The Review, Vol. 1, No. 5, May 1911

_“Twice Born Men;” A Brief Review_--Prisoner’s aid workers will do well to read Harold Begbie’s book, “Twice Born Men.” It is a striking psychological study of men who have sounded the depths of human degredation and misfortune. Its chief practical value to those who are dealing daily with all sorts and conditions of men, will be in throwing light on a checkered past which is often only partly revealed by the applicants themselves.

The reader may feel that the author holds a brief for the Salvation Army and its work. One might suppose that he was unconscious of any other religious work being done, except for the fact that he specifically discredits the efficacy of the ordinary prison chaplain’s work. It is probably true that the average chaplain might not have sufficient patience with the particular type of man with whom Mr. Begbie deals in this book. We cannot forget, however, that this is only one of many varieties of human experience, and the average prison chaplain might be far more effective than any one else with the larger number of men whom the Army might regard as “Hopelessly Good,” but who nevertheless need the regenerating and sustaining power of religion.

Notwithstanding this seeming limitation of the book, “Twice Born Men” is a splendid portrayal of the one more or less uniform type of the anti-social individual. We are especially impressed with the fact that the materials for this book were secured almost within a stone’s throw of the aristocratic West End of London. It is almost inconceivable that a cultured community would permit the continuance of such a festering sore at its very heels. Fortunately few American cities have such dangerous proximity of the more healthful districts to its insanitary cesspools. May we not take hope from the fact that with a wider separation between the Avenue and the congested district the American cities are insisting upon the extermination of the latter? Their darkness is being expelled by the substitution of social settlements for saloons, and parks and playgrounds for penny-ante and gambling dens.

No reader of “Twice Born Men” can fail to have his faith quickened in the possibilities of human reclamation. Wide experience may discover not only one but many motives that will prompt the transformation of different sorts of men. Nevertheless it gives a renewed courage to feel that when there has been apparent failure all along the line, and when all the resources of church and state have been ineffective in preventing men from reaching the lowest dregs of humanity, there remains the unusual and striking method of the Salvation Army in its appeal to the deep-seated and imperishable instinct of religion.

F. E. L.

_Washington Strives for Inebriates Hospital._--The various citizens’ associations of Washington, D. C., will be asked to make a concerted effort to induce Congress to establish a hospital for inebriates and victims of the drug habit, to which persons can be sent for treatment or be lawfully committed, so that they can be restrained from access to either intoxicating liquors or injurious drugs. The board of trade and chamber of commerce also will be urged to take up the matter.

The Washington Evening Star says editorially: “The need of a local hospital as a place of special treatment for inebriates has long been known and admitted in Washington. The present practice of confining dipsomaniacs and drug victims in a penal institution is suggestive of a bygone age. These unfortunates need treatment, judicious encouragement and some measure of restraint. But what they do not need is punishment. The workhouse is not the best place for alcoholic slaves, but the District is under the necessity of sending them there.”

The Iowa legislature is considering a bill which provides that while the inmates of the state prison and reformatory are at hard labor and on good behavior, their wives and children under sixteen years of age shall be paid fifty cents a day by the state.