One would think it impossible in these days for a man to be continually sentenced to imprisonment because he suffers from epilepsy, yet such is undoubtedly the case. I have no personal knowledge of the 155 epileptics detained in the three prisons I have quoted; but I have personal knowledge and prolonged experience of many sufferers whom I have seen sent to prison for offences committed in the throes of their frightful affliction. One of the finest fellows, physically, I have ever known was a hopeless epileptic. He had served with distinction in a famous cavalry regiment in India; he suffered from sunstroke, and as the affects were serious and prolonged he was invalided from the Army. He recovered somewhat, and married, but when children were born to him epilepsy developed. I have seen the horror that ensued in his home: the fears of his wife, the terror of his children, but I realised most of all the pitiful condition of the man himself. Many times I have in his own home taken part, at some risk to myself, in restraining him from violence, and when sometimes our efforts have been unavailing, the police have been called in, and I have seen him conveyed to the police station, and from there to the police court. When in the dock, standing charged with violence and assaults, I have seen a fit come upon him, when half a dozen policemen would be required to straighten him out upon the floor and to hold him till stupor supervened, when his spell of violence would give way to insensibility and heavy, stertorous breathing. I have seen his wife and children standing weeping in the court. Out of sheer pity I have known a kind and wise magistrate sentence him to six months’ imprisonment without hard labour: for he felt that for six months at any rate the man, the wife and children would be protected. None the less the poor fellow felt the indignity and cruelty of his position, and whenever committed to prison he never failed to communicate with the Home Secretary, and petition for release. In the pigeon-holes of the Home Office I have no doubt many of this man’s letters and appeals are carefully stored. But unfortunately when epileptics marry the evil and suffering does not end with them, for when children are born, they often prove very strange beings. I have watched the growth of such children; I have seen their strange whims and their oft-times irresponsibility. I have known the girls become hopelessly immoral and cleverly dishonest even at their school age. One of the cleverest thieves I ever knew was a girl of fourteen, whose father was an epileptic. She looked the picture of confiding innocence, but she robbed and cheated all sorts of people: doctors and clergymen were her special prey. She was charged repeatedly; no reformatory would receive her, for she was flagrantly immoral. At sixteen she was a drab and a sleeper-out; at eighteen she became an inmate of a lunatic asylum, but at twenty her life came mercifully to an end.