Evening star., 1916-09-25

their psychopathic laboratory, that by
the number OF convictions
crimes would be increased. The old
idea, in other words, that fear of the
law prevents crime. Perhaps 1t does.
with normal people: but with the alb
don't work right. In old England they
used to hang people for stealing 50
cents worth of muslin, and the per-
centage of crime was just as high then
criminal and to recognize and treat the
abnormal as such is the aim of the
new criminology.
For instance, the case of a TWENTY
year old boy came up here the other
day. He was charged
Feeble Minded, with carrying a gun.
u.an He was holding a
Had a Gun. job with good
sized company. and there was Moth
ing to show that he was not an ordi-
nary cheap 1aborer He attracted the
attention of the laboratory, however.
and they examined him. He had the
mind of nine-year old child. His
family was called and questioned. and
they admitted that he was feeble
usually lovable and inoffensive He
brought his wages home carefully, and
had been known to walk four miles
with $40 in his pocket rather than pay a
nickel car fare. He had got the gun
when he had temporary employment as
strike breaker
All this tailed with the known laws
when their malady is uncomplicated by
dementia, are usually cheerful, docile
and lovable. They are capable of per-
forming simple tasks in simple en-
vlronment well enough. There was lit
tie doubt that the boy was doing his
manual work satisfactorily; and less
doubt that he was even more danger
Gus carrying gun than normal
youth. He might have shot somebody
in his good-natured way with little
On the other hand. to
sentence him to prison or to a refor-
matory with his easily Influenced plas-
would be nodded by all the evil of his
and come out a permanent
menace to society. The real state OF
affairs was made clear to his family,
out of mischief-no difficult task--he
was discharged.
All cases of crime caused by brain
trouble of one sort or another are not
abnormals have their trouble compli-
Gated by some form of dementia that
makes them dangerous By dementia
is not meant what we usually under
stand by the term-easily recognized
one of the subtler forms
of mental trouble that escape all but
the expert eye. The abnormality is
there, but the people who brush up daily
against the sufferers do not see 1t.
There is one test that brings it out
the laboratory here as the world test"
the test of daily life.
We walk hedged around by the thou
sand laws and ordinances of a complex
civilization that we
Test of never notice because
-. they have been drafted
Dally Lie. with elaborate care to-
conform to normal standards, to the
habits of normal people. If man has
a trace of real abnormaiity in him
sooner or later he will come into con-
upon it, break it. Then he turns up in
police court.
That is why the psychopathic labora-
tory here in Chicago has been termed
by experts the greatest clinic of alb
normal psychology in the world" The
city courts are strongly centrallZed un-
der the municipal court system that
originated in Chicago, and all the Of
tenders against the law in a city of
two and half million people are gath
cred in by 5000 policemen and brought
to a common center. They are the in
dividuals who cannot, or do not, con-
form to normal standards. If there is
something the matter with them this
is the place to find it out.
OF course. among the hundreds that
come in daily. there are some who are
perfectly normal mentally. Some
criminals are lacking in the moral
sense, but not in intelligence or mental
balance. But the bulk of them. the
bulk of any collection of criminals.
seems even to the most inexpert eye to
be abnormal
A story is told by an American expert
in this line of the days when he went
to Germany to study.
Studying Criminal psychiatry is
..1, :, new science, but it
e1S o"ee' is not as new in Ger
many as 1t is here. The world famous