The list here noticed gives a designation of the poisonous substance used in the arts and trades, the branches of industry in which poisoning is known to occur, the mode of entrance into the body, the symptoms of poisoning, and special measures of relief until a physician can be called. Physicians will find in this small pamphlet valuable material, while manufacturers and "welfare workers" should make themselves familiar with the dangers herein revealed. No more vital subject of study can be found. C. R. HENDERSON UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO The Insanity of Passion and Crime. By L. FORBES WINSLOW, M.B., LL.D., CANTAB., D.C.L. OXON. London: John Ouseley. n.d. Pp. 352. It is the tragedy of life's abnormal phenomena which the gifted physician portrays with very great power and literary skill: the passions, incipient insanity, irresponsibility, mental obscurity, criminal abnormality, early mental collapse, feminine loss of balance, heredity. The illustrations are drawn from a long course of observation and reading, and the warnings against excess and neglect have the weight of professional authority. And yet many readers will think they have reason to complain that they are asked to follow ipse dixit; for many assertions not on the bare affirmation of the author. No doubt this authority is high, but most of us desire an indication of sources, of original collections of facts, and independent means of forming a judgment which are usually wanting in this treatise. The treatment of statistics (on p. 206) raises serious doubts about the author's method of interpreting figures. He tells us that in England and Wales in 1859 there was one lunatic in every 536 of the population; in 1909 there was one lunatic in every 278 of the population. The inference is that at this rate of increase in 2209 there will be one in four of the population who will be insane. Truly we live in a "mad world"—if figures do not lie. The premises, however, may be restated with advantage: in 1859 there was one lunatic recorded in every 536 of the population, a very different basis for calculations about the future. The fact is since 1859 the sick of brain have been more carefully sought out, recorded, and brought into institutions, and so appear in statistics. The tendency may be discouraging, but not so hopeless as some think. The illustrations from life are drawn from a long experience in a professional career and from wide reading; every page bristles with suggestion, and the practical warnings are too authoritative to be ignored. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO C. R. HENDERSON Christian Unity at Work. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 1912. Edited by CHARLES S. MACFARLAND, Secretary, 1913. Pp. 291. The Secretary of the Federal Council of Churches has brought together in a volume the speeches, reports, and discussions of the conference held in Chicago in 1912. It is the best available presentation of the aims and opinions of this powerful organization. The conclusions reached and the methods recommended are necessarily stated in very general terms and have only moderate interest for specialists. The ground covered is too wide for contributions of knowledge to any particular topic of the program; but the vista opened in the discussion of internationalism, race improvement, diplomacy, temperance, preservation of the home, and religious education is hopeful and inspiring. C. R. HENDERSON UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Penal Philosophy. By GABRIEL TARDE; translated by RAPELJE HOWELL. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1912. Tarde requires no introduction or recommendation among students of sociology, but this publication of a translation of his great work on crime, under the auspices of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, offers a good occasion to call attention to some of the important discussions contributed by this book. The philosophical controversy on "determinism" versus "free will" is clearly stated, but left where it was before. Tarde insists that his deterministic theory of responsibility is sound; that we can discover a strictly causal series in conduct while we hold the criminal responsible for his deed; but he also clings to the common-sense legal view of the criminal as a man to be blamed and detested. For the criminal is not a savage, not a sick man, not insane, not an epileptic, but just a criminal. The classifications of Lombroso are rejected; there is no "criminal type"; we discover the guilty by his record of conduct, not by his physiognomy and by craniometry. The most reliable distinction among offenders is sociological rather than physiological; and all lawbreakers are classified as urban or rural, with sub-groups of the violent and thieves. One of the most profound suggestions in the whole book is the declaration that while science, art, religion, all tend to diminish crime, commercialism and material success tend to increase it. "There is one sentiment which, in becoming generalized, should it be developed in the mind without a sufficient counterweight, agrees with one of the principles dear to delinquents. This is what we might call the mercantile sentiment, the worship of gold and immediate enjoyment to the exclusion of everything else. . . . . Industry increases the number of products, but where is the collective work which it engenders?" Under our present system this great judge declares business is "to make war on one's neighbor." In an age which is agnostic about all except the value of wealth this note of warning is not likely to be much heeded; but it will be heard when the "noise and shouting dies." .... If Tarde, the lawyer, were heeded, some of our law students would study criminals by serving as assistants or teachers in prisons. Study of criminal law would then be something nearer life than looking at dried specimens in the leaves of penal codes. The argument about capital punishment is a fine and subtle example of walking on a tight rope; the weight of argument on the whole seems to be contrary to the conclusion which apparently is to retain the death penalty, but on impossible conditions. