Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/413

 382

of our prison system in these countries tends in the least to make him a better man. —

From "History of our Own Times," by Justin McCarthy.

NEW INEBRIATES LEGISLATION IN ENGLAND. By A. Wood Ren-1on. A JUDICIAL experiment of great inter est and importance on medico-legal grounds was initiated in England on New Year's day. Its legislative authority is derived from chapter 60, of the statutes 59 and 60 of the Queen. Up to the present time, the only legislation that we have had in England affecting habitual drunkards, as such, is contained in the Inebriates Acts, 1879 and 1880. The effect, in brief, of these statutes was to establish a system of li censed retreats to which any habitual drunk ard might voluntarily commit himself for a period not exceeding a year, coming thereby under a liability to be compulsorily detained in the retreat for the entire time that he had on admission agreed to remain in. On the whole, these arrangements for the remedial treatment of habitual drunkards on their own initiative have worked well. Experience, however, disclosed certain defects in them. One year maximum was found in many cases too short a time for a cure to be accomplished. Again the maximum dura tion of licenses was limited to thirteen months — a condition which operated as a deterrent, both on applications for licenses and on the expenditure of money on re treats. To touch for a moment on ques tions of detail, the procedure for the re-admission and recapture of patients was hampered by unnecessary restrictions. And, lastly, there was the crowning blot of the absence of any provision for any com pulsory "sequestering" of inebriates, whom neither their own will nor the moral suasion of relatives moved to consent to voluntary

committal. These shortcomings the Ine briates Act, 1898, has not supplied. Indeed it is evident that public opinion in England is not yet ripe for the change; the other defects, however, are remedied. The maxi mum period for voluntary detention is raised to two years. The maximum duration of licenses is increased by nine months, and the procedure on re-admission and recapture is simplified. But it is not to details of this kind, important as, in their own way, they are, that the Inebriates Act of 1898, owes its interest. The statutes of 1879 and 1888 applied to non-criminal inebriates alone. They did not deal with the pathological phenomenon presented by that type of criminality now described in technical medico-legal parlance as " the reeidivist," whose main feature is the persistent com mission of petty offenses under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The difficulty of grappling with such cases was obvious. The simple drunkenness could not be pun ished. The offenses were so slight that only a fine or a very short term of imprison ment could be imposed. There was no power to sequester the unfortunate from temptation for a considerable period of time. Numerous specimens of this class have been familiar figures in the English police courts for some years. One of them — Jane Cakebread — who died in December, 1898, had between three hundred and four hundred convictions for being drunk and disorderly recorded against her. Another, a woman, Gates —-who was told by the magistrate on her last appearance