It is just fifty years ago since the need for special legislation for the proper control and treatment of inebriates, on the grounds that such persons contributed to crime and lunacy, and caused nuisance, scandal, and annoyance to the public, became apparent. At that time there was no process whereby an inebriate who became a public offender could be dealt with, except by short sentences of imprisonment; and no means whatever by which a private inebriate could be dealt with, however much he constituted himself a cause of nuisance or distress to his family. The futility of short sentences of imprisonment for the reform of the inebriate offender was fully recognised by prison authorities; by those who took an active interest in prison reform; and by magistrates, before whom the same drunkards repeatedly came, in no way improved by the only method then applicable; and was accentuated by certain notorious cases of persons who served, without improvement, hundreds of short sentences. In 1872 a Select Committee of the House of Commons agreed that it had been shown, by the evidence taken, that "drunkenness is the prolific parent of crime, disease, and poverty" that "self-control is suspended or annihilated, and moral obligations are disregarded; the decencies of private and the duties of public life are alike set at nought; and individuals obey only an overwhelming craving for stimulant to which everything is sacrificed." No action was taken on this Report until 1878, when a Bill was presented to Parliament for dealing with the more easy and less costly part of the recommendations, _viz_:--those which concerned inebriates admitted voluntarily. No attempt was made to deal with the really important class, _i.e._, persons convicted as Habitual Drunkards. The Statute of 1879 did no more than permit the establishment of Retreats, to which inebriates could be voluntarily admitted. More than ten years later, in 1892, when the inadequate protection afforded by the Law against the nuisance and the evil of habitual inebriety led to a renewed agitation, especially against the repeated infliction of short sentences for ordinary drunkenness, a Home Office Committee of Inquiry, under the Presidency of an experienced Chairman of Quarter Sessions, Mr. J.L. Wharton, M.P., was appointed. This Committee aimed, as its composition shows, rather at an amendment of the Criminal Law, and the abolition of recurring short sentences of imprisonment, the futility of which had been fully demonstrated. At this time there was less concern with regard to voluntary inebriates who, on the application of relations or friends, might be compulsorily committed to Retreats, than with the grave social evil which resulted from the interminable commitment to prison of persons who by committing offences against public order came within the action of the Criminal Law, or who were proved guilty of ill-treatment and neglect of their