come the official difficulties that lay in the way of my reaching the lepers. To her Imperial Majesty I owe everything, and for whatever I have been able to accomplish, I have to thank her, and her alone.

But I did not start for Siberia all at once. I traveled about Europe for several months, spending some time at Constantinople and in the Holy Land with a view to studying leprosy wherever I found it. It was not until January that I left Moscow for Yakutsk. On my way I visited all the prisons, the etappes (stage-houses), vagabond-houses, hospitals and military hospitals. Some of these places are in a very bad state, but the Government is doing all it can to improve matters, and I expect to see great alterations when I return.

From Moscow to the leper settlement is 7,000 miles, a terrible journey but I did not care what hardships I went through so long as I reached the lepers. The first few hundred miles we went by train, then we had to take to sleighs and tarantas (a kind of cart without springs) dragged by horses over the snow. Then came a very trying 2,000 miles on the river Lena. For three weeks I lived on board a cargo barge with six men for companions, but as I did not know their language I could not converse with them. Professor Tschersky, the explorer, was going down the river in another barge. Part of the time his barge was tied to mine and as he spoke French I was able to talk with him sometimes-a privilege I much enjoyed.

At last I reached Yakutsk, tired, stiff, and dirty, and was told that it was almost impossible for a woman to get to Viluisk, or to reach the lepers who were hidden away in impassable woods, far up into the interior, while their condition was so deplorable that nothing could be done to help them. However the authorities were very kind, and did all they could to assist me, and on June 22, 1891 I began my long ride of 2,000 miles through the forest. We traveled by night as the horseflies prevented our traveling by day. I slept in a tent which the men pitched for me when the night's journey was over. We halted at the post stations but it was impossible to sleep in the huts, in which cattle and human beings were huddled together, as they were full of vermin.

The community at Viluisk had heard of my coming, they had cleared a path of 1,000 miles through the forest, and even built bridges over the more dangerous marshes, but to do this they had to put aside their agricultural work for the summer. I did not stay long at Viluisk, but pushed on for the forest. This stage I took thirty men with me, as each tribe has its own leper, and caste is kept up even among the lepers. Water was scarce, and we often had to drink from the ponds where the lepers bathed.

Soon after entering the forest I noticed something moving between the trees. It was a leper boy. I dismounted and walked toward him, but the poor child kept moving backwards, thinking I was frightened at his disease, and it was not easy to make him understand that I wished to talk with him through an interpreter. So great is the fear of lepers that if it is decided that a man, woman, or child has the disease it is at once sent into the forest to live apart forever. Even the children of lepers are sent to join their parents.

The leper yourtas are often not more than eighteen feet long by twelve feet wide. The inmates have to sleep on benches along the walls without any mattresses. Sometimes they are crowded, having as many as twelve persons in them, besides cows and calves. They have no clothing save such old wornout sheep-skins as are given to them. In some cases they live quite alone.

"

The Yakutsk believe that all lepers are possessed" by the devil, and isolate them accordingly. The relatives of the afflicted ones look after them to a certain extent, taking them weekly supplies of food, and coffins for their dead, which they leave near at hand, but the difficulties of reaching them are so great that anything like regularity is unattainable.

show them that they are as much God's people as we are, and that there are some who care for them. To this end I hope to found a colony or series of colonies in Northern Siberia, to which I propose to return as soon as I shall have collected the funds necessary for the execution of my project. The Society of Arts has published a pamphlet, in Russian, of my experiences, which they expect will bring in £1,000, and I hope the sale of my book and of my photograph will further assist the cause. I propose, too, going to America shortly, to lecture and try to get together more funds. Happily there are no religious difficulties to encounter, the Greek Church being in full sympathy with my mission as attested by letters in my possession, one of them from the Bishop of Yakutsk and Viluisk.

THE RELATION OF DRUNKENNESS TO CRIME. S. A. K. STRAHAN, M.D.

THE

National Popular Review, Chicago, December.

