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The editors apologize for the incompleteness of the work done by the essayists. Each essay has the merit of dealing with some aspects of mental abnormality and crime. Hope for a solution of many of the problems of crime should be found in a close collaboration between the members of the medical and legal professions. In this volume the editorial is contributed by members of the legal profession. They quote from Dr. R. M. Jackson's book The Machinery of Justice in England: 'An English criminal trial properly conducted, is one of the best products of our law, provided you walk out of the court before the sentence is given: if you stay to the end, you may find that it takes far less time and enquiry to settle a man's prospects in life than it has taken to find out whether he took a suitcase out of a parked car'. They plead for effective treatment before criminal tendencies have become criminal habits and they recommend that a regular service carrying out thorough investigations into the personality and social circumstances of the young law-breaker should be attached to all juvenile courts and that such a system should become a permanent element in the procedure of this branch of criminal administration, especially in juvenile delinquency.
The opening essayist, Dr. J. R. Rees, gives a good account of mental variations and criminal behavior. He quotes Dr. William Healy of Boston, who tells about a judge from another state who came and spent part of his vacation watching the work of the Clinic for Juvenile Delinquents in Chicago. After some weeks when he was about to leave, he said impressively, 'Dr. Healy, I have sat for twenty years on the Bench giving treatment and I never knew how to diagnose'. Thereafter he instituted a Department of Diagnosis in connection with his Court.
Dr. Angus MacNiven, in the second chapter on Psychosis and Criminal Responsibility, briefly describes the psychotic disorders which affect the patient's behavior in his relations with his e