REFINED CRIMINALS MOST DANGEROUS. Criminal history shows that the most successful jobs are always planned and executed by men of education; the details of some of the great forgeries that have taken place, of the numerous bank robberies and burglar's exploits, all go to show the direction of a brain of no ordinary person, being proof positive that the persons planning the work possessed both education and talent. First class criminals are exceedingly hard to cope with, and are the most dangerous to handle by the officers. They do not generally do things in a rush or by halves. Great care is given to all the minor details of their work, and it often takes weeks and months before they are ready to put their plans into operation. They study all the possibilities of the job; the chances of success, and the way of escape in case of failure; how they can cover all traces of the work and throw the guilt or suspicion upon the more unfortunate of their class who have had reputations and who are likely to be brought up and possibly convicted on suspicion of being the guilty parties. Educated crooks are always to be feared, not only by the public against whom they are constantly devising ways and means to relieve of their valuables, but by detectives of a lesser grade. This class of crooks do not hesitate to sacrifice the detective if their desired ends can be successfully accomplished, while the detective finds it a task of no little moment to gain even the faintest clue to their operations. PRISON POOR CURE FOR CRIME. Locking a man up for committing a crime does not always cure him. It is now proven that affixed penalties to certain crimes accomplishes practically nothing, for it is based on a wrong principle. The length of confinement ought, confessedly, to be adjusted to the needs of the prisoner. He should not be discharged from his moral hospital until there is reasonable assurance that he is cured. He certainly should not be turned loose on society, on the mere expiration of a formal sentence, when it is known he will begin anew on his old life. Protection to society, as well as the reformation of the criminal, call for the retention of the latter until he can be trusted with his liberty, and affords proof that he is fitted to take his place in the world as a useful, law-abiding citizen. This system alone permits the fullest scope to reformatory methods, and leaves to the court the right of sentencing indefinitely, and to the tribunal which has to do with the prisoner's release, to say when there is reasonable ground for faith that if discharged he will not prove either a burden or menace to society. Where conduct and character afford no such grounds he should be incarcerated for life, just as we would retain hopeless lunatics in asylums. MACONOCHIE'S EXPERIMENT.