In Massachusetts, Warren F. Spalding, the secretary of the Massachusetts Prison Association, discussing the treatment of drunkenness before the commission which has been investigating the increase of prisoners and paupers in the Bay State, said recently: “Massachusetts’ system of dealing with the question is not good. It is sending thousands of persons to the houses of correction each year and then releasing them after short periods without having helped them.” “A drunk,” he said, “needs air, sunshine and outdoor work. He should not be in a cell 16 out of the 24 hours. These cells are not free from germs. What does Massachusetts do with her drunks? After sending each one to the House of Correction for a number of times, he is sent to the state farm at Bridgewater, where he receives the outdoor treatment he needed in the first place. Massachusetts should establish from one to six institutions where drunks and criminals through drunkenness can be given outdoor treatment.” It is reported that a bill is to be introduced into the Indiana legislature providing for the sending of convicted drunkards to the county infirmary which is reported to be able to work the men on the farm at a cost only one-fourth of that entailed by keeping them at the jail. A member of the State Commission in Lunacy of New York recently stated that 28 per cent of insanity in the state hospitals of New York is directly traceable to inebriety or the use of alcohol. ---------- _Winter and the Vagrant._—New York City has been registering at its half-million dollar new free lodging house a record-breaking attendance this winter of the out-of-works. On January 15th the department of public charities lodged 982 homeless persons at the city lodging house and an overflow of 286 were lodged on a covered dock owned by the department. “In my fifteen years of experience,” said the superintendent of the lodging house, “I have never seen so many men come here with clean shirts and collars, and with neat clothes. They are men who have been working on the railroads and on the aqueduct and are now laid off for the winter.” The city lodging house has no work-test and the magistrates have largely discontinued their former tendency to commit frequent repeaters at the lodging house to the city workhouse. In the first sixteen days of 1910 the city cared for 5,841 persons at the lodging house; for the first sixteen days of 1911 the attendance was 13,197, an astounding increase of approximately 8,000 or more than 125 per cent.