* * * * *
_A History of Penal Methods._--George Ives. Stanley Paul and Co.,
London, 1914. pp. 409.
A distinct contribution and a distinct disappointment. The amount of
research into the most diverse authorities is remarkable. For chapter
after chapter practically every sentence is annotated by reference to
the authority from which the fact is culled. The earlier chapters are
relatively full, and even laboriously worked out. The early methods
of compensation, of torture, of banishment, transportation, etc., are
fully treated--but almost entirely from the standpoint of English
experience. Rarely does one find so pretentious a book so insular in
its actual scope. The student desirous of knowing how penal methods
developed in France, or Germany, or the United States would be at
sea, save for the most occasional reference. And when we come to the
developments of the English penal system itself since the 70’s of the
last century, we obtain little. The reader, ignorant of recent English
development, would be very unclear at the end. There is little about
the treatment of juvenile adults, the Borstal system, the preventive
detention plan, the development of the work for discharged prisoners,
and other important and almost epoch-making innovations. In short,
instead of having a book that, on the basis of past penal methods,
studies illuminatingly the most recent developments, we have a book of
distinct value for early English penal history.