parting to the journal a distinct individuality and his editorials and "observations" were imbued with a force and charm, which placed them immeasurably above those of any other State journal in the country. And during his editorship the journal was entirely free from the sins that beset most of the State journals, which render them so obnoxious to the independent and honest thinker, namely: cant, hypocrisy, inconsistency and a tyrannical bureaucratic attitude. Let us hope that now the journal will not be converted into a backboneless, vacillating, vague and hazy soporific nonentity. The medical society of the Empire State of the Union should possess a real medical journal-or none at all!

Vasectomy To Restrict The Propagation of the Criminal

and the Unfit.

We give our fullest approval to the Indiana law, which provides for the performance of vasectomy on criminals and imbeciles. This operation in itself trivial and harmless, effectually prevents the mail criminal from propagating his species. The law reads as follows:

"Whereas, Heredity plays a most important part in the transmission of crime, idiocy and imbecility,

"Therefore, be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, that on and after the passage of this act it shall be compulsory for each and every institution in the State entrusted with the care of confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists and imbeciles to appoint upon its staff, in addition to the regular institutional physician, two skilled surgeons of recognized ability, whose duty it shall be, in conjunction with the chief physician of such institution, to examine the mental and physical condition of such inmates as are recommended by the institutional physician and board of managers. If in the judgment of such committee of experts and the board of managers procreation is inadvisable, and there is no probability of improvement of the condition of such inmate, it shall be lawful to perform such operation for the prevention of procreation as shall be deemed safest and most effective."

Within the first year after the law went into effect 296 perfectly successful vasectomies were performed in the State Reformatory. Neither local nor general anesthesia was found necessary and the prisoners did not have to lose one hour's time from their work. It is well to bear in mind that this operation leaves the man in full possession of his sexuality. He has the libido and orgasm, but is sterile and can not impregnate any woman. Semen is secreted, but it of course can not reach the ejaculatory duct and is reabsorbed. So far women have not been subjected to the operation of the law, tho it is applicable to both sexes.

Copyrighted, 1909, by William J. Robinson.

Letters from the Editor.

DEAR CHILDREN:

Lugano-Paradiso.

LUGANO-PARADISO, July 22d, 1908.

The place we are stopping at now is called Paradiso, and if any place in the world was ever entitled to the name Paradise, this one surely is. The air is mild and soothing, the sky is of the purest azure, and the lake of Lugano (which the Italians call Lago Ceresio), trimmed all around with beautiful gardens and villas, is constantly smiling, as if it felt secure in the knowledge that no harm could come to it so long as it was watched and guarded on all sides by such faithful and powerful mountains as Monte San Salvatore, Monte Generoso, Monte Caprino and Monte Bré. (Can you notice the sweetness of the sounds in the very names of those mountains? You could if you heard the Italians pronounce them.)

We spend very little time in the rooms-only the time we sleep. Even our meals we take in the open-in the garden. And a good deal of the time we walk about in the immense villa attached to the hotel, and pick flowers, pears, etc. There are walnuts, figs and olives in profusion, but they are not ripe yet.

It is nearly seven now and we are sitting out on the balcony; at our feet is the lake of Lugano. The hotel has a lake frontage of three hundred feet and each and every room has a balcony directly over the lake. On the balcony next to us an old German is puffing his long pipe, and seems to be supremely contented. At the harmonious beauty and sweet peacefulness of the scene, a sense of harmony and peace fills my soul, and I feel reconciled with the world. But for only a brief moment. For, unfortunately, I am not possessed of that self-hypnotizing power of the New Thoughters, Christian Scientists and other muddleheads, which could make me imagine for a moment, that everything is nice and lovely in this nice and lovely world, and that we are to be profoundly grateful for the great gifts and blessings which we, unworthy sinners, receive from the hands of the almighty and allmerciful God. For, whatever my personal condition may be, I cannot forget for a moment that this world is full of poverty, full of terrible suffering, of unkindness, uncharitableness, cruelty. I see it even here, in this beautiful Paradiso. And I rebel with every fibre of my soul against the cruel theologic dogma, that suffering is something useful, something necessary, something sent into this world by divine providence to try, to strengthen, to purify and to chasten men's souls.

I admit that a selfish, hard-hearted, thoughtless man or woman may sometimes be brought to his or her senses, may

become refined or chastened by some severe catastrophe, by some acute suffering. But I do deny most positively that anybody's soul has ever been ennobled or chastened by continual drudgery, by life-long poverty, by never-ceasing suffering. And this is the lot of millions and millions of people on this earth. Yes, there are millions of people in this vale of tears and suffering in whose life from cradle to grave there never enters a ray of joy, whose hopeless and cheerless monotony is never brightened even by a vision of happiness. And such life, instead of ennobling, brings out everything that is bad in human character.

I repeat, I rebel with every fibre against the notion that suffering is something useful and necessary, and my brightest and most comforting belief is-and I hope it will also be yours-that there will be a time in this world, when poverty, crime, and cruelty; fear, ignorance and brutality, will be no more. The very meaning of these words will become vague and hazy.

This may not be the most appropriate letter to write on the balcony of the best hotel in Lugano-Paradiso, in full view of the smiling lake, the friendly vine-clad mountains and the magnificent blood-red sunset. But one cannot command one's thoughts and I promised to write to you just the thoughts that came into my head. If the thoughts are not always cheerful, it is not mine, but the stupid world's fault.

YOUR LOVING FATHER.

Total Abstinence and Moderation in Drinking.

DEAR CHILDREN:

JULY 30TH, 1908.

