Meanwhile cities all over the land are complaining of the swarms of tramps and vagrants making claims, almost with the assurance of vested rights, upon the hospitality of the towns or the individual citizens. Minneapolis has recently attracted attention through its new city lodging house, where free food, free bath and nightshirt are a part of the regulations, as well as the fumigation of the guest’s clothing during the night. The conditions under which homeless men were formerly lodged by the police in Minneapolis were so wretched that the new municipal lodging house has received a welcome from press and public. One year’s work of the wayfarer’s lodge of the federation of charities in Toledo, O., is worth notice. During 1910, 3,896 men were taken care of, 8,465 beds being given. On an average the men stopped at the lodge two and one-half nights, 18,773 meals being given in 1910. Paid employment was found for 962 men, most of the positions being at manual labor. Seventy-three per cent of the men were American born. Over seventy per cent were in the best period of life, between twenty and forty years of age. Nearly fifty per cent of the men were common laborers. All the men were examined by medical students of Toledo University, and if in need of care were referred to a dispensary or other sources. About one man in five was found to need medical attention. Over forty per cent of the men were reported as having, or as having had, venereal disease. ---------- _A Court to “Patch Up” Quarrels._—The domestic relations court of Buffalo supervised through its probation officer in 1910 the distribution of $40,587 in non-support cases. This was the first court of this nature to be established. Recently New York and Boston have followed suit. Probation did not prove successful in every case, but the percentage of success “warrants enthusiasm,” according to the probation officer of the court. Three out of every four persons are reported benefited by the court. ---------- _A Prison Twine Plant in Wisconsin._—On January 13th a bill was introduced into the Wisconsin senate providing for an appropriation of $400,000 as a fund to be used in operating a binder twine plant at the state prison at Waupun, $200,000 to be available May 1st, 1911, and the remainder May 1st, 1912. ---------- A bill will be introduced, it is reported, into the Ohio legislature providing for the sterilization of criminals and insane. ---------- _Points in Prison Reform._—The Chicago Record-Herald of January 17th, says editorially: A Harvard professor advocates systematic experimentation on prisoners in state institutions with the different chemical poisons used in food preservatives. Such doings, he thinks, would be mild and humane as compared with those which are constantly being tried on the non-criminal public by the manufacturers of food products.