them again in the outside world when their time had expired, are factors that today are justifying contract labor in the Maryland Penitentiary. Work is recognized as good for the prisoner, as well as helping to pay the expenses of maintenance. We find today not only the penitentiary pursuing this course, but the House of Correction, jails and various homes and even insane asylums. In Maryland one of the state asylums is laying great stress on the work performed by its inmates, noting marked improvement in the defective insane by constant employment. The Governor of the State of Maryland is urging more general employment of the defective insane as the State is about to take charge of them, and expense is an important factor. In fact it is recognized today as the most humane and economic principle that the State make the insane defectives their wards until they get well or die. How much more important is it that the State recognize these criminal defectives in the earliest stages of their disease, correct the trouble, if possible, but if impossible take care of them until they die in an institution where they can be safely housed. An institution of this character can be nearly self-supporting.

In discussing this question last year before this Association, C. W. Bowron of Wisconsin, says that it would be one hundred years before you get the institutions that would be necessary to take care of these defectives. I believe that when the State recognizes that there are defectives being sent to penal institutions and later on being turned out on the community in the same condition as when they committed the crime; when it also recognizes that if this defect was cleared up, the crime would not so likely be repeated, and when it recognizes that this defect can be transmitted to the offspring, it can only realize that the saving to itself and the greater protection to the community will be in finding out, first, if there is a defect. Second, if there is a defect, cure it if possible, but if impossible to correct it, take care of the defective for lifetime.

Sterilization of habitual criminals has been advocated before this Association and is actually practiced in several States, especially in Indiana. As you all know, habitual criminals are

usually, if not always, defective, and the only appeal that sterilization makes to me is that the defects of a parent cannot be transmitted to their offspring, and in that way the state might protect the future generation from the menace of the offspring of these defectives. Therefore sterilization might be substituted for incarceration of these defectives and should be considered while discussing the economic question.

The consideration of the saving to the state by an examination of a physician leads us to a consideration of what will be accomplished by this examination. The physician would pick out these defectives and if possible cure them; otherwise the state must take care of them for life in some institution as more fully set forth under the head of expense to the state. Those they cure will be perfect men and women and will more than likely beget perfect offspring. Those they lock up cannot commit crime or beget offspring. W. H. Whitaker, Superintendent of the Indiana Reformatory, in an address before the Kentucky Press Association in 1909, says that statistics show that to send neglected boys to prison it cost $1,000 for each convicted prisoner. The cost of the trial of these defectives and their descendants will not be the only saving to the state, but likewise the depredations, danger to life, loss of employment, etc., of these defectives and their descendants will cease. Had the State of New York had a physician to examine the parental Juke in the early part of the 18th century, it had saved $1,308,000, as far as found out in the report of R. L. Dugdale to the Prison Association of New York, besides the lives lost in crime, harlotry and pauperism. The offspring of these defectives would likewise not fill our almshouses as paupers, our houses of assignation as harlots, or our penal institutions as criminals.

Summing up the economic question, we find that we have the increased cost of a physician in each court, stationery and the maintenance of the defective when he cannot be cured. This latter expense can be materially reduced, if not entirely wiped out, by employment, as now practiced in our penitentiaries, jails, insane asylums, etc. The saving accruing to the state is in the court-room, greater protection to the community as to property

and morals, and the removal of the danger that the offspring of these defectives will be like defectives, to say nothing of lessening the costs of the institutions that already take care of criminals. Therefore, though the immediate costs incidental to the examination by a physician may be increased, I claim the ultimate saving to the community will be incalculable.