You know my strong temperance tendencies. While not a fanatic, while, of course, not sharing the superstitious fear that some have even of a very moderate quantity of good wine or beer, and while despising, as I despise every untruth, even if told in a good cause, the silly exaggerations and deliberate falsehoods told about the "poisonous" effects of alcoholic beverages by our total abstinence zealots and in our temperance school books, still I believe that the temperance movement is a good one and deserves the encouragement and support of all good men. While I drink perhaps six glasses of beer and perhaps half as many glasses of wine during the year, still you know that personally I would not care a rap if every drop of alcoholic beverage suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, and I am glad to know that you feel the same way. But what I started out to say was this my temperance notions and tendencies receive a very rude shock, whenever I make one of my European trips.

I would perhaps hesitate to write this letter, if I were not perfectly secure in the satisfying knowledge that there is not the slightest danger of your ever developing a liking for alcoholic beverages. Without telling you any falsehoods, without in any

way exaggerating the pernicious effects of alcohol when improperly used, I have brought you up so that you have a real dislike for beer, wine and particularly strong liquors, as you have for tobacco. And when a person dislikes a thing on physical grounds, he is much safer to trust than when his dislike or aversion is based upon purely theoretical grounds. It is those who swear off, who have to swear off, that eventually break out into the wildest sprees.

But to continue. As I said, whenever I am in Europe, my temperance tendencies get badly twisted. Let me explain. I came in to-day to the dining room of the Kurhaus Hotel. Two big tables are occupied exclusively by Englishmen and a few Americans, two big tables are "mixed," but the guests are chiefly Germans and Frenchmen. On the tables occupied by our AngloSaxons-the gentler sex predominating—there is not a bottle of wine nor a glass of beer. Just plain water, and here and there a bottle of mineral water. On the German-French tables there is either beer or wine before everybody. The men, the women and the children-even the priests-all drink. The composition of the "tables" is of course purely accidental, but it so happens that at the Anglo-Saxon tables, there is not one person of any prominence. Mostly non-entities, some reverends, a few shopkeepers, a bank president, etc. At the German-French tables there are two famous professors of the Berlin University-one of medicine, one of philosophy-one chemist whose name is known to every chemist in the world, one great dramatist, one editor of a Paris daily paper, one well-known dramatic critic, one railway and tunnel engineer, one sculptor-and then a sprinkling of actors, singers, etc. In short, a crowd of men that count. Now please, please do not get facetious and do not make me say the absurd thing, that drinking contributes towards making men great, while non-drinking has a tendency to make men non-entities. Don't be foolish. If you want to draw a conclusion, you may do But the only legitimate conclusion from what I have said so far is this: It is apparently a fact that moderate drinking does not prevent a man from doing great work, work in every possible sphere of human activity, work that makes history, work that leaves its indelible impress on mankind.

so.

Go thru Germany. They all drink. They all drink. I have seen children three and four years of age drink large glasses of beer. The amount the students imbibe is certainly enormous-incredible to the uninitiated. The professors drink, as far as I know, without exception (those who abstain on account of some cardiac, renal or other trouble are of course only apparent exceptions). I have personally seen some of the very greatest German men of science—and when I say greatest I mean greatest: to mention only one name as an example, that of Ernst Haeckel-consume amounts of beer and wine which would send a shiver down the backs of our temperance advocates. Yes, they all drink. And

still who will dare to assert that the German nation is in any respect, physically or mentally, inferior to ours? In what country have the sciences, not only the purely abstract and theoretical, but also the practical sciences, such as industrial chemistry, attained their very highest development? To what country do we send our physicians for post-graduate courses? In what country does literature, the drama, the theater, music, painting, etc., etc., stand any higher than they do in Germany? And physically the Teutons do not seem to be inferior to any other nation either.

And what I said of Germany is also true of France-only here the national drink is wine instead of beer. And don't you believe anything about the degeneration of the French. The French are still one of the world's three great nations. They do not multiply rapidly? In this they only show their wisdom; they show that they are fully alive to the great responsibility of child raising under present conditions Let the economic conditions improve and the French birthrate will rapidly increase. But this is in parentheses.

And I might also mention the decided difference in the appearance of our women and the German women, which you cannot help noticing when you travel in a country like Switzerland, where so many nations come together. While our girls and women look pale, anemic, "washed-out," the German females have color in their cheeks to give away. And they not only look healthier-they are healthier. They eat with better appetites and have much more endurance. It is possible that the beer does contribute somewhat to this result.

Why do I write you this? First, because I have no other subject to write about to-day. And second-and this is of course the real reason-this subject has been on my mind for some time and I wanted to make a clear breast of it. If it is possibly true that a pure beer or a pure wine used in moderation in conjunction with food—and this is the only way they should be usedare useful, health-giving articles, then it is a pity that we should allow ourselves to be carried away by the false arguments and baseless exaggerations of well-meaning zealots.

A word as to moderate drinkers. You perhaps know that our temperance leaders deny that there can be such a thing as a permanently moderate drinker. They assert-the assertion is not based upon proofs-that every moderate drinker in time becomes a drunkard. He demands each time more and more stimulation, until he consumes large quantities of alcoholic beverages and thus imperceptibly becomes a drunkard. Instead of arguing about this matter, I will state most emphatically that the assertion is a falsehood. I know a great many Germans and Frenchmen who have always been moderate drinkers, drinking as a rule with their meals only, and they do not need or use more beer or wine now than they did twenty-five years ago. And their health is such as could well be envied by most of our teetotal crusaders.