HE class here referred to as instinctive criminals does not include those who have become criminal from passion, poverty, and temptation, or even from example and education alone. It is composed solely of individuals who take to antisocial ways by instinct or nature, and who murder and steal and lie and cheat, not because they are driven to do so by force of adverse circumstances, but because they are drawn to such a course by an instinct which is born in them, and which is too strong to be resisted by their weak volitional power, had they the desire to resist, which they have not.

To this class belongs fully two-thirds of our whole criminal population, including offenders of all grades, from the murderer down to the petty thief. To this class also belongs a still larger proportion of prostitutes and habitual drunkards, who, although not criminal in the eye of the law, are anti-social in their instincts. The prostitute ranks with the petty offender of the male sex; she bears all the well-marked signs of degeneration found in male thieves, swindlers, and vagabonds, and her existence accounts, to a certain extent, for the large excess of male over female criminals. It is common in degenerate families to find that while the sons take to crime the daughters take to prostitution.

The instinctive criminal is, in every case, a more or less degenerate specimen of humanity: the representative of a decaying race. Primarily, it is his moral nature that is at fault and leads him to offend against society; but if we examine more closely we shall find that his whole economy, moral, physical, and intellectual, is more or less degenerate. He is scrofulous, not seldom deformed, predisposed to insanity in the ratio of forty to one of the ordinary population, and to suicide in the proportion of twenty to one.

The criminal is very closely related to the insane, especially the congenital insane, and personally he bears points of resemblance to the idiot. Now, if we inquire into the family history of these criminals, it will at once become evident that there is a most intimate relationship existing between the instinctive criminal and such other markedly degenerate conditions as idiocy, epilepsy, suicide, insanity, prostitution, tubercular disease, and habitual drunkenness. All these and other degenerate states are met with in the parents and brothers. and sisters of the criminal, and so generally as to prove beyond all possibility of doubt that the moral decay, of which instinctive crime is the outcome, is but one of the many forms in which family degeneration shows itself.

Occasionally a whole generation of criminals appears in a decaying family; but in the majority of cases crime appears. only in one, two, or three members of the family, the brothers. and sisters showing the taint in various other ways. One will be scrofulous, or a deaf-mute, another insane, idiotic, epileptic, a prostitute, or habitual drunkard, as the case may be. And now a word as to the sources of this degeneration of

more.

of modern civilized life tend towards the reduction of vital energy, and the degeneration of the race; still there are some which are specially prone to terminate in instinctive crime, and first in this list stands drunkenness. Carefully drawn statistics of 4,000 criminals who have passed through Elmira Reformatory, New York, shows drunkenness clearly existing in the parents of 38.7 per cent., and probably in 11.1 per cent. Out of 71 criminals, whose ancestry Rossi was able to trace, the father was a drunkard in 20, and the mother in II cases (43.6 per cent.). Maseo found that on an average 41 per cent. of the criminals he examined had a drunken parent. Dr. Laurent, in his valuable work on the habitués of the Paris prisons, asserts that drunkenness alone, or combined with some other neurotic condition, is to be found almost constantly in the parents of criminals; and Dr. Tarnowski, who has made careful inquiry into the mental and physical condition of the prostitutes in her native land, found an alcoholic parentage in no less than 82.66 per cent. of the 150 women of this class whose family histories she was able to follow. Of course here, as elsewhere, environment plays a certain part in the formation of character, but as it cannot account for the scrofula, so, also, it cannot account for the crime and prostitution. As Lucas has said: "In these heritages of crime example and education are only secondary and auxiliary causes, the true first cause is hereditary influence."

And now a word as to the treatment of the instinctive criminal:

Upon the criminal from passion or poverty, and upon the designing person who, after thinking the matter out, elects to run the risks of his action, primitive imprisonment has a deterrent effect; but upon the criminal from instinct and the habitual drunkard it has no more effect than had the whip and the chain upon the raving maniac of a hundred years ago. The system I propose is a prolonged incarceration upon an indefinite sentence, in an industrial penitentiary where every humane effort would be made to improve the criminal, morally, physically, and intellectually. The crippled in mind and body we succor without question as to cause or origin. Why should the crippled in moral nature be the only one in all humanity to be scoffed at and punished because of his affliction?

OLD-AGE PENSIONS.

