AN INTERESTING EXPERIMENT.
The Industrial Farm Colony at Duxhurst, Reigate, which owes its establishment mainly to the self-sacrificing devotion of Lady Henry Somerset, is an experiment which cannot fail to command the sympathy of everyone interested in the reclamation of inebriate women. To take the poor creatures away from their sordid surroundings, and place them in village homes with the attraction of out-door occupation, are the salient features of the work. Floriculture, gardening, bee-keeping, and poultry-keeping, are all engaged in; and, as some of the poor women must perforce bring their very young babies with them, a "Children's Nest" is part of the scheme. Dr. Walters, the medical officer, in a recent report gives some interesting particulars of sixty-four inmates:—
"Forty-eight were married women; sixteen were single.
"Twenty-nine drank spirits alone; fifteen drank beer and malt liquors; eleven drank any form of alcohol; four drank wine and spirits; three drank beer and spirits; one drank beer and wine; one took opium.
"Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to be able to speak with confidence regarding the ultimate cure of the thirty-three cases that are now marked as doing well.
"Regarding the failures:—Ten only stayed the full time: two of these had been in homes previously; one had been in an asylum, four were so broken in health that they were removed by the medical officer as unfit for treatment, seven were removed by their friends before the full period had expired."
The members of the National British Women's Temperance Association raise a considerable sum annually in aid of this beneficent institution, but financial help is much needed if the work is to be maintained with anything like efficiency.
ONE OF THE KITCHENS AT DUXHURST.