The Starkville news. (Starkville, Miss.) 1902-1960, 1920-01-02
.FEEbLEM|NDED PAUPERs
in STATE OF MISSISSIPPI

Jackson, Miss.-Mississippi county
poor farms shelter many pauper.
who are parasites simply becaus,
! they have not enough brains to make
their own livings. A particularly
striking instance of this has beer
found by DR.. Thomas H. Haines,
Scientific Director to the Mississippi
Mental Hygiene Commission. A
North Mississippi county poor farm
is sheltering eight white persons.
Every one of these persons is in the
poor farm for no other reason than
that he is short-witted. There are
three males and five females, ranging
in age from 23 to 76 years.
That feeble-mindedness runs in
families is emphasized by this group
OF poor house inmates. Twin sisters
and a brother, all past 10, have been
IN this poor house for 1S years. Two
other members of the same family
came to the poor house with them.
They were feeble-minded. They died
in the poor house. There were three
other members of this family, feeble
minded, who died before their father.
These three old short-witted paupers,
brothers and sisters, are useless to
society. They have always been par
asites upon the community, as were
the rest of their family. Such a fam
lily OF parasitic feeble-minded persons
certainly raises the question as to the
ydsdom Of allowing such children to
be born into the world.
Some intelligent control in this
county, years ago, would have pre-
vented this family of paupers coming
into existence. This county is now
spending over one thousand dollars
a year on the mere food and shelter
of eight feeble minded white persons.
Half of this sum spent annually
would be ample to prevent the in
crease of feeble-minded families, and
would be doing away with the neces-
sity for the poor farm. This is what
is called preventive medicine applied
to Observation-Disclosures.
Manifestly, counties cannot do this
work. 1t must be statewide in it's
character, in order to be effective.
Mississippi needs School and Colony
for the Predetermined, where the
sexes will be segregated, and where
the feeble-minded will be trained to
work. Had the father and mother of
this family Of eight feeble-minded
paupers been put into such training
and segregation eighty years ago,
there would have been no feeble
minded children to inhabit the county
poor farm all these years.
A sum equivalent to half the sum
spent annually on provision for pau
pers in the counties of Mississippi
would provide amply for the estab-
lishment and maintenance of a State
institution to do this work in preven-
tive medicine. This sum spent in this
preventive way would not only sup
port nearly half of the present in
mates of the houses, but it would, at
the same time, do away with part
Of the future work Of the poor hou-
SOS, jails. penitentiary and orphan
ages Of the state. Criminals and pau
pers come in stocks and families. A
state can greatly improve It's citizen
ship, and also cut down the expenses
of maintaining paupers, and dealing
with delinquents, by restraining the
increase Of certain known poor
stocks.
The Mississippi Mental Deficiency
Bill, to be considered this winter by
the Legislature, will provide for this
curtailment Of bad stocks. 1t estab-
fishes Mississippi School and Colony
for the minded, and provides
a plan for the Chancery Court to
commit feeble-minded persons to this
institution,
MISS CATHERINE SLAUGHTER
KInRAr ron rHAI N A nIn