The third standpoint from which we desire to study this question is greater safety to the community. I would say that punishment is not a detriment to this class. They enter our institutions with smiles on their faces and totally oblivious of any disgrace. They go out in the same condition they enter, commit another crime or crimes, and are returned. They have fallen into the hands of the State and the State has punished them, but has not made it impossible for them to repeat the offense. The prisoner has paid the State what it demands, and he is free until he is caught again committing some depredation. The State, after the man has paid his debt, turns him loose without finding out whether there is some deficiency in that man that leads to crime. It is hard to compute what damage these defectives are doing to the community. Today our penitentiaries, jails, almshouses, insane asylums, etc., are filling up more than ever before. The percentage of defectives is constantly on the increase. These defectives are doing incalculable harm to the community, not only as to property, but morals. When the State does not take care of its insane defectives, we find our county almshouses filled with these defectives and their illegitimate offspring who are often conceived and born in such institutions. This condition is more pronounced in the criminal defectives than in the insane defectives, as the instincts of the criminal defectives are nearer the animal stage. It is recognized by all those who come in contact with the criminal classes that the advice of a physician in certain cases is very beneficial. Judge DeLacy, though he does not see the necessity of having a physician on hand at all times to weed out these defectives, testifies his indebtedness to the medical profession of Washington City in the work in his court. It is my conviction that the physician should examine every prisoner before trial in every court of justice, and when a

defective is picked out, that individual should be either cured or taken care of for life by the State. The State should not permit that individual to have his freedom until cured, as the community should be protected against him and his descendants.

The legality of this procedure has been carefully looked into by the Research Committee of the Prisoners' Aid Association of Maryland. The report of German H. Emory to this committee, which was accepted by it, shows how this examination of a prisoner by a physician before trial could be accomplished without depriving the prisoner of his legal rights. In November a law is to be presented for the consideration of the 5th Maryland Conference of Charities and Correction on the lines laid down in Mr. Emory's suggestion, and it is hoped that this conference will heartily endorse the same and urge the Legislature of Maryland to incorporate it in the new Criminal Code that is being prepared in the State of Maryland.

In conclusion I want it to be plainly understood that the question of determining the sanity or insanity of the prisoner is by no means the sole object of this examination by a physician. Indeed it is more particularly the desire to arrest the physical changes which are so well known by physicians as the causes of insanity if not corrected. My object is to lend all the human aid which science and culture are able to exert in order that every human being who is brought under their influence may round out his life with the perfect exercise of the attributes and functions with which the Almighty Father has endowed him, and which he certainly cannot do when outside and abnormal influences interfere with the perfect development of his physical, mental and spiritual possessions by which he can do his part of the world's work, rather than be an instrument that retards it.

DISCUSSION.

Rev. A. M. Fish, New Jersey: There is nothing to add to the papers by Dr. Phelan and Dr. Cooke. They discussed the degenerate and the defective. I wish only to add an idea to theirs, or rather join it to theirs, because in my estimation we might

easily be led astray in our judgment of these delinquent classes. It is true that there is much degeneracy, much deterioration, and that they come into our penal institutions. If we insist too much upon the degeneracy theory we might be led to believe that we must treat them in a way perhaps contrary to what has been done in the past; that is, I have noticed a tendency to eliminate the idea of punishment from the treatment of the delinquent classes. I stand for this idea of punishment, yet I modify it in accordance with the characteristics of these classes. We used to think that every man had to be punished. That is what he was sent to prison for. Now some of us are liable to think every man is to be coddled and treated with the greatest of kindness. Both of these views are wrong. Depending upon the man and the act, we must punish, we must be kind. Retribution is an eternal law. "Even up.' Your offender, your degenerate has brain power enough as a rule to understand that his act demands retribution. He knows that. I know that. I have been long enough among them. They realize that they deserve punishment because they have intelligence and have a power of will. It is no doubt of a lower type, yet it is there and they are conscious of its being there. Do not be mistaken or take away the idea of punishment from your treatment of the defective or delinquent. He must be punished for his misdeeds. Try to suggest to him the idea that he must be different. There is where the kindness comes in. Kindness is only half. The main thing is the square deal, having the man in your institution, treat him fairly and squarely and let him see it, and your kindness going along with it will bring him around. It may not bring him around permanently, because he is too weak to control himself, and when put out he may fall again, unable to cope with the difficulties that come to him.

Amos W. Butler. Secretary Indiana Board of State Charities, Indianapolis: I hate to differ from my good friend Father Fish. To my mind men are not sent to prison to be punished. They are being punished by being sent to prison. They are sent there for confinement, for treatment, for the protection of society, and, if possible, for their reformation and release and re