child to know
that if he puts his hand into the fire it will be burned. The acquittal
of every thief breeds another, and the unpunished murder is an incentive
for a dozen similar homicides.

Crimes are either deliberate or the result of accident or impulse. The
last class may rise to a high degree of enormity, such as manslaughter,
but these crimes are rarely possible of restraint. The perpetrator
does not stop to consider, even if he be sober enough to think at all,
whether his act be moral, whether it will entail any civil liability, or
what will be its consequences, if it be a crime. So far as such acts
are concerned those who commit them are hardly criminals in the ordinary
sense, and no influence in the world is able to prevent them.

The question is how far these different kinds of restraint operate upon
the community as a whole in the prevention of deliberate crime. Clearly
the fear of pecuniary loss through actions brought to judgment in the
civil courts is practically nil. Most persons who set out to commit
crime have no bank account, the absence of one being generally what
leads them into a criminal career.

The writer has no intention of attempting to discuss or estimate the
efficacy of religion or ethics as restraining influences. A certain
limited proportion of the community would not commit crime under any
circumstances. It is enough for them that the act is forbidden by the
State even if it be not really wrong from their own personal point of
view. Side by side with these very good people are a very large number
who wear just as fashionable clothing, have the same friends, attend
the same churches, but who would commit almost any crime so long as they
were sure of not being caught. If we had no criminal law we should soon
discover who were the hypocrites.

But for an overwhelming majority of the community something more
practical than either religion, ethics, or philosophy is necessary to
keep them in order. They must be convinced that the transgressor will
surely be punished,--not some time, not next year or the year after, but
now. Not, moreover, that his way will be merely hard; but that he will
be put in stripes and made to break stones.

Hence the necessity for a vigorous and adequate criminal law and
procedure which shall command the respect and loyalty of the community,
administered by a fearless judiciary who will hold jurors to a rigid and
conscientious obedience to their oath.

There is