Inebriety, therefore, furnishes a very large percentage of those who
keep the police officers busy, clog the magistrates’ courts, and
fill the workhouses and jails. It furnishes also a very large number
of cases for treatment in our public hospitals. Seven thousand male
drunkards are treated annually in the alcoholic ward of Bellevue and
allied hospitals. Carefully compiled records show that in the one year
ended May 1, 1909, 498 men were treated for intoxication more than
once in that ward, and over 100 from four to twelve times, and that
in the course of a few years some individuals have been treated in
the alcoholic ward over twenty times and have been committed to the
workhouse over sixty times.
The committee does not overlook the moral effects of the treatment of
inebriates under the plan which it has approved, but it especially
points out the economic features. It finds that New York is spending
annually on Blackwell’s Island the amount of $80,000 for cases
committed for intoxication, and in addition there is the cost of two
overflow wards at Bellevue, amounting to not less than $65,000 per
annum. The proportion of expenses in maintaining magistrates’ courts
chargeable to intoxication is at least $125,000 a year, and a large
additional expense is incurred in maintaining police officers for the
city prison and for the alcoholic wards in hospitals. To use the
language of the report: “As a result of all these expenses under the
present system there is a complete lack of accomplishment. There is no
pretense even that the individual is helped; quite the contrary, he is
rather confirmed in his habits of inebriety and is permanently fastened
on the community as an expense and as a bad example.”
* * * * *
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