SCIENCE IN PHILANTHROPY 43 



ard of comparison. They seldom have any knowlodp^o of the 

 more civilized methods, and have contempt for theorists. In 

 some instances of extraordinary foulness, where the jail may 

 be in the court house cellar, the judges, if annoyed by odors 

 and frightened by communical^le disease, are ready, perhaps, 

 to order an investigation. But the essential evils of the sys- 

 tem are not merely defects in sanitation. 



The detention of the insane even for a moment in a jail 

 confuses nervous disease with crime, and helps to prolong the 

 popular identification of insanity with demoniac possession 

 or willful moral evil. The trial of children and youth in the 

 same courts with older offenders, and their incarceration in 

 jails and bridewells with adults, are causes of the perpetuation 

 and increase of crime. Public opinion tolerates, through ig- 

 norance, the punishment of drunken and disorderly persons 

 in jails. It is not felt by unbashful vagabonds as punishment. 

 The district workhouse should provide actual disciplinary 

 labor for a term long enough to affect the habits and character 

 of the demoralized person. The jail should be merely a place 

 of temporary detention before trial, and the cells should be 

 so constructed that no inmate could ever see or meet any other, 

 and those yet uncondemned should not be thrust into purga- 

 tory before trial. 



The average county poorhouse is another pathetic and 

 disheartening illustration of the tardiness of popular knowl- 

 edge and belated legal reform. If ordinary citizens knew 

 what almshouses in most regions of the country actually are, 

 in construction and administration, they would demand a 

 change. Stories of abuses come from all quarters. There is 

 absence of classification. On poor farms, men, women, and 

 children herd together, and sometimes sleep in the same dor- 

 mitory, without even curtains between their beds. In remote 

 places, the demented insane are neglected and treated like 

 animals. Feeble minded women, irresponsible creatures, 

 wander about the country, and return to the asylum to give 

 birth to idiots and perpetuate defect. Honest old people, 

 who have served their country in the army of productive in- 

 dustry for a half century, are shut in, during long winters, 

 as intimate companions of worn out criminals. This does not 