THE HONORABLE SIR CHARLES W. Fremantle, K.C.B.* Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, London, September to December.

THE

HE question of old-age pensions has now been many months before the public and may by this time be considered to have become worn somewhat threadbare. Yet the question is surely a great and important one, on the wise solution of which the welfare of a not inconsiderable part of our population may materially depend.

In Great Britain various schemes for pensioning old people have been put forward. None of these deserve more respect than that of Mr. Charles Booth, because his views on any subject connected with the welfare of the poor must always command the highest respect. His bold proposal is nothing less than a scheme for universal pensions or general endowment of old age. It is proposed by him that every man and woman in the United Kingdom-duke and dock laborer, countess and Costermonger-shall, after reaching the age of 65, receive a pension of £13 a year or 5s. a week. Mr. Booth calculates that there are at present 733,000 women and 590,000 men, or about 1,323,000 persons in all above sixty-five years of age, in England and Wales. Therefore a universal pension of £13 a head would amount for those parts of the United Kingdom alone to £17,000,000 a year. Every person, whatever be his or

* Sir Charles is the President of the Economic Science and Statistics Section of the British Association, and this paper is a digest of a portion of his Address delivered at the meeting of the Association held this year at Edinburgh.

her position or antecedents, whether good or bad, rich or poor, thrifty or reckless, is to be treated in precisely the same way. No man, however wealthy or neglectful of his duties to society, however drunken or improvident, as soon as he has reached the magic age, is to be debarred from the right to receive his pension. Is there any merit, I would ask, in living to sixty-five? And cannot a man or woman who has attained that age be almost as great a discredit to society as at any preceding time of life. I see no chance of the scheme of Mr. Booth or any other scheme so far proposed in Great Britain being adopted. In France and Italy Bills creating old-age pensions have been submitted to the Parliament of each country, but no such Bill has yet been passed. In Germany and Denmark, Bills have been enacted providing pensions for old age. The systems in both countries, however, have too recently gone into operation to allow of any opinion as to their ultimate effect. Everywhere out of Great Britain, the systems proposed or in force are burdened with conditions to which I do not think any class or disposition of my countrymen would submit.

Is there, then, no way in which help can be rendered to our deserving poor? Must the present state of things go on, and the public conscience continue to be shocked at the sight of thousands of old people lapsing hopelessly into pauperism?

.

How is old-age pauperism brought about? There is doubtless a not inconsiderable part of our population which might make at least some provision for old age, but which prefers the careless living from hand to mouth, and considers subscription to a burial club the only claim which the future has upon it. Even when there is some thought of the morrow, inveterate habit leads many bread-winners to think more of the immediate than of the comparatively distant future, and to provide rather against the risk of accident or illness by joining a sick club than against the remote prospect of destitution when the day of work is over. When all this is conceded there must remain, no doubt, many cases of unforeseen and undeserved misfortune in which old age overtakes the toiler without his having had a chance of making provision for it-cases where wages have hardly ever been such as to allow of saving, where families have been large and sickly, where the struggling widow, work and pinch how she might, has had difficulty in keeping the wolf from the door. These are the hardships with which we must all sympathize-these are the sorrows we should all wish to relieve.

Putting unavoidable misfortune aside, however, for the moment, let us consider whether our present system is such as to offer the maximum amount of encouragement to self-help and self-reliance, and the minimum amount of encouragement to an easy-going frame of mind which looks forward to pauperism with equanimity. What are the prospects, generally speaking, of the average worker who has made no provision for his old age? He sees the system of out-door relief in full operation; he knows that unless and until he becomes utterly hopeless and friendless, a dole will be made to him which will keep him from starvation, and he learns to look forward to this dole without repugnance and without dismay.

If we had reason to believe that the poor law could be administered in this manner only, we should perhaps be justified in at once looking outside of it for means to improve the condition of our aged poor. The very reverse, however, is the case. We have abundant evidence that by firm and patient administration the condition of whole districts in regard to pauperism may be radically changed, to the great benefit, material and moral, of the poorer inhabitants. During the last twenty years experiments in this direction have been made, both in urban and rural districts, not conceived in the spirit of empiricism or caprice, but undertaken as the result of ripe experience, and with a single eye to the real interests of the poor, which have been attended with complete success. The tendency of the reforms effected has been, as is well known, towards a great reduction, and in some cases the total abolition of out-door relief.

