HYGIENE AS A BASIS OF MORALS. 73 



ticulars of which I refer those interested to Dr. Richardson's address, 

 as well as for plans for the warming and ventilation of the houses, and 

 for the safe and effectual sewering of the city ; also for most impor- 

 tant suggestions in regard to public laundries and the carrying on of 

 certain industries (dress-making, tailoring, etc.) in the homes among 

 the children of those engaged in such work. In connection with the 

 last-named point, the author cites an instance as having come under 

 his own observation, in which the half-made riding-habit, destined to 

 figure among the fashionable frequenters of Rotten Row, was made to 

 serve as a coverlet for the poor tailor's child, stricken with malignant 

 scarlet fever an incident eminently likely to occur under our present 

 system, or want of system, of sanitation the dangers from public 

 laundries, as at present managed, being equally conspicuous. 



It will be seen that no expense is to be spared in the building and 

 administration of the city of Ethica. Money is abundant in the fa- 

 vored country of its location ; the vast sums also which are expended 

 in other cities in the support of almshouses, penitentiaries, jails, and 

 other places of detention of incapables and criminals, are largely saved 

 to the public treasury. As a matter of economy merely these methods 

 would pay the best in the end, not only in the results which we have 

 especially in view, but in actual eagles, dollars, dimes, and cents. In 

 the State of Pennsylvania alone there are, in round numbers, five thou- 

 sand insane and five thousand feeble-minded persons, who constitute a 

 heavy bui'den upon the community. Those who understand the true 

 nature of many of the causes of idiocy and insanity know that both 

 are, to a great degree, as strictly preventable as are small-pox and 

 diphtheria. 



In that startling record of a criminal family " the Jukes " cover- 

 ing the history of several generations, it is estimated that a loss of over 

 a million and a quarter of dollars was caused by this single family, so 

 far as its members could be traced, without including the money ex- 

 pended for intoxicants, and without taking into account the entailment 

 of pauperism and crime, or the incurable disease, idiocy and insanity 

 growing out of these unwholesome lives all of which bring heavy 

 expense upon the public. But it is clearly shown in this history that 

 the perpetuation of criminal tendencies, as of other traits, depends on 

 the permanence of the enviro?iment > and that a change of external con- 

 ditions may, in time, bring about a change in character. Do our laws, 

 our courts, our jails, our almshouses, our insane hospitals, our schools 

 and churches even, deal with the real questions presented in these stat- 

 istics? Is not an exact and scientific treatment of the subject of 

 morals, in its entire breadth and fullness, emphatically demanded ; 

 and will not the city of Ethica, when it shall arise, prove an economy 

 in every sense of that so-often falsely used word ? 



But, in the pursuit of the twofold object for which Ethica is to be 

 founded, the intelligent co-operation of all its citizens will be essential 



