THE JUNIOR REPUBLIC
445
ble and straightforward than could possibly be the case under the ordinary management by adults.
It is sometimes objected that the prominence given to the police, to courts and litigation, in the Republic will have evil
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tendencies ; that among the class of people from whom the children come these are already too prominent, and are the means I'm- increasing petty spites and neighborhood dissensions. Such may, indeed, have been at first the case, but I have men- tioned above the decrease in civil litigation, owing to the expe- rienced costliness of the proceedings. As for criminal cases, the fact that in 1X96 the police force numbered fourteen, while in 1897 the number was only two, indicates a falling off in crime. Without doubt arrests are made through spite and retaliation on the part of the prosecuting witnesses. 1 ha\ e s< < n such on the ground, and have heard charges of others. Hut that the spite and retaliation would be lessened through the