I have endeavored to show in regard to one of the great social questions which occupy men's minds to-day, that for the promotion of the best interests of our aged poor, there may be a more excellent way' than a vast organization of Stateaided pensions. May we work out this and other simular problems, as Englishmen do, calmly, wisely, and to good effect!

"

"

IN

BACON vs. SHAKESPEARE.

THE PLAINTIFF'S BRIEF TRAVERSED. THE REVEREND A. NICHOLSON, LL.D.

Arena, Boston, December.

II.

N Section 10 of the plaintiff's brief [see THE LITERARY DIGEST, Vol. V., No. 16, p. 432], it is urged that Stratford and the Avon are not mentioned in the plays, while St. Albans, York Place, and the County of Kent, are frequently introduced. But the latter names occur as part of the history dramatized. The same is true of St. Albans, which was one of the ordinary stages on the road to the north. On the other hand, we have in the plays clear indications of intimate knowledge of localities and names in the neighborhood of Stratford and the Avon, and these not introduced as matters of course. For instance, we have the Forest of Arden, Barton-heath, Wincot; also several family names of Stratford and its vicinity, as Sly, in the "Taming of the Shrew," and Marion Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot. It has been ascertained from local registers that Hackets" lived in the last-named place.

Section 11.-If the original MSS. of the plays handled by the editors of the Folio of 1623 had been in the handwriting of the Lord Chancellor, the mystery would have been exploded at once. Judge Holmes saw this clearly when he said:

He [Bacon] must have destroyed them before his death, if this theory be true; any other supposition would seem to be wholly inadmissible.-Holmes, Vol. L., P. 75.

Section 12.—Poverty is no evidence, and the period of the plays from 1597 happens to have been the busiest time of Bacon's life. He was engaged in practice at the bar and in great affairs of State. It is lightly assumed that his philosophical works were dispatched offhand about the time of publication; but it is known from his papers and notes what labor and systematic preparation he devoted to these great works. His friend and biographer, Dr. Rawley, shows how little leisure Bacon had from law, public affairs, and philosophy.

Section 13.-Under this head there is no semblance of argument.

If Jonson was Bacon's private secretary, he was also Shakespeare's friend. In the folio of 1623 appears his long and celebrated panegyric of the “Sweet Swan of Avon.” We are now asked to believe that in the lines written under Shakespeare's portrait in the same volume, we have an exquisite satire that Ben Jonson means to post a lampoon under the frontispiece. This is truly exquisite nonsense.

Section 14.*-This argument proves too much, and, therefore, nothing; for in 1604 the play of “ Henry the Eighth" was printed, and afterwards in the folio of 1623; and notwithstanding that in this case 'the gap was filled” by the play, Bacon had in 1623 collected materials for his prose history of

Section 16.-The argument herein seems to be that the publication of the plays with Shakespeare's name is no proof of his authorship, because (1) Shakespeare was a nom de plume with the dramatic wits of his time, and (2) Shakespeare was ready to adopt as his own any child of the drama laid upon his doorstep. These assertions are reckless and made without a particle of evidence. Nay, we happen to know the reversethat, when Thomas Heywood complained that Jaggard, the publisher, carelessly inserted two epistles of his in the Passionate Pilgrim," that author added in justice to Shakespeare: But as I acknowledge my lines not worthy his patronage, so the author much offended with M. Jaggard that altogether unknown to him presumed to make so bold with his name.-Apology for Actors.

Section 17. All the plays in the folio had been represented on the stage in Shakespeare's time, aad were thus well known to the patrons of the folio, the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. The editors were Shakespeare's two friends, fellowactors, long associated with his works and professional life. The editors had the original MSS., remarkable for "the beauty and neatness of the copy." At this time Bacon was in no mood "to roll apples of discord down the ages." He writes to Buckingham, "I am now full three years old in misery," and to the King, "Det vestra majestas obolum Belisario.” Section 18. The contention that Henry VIII." and Timon" bear upon them marks of the personal history of Bacon, of his reverses and fall, is refuted by the history and dates of the plays, which were previous to 1816. Bacon's catastrophe came in 1621.

