8. The challenge was made by Mrs, Rip pin: Does this Conference want to put itself on record for some uniform law or federal action? We have too long kept silent on the question of venereal disease. In this particular case I should suppose it would depend upon the physician's statement as to whether the girl would improve in health and whether the man in question had a venereal infection. In one of the camp towns where we have been examining every prostitute arrested, it was found that98 per cent of them had gonorrhoea and 68 per cent had syphilis. This indicates the type of professional coming to our camp cities. I do not believe that mobilization has brought this about at all, but rather that mobilization has made us conscious of conditions which existed long before war was declared.

9. The Michigan situation was explained further by Miss Ostrander as follows: Michigan has a health plan operating under the State Board of Health and is treating free of charge all men and women who cannot afford private treatment. We have a quarantine law which makes it compulsory that every doctor and druggist report all cases of venereal disease to the State Board of Health. The state is prosecuting doctors who do not report their cases. This law went into effect in November, 1917, and since then we have had something over 4,000 cases reported. A little less than one-third are women. The social work of which I am in charge is not dealing with the man proposition because we feel that the woman is the more serious factor. Men of the same age are being cared for through the army and navy. No attempt is made to apprehend women who are able and willing to care for themselves. Every girl arrested in Michigan on moral or disorderly charges is turned over to a health officer for examination, on the basis that she has been exposed to venereal disease. All positive cases are interned in hospitals where they are detained until no longr in an infectious stage. We have no state hospital for this work but are using beds donated by the various established hospitals throughout the state. The state has made arrangements for a temporary place of detention for feebleminded women. The feebleminded, insane, and epileptic are being sent directly to the state institutions established for their care. This takes out of our work the most serious element. The patients come to us voluntarily or they are street women apprehended through the police or other courts. The Social Service department of the State Board makes a complete social history of every interned patient. Detailed family history, mental and physical examination and follow-up work indicated by the social and mental investigations are handled by this department. Also this department sees to itthat every patient attends a clinic for after-treatment for so long a time as the attendant physician requires. We have not taken time to educate the physicians. We just enforced the law. There was not sufficient time to put on an educational campaign, so we had copies of the law sent to every doctor, with a follow-up letter to be sure he received the first. It has been necessary to prosecute in a few instances.

10. H. P. Richardson, superintendent, Detention Home for Children, Philadelphia, questioned: What would you do if the patient refused to go to the clinic? Would you use some means to have the order carried out? To this an affirmative answer was given; after which Mr. Richardson inquired further: Suppose the same patient, not being entirely cured, wishes to take up a marriage relationship, why not use the same pressure as you would in the first instance?

11. Miss Ostrander replied: I have a law back of me in the first instance, and not in the last. Michigan has passed a law when a patient is no longer in an infectious condition she is no longer liable to the dictation of the state. She is not cured necessarily. Cure is an indefinite proposition. She may or may not be cured before death.

13. The Rev. A. J. D. Haupt, director of social service, St. Paul Federation of Churches, said: I wish to caution against jumping at conclusions in these matters. In the past four years two thousand and more cases have come under my care in the juvenile court. In quite a large proportion of these the parents are not responsible, except in some cases indirectly and unknowingly, for the delinquency of their children. There are certain men in our city, junk dealers in particular, who have been guilty of training or encouraging boys to steal. Our boy delinquents last year were 404; out of this number 160 were cases of larceny, also 40 per cent, and most of these were gangs of boys who had been taught junking.

14. Arthur W. Tozvne, superintendent, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Brooklyn, said: At last year's conference the question was raised as to whether domestic relation courts and juvenile courts should remain separate or should be brought together under one jurisdiction. Judge Hoffman can, I believe, try cases of juvenile delinquency, neglect, non-support, bastardy, divorce, and separation. It seems to me that there are decided advantages in giving one judge control over all of these closely related matters. I would even bring still other cases into the same family court, namely, guardianship and adoption and the granting of marriage licenses to minors. It is altogether too easy for the mothers of illegitimate children to rid themselves of their responsibilities by passing their children over to so-called baby farms or other persons absolutely unfit to be entrusted with their custody and care. It should not be possible for a mother to give away her baby by simply signing an affidavit before a notary public or by any other means short of the decree of a competent court which will first institute a thorough investigation of the merits of the case. The modern methods of dealing with juvenile delinquency and non-support cases should be extended all over the country to the related matters like divorce, separation, guardianship and adoption. Every unfortunate child, no matter what the background causes of the misfortune may be, should have the very best care and protection which the community can provide.

