Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/892

 858 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

sweat-shop districts of the great cities, where they swell the population of the various filthy and infected, though perhaps picturesque, foreign " quarters " which constitute today the greatest existing menace to the public health.

If we debar any undesirable class of immigrants under the law, we should endeavor to make the law as nearly perfect as possible and debar all undesirable classes. The wording of the law should be definite enough to make the medical certificate of poor physique equivalent to deportation, not only in the case of unskilled laborers, as at present, but of skilled laborers as well. This require- ment of a definite physical standard could be exacted without undue hardship of all unmarried males, within certain age limits, as, for instance, eighteen to forty- five. In regard to families, comprising women, children, and old men, in addition to males of the specified age, each family should be required to have at least one member constituting its chief support who could comply with the physical require- ments of the law. DR. ALLAN MCLAUGHLIN, in Popular Science Monthly, January, 1904. E. B. W.

The Scientific Department of Police in Italy. This department, which this year became a state institution, has an important bearing on the progress of modern criminology. For a long time the Italian scholars Lombroso, Ferri, Rossi, Ferriani, and others, have demanded a police system which should embody in its administration the new scientific principles of criminal anthropology.

In June, 1902, we proposed to the director-general of public safety a practical course in scientific police administration for the officers of the police department, and from October to December such a course was given, and was attended by almost all the police commissaries and under-commissaries of the capital. The object of instruction was not only somatic and anthropometric descriptions, photography, the study of external characteristics, etc., but also, and especially, anthropological and psychological description and instruction in the scientific criteria employed in a rational system of police administration. The importance and the necessity of this instruction having been demonstrated, the course has been placed on a permanent basis, and required of students choosing a career in the department of police administration.

The work of the course consists in special training in the measurement and description of criminals, by the use of the Bertillon system, by photography, and by the preparation of exhaustive biographical tables in which every fact useful for the identification or treatment of the prisoner is recorded. The instruction is made thoroughly practical by actual laboratory exercises upon different kinds of criminals. The laboratory is equipped with every mechanical and technical device useful in the practice of criminal anthropology. One of the exercises frequently required of students is the selection, from a group of from 100 to 600 photographs, of the person described in a brief circular telegram such as the police send out, containing the salient characteristics of the criminal in question. The writing of such telegrams is also included in the instruction.

The new biographical table, containing a most exhaustive account of every prisoner, will go into effect January i, 1904. With this reform, scientific measure- ment and scientific personal description and history will form an essential part of police administration throughout Italy. SALVATOR OTTOLENGHI, " Das wissen- schaftliche Polizeiwesen in Italien," translated into German by LIEUTENANT TONNELLI, in Archiv fur Kriminal-Anthropologie und Kriminalistik, December, 1903. E. B. W.

The First (French) National Anti-alcoholic Congress. This congress was held from Monday to Thursday, October 26-29 inclusive, in the great amphitheater of the Academy of Medicine at Paris. The remarkable, one might say the unique, ground of unity and of understanding which the struggle against alcohol offers, has resulted in the organization of a common effort against the national enemy, on the part of champions come from the most opposite parts of the country. For the magnitude of its labors, the intelligence of its discussions, and the perfect harmony that prevailed throughout its sessions, this congress has merited the greatest admiration.