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO C. R. HENDERSON Industrial Warfare. The Aims and Claims of Capital and Labour. By CHARLES WATNEY and JAMES A. LITTLE. London: John Murray, 1912. Pp. x+353. 6s net. A very useful compendium on labor legislation and conditions in Great Britain during the past few years. Very sketchy in places and sometimes not clear, it nevertheless in twenty-five chapters and fifteen appendices gives the essential facts regarding the "Issues and Personalities" of nearly every phase of the labor movement. Eleven chapters are devoted to special industries or classes of workers, as "Cotton and Weaving Trades," "General Labourers," "Women Workers," and others to "Labour Organization," "Syndicalism," "Minimum Wage," "Remedies," "Profit Sharing." The book is purely descriptive and matter-of-fact throughout, a detached position being successfully main tained by the authors. Even in the chapter on "Suggested Remedies" they do not have a special panacea but report faithfully the respective standpoints of employers, workers, and public. Except for hints here and there one must therefore look to the "Introduction" for views attributable to the authors. The chief cause of labor unrest is there said to be "the progress of education," "the development of thought and the advancement in the popular ideals of happiness and comfort" among the laboring classes. There has resulted a widespread feeling that labor does not receive its due proportion of the product of industry. This unrest has come to stay but will assume various forms according to local conditions and the attitude of employers. Though the authors definitely state that "the fight between Capital and Labour" (p. 12, note) is not "class war" (p. 9), they nevertheless very clearly imply that it is just that—a fact also made plain by the title and much of the subject-matter. It would seem that their opinion that labor "will be content with fairer treatment" is also too optimistic. On the contrary human experience universally shows that the demands for larger opportunities and a higher standard of living, like the demands for wealth and liberty, grow with every morsel fed them, except for moments of temporary quiescence; the fundamental demands of labor are in essence the demand for democracy in industry, which like the demand for democracy in politics can stop only at full realization of equality. By way of solution of the labor problem the authors place most confidence in collective bargaining and profit-sharing (p. 10), but without finding them a cure-all (p. 255). There is a certain naïvete in the statement (pp. 6-7) of the relation of gold to prices; and the opinion (p. 7) that "a general increase in the price of commodities rarely affects the very poor" seems preposterous. This brief sketch of the demands of capital and labor in Great Britain and the attempts by legislative and industrial reforms to meet them, or as the Preface describes it, this "résumé in encyclopaedic form" explaining "the exact significance and the probabilities of the growing unrest," should prove valuable reading for all those interested in the industrial situation. It contains lessons from the experiences of a great nation for extremists of every sort. With its index and topical page headings it is a ready reference storehouse of information for the student wishing to acquaint himself with the labor situation in the oldest industrial nation. CLARK COLLEGE F. H. HANKINS The Charity Visitor: A Practical Handbook for Beginners. By AMELIA SEARS. Introduction by CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON. Chicago: The Chicago School of Physics and Philanthropy, 1913. 8vo. Pp. 72. Paper covers. Training for the new profession of social work has been rendered difficult by the lack of textbooks adapted to the use of classes in the schools of philanthropy. This little book will therefore meet a need long felt by all interested in the training of social workers. It describes in simple terms the practice prevailing in the district offices of the United Charities of Chicago, a practice gradually formulated by the superintendent of the Bureau of Charities, Mr. Ernest P. Bicknell, now executive secretary of the National Red Cross Society, and by the general district superintendent of the United Charities. This practice accords, of course, in the main with the accepted practice in well-ordered charity organization societies, so that the material presented has far more than local interest. The topics discussed include among others: "The Initial Visit"-The Visitor's Mental Attitude, The Family Individualized; "Record-making"-with a detailed examination of the Record Card; "Methods of Verification"; "Types of Dependency"; "Sources of Co-operation"-Relatives, Employers, Unions, etc. These topics while briefly presented are yet discussed with sufficient fulness to prepare the student and the new visitor for the delicate and difficult questions of human need and family decline that are found in the case of every applicant for aid. The book should, therefore, be of great interest, not only to the professional student but to all who are concerned with the discovery of the kind and the volume of want and suffering facing the modern city. It will undoubtedly find a welcome on the part of college students of social problems and of those individuals who desire as volunteer visitors to be of service to the poor. As Professor Henderson well says in his sympathetic and discriminating Foreword: Long experience in charity makes us all impatient to see the day when charitable relief, with all its humiliations, and harrowing uncertainties, will be no longer needed, when a fairer distribution of income, a complete system of social hygiene, education and insurance will reduce dependence to a vanishing point; and the hope of promoting that purpose is the chief inspiration of contemporary charity. We know that these tragic case records and the statistics which are gathered from them must quicken the public conscience and lead to nobler methods. Meantime, in spite of cheap and ill-advised jeers at means of relief, which are confessedly only mitigation and not final cure, we cannot |