When a man offends against the law he is taken in hand by the ministers of the law; and they are awakening to a sense of the futility of their treatment of him, but so far not much progress has been made towards a rational method. There are more institutions projected and a greater variety of remedies prescribed; but they depend on the nature of the crime charged, rather than on the character and condition of the culprit. Some day it may be acknowledged that the court that has to determine whether a person is guilty of the offence charged against him is not therefore the court that is able to determine his treatment, but there will first require to be a more general recognition of the fact that before a man can be treated rationally for any physical, mental, moral, or social fault in him, something more must be known about him than that the fault is there. I do not suggest that rational treatment will invariably be successful; there is nothing absolute in this world, not even our ignorance; but I do assert that we are not entitled to act irrationally in dealing with criminals, and that that is what we generally do at present. The practice of the courts has changed much more than the law during the last sixteen years, and there is a greater disposition on the part of judges to seek information regarding those who are brought before them, as well as a more marked reluctance to send offenders to prison if there appears to be a probability that they will not repeat their offence. The old theories of punishment have broken down, and it is now difficult to find any coherent theory behind the practice. When a crime is committed that shocks the public by its atrocity there are demands made for fierce retribution on the culprit, partly on the plea that he ought to be made to suffer, and partly for the purpose of deterring others from repeating the act. Incidentally those who are most insistent on the employment of the executioner show that they possess a fair share of the same spirit that educed the act which they condemn. They are rightly indignant, but they do not seem to see that justice and bad temper are not the same thing.