eir
crimes are especially noticed because they seem to be without any
serious motive and often shockingly brutal. City life most readily
uncovers the sub-normal. This is true because the strain is far greater
in the city than the country. There are exceptions to this rule,
particularly those portions of the country that are barren and
unproductive territory into which the venturesome and obvious unfits are
drawn.

The prisons are not the only places which are inhabited by the
sub-normal and the misfit. The hardest and most disagreeable and most
poorly paid labor is largely done by this class of people. Very few
people of superior intelligence and education do manual labor and the
more disagreeable the manual labor, the more certain it is that the job
is done by the sub-normal and the misfit. A large part of the farm
labor, the odd jobs and common labor in small towns, the cheaper labor
on railroads, in factories and all industrial plants is given to this
sort of men. In the country and small village, where life is easy, this
class seldom makes trouble and is hardly known. These men and women
easily and naturally fall into a place in the industry and society of
the village and are often among the most useful members.

A general examination of all men to discover the defective and the
sub-normal, coupled with a demand that all such be sent to some place of
confinement, would meet with such a protest from all classes seriously
affected as to end not only the demand but the further agitation of the
subject. Any such law, if carried out, would not only seriously increase
the cost of all industry, but in many instances would make it impossible
to carry it on. It is hardly conceivable that above the idiot, society
shall make examinations and tests and confine or sterilize large classes
of people who have not yet developed anti-social tendencies, but who on
account of feeble intellects might sometime commit crime.

The world has ample data at hand to show more humane and at the same
time much cheaper ways, even methods that will yield a profit. These
ways have been abundantly illustrated by history and can be witnessed in
operation every day.

England was repeatedly conquered and settled by brigands and misfits.
When her people grew more homogeneous and orderly she sent her
anti-social to New Zealand and to Virginia. In New Zealand with its
opportunities these outcasts and their descendants prospered and were as
orderly an