Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/20

2 Lawton will be declared innocent; eighteen months he has been in confinement—eighteen months of indelible association with criminals! And then the big one: 'Sixteen men held as suspected of complicity in the murder of Bronson, the prosecuting attorney.' Did you ever hear of such a carnival of arrest? And put beside that the fact that for ninety-three out of every one hundred homicides no one is ever punished!"

The old professor turned his ruddy face, glowing with the frosty, early-morning air, patiently and questioningly toward his young companion. For some time Dr. Reiland had noted uneasily the growing restlessness of his brilliant but hotheaded young aid, without being able to tell what it portended.

"Well, Trant," he asked now, "what is it?"

"Just that, professor! Five thousand years of being civilized," Trant burst on, "and we still have the 'third degree'! We still confront a suspect with his crime, hoping he will 'flush' or 'lose color,' 'gasp' or 'stammer.' And if in the face of this crude test we find him prepared or hardened so that he can prevent the blood from suffusing his face, or too noticeably leaving it; if he inflates his lungs properly and controls his tongue when he speaks, we are ready to call him innocent. Is it not so, sir?"

"Yes," the old man nodded, patiently. "It is so, I fear. What then, Trant?"

"What, Dr. Reiland? Why, you and I and every psychologist in every psychological laboratory in this country and abroad have been playing with the answer for years! For years we have been measuring