This system is rapidly growing in favor, for under its rule all are treated alike. Four States have adopted it during the past year, and it is to be hoped that it will ultimately be in force all over the Union. When a uniform system of laws shall govern medical practice throughout the country, these State examinations may no longer be necessary; for a diploma issued in any one State will then command unquestioned respect everywhere. But now, while the differences in the requirements of the several States are so great, and while the "old-fashioned" diplomas are still in use, such examinations are necessary in those States which have adopted the high standard of education for medical practitioners.

It appears then that the restrictive medical laws relate alone to matters of education, and do not deal with particular theories of practice or systems of treatment. The law simply requires each physician to qualify for professional work by public examination as to general knowledge and proficiency, and commands that no others shall practise medicine professionally. But Doctor Bland asserts that,

Under the operation of the laws thus procured it has been declared a crime, punishable by fine and imprisonment, for a physio-medical physician to cure a patient with his non-poisonous vegetable remedies; for a disciple of Priessnitz or Father Kneipp to cure a sick person with water; for a vitapathist to heal the sick by the magnetic power that the Nazarene used so successfully in his day; or for the mental healer or Christian Scientist to practise his system for the relief of human suffering.

This is a bold statement. It is the kernel of his article: all the rest is merely husk and padding. Upon this he relies to rouse up popular resentment and to prejudice legislators against the cause of the higher medical education. Here, again, with ambiguous phrase, yet showing plainly the animus which has prompted him throughout his crafty attack, he seeks to mislead the unguarded reader into a pitfall of deception. This skilfully constructed paragraph is intended to convey to the popular mind the impression that legislative acts have been passed, at the instigation of an intolerant, bigoted, and persecuting combination of medical men, to define what remedies may be used by physicians and to restrict them in their methods of practice. He does not say this openly, but it is easy to see what he intends his readers to

infer. He gives no reference to any statute in any State in the Union to bear up this pretence, for the very good reason that there is no law in existence anywhere in this country which restricts a physician in the legitimate exercise of his profession in any way, concerning the use of any remedy, medicine, or method of treatment. For every physician is left in perfect freedom to choose and use whatever means he thinks will best serve the interests of those who are under his professional care. Any and every remedy may be used, if used with knowledge, sincerity, and honest purpose. The law compels no one to employ a physician, but it prohibits everyone from assuming the office of a physician without due preparation and the license of the state. The law prevents by fine and imprisonment, if need be, the untrained enthusiast, the crank with only one remedy for every disease, and the cunning quack, for the same reason that it restrains an ignorant man from undertaking to manage a steam-engine: namely, for the protection of human life. But every qualified physician, no matter what the nominal adherence to this or that "school" or "pathy" may be, is absolutely free to do that which he or she is bound by conscience to do: to use that means, for the relief of suffering and disease, which knowledge and experience may teach each one to be the best. To further this end, let the people welcome restrictive legislation which aims to drive out ignorance, superstition, and imposture, and hasten the time when a liberal education shall be the criterion of every physician in the land.

Ignorance is the curse of God;

Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

THE EMPLOYMENT OF CONVICT LABOR IN

IN

MASSACHUSETTS.

BY DR. JOHN THOMAS CODMAN.

NTO the councils of the staid old Commonwealth of Massachusetts the Governor has flung an apple of discord

that will stir up more controversy among the people than anything that has come before them of late years; for, mixed up with its prudential and financial considerations are humane and social ones about which men have differed and quarrelled for centuries, and over which battles have been fought and may yet be renewed before their final settlement. But if the questions involved are to be settled at some time, no loyal citizen of the State should quarrel as to the nearness of the hour at which he may be called on to array himself on the side he thinks right, and cast his ballot for that measure which he believes to be the most just, rational, and humane. Then, without further delay, let the question be settled by sober thinking, cool reasoning, wisely, and without appeal to passion or prejudice.

In questions of state policy, broad and comprehensive views should be taken. Individual bias should be laid aside, and the good of the whole community, not that of any one class, be put uppermost. This is claimed to be a progressive age; but there can be no progress without change, and every change will incommode you, or me, or some one else. Let us argue, then, not from any fancied hurt to ourselves, but from the average gain to the body politic.

