Nevertheless, Mr. Flexner, having shown that “regulation” does not regulate, and that repression does not wholly repress, says in conclusion that a direct frontal attack in the repressive spirit would accomplish much. “It is well worth doing; it is, humanly speaking, a possible undertaking. Let us not, however, deceive ourselves into thinking that such a frontal attack absolves us from effort in other and different directions. Further achievements depend upon alterations in the constitution of society and its component parts.” And after outlining the important social factors that make for prostitution, such as ignorance, mental or moral defect, natural impulses, alcohol, illegitimacy, broken homes, bad homes, low wages, wretched industrial conditions--and their potential offsets through education, religion, science, sanitation, enlightened and far-reaching statesmanship, he continues: “Civilization has stripped for a life-and-death wrestle with tuberculosis, alcohol and other plagues. It is on the verge of a similar struggle with the crassest forms of commercial vice. Sooner or later, it must fling down the gauntlet to the whole horrible thing. This will be the real contest--a contest that will tax the courage, the self-denial, the faith, the resources of humanity to their uttermost.” O. F. L. * * * * * _Why Crime does not Pay._ Sophie Lyons. J. S. Ogilvie, New York. pp. 268. A series of not uninteresting sketches of alleged actual adventures in crime by one who claims to have been called the “Queen of the Bank Burglars”. The publishers call her the most remarkable and greatest criminal of modern times, a thief from the cradle. The burden of the stories is that crime does not pay. She was associated with a number of noted bank burglars, among them Ned Lyons, her husband, and George Bliss, alias George White, who some half dozen years ago published a strikingly well-written narrative of his own criminal career, entitled “From Boniface to Bank Burglar”. Mrs. Lyons’ stories are circumstantial and give detail accounts of daring and often successful burglaries. O. F. L. * * * * * _A History of Penal Methods._--George Ives. Stanley Paul and Co., London, 1914. pp. 409.