The question is well summed up in the general observations on the nature of Inebriety in the Report of the Committee of 1908:--"Inebriety is undoubtedly a constitutional peculiarity; and depends, in many cases, upon qualities with which a person is born, in many is acquired by vicious indulgence. Whether the possession of such a constitutional peculiarity, when inborn, should or should not be considered, from the scientific point of view, a disease, is perhaps, a question of nomenclature. If such native constitutional peculiarities as the possession of a sixth finger, and the absence of a taste for music, are rightly considered diseases, then the native constitutional peculiarity which underlies many cases of inebriety may be so considered. But there are cogent reasons why the term disease should not be used to characterise the inebriate habit. By disease is popularly understood a state of things for which the diseased person is not responsible, which he cannot alter except by the use of remedies from without, whose action is obscure, and cannot be influenced by exertions of his own. But if, as is unquestionably true, inebriety can be induced by cultivation; if the desire for drink can be increased by indulgence, and self-control diminished by lack of exercise; it is manifest that the reverse effects can be produced by voluntary effort; and that desire for drink may be diminished by abstinence, and self-control, like any other faculty, can be strengthened by exercise. It is erroneous and disastrous to inculcate the doctrine that inebriety, once established, is to be accepted with fatalistic resignation, and that the inebriate is not to be encouraged to make any effort to mend his ways. It is the more so since inebriety is undoubtedly in many cases recovered from, in many diminished, and since the cases which recover or amend are those in which the inebriate himself desires and strives for recovery." CHAPTER XIV. "PATRONAGE" OR AID TO DISCHARGED PRISONERS: ITS EFFECT ON RECIDIVISM.