pended sentences is the lowest in the State, somewhat more than half as high as in the rural districts where probation is least highly developed. The explanation is that the probation staff in New York County is used liberally for investigation and advice before the suspension of sentence, and that its advice to grant the suspension of sentence is given with careful discrimination.

During the last fourteen years in New York State, 206,298 persons were discharged from probation; 78.5 per cent. completed their probation terms without committing other offenses and were honorably discharged, while 10.9 per cent. were arrested for violating probation or for committing other offenses and were imprisoned. Only 4.9 per cent. escaped from supervision.

The system of parole for offenders released from correctional institutions has received more criticism in New York, as in other places, than has probation. This is partly due to the fact that serious crimes are committed by men while still on parole. If parole means a shortening of the prison sentence and the release of men to continue in crime, it deserves criticism. If, on the other hand, parole means continuance of the supervision by the institution after release and an effort gradually to adjust the offender to normal life in society, it should be highly commended. This is the purpose of parole, hence the system itself cannot be objected to, but only its faulty administration.

With the seriously defective who cannot withstand the temptations of life in society, and with the habitual offender who has no intention of reform, treatment must be different. Probation is not applicable in either case. The institution is required. Most judges, if given the proper machinery for determining mental defects and for the full investigation of previous records, personality and social factors in each case, can be counted upon to use the power of probation properly.

Almost without exception it has been found that the bandits who had been terrorizing the country had served one or more prison terms. They were graduates of our reformatories and penal institutions. Sending these men to prison did not cure them. Longer prison terms, as was proposed, would not do it. For the protection of society and the solution of the crime problem, we must strengthen every available method of reforming the

offender in and out of the institutions. Most important of all, we must begin with the young, giving the greatest attention to the early and first offender, and we must discriminate between the different types of delinquents appearing in our courts.

It is a truth as old as Beccaria and Howard, over a century ago, that it is not the severity but the celerity and certainty of punishment that give it its power to deter and repress criminal action. A fatal mistake is made when there is an attempt to utilize cruel severity as the sole weapon to combat criminal action. In the history of crime and punishment there is written in letters of fire the truth that savage punishment defeats its own ends. No one prescription such as long term sentence or severity will cure the evil. The question is not so much whether we are coddling criminals as it is of the extent of our realization of the magnitude of the problem, and the necessity of bringing to its solution humanitarian principles and scientific methods. More important still is the aim at prevention which is the latest development in society's war against crime. In the meantime the best things we can do are to organize and equip better the police and the offices of the District Attorney and to provide the courts and all of our institutions dealing with delinquency with clinics and an adequate staff of well trained probation and parole officers, and give to those who administer these agencies greater powers of scientific discrimination in order to bring about individual treatment, not falling back to the old way governed by rigid laws and "feelings”.

No crisis has ever arisen in America that our people were not able to meet. There can be no question of the capacity of our people to protect themselves in the fullest measure from the encroachments of the anti-social, while at the same time vindicating their high standards of national civilization.

IS DIVORCE THE WAY OUT?

BY CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON

AT a dinner not long ago, my companion on one side, who was about thirty-two, turned to me, knowing me intimately, and said: "Frances, my wife, has decided to go abroad for a little trip, and I don't like it."

"Why don't you like it?" was my reply.

"Well," said my friend, "I don't like it. I have done my best to show Frances that I want to make my married life my first thought. I have always come straight from the office to my home. I never go to the club unless for special occasions, and I have gotten into the habit of going home to see the children and Frances. If the woman goes away, the man easily loses that type of habit. It is very easy for a man to get into the way of stopping at the club. It is pleasant. There is always someone there—a game of bridge is nice-and one soon finds that that habit has become stronger than the other. Also, an 'extra man' is always wanted, and life becomes a different type of life the moment a man's wife leaves him. I don't like Frances to go. I am very fond of her."

"How long does Frances mean to be away?" was my query. "Oh, about five or six weeks," answered my companion. "Don't you think that a man could perhaps hold on to a 'habit' for five or six weeks?" I asked.

"Things change very quickly," he answered; and I then decided to question him a little further.

"Frances has had three babies in about six years, if I remember rightly," said I. "And during that time you have been a hard working and successful business man, have you not?"

"Yes, I have given much time to my business, for our future depends on it."

"Well," said I, "you must remember that although you have worked hard, although business is onerous, there is always inter

est in it, there is always contact with others, there is always the excitement of the job, of the goal. You must remember also that during those six years, life for Frances has been a good deal circumscribed. Her horizon, unlike yours, has been narrowed rather than broadened. Nursery walls have kept her somewhat 'cabined and confined', and for a young woman, no matter how devotedly she may love her children, such a life leaves certain things to be desired. You would not think anything of going on a shooting trip for five or six weeks, nor would you feel that you were exposing Frances to unfortunate habits if you had to take a business trip for five or six weeks. I am therefore inclined to feel that Frances, too, deserves her little holiday, if—and this ‘if' is vitally important—she does not prolong her stay away from her family. I cannot help feeling that for so short a period as six weeks a man can use his will power to prevent him from losing his admirable habit of homegoing from business, and if Frances loves you as I am convinced she does, she will be eager on her return to make that habit more delightful to you than ever before. In marriage, the give and take is perhaps the most important part of the transaction, and it is equally important to learn when to loosen the reins and when to tighten them, both on one's self and on one's life companion."

"Oh, I agree with you, up to a certain point," said he. "And I would not tell Frances that I don't like her to go away."

"There," I replied, "I think you make a mistake. I think you should tell her just how you feel. I think you two should talk it over together and if, after thrashing the situation out, you still 'don't like it', I am inclined to feel that Frances would not like to go."

"But," he replied, "I don't want her to stay because she thinks I am opposed to her going. I want her to stay because she wants to stay.'

"That is a perfectly right attitude," I replied. “But you know we are all human. You want to stay with Frances unless a shooting trip turns up, and then, though you still want to stay with Frances, you also want your shooting trip, and your underlying devotion to Frances cannot, I think, be materially injured by a few weeks in the Rockies. Frances, in the same way, wishes

to stay with you, and would rather have you wish her to stay than anything else in the whole wide world, but she, too, is human and, offered suddenly a few weeks abroad, with new sights, no babies, no housekeeping, it is natural for her to want her 'hunting trip'. It would not be right for her to take it if any deep rift could possibly be made within your lute, but it seems to me that your lute should be strung for a brief time at least-remember I say it must be brief—in such a way that no rift could come between you.' After dinner Frances came to speak to me and told me of her proposed trip and I said to her much that I had said to him, adding, however, at the end, that a fine man's devotion was always worth a sacrifice.

In approaching the subject of divorce, the incident that I have just related bears upon it in more ways than one. There are various reasons for the appalling increase in the number of divorces.

The first reason that comes to my mind is that, in late years, there is so much more possibility of perpetual motion. In the old days, before the motor, and the telephone, there was much more stability in home life, and without stability, home life cannot exist.

The second reason for the increase in divorces is the fact that a larger number of young couples have wealth, and wealth, with married people, allows greater independence of each other.

The third and perhaps most vital reason is because of what is called "Individualism". Individuals were always individuals, but the cult of "Individualism" has increased to such a great degree that the theory of "Self Expression" has become an art all its own.

I believe in self expression, but I believe also in the perfectly demonstrable fact that each personality is linked inextricably to those with whom he or she has cast in his or her lot; and that each individual, through her or his influence on those who are close to them, affects or is affected by them in such a manner as to make it impossible to express himself or herself to the exclusion of the interests of the immediate circle. No one human being can say "I will stand alone; I will express myself," without taking into consideration the effect on others produced by such an attitude.