“With the municipal, State and national governments awakening, as we see they are, to their sense of duty toward the man who goes wrong, and in their awakening providing that the square deal shall be given him--that he shall no longer be the object of vengeance, but a man to be detained and reformed and educated, I say, with this awakening a great stride has been taken toward the control of tuberculosis. “I believe that Virginia has advanced _pari passu_ with other States. To begin with, the indeterminate sentence, with its inspiring hope, holds much not only for the future of the convict, but for every day of his prison life. It insures, too, to a great extent, better everyday conduct. This in turn helps largely to eliminate corporal punishment, which is one of the most potent causes of mental and physical wrecks among our convicts. Of course, with lessened need for corporal punishment comes lessened need for other punitive measures, namely, solitary confinement, bread-and-water diet, dark cell, etc., all of which present dangers to the physical welfare of the convicts that check our criticisms of the horrors of barbarism. “Another step taken here in Virginia that has reached far forward was the erection and fitting of the modern sanitary building which takes care in the most approved manner of about one half of our convicts at the penitentiary proper. “Another step forward, and one of which the wisdom and far-reaching consequences for good cannot be over-emphasized, is the law that directs that, at the discretion of the judge, all men with jail sentences, and all men sentenced to the penitentiary for from one to five years, shall serve their sentences at hard labor on the State road force. “This is a great advance, especially in ridding our jails of short-sentence men, who formerly served their time in idleness, filth and disease--men who usually entered jail as criminals and in fair health, to leave as devils incarnate and probably tuberculous.