ade the particular object of solicitude, on the part of those who
have looked with favor upon sterilization legislation. The chronic
inebriate, the confirmed criminal, the prostitute, the pauper, all
deserve careful study by the eugenist. In many cases they will be found
to be feeble-minded, and proper restriction of the feeble-minded will
meet their cases. Thus there is reason to believe that from a third to
two-thirds of the prostitutes in American cities are feeble-minded.[82]
They should be committed to institutions for the feeble-minded and kept
there. It is certain that many of the pauper class, which fills up
almshouses, are similarly deficient. Indeed, the census of 1910
discovered that of the 84,198 paupers in institutions on the first of
January in that year, 13,238 were feeble-minded, 3,518 insane, 2,202
epileptic, 918 deaf-mute, 3,375 blind, 13,753 crippled, maimed or
deformed. A total of 63.7% of the whole had some serious physical or
mental defect. Obviously, most of these would be taken care of under
some other heading, in the program of restrictive eugenics. While
paupers should be prohibited from reproduction as long as they are in
state custody, careful discrimination is necessary in the treatment of
those whose condition is due more to environment than heredity.

In a consideration of the chronic inebriate, the problem of
environmental influences is again met in an acute form, aggravated by
the venom of controversy engendered by bigotry and self-interest. That
many chronic inebriates owe their condition almost wholly to heredity,
and are likely to leave offspring of the same character, is
indisputable. As to the possibility of "reforming" such an individual,
there may be room for a difference of opinion; as to the possibility of
reforming his germ-plasm, there can be none. Society owes them the best
possible care, and part of its care should certainly be to see that they
do not reproduce their kind. As to the borderland cases--and in the
matter of inebriety borderland is perhaps bigger than mainland--it is
doubtful whether much direct action can be taken in the present state of
scientific knowledge and of public sentiment. Education of public
opinion to avoid marriage with drunkards will probably be the most
effective means of procedure.

Finally, there is the criminal class, over which the respective
champions of heredity and environment have so often waged partisan
warfare. There is probably no fie