Section 19.-It was not, indeed, within the purpose of some great writers referred to, to notice the drama, and many great names are left by them unnoticed. But we have ample historical evidence and a great array of contemporary writers bearing witness to the merit of the plays, and to the authorship, the reputation, and the identity of Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare and Francis Bacon are the two greatest names of our literature. Of the Elizabethan age they were the bright particular stars, each illuminating his own region of the sky.

William Shakespeare will never be dethroned. Men and women of his race, whether of England or America, will continue to contemplate his memory with hereditary pride, so long as the great works which bear his name are the treasure of both our peoples.

A BLOW AT the freedom of the press.
HANNIS TAYLOR.

North American Review, New York, December.
I.

NDER the Constitution of the United States, as lately

of that work, which, he states, he desires to finish (Letter to the King, November, 1622). The Shakespeare plays and the Bacon works have no relations or connection with each other. Section 15.-(1) Of "Troilus and Cressida” (1609) it is said the author was indifferent to precuniary reward. Very good. Judge Holmes, speaking of Shakespeare at that period (1604), says, "He had now acquired a brilliant reputation and an ample fortune." (2) The play was evidently written by an actor; notably, the long passage in I., 3, beginning “And like a strutting

same despotic power over the intellectual contents of all communications, written or printed, open or under seal, which pass through the mail, that was exercised at the end of the Middle Ages in Europe.

*This is not Section 14 of Dr. Nicholson's brief, but corresponds to the section so numbered in the plaintiff's brief by Mr. Reed. Editor of the Arena says in an explanatory note, that advance copies of the plaintiff's brief were sent to the English counsel for Shakespeare to enable them to prepare their argument. Subsequently the plaintiff's brief was condensed by omitting Section 14 and part of Section 19. The DIGEST omits those portions of Dr. Nicholson's present argument which merely traverse the omitted parts of Mr. Reed's brief.

Congress to the public morals"; it may decline "to become an agent in the circulation of printed matter which it regards as injurious to the people." Congress may refuse "to assist in the dissemination of matters condemned by its judgment, through the governmental agencies which it controls."

It is thus clearly and curtly declared that Congress may exclude from the mail every document, public or private, political, religious, or social, whenever the ideas or principles which it seeks to disseminate are “condemned by its judgment," "as injurious to the people." The only restriction that rests upon this new-born despotism is that Congress cannot " prevent the transportation in other ways, as merchandise, of matter which it excludes from the mails." The Court holds that the Constitution guarantees to the people no right whatever to disseminate their ideas through the only agency which Congress controls. It is one of the most remarkable episodes in our judicial history.

In the Constitutional Convention of 1787 no special limitation for guarding freedom of speech and of the press was inserted in the Constitution, simply because it was by the majority deemed unnecessary. But as soon as it was settled that amendments embodying a Bill of Rights were to be added, five States proposed, in as many different forms, the suggestion out of which grew the clause of the First Amendment, which expressly forbids Congress, by name, from making any law "abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." Thus was this vital provision set in the forefront of our National Bill of Rights.

The meaning of this provision was then known to all men, even to the judges. It was understood as denying to Congress that kind of political censorship which had passed away from the Crown and the Parliament of England a century before; as denying to the judges that kind of judicial censorship which Mansfield had vainly struggled to uphold; and as a guarantee to every American citizen, so far as the Federal Government was concerned, of the right to speak or write what he pleased, subject only to the censorial power which resides in juries alone.

