Nothing can be more
futile than the present method of criminal procedure. After a certain
stated period in gaol, we allow Criminals--even of the most dangerous
character--to go out free without making the slightest effort to secure
that they are fit to be returned to society. We quarantine the
plague-stricken or small-pox ship, and keep the passengers isolated till
the disease is eradicated. But we send up the Criminal only for a
definite time, and at the end of that, he is allowed to go at large even
though we may know he is a more dangerous character than when he entered
the gaol. This is egregious folly.
Dr. Chapple's treatise, however, takes things as they are. He proposes
to save society from the multiplication of its Criminals by a remedy of
the most radical kind. When he was good enough to ask me to write a
preface for his book I hesitated somewhat. I read the substance of it in
MS.S. and was deeply impressed by it. But still I am in some doubt. I am
not quite prepared to accept at once Dr. Chapple's proposed remedy.
Neither am I prepared to reject it. I am simply an enquirer, trying to
arrive at the truth regarding this clamant social problem. The time has
certainly come when the issues raised in Dr.
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