The Walled City.—Edward Huntington Williams, M. D., New York, 1913, Frank & Wagnalls Company. Pp. 263. Price $1.00.
The general public looks upon a convict with a certain amount of fear. The word criminal is awe-inspiring. But the idea of the insane criminal is more than that; it is replete with the vague terror of the weird and unknown. People have in recent years come to consider the criminal with a little better understanding; but the “insane criminal” has retained its full quota of terror. Perhaps there was good reason for that. The older ways of handling both the insane and the criminal were very well calculated to bring forth the worst there was in them. But no one could probably read the “Walled City,” without experiencing a complete change of attitude towards the inmates of institutions for the criminal insane. They are primarily men, these unfortunates with hopes and plans, with differences in personality, education, tastes, relations, in all things that make for the differences among man and man in the normal outside life. And yet, there is a “kink” in every man; an innocent kink generally, yet a “kink” to be reckoned with. It makes things interesting, yet delicate and difficult to handle. “Every man in his kink” we might paraphrase Ben Jonson.
One gets from the book a feeling almost of old association. It is all told in a pleasant, almost anecdotal form. The reader feels himself introduced to citizen after citizen of the walled city and passes through the book as if in a series of personal conversations with its inmates. The author’s sympathy and understanding for his words speaks from every line. And yet when we close the book, we are surprised at how much we have learned. We have been given scientific, correct, technical information without knowing it; the book had done what it was evidently meant to do.
Hell in Nebraska.—Walter Wilson, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1913. The Bankers Publishing Company. Pp. 372. Price $1.00.
If individuality in a man means the possession of decided and highly developed qualities, both good and evil, and if books also may be said to have individualities on the same basis, then the present book has a valid claim to the distinction of possessing a goodly amount of individuality. From the title,—and from the illustrations on both covers,—one would be justified in expecting a horrible revelation of fiendish cruelties practiced in the Nebraska Penitentiary. But it is simply another indication of the “yellow journal” style that pervades the whole book. In fact, were it not for the thorough knowledge of conditions, evidenced throughout, one might very easily take the volume for a reporter’s paraphrase of a few selected annual reports of the penitentiary. It is full of inside personal information, of interest to nobody but the friends, relatives and enemies of the persons concerned. But there is a good deal of real good common sense and practical penology, that comes from a sympathetic yet rational observation, and from continued activity in the field. If the language is too strong at spots, and the emotions unrestricted, it may well be excused as being the result of righteous indignation, coupled with a sense for journalism and strong feeling for friend and foe—and also an invincible belief in one’s own righteousness. Incidentally, however, the book gives really valuable information of the conditions in the Nebraska Penitentiary.
Measures of Social Defence Against the Recidivist.—This was one of the three questions discussed by the International Union of Criminal Law at its congress in Copenhagen in August, 1913. A masterly report on the subject was submitted by Prof. Nabokoff, and after a spirited discussion by many of the leading authorities of Europe on criminal law, the following resolutions were adopted by the congress:
1. That system of procedure which combines the requirements of an objective scale of proof of recidivism with subjective judgment of the particular case in question and thereupon adjudges the said criminal a habitual recidivist, dangerous to the social order, should be recognized as the most rational.
2. The exclusion of the political criminal seeming inevitableness, they made the acsures of social security, applicable to habitual recidivists, are directed is a just and necessary proviso.