Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/554

536 punish; no matter how grievous the methods we may adopt to prevent crime or other evils, we ought not to regard them in that light. It is very difficult to eliminate from the injured individual a feeling of anger and a desire for revenge, but our organized courts of justice should not by any word even appear to entertain or to strengthen such motives.

In the amputation of any portion of the body on account of gangrene or other morbid condition, there is no idea of punishment. The surgeons who are assembled in consultation to decide upon the treatment of the diseased member do not consider whether the morbid state is the result of transgression, but the simple question for them to decide is, "Will the other parts of the body be better if the diseased portion is removed?" All men of a scientific turn of mind who have made a study of criminal anthropology are fast approaching the physician's position regarding such questions. Every criminal is more or less a diseased portion of the body politic: some can be saved, some must be removed, and some must be destroyed, but the notion of punishment should not complicate the judgment in deciding what disposition is to be made in either case. The insane were formerly regarded with feelings of hatred and vindictiveness, but to-day this is only a shameful recollection. With the advance in the study of criminology and the more merciful era of humanitarianism that must follow, the like sentiments toward the criminal will be eliminated from our courts of justice. Prof. Austin Flint, the distinguished President of the New York State Medical Association, in his annual address to the association said, "Scientific progress will lead us finally to abandon the ancient idea of punishment of crime and substitute for it treatment and correction." Quetelet writes, "Every society has the criminals that it deserves."

There are very few persons who are not possessed by an intense desire to kill when they are suddenly confronted by a snake. Most of us have a hereditary prejudice against snakes, and can hardly talk about them without a shudder. Somewhat the same spirit possesses us when we hear of a murder: we are at once seized with a vengeful desire to hear of the murderer's capture and execution; but, as when, like reasonable human beings, we study the snake family, we find that there are differences among them, and some have qualities in consideration of which they might be spared, so with murderers—they are not all the same. The Hannigan trial is fresh in our memories; the motive that caused this man to commit a crime was the result of the very conditions which constitute our normal society; it was the deep sense of injured chastity, violated vows, a ruined life, broken home ties; this was made plain; the public demanded his release. Under the intense feeling engendered in society as to whether this man was to be