y book club and other sources, I was able to do. Sometimes
my friends from abroad sent me copies of their own publications, Dr.
Bayard Holmes invariably forwarding to me a presentation copy of his
most valuable treatises on medical subjects. Mrs. Stetson's poems and
economic writings have always proved a source of inspiration to me, and
I have distributed her books wherever I have thought they would be
appreciated. Just at this time my financial position became brighter. I
was fortunate in being able to dispose of my two properties in East
Adelaide, and the purchasing of an annuity freed me entirely from money
and domestic worries. Perhaps the greatest joy of all was that I was
once more able to follow my charitable inclinations by giving that
little mite which, coming opportunely, gladdens the heart of the
disconsolate widow or smoothes the path of the struggling worker.
Giving up my home entirely, I went to live with my dear friend Mrs.
Baker, at Osmond terrace, where, perhaps, I spent the most restful
period of a somewhat eventful life.

The inauguration of a Criminological Society in Adelaide was a welcome
sign to me of the growing public interest in methods of prison
discipline and treatment. I was one of the foundation members of the
society, and attended every meeting during its short existence. My one
contribution to the lectures delivered under its auspices was on
"Heredity and Environment." This was a subject in which I had long been
interested, holding the view that environment had more to do with the
building up of character than heredity had to do with its decadence.
How much or how little truth there is in the cynical observation that
the only believers in heredity nowadays are the fathers of very clever
sons I am not prepared to say. I do say, however, that with the cruel
and hopeless law of heredity as laid down by Zola and Ibsen I have
little sympathy. According to these pessimists, who ride heredity to
death, we inherit only the vices, the weaknesses, and the diseases of
our ancestors. If this, however, were really the case, the world would
be growing worse and not better, as it assuredly is, with every
succeeding generation. The contrary view taken of the matter by Ibsen's
fellowcountryman, Bjornsen, appears to me to be so much more
commonsense and humanizing. He holds that if we know that our ancestors
drank and gambled to excess, or were violent-tempered or immoral, we
can quite easily avoid the pit