lions in Georgia, they did not chance to meet until 1857, when they were retained as opposing attorneys in a lawsuit at the Washington county courthouse. Toombs strode into the courthouse before the court convened, and asked the sheriff in a loud tone : ••Sheriff, where is this man Stephens? I've heard a lot about him, but I never saw him." "That's Mr. Stephens sitting there on the fail," replied the sheriff, pointing to a little man huddled up on the rail to the bar. Toombs '"arched over to the rail, gazed down contempt uously, and roared : "So you are Alexander Stephens! Why I could eat you for my breakfast." "Well, Senator," replied Stephens, in the shrill falsetto that once heard was never for gotten, " if you should eat me, you would have more brains in your stomach than you ever had in your head.1' IN a book just published in Paris, entitled "The Mind of the Criminal," the author, Dr. de Fleury, attempts to set forth the golden mean between the extreme theories of Lombroso and his school and of those who utterly disbelieve all that the Italian professor upholds. Says a re viewer in Cosmos, June 3 : " There do exist, uncontestably perverted beings, destined for the gallows, whose natural home is the prison, and who are incapable of adaptation to the social environment. These born criminals, as Lom broso calls them, are what they are, he says, by reason of hereditary malformation of the brain — we all know these theories of the Italian criminologists, which are now almost abandoned. Others, with more reason, see in the perversity of certain creatures an effect of bad education that has not properly repressed certain tenden cies, a result of imitation, an influence of envir onment. M. Maurice de Fleury in this popular work tries to hold to the golden mean. He ex plains clearly the physiology of the nervous sys tem and the mechanism of reflex action, but personality, justice, and liberty are more com plex ideas than he seems to think. The ques tion of human criminality is not exclusively medical, and when the doctors have determined the cases — perhaps more numerous than has been supposed —— in which responsibility has been suppressed or weakened because of some
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disease, we shall still have to solve the problem of the crimes committed by normally organized but perverted beings. For these last, moral education and especially religious training, the author believes, will be an element of preservation. He cites other things that may be of use, and finally he recommends that young persons who, although not vicious, are difficult to manage, should be sent to the colonies, with the hope that a life of hardship and adventure will enable them to make use of the exuberance of energy which, if it did not find an outlet in this way. might lead to crime. This form of prevention, which is difficult to use in practice, can be applied only to a restricted num ber of persons. Many criminals become so through idleness, carelessness, lack of will power; they fill our ranks with worthless material and never become any better. Among many false notions, much interesting information is to be found in this book, and it is written in a style that makes its perusal attractive. A CURIOUS- piece of evidence bearing on the success of the English rule in India is furnished by the popularity of the courts established in that country and especially in Bengal. Litiga tion increases beyond the power of the existing force of judges to deal with it. Under the. pax Britannica, disputes can no longer be settled by the sword, and murders and raids and family vendettas are things largely of the past. But the natives have learned that they can carry on their quarrels through litigation, and the agricul tural classes are especially pertinacious in assert ing their legal rights over land and irrigation privileges. The peasants not only resort to the courts, but they are not satisfied with the deci sions of the tribunals of first instance. The number of appeals has increased until it is now about thirty per cent of the contested cases. There seems to be no way of stopping the ini tiation of litigation, which is evidently the out come of the national character, but the govern ment finds it necessary to decrease the volume of appeals in petty cases in order that the higher courts may be able to give proper attention to really important matters. To allow such appeals, when the lower courts are of good character, tends more to the oppression of poor suitors by rich ones than to secure the rights of the feeble,
