70 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vot. VIII. 
beasts, no effort made to keep wholesome the wretched cells in which they 
were left to rot in filth and misery. This reproach to our civilization is not 
even yet wholly removed, for our law empowers magistrates to commit 
persons of unsound mind to jail. Is it irony, or what is it, that here the 
indeterminate sentence prevails? Grand juries are constantly protesting 
against this crying shame, which ought to be put an end to speedily. The 
jail is no place for these unfortunates. But there is another class whose 
case deserves consideration, I mean the victims of drink. Drunkards are 
not criminals, they are diseased. It may be a crime to give the drunkard 
drink, but it is no crime in him to drink. He cannot help it. He has no 
more power to resist the craving of diseased appetite than has a log cast 
into the rapids above Niagara power to resist plunging over the Falls. How 
absurd is it to inflict upon these poor creatures the penalty of a dollar and 
costs or thirty days in jail! Day after day, week after week, month after 
month, men, and women too, are hauled before the police magistrate, and 
committed and re-committed to jail, against whom the only charge is getting 
drunk. It is impossible to reform these people in this way. They are 
subjects for the medical man, not for the judge, or even for the preacher. 
Cure their bodies first, and then you may talk morals and religion to them 
with some hope of success. We have insane hospitals, smallpox hospitals. 
fever hospitals, tuberculosis hospitals; we want also inebriate hospitals, 
in which the victims of drink shall be treated as patients, not as criminals, 
and the resources of medical science drawn upon for their relief and ultimate 
restoration to health. 
Scientific methods again would enforce a proper classification of prison- 
ers in our jails, so that the young and comparatively inexperienced in crime 
should not be thrown into the company of hardened offenders, by whom 
they are inevitably made worse. It is true that in some of our prisons at- 
tempts are made in this direction with more or less success; but there is a 
plentiful lack of uniformity in this matter, due to the fact that the manage- 
ment of these institutions is under the local County Councils, which bodies 
are not always distinguished for intelligent action. It is not enough 
that the jails be subject to periodical inspection. No amount of inspection 
will convert a building that is architecturally defective and. without the 
means for classifying the inmates, into a proper building; inspection will 
not atone for municipal stinginess or wrong-headedness. The central 
authority should control all prisons; build them on a general plan as nearly 
uniform as possible, with every facility for segregation; and their government 
should be entrusted only to persons thoroughly trained and instructed for 
the performance of the very important duties expected of them. Would 
it indeed be going too far to say that there should be a school for training 
jailers and guards, and that all appointments to such positions should be 
made only from those so trained instead of by the present hap-hazard 
method? 
