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ical work the approved dicta of statistical science. Professor Mayo-Smith has done this in excellent fashion and thus merits the thanks of all those who, to use his own words, are working for the "development of a sane and intelligent sociology." Our author has drawn from the best official sources, has arranged the data intelligibly, and his analyses though sometimes meager are sound and direct. One cannot say that he has prepared an elaborate scientific treatise, since but brief consideration has been given to statistical method and technique. But he has arranged the principal contents of statistical science which bear close relation to sociology in such an interesting and managable way that no teacher of the latter subject can afford to do without the book.


Punishment and Reformation. By Frederick Howard Wines, LL. D. T. T. Crowell & Co., New York, 1895, pp. ix+339.

In a work on this subject the personality of the author is not a minor element. The conclusions reached are much more influential when stated by Dr. Wines who derived valuable suggestion and inspiration from a father who devoted his life to the study, and who has himself for a quarter of a century been identified with reform movements and public service.

The work is substantially the lectures given before the University of Wisconsin and the Lowell Institute. It is popular in form and contents, and yet deserves the attention of students and professional men. The author seeks to influence action, and this practical purpose has determined what material should be accepted and what rejected. The large hortatory element is explained by the practical purpose of the speaker.

The social sentiments relating to crime are traced in their historical evolution, from the half-instinctive and reflex vengeance of savages through the regulated retributive justice of former ages to the more humane desire to reform the criminal which has characterized this century.

In a very interesting way we have sketched the judicial procedure which corresponds to those evolving sentiments, and the modes of punishment which symbolize the feelings of communities toward law-breakers. It is shown that the methods of compensation common among savages, the ordeal or appeal to God in theocratic communities,