The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-14

appropriations to expand and complete the institution on the installment plan would be a blunder of judgment, If the State isn't now convinced of the necessity of reformatory and isn't yet willing to foot the bills, 1t is bet ter to wait awhile until the need be- comes apparent,
 State Control of Jails.
 A second need, which is so ele- mentary as to be obvious and so ob- vious as to be elementary, but which is obstructed by the vested inefficiency of yesterday sicklied OCT with the pale cast of the vested selfishness of to- day, is that the control of Connecticut jails should be shifted from counties to State, Each county now has it's own independent jail system. and one sys- tenn differs from another system as one star differeth from another star in glory. Unity of policy Is lacking One county which is scarcely third as populous as the town of Water- bury operates a jail, and another county in which the enumeration Of noses Is about 10000 below the cen sus of the city of Hartford maintains two jails. Under the present plan the State expends about s1l0,000 a year for the board of the population of the ten jails. but it has no voice in their administration. The State shuts it's eyes and pays: the counties open their eyes and spend.
 The whole scheme turns logic top sy-turvy and tweaks the nose of sci entiflc arrangement. Under policy of State management many economies that are now impossible could be en- forced; the number and location of jails could be adjusted to the needs of the whole State and wouldn't be dependent on the arbitrary geography of counties; uniform methods of ad- minlstration could be secured and an opportunity for the classification of prisoners would be provided.
 The advantages of central control of jails would be many, great posi- tive. l am disposed to go a step fur ther and to suggest that the various departments of Connecticuts penal system, such as the iails the State prison and the school for boys, might wisely be brought under a single man. agement in order to harvest the ben- efits of cooperation and of unified policy
 Farm Colony for Founders.
 A third need. born of conditions that thrust themselves under the pub lie nose 365 days year, is ,he estab- lishment of special asylum, perhaps farm colony, for alcoholic rounders. In the four largest cities of Connecti- cut over a,0e0 arrests for drunken ness are made annually, and it is prob- ably safe to assume that In the State generates-sorle in trousers and some alas in petticoats-tarry at the beer fbottle and the whiskey glass so per- sistently that they may fairly be classed as rounders. Only the other day a grog-soaked woman in Hart ford was arrested for the 6Sth time and the pity and pathos of it is that | Silt stditdS Ioi tSpt anu IS not social freak
 Under the present policy the life of the rounder is a vibrating vermiform arpendix 'twixt gutter and jail, unti | in the final chapter the Black Maria gives way to the hearse and the trag- edy is ended. The Connecticut meth cd of dealing with the rounder is bankrupt. It Is indicted by the logic of results. It turns States evide ce and gives itself away whenever any, r' dy tal,'s the trouble 10 us: the probe and to ask questions
 1 The prohiem of ~ecla. ling the rounder-the task of converting an economic liability into an economic | asset-is perplexing. Solution of it is rendered the more difficult because the rounder himself is rarely inclined tC lend hand. He has lost the capacity ! for self-control. His nerve tissue is ir | tatters. His moral fibre is played out He's a tough proposition. But the easy notion that he should be regard. ed eithe~ as a truism to be taken foi granted or as conundrum to be giv. en up is a policy of scuttle. His own welfare aud the public welfare derand the substitution of vigorous measures for the short jail sentence He should be committed. under tkt ] indeterlninate sentence, to a special l institution where scientific treatment ! largely in the open air, may be ad. ministered to him and where under -1s
 earn his bread by the sweat of tn, brow. Even in the most hopeful ease, years would be required to make