THE PROBLEM OF CRIME.

Dr. Wines delivered last evening , in Sever 11, a lecture which for its happy combination of valuable statistics with interesting detail and anecdote, deserved a much larger audience than was present.

The lecture began with quotations of figures from the last census. It divided crime, in the legal sense, into crimes against government, society, property, person, and crime on the high seas. Of these, fully 50 per cent are committed against property, chiefly in the form of theft. It was also shown that criminals in the United States are largely of foreign extraction. They are of all degrees of education, including college bred men.

Almost without exception the tendency to crime begins in youth. It is then, that by his strength or weakness in resisting temptation, every man decides for himself the tone of his future life.

Until modern times, physical force and intimidation was the only known method of restraining those who prove unable to restrain themselves. Now, however, the purpose of punishmen is more justly to inculcate self-control, the rule of moral force. With this object inview, of calming stubbornness, and appealing to prisoners through hope rather than fear, the Elmira reformatory system has been introduced and bids fair to become a success, so far as may be expected of any remedy for the disease of crime. At Elmira every effort is made to find the weak points of each prisoner and to strengthen him by striet discipline and training, morally, mentally and physically. His progress is carefully watched, and where the system is properly enforced, the prisoner knows that his final release depends altogether on his own conduct.

Obviously an atmosphere of mental and physical industry, and above all, of purity and refinement, is absolutely necessary, if the regeneration is to succeed.