The one hope of enlightened progress in dealing with the problem of crime is the overthrow of the county jail system. To this end we must direct our energy. With the State once in command, there can be no question but it will find a way to right the wrong and remedy the evils which inhere in the present organization and management of minor prisons. MENTAL DEFECTS AND DELINQUENCY WM. HEALY, M. D. Director, Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, Chicago Reasons for the abundant ineffectiveness in the treatment of the criminal are to be found in the historical development of the situation. His case is handled by court procedure evolved, almost wholly, from legal precedent and consisting of rules which appertain, as it were, to a definite contest. As the result of this evolution it has come about that even modern criminal procedure in several respects fails to apply well established scientific knowledge and so lags far behind the dictates of common sense. It may be that the experiential wisdom of the ages, crystallized into modern law, serves well enough as the setting for criminal trials in which there is much presumption of innocence, as well as for civil cases, although in this hour of testing mental capacities even some points here seem doubtful. But what shall we say about the trial of recidivists, those repeaters who make up the costly and dangerous class, the confirmed criminals? If there is anything clear about the matter to the man in the street it is that certain facts either purposely avoided in court procedure, such as inadmissible evidence, or not brought out on account of incomplete examination into the case are frequently most important for decision from the standpoint of the welfare of society and indeed often of the defendant’s own well-being. The fact that the defendant has been convicted of crime and perhaps of this particular type of crime before, that he has mental peculiarities or physical infirmities that make him specially liable to commit crime, that he comes from a family in which mental deficiency is inherited or the criminalistic tendency is rampant--these points among others are not only of scientific import, but seem clearly germane and most valuable for deciding what ought to be done with him.