Evening star., 1900-10-06

ends 10 gradually heated, measures the
sensibility to heat, while q piston-rod ar
rangement. with a spring inside and indi-
Gator outside, measures sensibility to pain
when pressed against the skin.
Measuring Imaginative Power.
Power of imagination can actually be
measured. Science has got investigation
down to such fine points as that. The ap-
paratus is simple. The subject looks
through a tube pointed toward a white
paper screen. Daylight illuminates the
screen in front: gaslight behind. On the
back of the paper is drawn black, slant
Ing line. Not until the gaslight behind Is
turned up can this line be seen through the
paper The subject, looking through the
tube. is told to exercise his imagination
until he thinks he yividly sees lines running
up and down and across the white paper
like prison bars.
After the subject has conjured up these
lines in his minds eye. he is told that the
field of vision is to be made gradually
brighter by turning up the gaslight and
that he must tell how his imaginary lines
behave. Subjects with vivid Imagination
will see the slant line come into view, but
be unable to distinguish 1t as different In
material from the imagined cross lines seen
before. They will leave the instrument,
believing that the real line was but imagi-
parry like the others. Scores of such in
genious devices have been lately perfected
TO measure acuteness or quickness in al
actual speed of thought is thus measured
The rate at which impulses in the normal
individual travel along the feeling nerves to
the brain is found to be 100 feet per second.
Thus, were subjects leg so long that the
end of his toe were 7200 feet from his
brain. and If the end of this same toe were
placed in the fire. 1t would require a whole
minute for the toe to telegraph the pain
to the BRAIN Whether such impulses
travel faster or slower in the criminal than
in normal man can be learned. Each fact
thus gathered, though apparently without
use when considered alone is yet step
toward complete analysis Of the criminal
type,
To Make 1t Complete.
A complete study Of a criminal, according
to advanced ideas, would include not only
these measurements. made while he is alive
but possibly dissections of his organs, after
death, especially of his brain. Uncle Sam,
of course. would allow no methods painful
to the criminal to his family That
criminals should be given over to vivi-
sectionists has actually been proposed by
extremists, but such proposition would
not be considered by our government
Whether crime is in fact hereditary is
other knotty problem into which the new
laboratory would pry. close study OF
the genealogies of criminals would il is be-
lieved' reveal many curious facts now un-
dreamed Of 1t would be interesting to
know whether criminal instinct If heredi-
tary, seems to worm its way down the ma
ternal or paternal side of the family tree,
and whether drunkenness or insanity in
ancestors descends to posterity in the form
OF criminal instinct. To learn what trades
make criminals is another proposition
Those which demand irregular hours are
believed by some criminologists to favor
crime.
A National Museum of Crime.
A archaeological museum is further pro-
posed as an adjunct to the projected labora-
tory. Here 1t is hoped to collect various in
struments used in killing or assault. 1t is
intended to add to these a full collection OF
peculiar articles stolen, burglars TOOLS
counterfeiters' paraphernalia, articles used
for disguise, photographs and preserved
specimens of victims wounds, photographs
or criminals themselves and of their home
surroundings. 1t is proposed to further add
TO these an elaborate collection devoted to
suicides alone. In this would be gathered
various weapons, poisons, nooses of various
materials and other agencies of self-de-
structlon. The proposition has been made
TO preserve the nooses used by suicides who
hang themselves just originally tied
JOHN ELFRETH WATKINS. Jr.