g the cost of the insane we must take into account the value or
worth of each adult to the State. This value has been computed to be $700 a
year. If, upon this basis, we count the adult membership of the insane
class between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, we find that their worth
is roughly about $132,000,000.

The cost of maintenance in the various insane institutions is about
thirty-three millions of dollars a year. It would be quite possible to
justly increase this total by estimating the worth of the help whose whole
time is devoted to the care of the insane. If these individuals worked at
some other trade or profession, their time would. be of value to the [44]
state in general--not to a class who should be non-existent. The cost to
the state of the potential criminal is not included in this estimate.

From the above figures it may be observed that it costs more to simply
maintain the insane each year than it costs to work the Panama Canal; or to
pay for the total cost of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial
departments of our government. The total cost is more than the entire value
of the wheat, corn, tobacco, and dairy and beef products exported each year
from this country.

ALCOHOLIC DRUNKENNESS.--Alcoholism is a sign and a symptom of degeneracy
and is a distinct indication of unfitness for parenthood. The only cure for
alcoholism is to prohibit parenthood. It has been proved that alcohol taken
into the stomach can be demonstrated in the testicle or ovary within a few
minutes, and, like any other poison, may injure the sperm or the germ
element therein contained. As a result of this intoxication of the primary
elements, children may be conceived and born who become idiots, epileptics
or feeble-minded. It is asserted that 48 per cent. of all the idiots and
imbeciles are the offspring of alcoholic parents.

Recent experiments show that parental alcoholism alone can determine
degeneration. Mr. Galton quoted the case of a man who, "after begetting
several normal children became a drunkard and had imbecile offspring"; and
another case has been recorded of a healthy woman who, when married to a
drunkard, had five sickly children, dying in infancy, but in a later union
with a healthy man bore normal and vigorous children.

Dr. Sullivan found on inquiry that:

.... "Of 600 children born of 120 drunken mothers 335 died in infancy or
were still-born, and that several of the survivors were mentally defective