NOTES AND ABSTRACTS

The Last Census and Its Bearing on Crime.-Fully 50 per cent. of the crimes committed in the United States and Europe are due to drunkenness; about 20 per cent. in this country are actually committed in the saloons. Of white offenders 47 per cent. belong to the laboring-classes and servants; but only 32 per cent. to the professional and clerical order; 27 per cent. were credited to the manufacturing and mechanical trades. The agricultural and professional portions were more addicted to major offenses; the laboring classes, to lesser forms. The largest proportion of offenses against the person was found in rural sections; against property, in the professional, clerical, and official ranks. The burden of crimes was committed by those who live near "the want line."-August Drahms, Pop. Sci. Mo., October, 1900. E. S. B.

Statistics of Divorce.-The divorce-rate based on total population was two and five-eighths times as great in 1905 in the United States as it was in 1870. Five married couples out of 1,000 were being divorced annually in 1905; one and one-half, in 1870. The rate is highest in the western states. The United States leads the world; Switzerland ranks next, but with a divorce-rate less than onehalf as great. In regard to the number of divorces granted, actors rank highest, then musicians and teachers of music, commercial travelers, telegraph and telephone operators, physicians and surgeons. Agricultural laborers rank lowest; then, clergymen, draymen and teamsters, blacksmiths, farmers.-J. A. Hill, Amer. Stat. Assoc., June, 1909. E. S. B.

Ethics and Politics.-The laws of ethics sometimes seem to conflict with those of politics. On occasions, laws become external commands to seek ends which to the individual seem unethical. The individual may choose to stand for a new doctrine which he believes to be reconstructive; he bases his claim to obey his conscience on the progressive character of society. The state may decide to suppress the new doctrine as dangerous. Both of the antagonistic views may be right; but experience will test their truth. The fact of progress involves a degree of relativity for ethics. Ethics may justify the individual in standing his ground until the actual security of the state is endangered, but at that point he must remember that since the state protects life, and since it therefore makes the ethical life possible, the cases where disobedience would be "the greater loyalty" are exceedingly rare.-R. M. MacIver, Inter. Jour. of Eth., October, 1908. E. S. B.

La génération consciente.-The partisans of both repopulation and depopulation are partly right and partly wrong; the former right in deploring the excessive fear of paternity and the practices "contre nature," which lead to voluntary sterility; wrong in their preoccupation with quantity instead of with quality -the latter, right in their suspicion of the blind production of elements of disease, misery, and vice; wrong in preaching a general limitation of births, instead of a limitation of a bad quality of births. It must be remembered that in diminishing the causes of energy, activity, constancy, and emulation, which children represent, the general good is decreased, that no real and honest satisfaction is possible without some material or moral effort.-F. Passy, Jour. des économists, September, 1909. F. F.

Causes de décadences des peuples modernes. With a decrease in productivity, a lessening of resources through war and through useless expenses of governments and of private individuals, with a consequent decrease in population, the decadence of modern nations will begin.-G. de Molinari, Jour. des. économists, September, 1909. F. F.

Criminalité et tatouage. The relation between criminality and tattooing is neither a cause-and-effect relation nor a quantitative one, that is, the majority

of delinquents being drawn from the mass of the population which practices tattooing, it is natural that many criminals are tattooed. But there can exist a relation between the quality of the tattooing and criminality. Tattooing itself is merely a manifestation of a coarse, primitive, but still normal make-up, while only certain forms of tattooing reveal in the person an abnormal make-up as well.-H. Léale, Archives d'anthropol. criminelle, April, 1909. F. F.

De la prophylaxie de l'insociabilité par la sélection scolaire.-A psychological examination of the recruits of the African battalion shows that a large part of them are abnormals who could have been prevented from viciousness by an education adapted to their mentality. Therefore selection of abnormals in school is an imperative social measure-the vicious should be sent to a reformatory, the distinctly backward to a hospital; but the best treatment for the moderately backward is placing out in a family by a physician. This social measure has been tried by the Ecole des Hautes Études Sociales.-Dr. Granjux, Archives d'anthropol. criminelle, April, 1909. F. F.

La loi sociale.-In our modern social organization, there are two classesthose who have, and those who have not. It is the duty of society to correct its manifold inequalities, to put an end to the profound injustice of its present organization, and to ameliorate the situation of its poor and humble. In organized societies, social reform must come by means of the law. The purpose of "la loi sociale" should be the promotion of the general welfare of all, and the achievement of the highest possible moral status for the whole population. But in our present society the law is made to favor a particular privileged classthis necessarily at the cost of the well-being of the whole people. Legislators have no comprehension of their vital function, and promise little in the way of effective social reform.-René Raulin, Jour. des écon., September 15, 1909.