With labor irritated by lower wages occasioned by the everincreasing number of labor-saving machines, by the multiplicity of combinations made to economize time, by being forced to keep pace with the relentless and rapid motions of iron and steel automatons, the laborers have been seemingly finding themselves more and more bound as in the coils of an enormous python that embraces not only one man and his sons, but whole households of sons and daughters of toil. So

sensitive have the laborers become, so surely seems it to them that slipping away from them are not only all the prizes of life, but even the chances of earning what they have ever considered their right, that is, a full cupboard of plain food at all times, that they have felt obliged to drive all intruders from those fields of labor which they have considered their

own.

Everywhere is labor striving to drive out competition. At our seaports stand the minions of the law, keeping a sharp watch that the ambitious poor from other countries shall be excluded from this land, which to them and to us once seemed "God's acres," but which is now designated by us as "our own country." All along the frontier stand guardsmen keeping back the sons of Confucius. The Argus eyes of toil have sought out and found competitors in the prisons of the land, and the toilers demand that they shall have the work which men who have violated the law have been doing.

Listening to this demand the Massachusetts legislature has of late years passed laws annulling the right formerly given to make contracts for the employment of the prisoners in our penal institutions. Such contract labor is now forbidden, and all contracts have been closed except those not yet run outall but for cane-seating chairs and making umbrellas. To have been consistent the State should have closed them all. Then it could have been said that the prisoners were entirely without employment. Now it can be said that they have something to do; they can cane-seat chairs and make umbrellas the 3,000 prisoners who are, or were, working at remunerative wages during the past years all cane-seating chairs and making umbrellas! What a competitor it makes of them in those lines of business! At a glance it will be seen that such labor is a mere subterfuge for genuine employment, and that the vast majority of the prisoners can have nothing either useful or remunerative to do, but must remain in sheer idleness locked up with their uncomfortable thoughts.

In the Annual Report, for 1897, of the General Superintendent of Prisons of Massachusetts, Mr. Frederick G. Pettigrove makes this important statement:

It is difficult to find new work, and it seems likely that, unless some

public employment is provided, it will be utterly impossible to keep the prisoners out of idleness. It is not necessary to repeat the arguments that have been published year after year against the policy of making the prisons a refuge for idlers. Every person will admit that some form of work is absolutely essential to protect the interests of society. Aside from any humane consideration for individual prisoners, there is the strongest possible reason for keeping them at work in order to avoid doing a great injury to the community. If men are made worse by being sent to prison, a great harm is done to the state; and they will be made worse if a former habit of idleness is encouraged and strengthened, or if that habit is formed by a hitherto industrious man from the condition of the prison to which he is unfortunate enough to be committed.

This then is the problem presented to the State legislature: how to employ the unemployed prison-bound men and women who languish in health and spirits in our penitentiaries.

A glance at the map of Massachusetts will show that the State has in its southeastern portion a long peninsula of low land, sandy and marshy, interspersed with ponds and creeks, and somewhat sparsely populated. This peninsula, which is sixty-five miles long, makes a long, narrow arm from one to twenty-five miles wide that stretches far to the eastward and then bends northerly at an irregular elbow, the peninsula embracing a large body of water, and forming a southern and eastern barrier to the Atlantic Ocean, behind which are the calmer waters of the great bay. This bent arm is Cape Cod. At the western extremity of Massachusetts Bay lies Boston, sheltered by many islands and headlands that make its beautiful harbor. It is a long sail around the Cape, oftentimes rough, foggy, and dangerous, especially in the winter season. In twenty-seven years, from 1843 to 1870, 1,444 vessels were wrecked. Six hundred lives and millions of tons of coal have been lost along Cape Cod.. Products pass around it to the north and east every year, and the tonnage is met by return cargoes weighty and valuable. Why not cut a canal across the narrow Cape and save a large outlay of lives, of time, and of merchandise?

Again and again has this question been asked. Numerous surveys have been made, plans have been drawn, and labors have been commenced, but timid capital has as often asked, Will it pay dividends commensurate with the risk run? and has as often failed to respond to calls. This question of doubt