Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/589

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 575

bers of society. It will attempt to make an environment very unfavorable for the development either of millionaires or of paupers. — Sidney Low, Fortnightly Rev., September, 1909. E. S. B.

The World of Life as Visualized and Interpreted by Darwinism. — In vis- ualizing the world of life, we see (i) its persistence in everchanging but un- checked development throughout geologic time; (2) no evolution of new species since the glacial age; (3) the exact adaptation of every species to its actual environment ; (4) the exquisite forms of beauty in flower and fruit, in mam- mal and the countless insect-tribes, and (5) that all the forces of life have been brought into existence in strict relation to that great law of usefulness which constitutes the fundamental principle of Darwinism. — A. R. Wallace, Pop. Set. Month., November, 1909. E. S. B.

Sociology the Basis of Inquiry into Primitive Culture. ^It is man in social

contact with his fellows who has progressed from savagery to civilization ; not man individually. The key to all that we can learn about man is the social struc- ture. Human sacrifice, for example, is a custom prevalent among peoples whose social structure is a complex one having two constituent parts, a conquering people and a conquered people ; and in no other condition do we find human sacrifice. One culture status takes its victims for the sacrifice from its con- quered enemies ; the next higher culture status comes to take its victims from its own members. By applying this method, we have much to learn about primitive culture. — Laurence Gomme, Social. Rev., October, 1909.

E. S. B.

The Mores of the Present and the Future. — Folk-ways are ways of doing things, with little or no moral content ; mores are those customs morally judged favorable to welfare. Three leading features of our present mores are : monog- amy, anti-slavery, and democracy. Love of luxury, excitement, and amuse- ment has been spread by popular literature to classes of people who never felt it formerly, and that hunger has entered into the present mores. The mores are changing : rights, justice, liberty, equality are watchwords now instead of church, faith, heaven, hell. In a few generations, the human race will find itself facing overpopulation and harder conditions ; and notions about property, marriage, inheritance will change to suit the struggle for existence. — W. G. Sumner, Yale Rev., November, 1909. E. S. B.

Crime and Punishment. — Two serious gaps stand in the way of any sym- metry in our mode of dealing with the criminal : first, the hiatus between the judge who sentences and the prison authority who sees that the sentence is executed ; second, the superintendents of prisons, whether medical or not, are usually innocent of such knowledge as is necessary in dealing with the mental and moral reform of prisoners. Scores of convicts in our prisons are mentally unsound, morally defective, and unamenable to prison discipline. Individual discrimination is needed, seeking to restore will-power and to direct it aright where there still remains even feeble volition. Among those in whom motive to a crimeless life is inoperative, clearly the asylum managed with care is more appropriate than the prison. — W. J. Collins, Hibbert Journ., October, 1909.

E. S. B.

Extent of Unemployment in the United States. — The average miner works from year to year but two-thirds of the working days ; in other industries, the average unemployment is one-fifth of the time. Unemployment varies with the years, the seasons, the various trades and occupations, but in general, among the average group of workers earning less than $750 a year, the probability in a nor- . mal year is an unemployment of sixty days. Under our present system of industry, unemployment is a constant factor in the life of the average wage- worker; it is due, (i) to industrial uncertainty, and (2) to personal inca- pacity. — Scott Nearing, Amer. Statist. Assoc., September, 1909. E. S. B.

Le travail k domicile dans 1* Industrie de la lingerie en province. — The Office of Labor pursued an investigation, commencing in 1905, of the work at home