own need, awaken dangerous passions and reckless defiance of law.  The lack of education, contact with absorption of law-defying philosophies of life, tend to make crime appear natural and justified.  All of these unhealthy conditions are being attacked under the spur of our new social conscience; and with every step in social alleviation crime diminishes.  Criminals are, in general, just such men and women as we; in like situations we too should be tempted to crime.  We might all repeat with Bunyan:  “There, but for the grace of God, go I!” Give every man and woman a fair chance for happiness in normal ways, and the lure of crime will largely vanish.[Footnote:  Cf.  An Open Letter to Society from Convict 1776 (F.  H. Revell Co.).] Yet human nature in its most favorable circumstances and in its most favored individuals has its twists and its anti-social impulses.  For the potential criminal-and that means for every one of us-there must be elaborated also a system of moral or religious training which shall seek to develop the better nature that is in every man and enchain the brute.  With such a discipline imposed upon each generation there would be a far greater hope for the repression of evil tendencies, whether due to temperamental perversion or provocative environment.

(2) If there is much to be done in the prevention of crime, there is also much to be done in insuring the prompt conviction of offenders.  The legal delays and obtrusion of the technicalities which now so often obstruct the administration of justice, hold out a means to the criminal of escaping punishment, work hardship to the poor, who cannot afford to employ the sharpest lawyers, and needlessly retard the clearing of the reputation of the innocent.  The overuse of the plea of insanity has become latterly a public scandal.  In certain courts it has sometimes seemed impossible to convict a criminal who has plenty of money or strong political influence.  In other cases such men have been set free on bail and proceeded to further may have to wait years for compensation; if they are poor, they may hesitate to set out on the long and dubious course of a lawsuit; or, if they embark upon it, it is only by an agreement wherein the speculator- lawyer takes the lion’s share of the compensation.  The result of all this friction in the machinery of the courts is an increase in crime, and an increase in the illegal punishment of crime.  Lynching, which are such a disgrace to this country, are due primarily to indignation at crime which bids fair to be inadequately punished; they will occur, in spite of their injustice and brutality, until the penalties of the law are made universally prompt and sure and fair.[Footnote:  See J. E. Cutler, Lynch Law.  Outlook, vol. 99, p. 706.] A wholesome disregard of technicalities, and an interpretation of the law in the line of equity, a rigid exclusion of irrelevant evidence and argument, the provision of an adequate number of courts to prevent the piling up of cases, and of a public defender, of skill and training, to look after the interests of the poor, the removal of judgeships from politics by the general improvement of our political system, and the adjudgment of insanity only by impartial, state-hired alienists-these are some of the reforms that ethical considerations suggest.[Footnote:  Cf.  W. H. Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty, ii.  Outlook, vol. 92, p. 359; vol. 98, p. 884.]