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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
in the linen industry. The results reveal an unsatisfactory condition of affairs. Tariff in foreign countries is so high that it is almost restrictive. Entrepreneurs are too niunerous and competition for the business is so strong that prices are brought exceedingly low. The result is that wages for the workers are so low that a subsistence can hardly be secured even when the day is prolonged to twelve to seventeen hours. The work is very fatiguing to the whole body, and especially the eyes, consequently many workers have serious eye troubles. In this industry at present there is only poverty for the entrepreneurs and misery for the workers. — Paul Pourchet, Rev. de faction pop., October, 1909.
R. B. McC.
F6minisme et science positive. — The movement for woman suffrage has made woman an object of study from the biological, sociological, and juridical points of view. The questions are : Does woman present in her physical organism characteristics inferior and opposite to those of man? Are these the inevitable result of biological-sexual conditions or a consequence of social re- straints? Should these hinder the participation of woman in civil life? Bischoff affirmed the mental inferiority of woman on account of the inferior weight of her brain, but unfortunately at his death the weight of his brain was found less than that of the average woman's brain. Some have observed fewer con- volutions in the brain of woman. But comparative anatomy shows that the beaver, a very intelligent animal, has a brain entirely smooth, while the sheep, a very stupid animal, has a brain rich in convolutions. Broca, who studies carefully the relation between the brain and intelligence, declares the intel- lectual inferiority of woman to be due entirely to her education. It is society, with its restrictions, conventions, hypocrisies and prejudices, which limits the activity of woman, arresting her spiritual faculties and physical energies. The two great allies for woman's enthraldom are militarism and sacerdotalism. The former exalts brute strength and considers the fettering of woman a natural phenomenon. The latter has given divine sanction to the prejudice of woman's inferiority. Luther caused a reaction. Modern industrialism, because it must have woman, is doing more for her than has anything else, and this marks a gigantic step in the history of civilization. — Francesco Cosentini, Revue Inter- nationale de sociologie, October, 1909. R. B. McC.
L'anthropologie criminelle. — Criminal anthropology, observing everything connected with the criminal finds the most important factor in the production of criminality, the physical and psychical constitution to which the equally abnormal and criminal functioning corresponds. Such a structure is the result of degen- eracy, arrested development due to epilepsy, alcoholism, syphilis, etc. Upon it different factors act increasing or ameliorating it. Measures for prevention of crime are : bettering of economic conditions, speedier judicial procedure, an active fight against alcoholism, houses of correction for the young, and industrial schools ; for the repression of crime, a penal system based on the idea of pro- tection of society rather than punishment and consequently a strict classifica- tion of criminals after examination. — M, Carrara, Arch, d'anthrop. crim. etc., October-November, 1909. F, F.
L'adaptation. — Adaptation is at once the goal and the result of all human efforts in the social movement and it is characterized by two traits, continuity and reciprocity. Adaptation in the individual takes three forms : in the child, by means of education, it repeats the past ; in the adult, through professional life, it organizes the present; in certain of the "elite," through reflection, it prepares the future. The process is one (i) of immediate reaction to external changes, (2) of acquired habit, which (3) in turn becomes hereditary. The degree in which an individual adapts himself can be judged only by taking account of the two general facts of continuity and reciprocity in his adaptation. Group adaptation differs from individual adaptation and the phenomena of growth are closely connected with adaptation. — Rene Worms, Rev. internat. d. soci- ologie, November, 1909. F. F.
