To the courts and the public, the drunkard is not so much a problem as a wearisome and never-ending nuisance, forever being shuffled hastily out of the way, and perennially cropping up anew. Thus, in our large cities, thousands are arrested, only to be immediately discharged; and neither the mechanical process of arrest and discharge, nor the equally mechanical infliction of a fine or a workhouse sentence, has any result other than to prepare the "rounder" to go through the mill once more. This view is well brought out in a recent number of the Survey.2
"It has been demonstrated after years of experience in this country and abroad," says the Survey, "that petty fines and short sentences do not reform the drunkard or protect society." Inebriety, like insanity, can not be perfunctorily suppressed; but systematic treatment has been even more tardily provided for the drunkard than for the