MASSACHUSETTS COMMISSION ON VICE
Governor Foss of Massachusetts on April 21 signed the bill recently passed by the state legislature, providing for the appointment of a commission of five persons, one of whom will be a woman, for the investigation of commercialized vice in Massachusetts. Witnesses, papers and documents may be summoned, and oaths given. The bill creating this commission was the first measure reported out by the Committee on Social Welfare.
Massachusetts is believed to be the first state to institute a formal state-wide investigation by commission of prostitution in all its phases.
TWO WAYS TO TEACH SEX HYGIENE
Two methods of teaching sex hygiene, the biological and the physiological, and their adaptation to the needs of different groups, will be the subject of three conferences to be held by the Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, at Hobart Hall, 416 Lafayette street, New York city on the evenings of May 12, 19 and 26 at 8:15 P. M.
Dr. Mary Sutton Macy will present the physiological and Nellie M. Smith the biological aspect. The third talk on the adaptability of these two methods to different social groups, will be given by Harriet McD. Daniels.
JAIL MEALS DECLARED FIT FOR DOGS
The establishment of four work farms for the prisoners now confined in the county jails of California is urged upon the legislature by the report of the State Board of Charities and Corrections, just issued. These jails, it is suggested, could then be used for holding persons awaiting trial. As at present run they have correctly been called primary schools in crime, says the report. They are declared to be seriously overcrowded in winter, poorly ventilated and unclean. “The meals,” says the report, “are served as one would feed his dog, and in some of them the quality is not much better.” The prisoners herd together, it is asserted, with nothing to do but study and plot crime.
If each of the four farms were large enough to furnish food and labor for 500 prisoners, the report says, they would empty the jails. They would be self-supporting, as well as much better for the prisoners, declares the board.