E. F. C.

Anti-Clericalism in Europe.-As respects European Catholics, religious liberty is today little more than a fine sounding theory. In Germany they vainly claim the equality with the Protestants, which is assured them by the constitution. In Ireland they suffer from Protestant domination. Austria discriminates them, and her universities are in the hands of Jews and free-thinkers. Real liberty of religious opinion is more nearly approached in Belgium than elsewhere in Europe. The inferiority of Catholics in the public life of Italy is incontestable, while in France the triumph of anti-clericalism is complete. This general triumph of anti-clericalism in Europe seems to be the achievement of an aggressive minority of determined leaders who are opposed to Catholicism "per se" as to "le clericalisme" so called. The masses, while still true to their religious traditions and numerically superior, are purely passive, without any influence on public opinion, leaving to professional politicians the control of public affairs. Democracy cannot come into its own while the great mass of the population are suffered to remain ignorant and inert.-A Parissiel, Rev. de l'action pop., September, 1909. E. F. C.

L'évolution des rapports sexuels.-There is a constant evolution in the customs pertaining to the relations of the sexes. Inheritance, education, religionall contribute to the moral ideas of an age, and frequently all are equally false in their standard of judgment. Marriage is essentially an economic association; romantic love has comparatively little influence therein. By reason of the increased responsibilities, economic and social, of our modern age, marriage is occurring later in life than formerly. It has become largely a haphazard affair; the mutual fitness of the parties to the union is usually a minor consideration. Education is sadly negligent in dealing with questions of sex. The marriage ceremony has lost much of its former respect and sacredness. The ultimate survival of the institution seems imperiled. Divorce is so easy that the "l'union libre" is even now almost legalized. Will not the future see marriage replaced by a more rational sex relation?-J. Rousset, La rev. socialiste, September, 1909. E. F. C.

Le problème irlandais.-The "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" presents little of the unity which this designation is supposed to represent. Ireland is not the sister isle of the official phraseology. Today she battles, not, as formerly, for her political independence, but for the recovery of her historic patrimony and for her economic emancipation. The conflict is between the local population and the landlord-the odious representative of English domination. However, England at last realizes that the most sure means of repressing the sentiment of national individuality is to remove the principal cause of hostility between the two races; consequently recent Parliamentary legislation has been directed toward the transfer of Irish landed estates to their actual tenants. The Land Act of 1903 went some distance in achieving this result, but it has proved inadequate, and the situation in Ireland is again extremely critical. The Land Bill now before Parliament, embodying the "compulsory purchase" principle, is an effort to approach a definite solution.-H. Marchani, Quest. Dipl. et Colon., August, 1909. E. F. C.

The Significance of Advertising.-There is necessity for widespread and continuous appeals upon the hurry and forgetfulness of the time if public attention is secured. It is not a question of indifference, or lack of cordiality and appreciation. But this is a time of independence, of tepid preferences, of facile change. The advertisers today are manufacturers of a particular article or articles, and the market is the entire country and often other countries. They do not exaggerate and grovel as formerly. A developed public taste calls for restraint and dignity. But advertising is ubiquitous, and the protest of the public has barren results. The billboards reflect the trend toward the city, the interest in rational diet, the nervous strain of fast living. Advertisers, through organization, could easily dictate the policy of the press. However, the course of development has been from servility to dignity, from hysteria to calmness, from narrowness to breadth.-Frederick Dwight, Yale Review, August, 1909. R. B. McC.

The Relative Strength of Nurture and Nature. From investigations in the school populations of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Manchester these conclusions are reached. It seems only too true at the present time that the physically and mentally weaker stocks are reproducing themselves at a greater rate than those of sounder physique and intelligence. So far as our investigations have gone at present they show the small influence of environment; work of the mother, an unhealthy trade of the father, and the drinking of the parents seem to have very little influence on the physique of the children. So far our researches demonstrate the effect of a large hereditary factor. The only way to keep a nation strong mentally and physically is to see to it that each new generation is derived chiefly from the fitter members of the generation before.Ethel M. Elderton, Eug. Lab. Lec., Ser. III. R. B. McC.

Influence of Heredity and Environment on Race Improvement.-The term "inheritance" should be limited to those physical characters which are determined, we know not how, in the germ cells. Thus defined inheritance is relieved of much that is ascribed to it. It seems clear that our first duty is the elimination of the unfit, that they may not become parents. The great majority of children in America are born normal and with average possibilities. We live and think too much in vicious circles. Bad living conditions, poor nourishment, low ideals breed poverty, vice, and crime. Nature is impersonal. To an increasing degree man determines. The race stock remains practically unchanged. Each generation starts on the same physical level. To realize that our problems are chiefly those of environment which we in increasing measure control gives us a hopeful outlook.-Carl Kelsey, An. Am. Acad., July, 1909.

R. B. McC.

The Causes of Emigration from Greece.-The conditions due to the meager industrial development in Greece have within recent years been accentuated by a marked agricultural depression. This has made it very difficult for the ordinary peasant to secure even a moderate return for his labors. The marked rise in