Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1893-10-23
ARE CRIMINALS INSANE /?
An italian Professor Says They Are
and So Do Many Others.


All Sssts Il Spiey Ness Frsn estAaa City
Peiities-lsu Prices.
NKw YoKK Cur, Oct. 2s.-(Special ~
The New England conference Of charities
and corrections now in session will pfoba-
bly, inaugurate q general discussion which
will long continue as suggestive confer
ences take up the subject. The subject Of
this discussion may be thus briefly stated:
Are the existing methods Of dealing with
crime and poverty radically wrong in priu-
ciple, and shall We inaugurate thoroughly
scientific system, Is it now possible to do
so, And the man to whom, more than any
other. or perhaps all others, the discussion
Is due is Professor Cesare Lombroso Of the
University of Turin. whose recent work
bids fair to revolutionize thought in that
line as completely as Darwin's work did in
biology.
Popular interest in the subject here has
been heightened by the official inquiry into
the methods pursued by Superintendent
W. z. Brockway of the Elmira reforma-
tory, who Processes to have founded his
system entirely upon Lombroso's theories,
and whom a prominent daily of this city
has charged with cruelty. Professor Lom-
broso divides criminals into three classes
those born to be criminals and scarcely
capable of anything else, those with Grim
inal tendency which can be eradicated, aud
those naturally inclined to do right but
betrayed into crime by sudden anger or
other passion. The lirst class he would
treat with extreme severity, the last with
great leniency, and the second he would
subject to an educational process until sat
isfactory proof is furnished that the ten
dency is worked out.
He claims that those born criminals or
with criminal tendencies carry unmistak
able evidences of it in cast Of features, form
of skull, etc. and that all such should be
taken charge Of in youth or on commission
of their first offense-that it is a mercy to
them as well as to society to completely
isolate them. In short, he would have
them treated as lunatics to that extent
Mr.. Brockway goes so far as to insist on
the right to inflict corporeal punishment on
the incorrigible at the discretion Of those
who have them in charge, but just now the
indications are that the state Of New York
will take a different view and moderate
his scientific zeal. At any rate, we shall
have long and possibly heated discussion
and in the end perhaps a thorough change
in our methods of dealing with criminals.
City Politics.
All the candidates are out, and politics
has already reached the stage where Tam
many and its various opponents begin to
point with PRIDE view with ALARM"
''repudiate with scorn" and do all those
L =. .
If one wants to realize how very cosmo
politan New York city is he may take the
personnel Of the tickets Thus Charles II.
Murray, Republican candidate for district
attorney in this county, was born in San
their candidate for comptroller. was born
in Wyoming valley, Pennsylvania, in 1881,
and so on. On the Democratic ticket are
such names as Sullivan. Mittnacht, Roche,
Dinkelspiel, Foley, Sulzer. ETC., which
names speak for themselves as to nation
ality. The old story is applicable of til.
Englishman who said he supposed the
gentleman was an American from New
York, by his sname-O'Flaherty."
Interest in the cases of Carlyle Harris
and Dr. Buchanan was renewed by the
proposition to make Francis J. Wellman
torney. AS assistant counsel to that Off
cial, he conducted those cases to a convic
tion, and it is charged that when he is pros
ecutor conviction is certain unless the de
Tense is absolutely impregnable. Tam
many brought him up by hand, as it were,
for in youth he was among the poorest
Nevertheless Tammany thought it best to
name Colonel John X. Fellows for that of
fee, which he held before Delaney Nicoll,
present incumbent. Western and out of
town readers generally may think it odd
that Hon. Ashbel p. Fitch should be will
ing to surrender his seat in congress and
become city comptroller, but to real
New Yorker Washington city is not in it
with Gotham.
OF course everybody knows that wheat
has recently touched the lowest price re
corded since the records of the Van Rens
selaer manor began-some so years before
the Revolution-aBd that Wall street is pos
sibly a little more lively than the average
Sunday school convention. The highest
price wheat ever reached in this city WAS
In 1896, when -four was SIG per barrel, and
the next highest lin coin) was early in 1850.
when wheat was g.. In 1917 flour was
sl4 per barrel, and in 1s47 it once reached
$40 India, Australia and Argentina each
export more wheat now than the United
States did in any year before the war, and
Canada is not far behind. Furthermore.
the bears" claim to have private informa-
ton that the surplus Of two large crops in
India has been dried and stored in those
rock bins used by the ryots, but those
bears" are a pulling down set.
The Produce Market.
In view OF the foregoing facts, Wall
street and all who are interested in the
general produce market smile sarcastical-
ly over the announcement that couveu-
tion of the graingrowers of the west is to
be held at Crookstown, MINI, tomorrow.
The call for that convention declares the
object thereof to be ''to devise ways and
means for reducing transportation charges
On grain, and to compel railroads, millers
and dealers to do a business on basis ot
legitimate profit, based on the same aver
age profit on actual capital invested in rail
roads, elevators aud mills as the average
net profit OH capital invested in farm
profit"
"As the net profit on farm values" says
an old broker, ''is nothing al present, and
the net profit on hauling grain is the same,
the job would seem to be easy to that ex-
tent, but if the farmers can insure equality
of profits they will reverse the experience
of the world"