NOTES AKD ABSTRACTS 143
Official re-statement of the aims of the German Inner Mission. The Inner Mission is the free service of living members of the parishes to supplement the regular offices of the church in helping the tempted and fallen. Wherever there is a social need there the Inner Mission is in place, and no one can limit its activity in advance. It differs from other charities and reforms in its central principle that the ultimate root of physical and social misery is moral evil and the supreme remedy is the gospel. The spiritual love must be shown in deeds of helpful kindness to suffering men. Wherever industrial, political or social conditions hinder the moral life, the Inner Mis sion is ready to use all agencies of custom and law for amelioration, as in case of licentiousness, drunkenness, Sunday desecration, defective dwellings, usury, exploita- tion of laborers ; but it will not become partisan in politics nor advocate a particular school of economics. Fliegende Blatter, aus dem Ratthen House. June 1896; S. 209 ff.
Punishment of recidivist Criminals. Between 1885 and 1893 the number of persons condemned to prison in Prussia fell from 8069 to 7534, about 6.6 per cent. The number who had been condemned 1-4 or 5 times fell ; the number who had been condemned 5-10 times remained as before ; while the number of those condemned n times and more rose from 1129 in the year 1885 to 2288 in the year 1893 about no per cent. This seems to indicate that the criminals by passion and by occasion are few, while the confirmed criminals increase. What can be done ? Some favor flog- ging, starving and other methods of severity. But this simply means capital punish- ment in the form of slow torture. Better an indeterminate sentence for recidivists, with a different treatment for strong and wilful criminals on the one side and for weak men on the other. The workmen's colonies have shown the physical, moral and econom- ical value of agricultural life. The moor lands of North Germany offer a field for such colonies of recidivists. The method would be costly, but not nearly so expen- sive as the present methods. The law of Prussia does not yet provide for indetermin- ate sentence and much opposition from lawyers is expected before the reform can be effected. PASTOR EBERTS and 1 1 MM. Fliegende Blatter, aus dem Rauhen House. June 1896. S. 235 ff.
Public Labor Bureaus. Regular emplyoment is in itself a great factor in the determination of character. This is a principle accepted by those who have studied the condition of the unemployed, and one which is at the basis of recent govern- mental attempt to remedy this evil. For some time past labor bureaus have been in operation in several English parishes. Not only is there a steady growth of employ- ers using these bureaus, but a better class of employers, and the employment given is much more of a permanent character than it used to be. The function of the labor bureau should be strictly limited to facilitating the supply of and demand for labor, the bringing together employers and workmen, other than in strikes and lockouts. The existing bureaus should be taken over and worked by the Labor Department of the Board of Trade and a central labor exchange opened. These bureaus are a common ground on which those who advocate State aid and those who oppose it can \\oik together. They are at least a palliative, and though they cover but a little ground of the great field of the problem with which they art- connected, yet no real remedy should be neglected because its operation would be limited. S. D. FULLER, Chair- man of the Paddington Board of Guardians, in the London Times, May 1896.
The Psychological Method in Sociology. The psychological method possesses a particular characteristic which distinguishes it from all others. The historical method, the statistical, the experimental, etc., correspond always to these two proper- ties: (i) they maintain invariably their own logical type, that is, if they are inductive in one case they are in all others, and (2) they always present the same character of application, whatever may be the scicn in vrhkb they are employed. For example, the historical method is always inductive ami it functions in the same way in polit- ical economy, in psychology, in ethics and in law. But the psychological method does not conform t these two characteristics. It appears sometimes as a form of inductive, and sometimes as a form of deductive logic. In the j>li;l. >"]!,. f 1..
