Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/429

Rh brilliant receptions were extended by the President of the Republic, the Minister of the Interior, and the city of Paris, and a series of complimentary banquets tested the digestive capacity of the delegates to the utmost.

The session of the congress extended over ten days. It was divided into four sections. The first related to penal legislation, the second to prison administration, the third to preventive means, and the fourth to juvenile offenders. Separate sessions of each section were held every morning. In the afternoon there was a general assembly of the whole congress and reports from the work of each section were heard, discussed, and voted upon.

The first section, dealing with questions of penal legislation, drew together a fine array of legal talent. Nice questions of theory came up for discussion, but they were generally obliged to yield to practical considerations. The great plague of penologists as well as of society is the recidivist, or the "repeater" or "rounder," as he is more familiarly called in this country. He is the man or woman who has been in prison half a dozen, or it may be fifty or a hundred, times. The sentiment of the congress was in favor of a gradual accumulation of penalties and of long sentences for professional criminals. The laws of different countries differ in the classification of these recidivists. But the congress wisely decided that the dangerous attitude of the criminal toward society was the main thing to consider. It did not present a scheme of penalties, it did not decide in favor of definite or indefinite sentences; it left much to the discretion of the judge, though the feeling was expressed that judges are often more influenced by the gravity of the special act or by the circumstances of the crime than by facts which may clearly reveal the dangerous character of the criminal.

A hot debate, continued through several sessions, occurred on transportation. Though we have long since settled this question in England and America, it is a practical question with France and Russia. In Russia transportation has existed for three hundred years, but it has not tended to reduce crime. None are better aware of this than many prominent Russian jurists and penologists, and an interesting phase of the discussion was the presence of a distinguished representative from Russia, Prof. Ivan Foinitski. Professor of Law in the University of St. Petersburg and general advocate of the Court of Cassation, who led the battle against transportation. Prof. Foinitski has written an important work on the subject, which has just been made available in French through a translation by M. G. Bonet-Maury. In this volume, after an elaborate description of transportation in England and Russia, he shows that it has nothing but negative results to offer, and rejects entirely the arguments advanced for it. In France