The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-05-18

indianapolis, May lf.-Ine CLOSING
day of the National Conference of
Charities and Correction was marked
by a program embracing diversified
subjects. from survey of the police
woman movement to alcohol insanity
in Kansas, a prohibition state.
1.-The Police Woman Movement" was
discussed by Mrs. Alice Stebbins
Wells, a police woman of Los Angeles,
California.
Mrs. Wells said in part:
1T is now conceded by nearly all
reasonable people that there is type
of police work which cannot and
should not be done by men and that
there is left undone in any city which
has not policewomen vast amount
of preventive police work in the in
terest OF woman and children.
"In the now nearly six years since
Los Angeles appointed the first regu-
lar policewomen, twenty states have
come into line-Maryland, Colorado,
Texas, Pennsylvania, Washington.
New York, Arizona, Ohio Wisconsin,
Illinois, Alabama, Indiana, North
Dakota, Massachusetts, Nebraska,
Louisiana, New Jersey, Missouri,
Minnesota. Montana.
MEN officers, especially detectives
and plain clothes men must, in their
round of duties, often go to the home
of women and compel them to ac-
company them at once to the station.
This may often occur at an hour when
women are totally unprepared for OBJ
servation, because the woman might
otherwise escape, attempt self-de-
struction, destroy evidence or signal
to confederates.
THE Social Work of Policewomen"
was the subject of a paper by Mrs.
Charles Carroll Brown of Ondianap-
oils.
Speaking of a study of the results
of special court hearings for women's
cases in the Indianapolis city court
and of probation work under the d.
rection of the late Mrs. Eva Payne
Hopkins, Mrs. Brown said:
"Out of Ats cases only 40 were
fined or committed to the jail or cor
rectional department of the woman's
prison and, in the remaining cases,
the investigation disclosed that the
facts would not justify Imprisonment
and the court either suspended the
sentence or withheld judgment. AS a
result Of the investigation of 1928 cas-
es involving domestic relations, less
than rs per cent of the offenders were
committed to Jail or workhouse.
under this system, thousands Of
dollars were saved to the city ant
to the offending poor, but the creates
saving was in self-respect, courage
and hope of the offenders and thei
uplife to better living"
"Borderlinity" is not a new disease
1t is simply classification of larg,
number of mental detectives who ar,
not capable of passing we'll in ordi
nary society or even high, enough
in the social to be called backward
and who yet would not be relegatet
among the predetermined. This trou
blesome and little-known class wa
the theme of an address by DR.. s. c
Kohs, head of psychological labora
tory at the Chicago City Workhouse
He said in part :
"By borderline' is meant distanc,
or an arear between whose limit
there is an occurrence of both feeble
minded and normal types; below tn,
lower limit all cases are feeble-mind
ed, and above the upper limit all cas-
es are normal There is no line di
viding the normal from the mental.
defective.
Our institutional experience lead
us to the conclusion that a more ear
nest and more thorough considera
ton of the borderline doubtful case b,
the public school authorities is am
solutely necessary on one hand; ant
on the other, either the creation o
a special department in institution
for the feeble-minded, or the organ
ization of an entirely new type of IL
stitution, such as is now in eXistenc
in Germany, in which these doubtfu
cases may be studied to determin
In a paper on I'LL Health in it
Bearing on Insanity" DR.. S. T
Smith, Superintendent of the Easter
Indiana Hospital, said ninety-five pc
cent Of the cases of mental disease
which directly or indirectly invad
the brain and other parts of the gel
eral nervous system and disorder tn
brains functions.
1.-The diseases causing insanity G
mental disease are many" said d
Smith, land ninety per cent. of theI
are preventable. The great causes
the order of their importance and r.
sponsibility for this ninety per cen
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