the evidence he struck her with the knife approximately twenty-four times, finally hitting the jugular vein in the neck, as a result of which she probably bled to death. As already stated, the writer has no desire to advance this as _the theory_ of the deed. But if Jean is an imbecile, this theory is fully as good as that upon which the prosecution worked, and it eliminates entirely all necessity for elaborate planning. Up to this point we have shown that the fact of a confession and the character of the confession, both difficult to explain on the basis that Jean is a normal boy of sixteen, are entirely clear and perfectly characteristic of a high-grade imbecile. Let us look now at his actions immediately after the deed. It is in evidence that Jean said he took the murdered girl by the foot because there was no blood there and he did not want to get blood on his hands for fear they would take his finger prints. Holding her by the foot, he dragged her out of the road behind some bushes and left her in the snow. He then went back into the road, making new tracks, which he made no effort to cover. Nor did he make any effort to cover the old tracks or the blood spots that were left along in the snow. Neither did he make any attempt to hide the hat nor the umbrella nor the broken comb which were left in the road; his care to take her by the foot where there was no blood is cited as evidence of forethought and judgment; but what shall we say of his failure to cover up his tracks when it was easy to have done so! Again we must remind the reader that we have nothing but the boy's testimony as to the fact that he took her by the foot or to explain why he took her by the foot, but in accepting his testimony as true there is nothing incompatible with high-grade imbecility. The one peculiar thing about Jean is that he has read more than most imbeciles even of this high grade. But this peculiarity does not save him from being an imbecile, since there are cases of imbeciles who have read as much or even more than he. Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence in the case that Jean's interest in reading has gone along the line, childlike, of crime. The various experts who examined him told of his talking about the case of the New York gunmen, of the Pomeroy case, of a murder in the South, and possibly others. He inquired about Mahoney, the would-be assassin of Mayor Mitchell. In connection with these crimes his reading of finger prints had made the same impression upon him that it would have upon any boy. He remembered what he had read and perhaps acted upon it, at least talked about it when the opportunity came, and pretended that he considered it in his action.