Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/441

Rh Madness and Crime.—In an address on "Madness and Crime," delivered some months ago, Mr. Clark Bell called attention to a condition of insanity under which crime is sometimes committed which is not recognized by the law and is not often taken notice of by the courts. It is the condition that exists when the man is perfectly aware of the nature of the act he commits, and of the fact that it is prohibited by the law and is punishable, but is at the same time inincapacitatedincapacitated [sic] by mental disease from controlling his own conduct. The most careful discussion of the question has been made by Sir James Stephen, who has proposed as a solution of it the authorizing of juries to bring in a special form of verdict where the existence of such conditions has been proved. It has also doubtless been the element of the case which has often prompted American juries to bring in some of those singular verdicts which have caused remark as contrary to the law and the facts. In Mr. Bell's opinion, "the time has come when legislators must face this question upon its merits. The able and masterly manner in which Sir James discusses it, the decisions in many of the American States recognizing a different test for responsibility, call for a settled law both in England and America, which would be in accord with the principles of justice and commensurate with the civilization of our age. . . . There is no doubt whatever that the uncertainty of verdicts is largely due to the popular conviction of the injustice of the law as it now exists, and as it is frequently construed by the courts. . . . It is a legislative and not a judicial question, and must receive public attention commensurate with its great importance in the administration of criminal jurisprudence."

Sorghum and Beet Sugar—in the United States. Professor H. W. Wiley, chemist of the Department of Agriculture, in his report on "Northern Sugar Industry," gives the amount of sorghum-sugar manufactured at the principal factories in the United States during the season of 1883 at 726,711 pounds. The factories are at Rio Grande, New Jersey; Champaign, Illinois; Sterling, Hutchinson, and Ottawa, Kansas; and the Department of Agriculture. The largest and most successful factory is at Rio Grande, near Cape May, New Jersey, where the soil and climate appear favorable to the production of the crop. A careful calculation leads the author to estimate that the average amount of sugar which can be obtained in marketable form from sorghum is 4·75 per cent by weight of the expressed juice, or 2·37 per cent, or 46·4 pounds per ton, of the cane. Besides this, two other sugars than the crystallizable sucrose are present in the juice, but they are not separable in solid form, and enter into the molasses. This yield is proportionately very large, and, if the production of sorghum-sugar should be carried on with success enough to make it a staple crop, the product of molasses will be greater than ordinary consumption can dispose of. The only other uses to which the molasses can be put will be as food for animals and for distillation; and the latter will be the more money-making. Each gallon of molasses will give a gallon of commercial alcohol. Happily, this kind of alcohol is said to be only fit for use in the arts. Professor Wiley remarks that the fact must be admitted that the present production of sorghum-sugar is not very encouraging after thirty years of endeavor; but nearly all the progress that has been made in it has taken place during the last three years. The outlook is better for the manufacture of beet sugar, which is pronounced an assured success on the Pacific coast. The five years' experience at the Standard Sugar Refinery, Alvarado, California, is claimed to have proved that beets raised in that State will yield as many tons per acre and are as rich in saccharine matter as any raised in Europe. During the season of 1883-'84 there were produced at this establishment 1,027 y 826 pounds of white refined sugar, while there were still in tanks at the time of making the report, in process of crystallization, 250,000 pounds more.

Corrupt Legislation.—The causes of the defective and corrupt legislation which appears to be one of the crying complaints of the present time have been reviewed in a short pamphlet by Mr. Simon Sterne, who also makes a general suggestion of a remedy for them. The causes lie in the methods of procedure of our legislative bodies, which are unsystematic, hasty, and