The marriage of girls fifteen years old or younger, particularly those known as forced marriages, in which the man's motive has been to save himself from punishment upon the charge of rape, ordinarily turn our disastrously. They are very apt to end in exploitation, inadequate support, desertion, or other neglect and ill-treatment. At present there is too much of a division of responsibilities on the part of the courts and their authorities with respect to these marital problems. For example, a court trying a man charged with assaulting a young girl may order a marriage, in spite of the fact that the criminal court having jurisdiction over the man defendant has no jurisdiction whatever over the girl, and no adequate conception of what is really for her best welfare. We all know how common it is for attorneys, and friends of the defendant's to say to the girl's parents, "He is a fine young man," although he may have a venereal disease or a criminal record. They may say to the parents, "Unless your daughter does marry this man, her name will be ruined forever, and she will be sent to a reformatory until she is 21 years old, or perhaps for life." Perhaps the defendant will borrow or rent an automobile for use while he calls on her parents, for the purpose of impressing them with his great wealth. Far too often the parents, through ignorance, fear, or old-world information as to the necessity of marriage under certain conditions, will give away their daughter in matrimony, only to repent after it is too late. Now, I think that the children's court should step in at the earliest stage of all such cases and obtain a hold on the girl and see to it that she is not allowed to be married to the defendant until after a thorough inquiry by the probation officer and such medical or psychological examinations as may be needed have shown that the marriage is probably desirable. In Italy and France no girl under 15 is allowed to marry without a dispensation from the King of Italy or the President of France, as the case may be; and the same law applies to boys under 18. In Massachusetts and Michigan there are somewhat similar provisions requiring the approval of the probate judge before a girl under 15 can wed. Why should we not look to the juvenile courts, or, better, to the family courts, like the one in Cincinnati, to acquire jurisdiction over such matters?

15. On motion of John I. Go.scoyne, of Newark, N. J., the meeting in the capacity of representatives of the National Probation Association, voted to accept and approve Judge Hoffman's report and to continue the committee another year.

16. William D. Matthews, Oklahoma City, also participated in the discussion.

MUNICIPAL DETENTION FOR WOMEN Jane Deeter Rippin, Formerly Chief Probation Officer of Philadelphia

There is no place in the country where all types of women and girl offenders over the juvenile court age are detained while waiting for disposition. Lawyers, social workers, policemen and citizens having contacts with the children's courts appreciate the value of municipal detention for children and the methods of treatment worked out in connection with the detention houses in the disposition of cases. Experience has proved that methods of treatment cannot be determined by chronological age alone. We should extend the methods developed in children's courts to apply to all ages, wiping out our arbitrary age line by improving the treatment of the older groups.

The tendency in the socialization of courts has been to develop municipal detention for women and woman's courts. California and Pennsylvania seem to be leading in this experiment.

The data for this paper has been gathered from the court and the House of Detention for Girls and Women coming under the jurisdiction of the misdemeanants division of the Municipal Court of Philadelphia. This House of Detention facilitates work by having in it the court room, the medical clinic, the psychological clinic, adequate quarters for the probation offices and the opportunity to classify the cases to be detained. Since January, 1917, it has housed all the girls and women needing detention while awaiting court action by the Municipal Court—averaging not far from one hundred new cases a month. It has also given shelter to girls and women held for the federal authorities as witnesses or prisoners in white slave and drug traffic cases. Two distinct groups are provided for: the girls and the women arrested as street-walkers and younger girls between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one charged by their parents or guardians with being incorrigible or runaways.

This study would be much more illuminating if opportunity had been given to study all groups of women offenders. The limited jurisdiction of this court makes this impossible.

During the year of 1917, 1205 women and girls new to the Misdemeanants Court were detained and their cases disposed of. The general make-up of this group of girls and women in relation to the charges against them, their nativity, conjugal condition, age, schooling, occupation and wage, their habits and physical condition have been studied. Their mental condition had been examined only when some abnormality was suspected. This plan of selection has now given place to one by which all the younger girls are examined mentally, with a view not only to de- Table L Nativity

tecting irregularities, but also to estimating the girl's temperamental make-up and forming plans for her accordingly.

The following tables indicate the possibilities for the tabulation of social data through modern methods of dealing with women offenders. Though tables cannot express the infinite variety of human reactions, they suggest broad roads of treatment.

The table on Nativity shows only 14 per cent of these girls are foreign born, as compared with 25 per cent of foreign born in the total population of Philadelphia.

This table indicates at first glance that a great proportion are unmarried, but when we realize that 47 per cent of the girls are under 20 years of age the significance of this is lessened, particularly when we know that the average marrying age for women in Philadelphia is between 20 and 24 years, as shown by studies in the Domestic Relations Court of Philadelphia.

Table II. Conjugal Condition