t with, and the more
humanely they are dealt with the better for society at large. So long
as society shuts its eyes to the social conditions under which the
masses of the people live, move, and have their being as tending
towards lowering rather than uplifting the individual and the
community, the supply of cases for criminal treatment will
unfortunately show little tendency to decrease. The work before
reformers of the world is to prevent the creation of criminals by
changing the environment of those with criminal tendencies as well as
to seek to alleviate the resulting disease by methods of criminal
reform.

Many interesting lectures were given by prominent citizens under the
auspices of the society, which did a great deal to awaken the public
conscience on the important question of criminal reform. The Rev. J.
Day Thompson, who was then in the zenith of his intellectual power and
a noble supporter of all things that tended to the uplifting of
humanity, dealt with the land question in relation to crime. He gave a
telling illustration of his point--which I thought equally applicable
to the question of environment in relation to prison reform--that no
permanent good could result from social legislation until society
recognised and dealt with the root of the social evil, the land
question. "In a lunatic asylum," he said, "it is the custom to test the
sanity of patients by giving them a ladle with which to empty a tub of
water standing under a running tap. 'How do you decide?' the warder was
asked. 'Why, them as isn't idiots stops the tap.'" It was the Rev. J.
Day Thompson who first called me the "Grand Old Woman" of South
Australia. When he left Adelaide for the wider sphere of service open
to him in England I felt that we had lost one of the most cultured and
able men who had ever come among us, and one whom no community could
lose without being distinctly the poorer for his absence.

Just at this time the visit of Dr. and Mrs. Mills created a little
excitement in certain circles. Their lectures on Christian science,
both public and private, were wonderfully well attended, and I missed
few of them. I have all my life endeavoured to keep an open mind on
these questions, and have been prepared to accept new ideas and new
modes of thought. But, although I found much that was charming in the
lectures that swayed the minds of so many of my friends, I found little
to convince me that Christian scientists were right and the