committed being established beyond peradventure before arresting the suspect, who in the meantime would undoubtedly escape?  Of course, the worthy officer sometimes does this, but his conduct in that case becomes the subject of an investigation on the part of his superiors.  In fact, the rules of the New York police department require him to arrest all persons carrying bags in the small hours who cannot give a satisfactory account of themselves.  Yet there is no such thing under the laws of the State as a right “to arrest on suspicion.”  No citizen may be arrested under the statutes unless a crime has actually been committed.  Thus, the police regulations deliberately compel every officer either to violate the law or to be made the subject of charges for dereliction of duty.  A confusing state of things, truly, to a man who wants to do his duty by himself and by his fellow-citizens!

The present author once wrote a book dealing with the practical administration of criminal justice, in which the unlawfulness of arrest on mere “suspicion” was discussed at length and given a prominent place.  But when the time came for publication that portion of it was omitted at the earnest solicitation of certain of the authorities on the ground that as such arrests were absolutely necessary for the enforcement of the criminal law a public exposition of their illegality would do infinite harm.  Now, as it seems, the time has come when the facts, for one reason or another, should be faced.  The difficulty does not end, however, with “arrest on suspicion,” “the third degree,” “mugging,” or their allied abuses.  It really goes to the root of our whole theory of the administration of the criminal law.  Is it possible that on final analysis we may find that our enthusiastic insistence upon certain of the supposedly fundamental liberties of the individual has led us into a condition of legal hypocrisy vastly less desirable than the frank attitude of our continental neighbors toward such subjects?

The Massachusetts Constitution of 1785 concludes with the now famous words:  “To the end that this may be a government of laws and not of men.”  That is the essence of the spirit of American government.  Our forefathers had arisen and thrown off the yoke of England and her intolerable system of penal government, in which an accused had no right to testify in his own behalf and under which he could be hung for stealing a sheep.  “Liberty!” “Liberty or death!” That was the note ringing in the minds and mouths of the signers of the Declaration and framers of the Constitution.  That is the popular note to-day of the Fourth of July orator and of the Memorial Day address.  This liberty was to be guaranteed by laws in such a way that it was never to be curtailed or violated.  No mere man was to be given an opportunity to tamper with it.  The individual was to be protected at all costs.  No king, or sheriff, or judge, or officer was to lay his finger on a free man save at his peril.  If