CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

Timaru Herald, Volume LV, Issue 5828, 1 December 1893, Page 4

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

NBW IDBAB. Mr McDonald, an American prison inßpcc tor and student of criminology, in a work on the subject, lays strong emphasis upon the faut tbat criminality may be an instant's incident in the life of a normal man. " Most c-iminals,'* ho says, " are so by ocoasion or acoident, and differ in no essential way from other men. Thus an individual becoming j excited in discussion, or under the influence of liquor, or on acoount of an insult, may, on the spur of tbe mo* mont, strike the offender with the nearest ohjeot in his reach— if it is a hammer ho becomes a oriminal ; if is a book he ia not a criminal." Mr Macdonald's oassification of crime is especially interesting for the result whioh flow from it. He says : " The

1 degrees of wrong iu\ -:_. 1 upon the Segree of | danger or it. jury (moral, intellectual, pliysio-l or financial) whioh a thought, feeling, willing or acli.n brings to the community" It] Bpsin^a fnm this that the relation of| oriminriogy to society is very intimite, Mr Macdoneld d .es not heeifata to declare that it approaches criminality for a widow to be compelled to w.rk fifteen hours a day making trousers nt ten centß a pair, out of which she and her family must live until they gradually die from want cf nutritious food and freeh air. lt is criminally questionable, he says, to have cpm stores in railway cars, and it is a fact in ctiminali y that 5000 people are yearly killed in tbe United fettle* et level railway crossings. Certainly a definit on of crime wbioh admits of this kind of condemnation would work enormous changes .in the community if it were once widely accepted. W'th regard to the treatment of the criminal when he is caught and convioted, Mr Maodonald advocates.a radioal reform which is making rapid converts of the beat criminologists, both theoretical and practical. This is what be calls the " indeterminate sentence." The criminal is condemned lo imprisonment " until he is reformed." No sentence, it ie stated, has such terror as this for the habitual oriminal, while for tbe nan who desires to reform, and for him who has fallen inadvertently into crime, nothing could be more just. This system is said to introduce now life into the prison. It is oombined, of course, with " conditional liberty." Tho oonfident soientifio criminologist declares that tbere is no more difficulty in oarrying it out than in releasing tbe insane. " The indeterminate sentence," says Mr MoDonaldJ " is the only rational one."