This exhibit is conclusive. Reformatory Science, which is yet but in its infancy, can already deal successfully with by far the greatest proportion of criminals, and this success at this stage guarantees a much larger measure in the future. It is clear then upon the statements of the highest authorities that the criminal is not incorrigible, and that the prison (penal) system compares so unfavourably with the reformatory system that it ought to be abolished in favour of it. The system in vogue at the Elmira Reformatory will be described in a later chapter, and there it will be shown that the methods employed are upon a most scientific basis and that the results obtained cannot fail to satisfy the most exacting. It will be seen that by a "reformed" man is meant a man who can and will adapt himself to the conditions of society; a man sound in mind, healthy in body, industrious and honest in habit. Concerning this man's progeny, what have we to fear? It is in this way that we may dispose of the proportion of 75 per cent. of criminal children descended from criminal ancestry. It should here be again observed that the majority of criminals commence their career in crime at a very early age, and that therefore the reform of almost all criminals may be undertaken before they are likely to become parents. Again, true reformatory science forbids the release of any criminal from custody who has not given satisfactory evidence of reform. Thus reformatory science effectually guarantees society against the evil that Dr Chapple has proposed to eradicate, and it does it by a method compared with which tubo-ligature is most crude. The criminal is either set free as a reformed man or is to be kept in captivity because his resistance to reformatory discipline has shown him to be unfit to rightly use his liberty. Not only are the chances of his becoming the parent of criminally disposed children effectually removed but he is himself transformed from having a negative to having a positive social value. Dr Chapple's study convinces him that the cause of the startling increase of crime, insanity, and pauperism is to be found "deep down in biological truth. Society is breeding from defective stock." Dr Waddell, who writes the preface of the "Fertility of the Unfit," is so alarmed as to declare that "our civilization is in imminent peril of being swamped by the increasingly disproportionate progeny of the criminal." The most superficial observation of the life of the criminal would have shown both these writers that criminal habits militated substantially against the probability of a natural increase.