Warden Scott of New Hampshire Retires.—Many are the caustic criticisms directed at the Governor of New Hampshire, who recently removed Warden H. K. W. Scott of the State prison, and who appointed in his place a man of no equal prison experience. Warden Scott held office from 1905, and has served under five governors of the State, receiving his appointment from Governor McLane.
The Concord Evening Monitor has published a large number of scathing criticisms from the State press on the action of the Governor in removing Warden Scott.
Warden Scott, during his connection with the institution, has abolished the striped suit, lock step, downcast eye, dark cell and corporal punishment, which were practiced before his coming, and has instituted a night school. Instead of a candle each man now has an electric light in his cell, a grade system has been established and during the last summer a prison baseball league was organized, in order that the inmates might have outdoor exercise. Four teams were in the league and games were played Saturday afternoons.
During the last session of the Legislature Warden Scott worked for the passage of an act to provide for pecuniary assistance of prisoners and their families, whereby a certain per cent. of their earnings is laid aside. The warden had submitted to the Governor and council a plan for the carrying out of this act, which went into effect September 1, but as yet no action has been taken.
Charges preferred against him by Rev. Claudius Byrne, a former chaplain of the prison, were investigated by Legislative committees and proved groundless.
Warden Scott says that for the present he will remain in Concord, N. H., as his two sons are attending school.
Sterilization Law Unconstitutional in New Jersey.—Upon the grounds that she was denied the equal protection of the laws to which, under the constitution of the United States, every person is entitled, the Supreme Court of New Jersey, in an opinion by Justice Garrison, has set aside the order of the Board of Examiners of feeble minded, criminals, Epileptics and other defectives providing for the operation of salpingetomy upon Alice Smith, an inmate of the State Village for Epileptics.
In reaching this conclusion, Justice Garrison holds that without regard to the power of the State to subject its citizens to surgical operations that shall render procreation by them impossible, the statute creating the Sterilization Commission is invalid because it denied to the victims of the law the constitutional protection to which they are entitled.