THE YOUNG MALEFACTOR.
The Young Malefactor. By Thomas Travis, Ph.D. (T. Y. Crowell and Co., Now York. 6s.)—The introduction to Dr. Travis's book is written by the "Judge of the Denver Juvenile Court." He makes a remark which is curiously illustrative of the whole subject. " In one of the first cases I ever tried the district
attorney told me it would take only five minutes I have really been five years in trying that case, and have not finished it yet." What the young criminal is, how he has come to be what he is, what may be made of him,—these are questions of the complex kind. The Judge speaks • in the highest terms of the volume before us, and no one should know better how to estimate it. Dr. Travis does not accept Lombroso's theories. He does not believe in the congenital criminal. Nearly all the offences brought before the Juvenile Courts are normal ; all the normal offences, and some of the abnormal, are the result of environment,—only a very few are " atavistic " criminals. The curative influence is a real home. lint he believes in heredity. He quotes the case of the Juke family. One Robert Juke was born about a hundred and eighty years ago in New York State. Out of his descendants seven hundred and nine have been traced. Amoug these were found seventy-six confirmed criminals, and more than half the women were harlots. The family has cost New York State £250,000. On the very lowest ground, it is worth while looking after the "young malefactor."
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