Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/726

 712 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Le Crime et le Suicide passionenls. Par Louis PROAL. Paris:

Felix Alcan, 1900. Pp. 683.

THE eminent French judge has made his name familiar to students of criminology by former publications. In the work before us he traces the influence of sexual passions upon suicide and crime. His illustra- tions are drawn from a wide judicial experience, from records of trials, and from dramatic literature. Lust, hate, disappointment, revenge, despair, contagion are shown to be active in the tragedies of human life. The morbid influences of a corrupt literature, of a sensational stage, and of an unscrupulous newspaper are revealed with a masterly hand. The methods of diminishing vice and its terrible consequences are treated in a sober and conservative spirit.

C. R. H.

The Legal Protection of Woman among the Ancient Germans. By WILLIAM RULLKOETTER. The University of Chicago Press, 1900. Pp. 96.

THIS dissertation deserves mention because it is a contribution to the study of domestic institutions among the peoples from which we have derived blood and traditions of culture. The topics treated are the mother-age, the social concept of woman, the social estimate of woman, maidenhood and marriage, the status of wife and mother, widowhood. The conflict of oriental and western ideas about woman is clearly described, and the service of the Teutonic races is given a high value in the determination of modern views and laws.

C. R. H.

The Farmstead. By ISAAC PHILLIPS ROBERTS. The Macmillan

Co., 1900. Pp. 350.

THIS is an interesting popular work on the surroundings and life of the rural home. It is an admirable illustration of the service ren- dered to the people by experts in agricultural science. The discussions of household art are sane and valuable, and the entire series of papers is adapted to raise the tone of rural life, and indicates a discovery that farmers have some other interests than those connected with raising

pigs and cattle.

C. R. H.