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Rh the Governments are sometimes disposed to take what representatives they can get in order to save expense; and, besides, their appointees are likely to be men whose interest is rather in the practical and administrative side of criminology than in the purely scientific side. I am far from meaning by this to make any disparaging reference to the Government representatives in the congress of this summer, but only to say that the general policy is likely to give the development of the work of the organization a set in a practical rather than a scientific direction. This, indeed, already shows itself in the work of the congress. Of course, a congress on administrative criminology—there has been a congress on "Prison Reform"—would be a good thing; but what criminology as a science needs the rather is the earnest discussion of the fundamental concepts on which it rests; especially seeing that the origin of the movement which issued in the organization of the present congress and which gave rise to the phrase "criminal anthropology"—was an extremely one-sided and in many respects extravagant and unscientific one.

This year's congress did not make much progress in settling fundamental questions—such as the real definition of criminality from a psychological point of view, or the classification of criminal classes, or the nature of moral insanity, all of which are necessary preliminaries to the more practical problems of treatment, etc.—but spent its time in sharp, sometimes violent, discussions between the school of criminal anthropologists in Italy, led by Lombroso and Ferri, and the party of doubters who have as yet little to offer in its place. Among the more serious and important papers I may mention: V. Hamel, L'Anarcliisme; Dallemagne, Dégénérescence et criminalité; Tarde, La Criminalité professionnelle; Ballet, Les Persécutés processifs; Naecke, La Psychiatrie crimmelle; Legrain, Conséquences sociales de l'alcoolisme des ascendants; and Mr. Francis Galton's report on his "finger-print" method of identification.

The next session of this congress is to be held in the Hague, on invitation of the Dutch Government, in 1901.

It is in line with the criticism made above—to the effect that this congress is not sufficiently severe in its devotion to the pure science of the criminal—to suggest that the psychologists of the other congress should give more attention to what is called criminal psychology. The psychology of abnormal types of mind has been greatly advanced in recent years, especially in France; and this advance has extended to a great many phases of mental defect. But the particular line of defect which criminology has in view has not been much treated by professed psychologists, although the first determination of criminology—as to whether