At a later day when Congress prohibited the circulation through the mail of immoral literature, the same constitutional guarantee was kept steadily in view. It is unquestioned that under the authority granted Congress to "establish postoffices and post-roads," plenary power was given to regulate the entire postal system of the country, subject only to the limitation that it shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,-the simple meaning of which is that no one shall be punished on account of the contents of any document sent through the mail until a jury has first determined under "the law of the land," that the same is either immoral or illegal. Recognizing this limitation, Congress, in the perfectly constitutional statute forbidding circulation through the mail of immoral and obscene literature, expressly provided that in all such cases the fact of immorality or obsenity must be passed upon by juries alone. In the leading case of United States vs. Bennett, 16 Blatch., 343, the judge charged the jury: The only question, therefore, which you are called upon to decide is whether or not the book is obscene, lewd, or lascivious, or of an indecent character." When the Act was passed, it never occurred to Congress that it might, by flatly ignoring the First Amendment, re-create the medieval censorship and establish an Index Expurgatorius for all publications which its arbitrary judgment might deem obscene or immoral.

If the decision lately made by the Supreme Court-to the effect that all communications may be arbitrarily excluded from the mail when the ideas they embrace are "deemed injurious by Congress to the public morals"-be a sound one, then at its next session Congress may amend the Act against immoral literature by incorporating into it a black list of all the books and papers which have passed under the ban of its censorial judgment, and this may include the New Testament alongside of the works of Voltaire.

A

THE RESTORATION OF ANCIENT STATUES.
COMTE CHARLES DE MOUŸ.

Le Correspondant, Paris, November 10.

T the extremity of the long central avenue, Unter den Linden, which is the centre of Berlin, at the end of a bridge which crosses one of the arms of the Spree, is a vast Place, on the right side of which stands the old castle of the kings of Prussia; on the left, facing the castle, beyond a great square, rises at the top of a long flight of steps, an edifice in the Greek style, with columns and pediment. This is the palace of the Museum, consecrated to ancient sculpture and to pictures by the old classic masters. It contains one of the most beautiful collections in Europe and its riches increase every year by intelligent acquisitions. It has an administration full of zeal, learned, and suitably endowed. Every year, the directors of the Fine Arts keep the public fully informed as to their new purchases, by placing them in a gallery which serves for a vestibule. In that way every one can know what has been done, and in what way the sums raised to enrich the artistic patrimony of the country have been spent. Afterwards these works are scattered among the accumulations of former years, according to their date and the school of the artist.

The collection is arranged in the best manner, one most favorable for study. The Catalogue is a model of erudition, sober and precise. The friends of art cannot too highly praise the wisdom shown in the arrangement and the constant effort to improve them.

The Museum of Greek and Roman Sculpture comprises two classes of work, each quite distinct from the other: the statues acquired during the last twenty years and those acquired previously. A sensible difference of method is disclosed at the first glance in the condition of the two classes: the latter-the old acquisitions-are restored, and for the most part reconstructed; the former remain as they were found when dug up. Formerly and this system was followed in all the galleries of Europe-directors could not make up their minds to offer to the public remains only, and they restored, with divers pieces of marble they had on hand, entire statues, according to suggestions, sometimes probable, often doubtful, taking a separate head, arm, or leg, joining them together to make a whole with more or less art and probability. They also added to the work modern pieces, and mounted on the pedestals figures re-made with so much address that at first sight the ingenious substitutions were not perceived. At the Louvre this method of proceeding has been largely employed. Labels, affixed at the base of the statues thus repaired, point out frankly the relation of the various pieces which compose it, and you can judge just how much-and often how little-of the real antique would remain, if the modern restitutions were taken away. At Berlin, the most of the marbles have been restored in this way, whether the restoration has been done in the Museum or in the different galleries acquired by the Government. In all cases, however, the Catalogue enumerates frankly the repairs. It cannot be denied that this method of skillful rehabilitation presents at first glance a much more agreeable aspect than the exhibition of simple fragments. This method, however, has the grave defect of substituting for real objects those which are the productions of fancy. A head and limbs borrowed from one statue and placed on another can never give an exact idea of the original work. I admit, though with much reservation, à support or a foot may be added to a statue, in order to aid in the comprehension of the pose and cause the whole to be appreciated. Yet an entire world separates the addition of these necessary bits from the arbitrary reconstruction from head to foot with fragments which do not match or with marbles cut by the chisel of a recent sculptor. In the latter way, a gallery makes, it is true, a very fine appearance. Everything in it appears complete, and it looks as