Our attempts to punish the drunkards are often ludicrous. It might not be so ridiculous to try to get at those who make a profit off the drunkard. He makes a loss; we make a loss; someone has profited. We punish him; we punish ourselves; neither of us are profited at all. There is surely something wrong here. Those who are incapable of taking care of themselves, or who are disorderly in their conduct through drink, when taken into custody by the police, might quite profitably be permitted to go home when they are sober, unless their conduct is becoming a habit; in which case some other method of dealing with them requires to be considered. The disgrace of arrest will appeal as effectively to any person with a sense of shame as proceedings before a magistrate would do. When a fine--the cost of the trouble he has caused--has been inflicted on such an offender, time for payment should always be allowed. A man will never earn money in prison to pay the costs of his prosecution, but if allowed to go about his business he may do so. Even if he can only earn his living without paying a fine, behaving himself the while, he has done more than it would have been possible for him to do in prison. There has been a strong tendency of late years to deal with persons coming before the courts for the first time, even when the charge is regarded as a serious one, in some other way than by sending them to prison. They are put on probation for a period, and if nothing is known against them for that time they are discharged. Probation rightly managed would solve the problem of their treatment in the great majority of cases. Imperfect as the method employed at present is, many have been benefited because under it they have escaped imprisonment. It is most commonly adopted in the case of those who have committed offences against property; yet if the principle on which it can be justified--the principle of substituting correction for punishment--were intelligently recognised, it would be applied in all cases, no matter what the offence; provided the offender was regarded as a suitable subject on consideration of his history and character. At present the offence more than the offender determines the sentence; and there is a greater likelihood of a person who has committed a petty offence being put on probation, than there would be if in the eye of the law the offence he had committed were regarded more seriously.