Morning journal and courier., 1881-09-27
Price Four Cents

Simply sending these men and women to jail does not seem to work cure. The arrests for drunkenness are rapidly increasing in New Haven. The total number of arrests for drunkenness for June, July and August of this year were 794, against 5s0 during the corresponding months of last year. an in- crease of 214. My plan in brief is this:
 The New Haven Gospel Union, a union for Christian work of clergymen and prominent Christian men from four different denomina- tions will, I feel confident, appoint, if certain arrangements can be made, an agent to work under my direction, whose duties may be roughly outlined follows
 CD To visit the City Court every morning and keep a record of all cases of ''drunks," and their disposition. CD The cases con tinued for 30 days (which means usually a discharge) or of suspended judgment, might be given into the care of the agent to watch over them and report to the court in future. o. The cases in which fine or imprisonment is inflicted. Perhaps the man has been on drunk for a week. He Ss in terrible condition physically; has had no breakfast. All he knows is that he heard the judge say, ''Three dollars and costs' or perhaps 'sThirty days in jail, :" whereupon he was told to s'come on, and he finds himself uneeremoniously hustled out of the court
 room, down stairs into the lookup. His friends have no means of finding out where he is, and he has no means of communica- ting with them save through the kindness of an officer, which often cannot well be rem dered by man who has been up all night on duty and who needs to go hone and sleep. The agent can visit him in the lookup and perhaps get him cup of coffee, which one may well think tastes good to a man just from drunken spree. The agent may com municate with his friends, and even some-
 times go to the mans employer and get
 money with which to pay his fine (4.) Af-
 ter he is in jail he may visit him, take him some reading matter and show a kindly in-
 terest in him. (5.) The day he
 mest 5 tne a jail the the a agent door ShGnd snd
 go with him past the saloons to his home.
 Oftentimes a man gets drunk before he reaches his home on the way from the jail. The agent should assist him to find work if
 he has no situation and has any desire to re- form. There are few men who go to jail for
 drunkenness who do not keep more or less
 busy making good resolutions about their
 future when they get out. They think, for
 example, that they will sign the pledge, but before they reach the house of the priest or
 temperance agent the fumes of the liquor as they pass the saloons tempt to 'just one
 glass; before they sign. The ''just one
 glass" is the beginning of another drunken spree, which often sends them again behind the iron doors. The presence of the agent
 would overcome the temptation, and the
 pledge once taken might be the first step in a
 sober future life.
 It seems to me that some such plan as this
 would be well worth trying. It would re-
 quire about $500 per year to pay the agent, so that he might devote his entire time to the work. It would also be necessary that the
 judges should cooperate. I have little doubt that the directors of the Gospel
 Union would agree to the plan. I would sug-
 gest, to make the matter practical that if any of your readers are in favor of this they will
 notify MT. E. s. Wheeler, the treasurer of
 the Gospel Union, to this effect, and state
 how much they will contribute if the society
 undertake the work
 JOHN c. COLLINS, General Superintendent Gospel Union