and wife find themselves utterly unable to live together in harmony, what is to be done and what rule of public law can make adequate provision for the case? No decree of court or administrative process has ever been discovered that can compel kindness and affection. The moral rules applicable to the conduct of the parties are not difficult to perceive, but unless they voluntarily follow them, no external force can compel them to do so. By allowing a divorce the law sanctions the disruption of the family, by denying it an innocent party may be doomed to endure unbearable treatment. The obligation of the state to provide as far as practicable against unsuitable marriages and to make conditions as favorable to domestic happiness as possible may call for attention to many matters now neglected. The possibilities of improvements along these lines present a field too wide to be covered in this brief review.

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS

The primary domestic function of a government, recognized in all ages in all countries is the preservation of order and protection of the citizens from violence and wrong other than such as the governing power and the sentiment of the people tolerate. In the most primitive states violence to the person is the prevailing form of crime, and retributive justice usually takes the form of vengeance inflicted by the injured party or his friends. For homicide the kinsman of the murdered man may kill the murderer. In some states provision has been made for the payment of blood money to appease

the avenger, and for places of refuge into which the avenger may not follow. In the code of Hammurabi of Babylon, the Jewish and other ancient codes the lex talionis, wrong for wrong, was the rule of punishment; for any injury a corresponding injury to the wrong-doer. There is something in this simple rule that seems to appeal to the sense of justice of the child and of a great part of the grown people as well. To return blow for blow, when attacked, and to kill an assailant, when necessary to preserve one's own life is regarded as justifiable in the most enlightened states. Self-preservation appears to be a natural right. Organized society goes farther than this and after the danger is past, the culprit overpowered and held securely, as a return and punishment for the wrong done, inflicts a corresponding wrong on him. In considering the general aspect of the administration of the criminal law in Christian states the first question to be considered is, is it morally right in principle, second, is it the most expedient to promote the general welfare. Writers on political science are unable to agree on the theory of punishments. The primitive idea is to compensate crime with suffering, and deter the commission of like offenses by fear of like punishment. This view is still widely entertained. Another is that the state takes such measures as appear necessary to protect society from a repetition of the offense, abstaining from merely vindictive punishments. A third is that society owes a duty to the culprit, and should aid him in every way to overcome his unsocial propensities; that the state has no moral right to inflict injury or pain on any human being for the mere purpose of punishment for any act or conduct; that good will toward the culprit must prevail in his treatment, and his welfare and reformation be prime considerations. That the state has the moral right to do whatever is necessary to protect the people when the criminal openly violates the rights of others and forcibly resists the rightful exercise of private rights or public authority, and that he must be left in danger of injury while the struggle continues and cannot claim protection from the public against the immediate consequences of his own acts, appear evident.

But when the power of resistance of the criminal is overcome, what measure of duty does the state owe him? It cannot then do him harm on the plea of immediate necessity. Can there be a defenseless human being wholly without the pale of governmental care? May the state assume a permanently hostile attitude toward criminals as men, or is it morally bound to have the same concern for those who, because of innate defects or unfavorable environment, have committed crime, that it has for normal humanity? It is apparent that the infliction of the death penalty is not on the theory of conferring a benefit on the criminal. Confinement in jails and penitentiaries under needlessly rigorous conditions rarely has any tendency to reform, but on the contrary stimulates the study of crime, induces hateful and revengeful feelings, and at the end of the term turns out a more expert and hardened criminal. The view generally entertained is that the system followed tends to protect society from further wrongs by the criminal and also to deter others from ilke offenses by the fear of like punishment. So far as the criminal's own conduct is concerned experience abundantly proves that the protection of society ends with his confinement. Unless he goes out with better social purposes than he had when he went in, the public purpose has not been accomplished. It is at least doubtful whether cruelty has any tendency to convince him of the immorality of the act for which he is punished. He will, however, readily perceive the immorality of the excessive cruelty to himself, and hate those who inflict it on him. The state being responsible for his confinement; he quite naturally attributes all his suffering to the public and feels that society in general is his enemy. To put him out into society with such feelings is almost equivalent to an invitation to recompense himself as best he can at the expense of society for the wrongs done him. So far as the tendency to deter others from like offenses is concerned, severity of treatment in confinement can have no effect unless known to the persons whose conduct it is desired to influence. This could only become generally effective by making the barbarities practiced generally known, which of course the state and the prison officials would be unwilling to do.

The researches of modern criminologists disclose the extreme crudity of the penal codes of Europe and America, which yet appear far better than the ancient lex talionis or the Asiatic codes of modern times. Malicious murder, deliberately committed, always produces a profound sensation of horror, usually accompanied by a general desire for speedy vengence on the murderer. Of such murders many are induced by a desire of revenge for some real or fancied injury. These are seldom if ever committed under normal mental conditions, for the normal state of the human mind is one of either indifference or good will toward others. The misanthrope is such because he is abnormal from birth or made so by subsequent influences. The normal healthy person desires the welfare of others, and it is because of this general feeling that the community is shocked when a murder is committed. If all or a majority were misanthropes, they would feel pleasure rather than pain at the destruction of a human life and applaud rather than condemn the act of the murderer. The law now prohibits the friends and relatives of the murdered man from killing the murderer under the natural promptings of anger and resentment caused by the deed; but after trial and conviction, it requires a public officer, having no feeling in the case different from that of the general public, to put the murderer to death, deliberately, intentionally, and at a time and place appointed by the court in accordance with the law. In a large part of the cases the general summing up of the matter is that the murderer has taken a human life to gratify his private desire for vengeance, and the public has taken his life to gratify a general desire of the people for vengeance. Hatred moved the murderer to commit the deed, and hatred of the crime, carried on to hatred of the human being who committed it, induces the public to execute the murderer. Not only is the public act similar to the private crime, but the motive inducing it is essentially the same. In morals then the punishment is wrongful as well as the crime. One of the cardinal doctrines of the criminal law is that the defendant must be tried for the particular offense with which he stands charged, and the inquiry be strictly limited

to his guilt or innocence of that offense. It is not a century since people were executed in England for small larcenies and other minor offenses. The extreme penalty of death was inflicted for the single act without reference to the general character and conduct of the culprit, or to his environment. It is apparent that organized society has no greater moral right to harm a citizen merely to gratify the general desire for vengeance than a private person has.

The whole system of harsh punishments rests on views of expediency for its justification. It is doubtless true that some people are deterred from crime by fear of punishment, but it is equally true that criminals usually rely on concealment of their crimes and escaping the punishment, whatever its severity. The moral tone of any state that punishes harshly is necessarily low. Reports of the hangings of criminals shock the finer sensibilities and teach lessons of hatred and disregard for human life. If the state is cruel and merciless why may not the private citizen be so too? The criminal in fact seldom weighs the punishment against the crime, He always expects to avoid conviction and escape the penalty, whatever it may be. Fines and forfeitures may deter from conduct having no moral turpitude, but prohibited by law, but have little influence on hardened criminals. The best justification that can be found for vindicitive punishments is that the state has not sufficient intelligence and moral force to find better means for the execution of its laws. If laws prescribe punishment for their infraction and no other means of compelling obedience to them, then the punishment must be administered or the law is without force. The general sentiment of mankind is strongly in favor of law enforcement, so vindictive punishments continue.

Can expedients be found for the prevention of crime and the protection of society without the violation of the moral law by the state itself? Manifestly this question must be answered in the affirmative, yet perhaps no person is capable of giving a full and clear statement of the expedients which would fully accomplish the object. Parents find it necessary to study the peculiarities of their children and to adapt their