"During the eight years the Act has been in operation 2,277 men and women had been committed to reformatories. Of these, 375 were men and 1,902 were women." He thus classifies them as to mental condition: 16·1 per cent. as insane, defective, imbecile, or epileptic; 46·5 per cent. as eccentric, dull, or senile; 37·4 per cent. as of average mental capacity. This means that out of the total admissions for the eight years, 62·6 per cent. were practically insane, and therefore hopeless from a reformatory point of view. The remaining 37·4 per cent. were, he says, of average mental capacity. But the Inspector can only speak of them as he finds them; he cannot speak of their mental capacity when outside his reformatories. I can; therefore I wish to say here something about them. There exists a large class of men and women who, when placed under absolute control in prisons or reformatories, submit themselves quietly to the authority that controls and the conditions that environ them. They obey orders, they display no anger, they offer no violence; they are not moody or spiteful, but they fulfil their duties with some degree of cheerfulness and alacrity. Those who have charge of them naturally look upon them as the most hopeful of their prisoners. A greater mistake could not be made. It may be vice, it may be drink, it may be dishonesty, that is the master passion of their lives; it may be, for aught I know--and in reality I believe that it is--some inscrutable mental disease that causes their passions or weaknesses; but whatever the passion, and however caused or controlled, when these people are under absolute authority in places where the vice, passion, or weakness cannot possibly be indulged, then that passion, vice, or weakness is absolutely non-existent for the time, and its victims appear as normal people.
But a far different state of mind and body exists when they are released from authority, for with liberty the old instinct or passion comes into fierce existence, and instantly demands gratification. While the released person has on the one hand gained considerably in health of mind and body, the sleeping passion too has gained in strength during the time it has hibernated. These persons, I am happy to believe, are not of normal mind, for they are helpless before the stress of temptation. In fact, decent as they may seem while in custody, the gratification of their particular vice is the only thing of importance in life to them. These unfortunate people, when at liberty, are in reality under authority of a different kind, and their obedience to the dark, mysterious authority that controls them is as implicit as if they were detained in prison or reformatory, for they do not question or gainsay its imperious demands. Small wonder, then, that nearly all the women who have been committed to inebriate reformatories revert to their old habits of life. To speak of their relapse is wrong, for in reality there is no relapse about it; they have only been held by force from their old life, which they resume when that preventive force is withdrawn.