at all, and society, in order to prevent lawlessness from completely getting the upper hand, was obliged to make a terrible example of all offenders coming within its grasp.  As soon, however, as it became less difficult to arrest and convict lawless persons, the old severities of the criminal code immediately began to fall into abeyance.  Sentences were shortened, punishments were mitigated, the death penalty was abolished for almost all crimes except murder.  But even now, the moment society sees any form of crime showing a tendency to evade the vigilance of the law, a cry is immediately raised for sterner measures of repression against the perpetrators of that particular form of crime.  The Flogging Bill recently passed by Parliament is a case in point.  These instances afford a fairly accurate insight into the action of society with regard to the punishment of crime.  It punishes severely when the criminal is seldom caught; it punishes more lightly when he is often caught; and its punishments will become more mitigated still, as soon as the probability of capture is made more complete.  A comparatively light sentence is in most cases a very effective deterrent, when it is made almost a certainty, and all alterations in the future in criminal administration should be in the direction of making punishment more certain rather than more severe.  Such efforts are sure to be rewarded by a decrease in the amount of crime.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CRIMINAL IN BODY AND MIND.

Has the criminal any bodily and mental characteristics which differentiate him from the ordinary man?  Does he differ from his fellows in height and weight?  Does he possess a peculiar conformation of skull and brain?  Is he anomalous in face and feature, in intellect, in will, in feeling?  Is he, in short, an individual separated from the rest of humanity by any set or combination of qualities which clearly mark him off as an abnormal being?  As these matters are at present exciting considerable attention, let us now look at the criminal from a purely biological point of view.

A good deal of diversity of opinion exists among competent authorities respecting the stature of criminals.  Lombroso says that Italian criminals are above the average height; Knecht says German criminals do not differ in this respect from other men; Marro says the stature of criminals is variable; Thomson and Wilson say that criminals are inferior in point of stature to the average man.  Whatever may be the case on the Continent, there can be little doubt that as far as the United Kingdom is concerned, the height of the criminal class is lower than that of the ordinary citizen.  In Scotland the average height of the ordinary population is (559) 67.30 inches; the average height of the criminal population, as given by Dr. Bruce Thomson, is (324) 66.95 inches.  According to Dr. Beddoe, the average height of the London artizan