Psychol^gy of Salem Witchcraft. By George M. Beard, M.D. (G.
P. Putnams' Sons.)—This book is not at all what one might have expected from the title. About "Salem Witchcraft," which would be a really interesting subject, treated from the scientific point of view, we hear very little, and that little certainly of little value. The fad is that Dr. Beard was called as an expert in the Guitoau trial.to prove the prisoner's insanity, and was apparently much annoyed that his evidence had not the result he expected ; and he writes this book to prove that the attitude of mind of those who refused to consider Guiteau a madman was much the same as that of the genetation which was possessed with the delusions that brought about the horrors of the Salem-Witchcraft trials. They and we, for nearly all are agreed in differing from Dr. Beard's opinion about Guiteau, fall under the common charge of "inexpertness." Mankind has a general and it seems to us a just suspicion of some of the "expertness" of professional theorists about insanity, and this will hardly be diminished by anything to be found in Dr. Beard's book.
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