Standing in the doorway of this building you can see evidences of the material greatness of the twentieth century; taking a single step inside you can see exactly what the superstition, fear and ignorance of the sixteenth century imposed upon the insane. THE INSANE IN COUNTY JAILS The sufferings of the insane in the county Poor Farms would so stir the compassion of the humane people of this state, could they but walk among these fellow-citizens of theirs and witness the misery to which they have been abandoned, that almshouse care would not survive the next session of the legislature. Take away, however, the meager attention given in the Poor Farms by those who, while they know nothing of mental diseases or of how to care for them, are moved by kindly impulses and recognize that the insane are sent to them for care and not for punishment; take away this and substitute the harsh discipline of the prison which is designed, by its painful memories, to restrain evildoers from crime. Then some picture can be formed of the lot of these poor sick people in county jails. Almost without exception, they have committed no crime, unless it be a crime to suffer from mental illness, but they share the lot of criminals and in many cases through the fears of their jailers they are denied even the small liberties allowed the criminals. Men and women, white people and negroes, those scarcely out of childhood and those filled with the pains and infirmities of age, those with types of mental disease which would yield readily to even the simplest treatment and those doomed to mental darkness all their days, I have seen them in the cells of the county jails of Texas and learned their needs and witnessed their sufferings at first hand. I can only say that I have never witnessed such depths of misery as those in which these unfortunate people drag out the months and years. Death releases some--the more fortunate--but the others continue to exist in filthy cells without that hope of release after a definite period, which cheers the criminals whose lot they share. The rigors of the jail are intended to impress evildoers with the terrors of the law but with few exceptions the prisoners in county jails are young men, most of them in sturdy health. It is needless to point out how much more severe punishment confinement in such places is to the unfortunate insane, broken in health, many of them acutely conscious of the terrible wrong which their state is inflicting upon them and the prey to delusional and hallucinatory terrors, as well as to those which depend upon actuality.