complete segregation of all prisoners suffering from infectious diseases. Every jail should have a hospital. Not one in 50 has it now. I should say that in 3,000 of the 3,500 county jails in this country, no effort whatever is made to ascertain if a prisoner is diseased on his arrival, or to segregate him if it should be known that he has a contagious ailment.

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Juveniles of both sexes should be separated entirely from the older prisWhile an attempt is made cccasionally, here and there, at some form of segregation, one important phase of the matter is overlooked nearly everywhere. This is the segregation of the convicted from those awaiting trial. The gross injustice to those subsequently proven innocent, of herding them in with the guilty is one of the outrages which the state perpetrates upon those of whom it expects at all times the most upright conduct. Another unnecessary injury inflicted upon the untried is the practice of compelling them to remain in jail for a long time, awaiting trial. It is not at all unusual to allow them to remain in jail for one, two, three, or four months, sometimes much longer.

The prisoner should be given some exercise daily, and some kind of recreation once a week. Confinement in a penal institution is sufficient punishment. Neither the commun. ity nor the prisoner is helped by the addition of mental torpor and physical inertia to undermine health and character. At least, reading matter could be supplied. This would be a very good way to give the prisoner something to think about other than the vainglorious tales of crime related by his associates.

I have personally known Federal judges to be swept off their feet with astonishment when told of conditions existing in jails to which for many years they had been sentencing prisoners. Every judge should visit, at unexpected times, each institution to which he sends prisoners.

By all means abolish the fee system of feeding prisoners. No official

should be allowed to receive one cent of profit from such feeding.

3. But far more disastrous to the prisoners and to society than all the evils discussed above, is the curse of idleness. There are at all times from 200,000 to 300,000 prisoners in the jails of the United States— kept in utter and complete idleness. The economic loss to the individual and to the state, the mental and physical stagnation, and the moral pollution which inevitably follow in the wake of the man who has nothing to do, daily take their relentless toll in the jails. Work of any kind should carry with it a system of reasonable compensation for the prisoners. Determined though a man may be to lead a straight life, it takes but a day or two of hunger to bring him to a mental state of self-justification, which is the first step to crime. То turn a man out penniless in summer is bad enough; in winter, it is crimi· nal. A prisoner should be able to accumulate in two or three months a sufficient amount of money to float himself when he gets out, until he is able to obtain some work to do.

Not the least of the just criticisms of our penal system is that the dependents of a prisoner suffer during his confinement more than he does. I believe some of this distress caused the innocent could be relieved in part, by turning over to such dependents a portion, if not all, of the money which the prisoner earns. And unquestionably a prisoner who is subsequently acquitted should receive a greater compensation than one who is convicted. At present, a man held in jail for months and then acquitted gets no compensation of any kind, although his imprisonment may have cost him many hundreds of dollars through unemployment.

One of the basic necessities for maintaining the jails in proper condition is their regular inspection by some competent authority, with the legal power to make necessary changes. A law similar to that which empowers the Michigan Board should be enacted in every state.

The Editors hold no brief for Coueism, but believe this article will be found of interest.

S it not possible that science, delv

ing as it does deeper and deeper

into what might be called the mechanisms of the spiritual life, will before long discover a definite method in psychology by means of which self-mastery might scientifically and certainly be attained not by a few exceptional persons here and there, but by the vast majority of our race?

One scientist, Dr. Emile Coué, is making that very claim. The simplicity of his method is almost shocking. In fact that is the thing which fails to put it across in the minds of many persons who demand a certain amount of black magic in their lives. It consists, principally, in the repetition of a ten-word formula 40 times a day. It is very much like the spell which, as children, we used to shout over and over again at the indifferent lady bug perched on Our hand: "Lady Bug, Lady Bug, fly away home; your house is afire and your children alone." You will remember that all one had to do was to keep it up long enough, and in time the Lady Bug would spread wings and depart.

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in many thousands of cures of many kinds of physical and mental ailments, when it is practised in the manner prescribed by Coué. Coué is a French psychologist whose name is today a household word in England and France, and is rapidly becoming so in the United States since the publication here of his book, "SelfMastery Through Conscious AutoSuggestion."

Emile Coué has for many years been a specialist in the use of suggestive therapeutics at Nancy, France. For many years his technique has revolved around the daily use of the formula quoted, and long use of it proves beyond question that anybody can obtain results from it by using it strictly in accordance with instruc_ tions. The method is this: Just before rising in the morning, and immediately after going to bed at night, repeat the formula 20 times, moving your lips. In order that the counting may be done automatically, have a piece of string with 20 knots in it. Repeat the formula in a kind of monotonous singsong, the way children repeat nursery rhymes, with no concentrated thought on the meaning.. Above all, put yourself into a mental condition of as much faith and confidence as possible. Don't worry if your degree of confidence is not so great at first as it might be. A little faith, if you have it "even as a grain of mustard seed," goes a long way. Christ knew what he was about when he prescribed faith.

Furthermore, if at any time you find yourself either in physical or mental distress, at once affirm to yourself that you will not consciously contribute to it-that you are going

to make it disappear. Then shut your eyes, withdraw yourself from your surroundings, pass your hand over the place of pain if the trouble be physical, or over your forehead if it be mental, and repeat rapidly, for as long a time as may be necessary, "It is going, it is going, going, going-" etc. The repetition must be very rapid, and must be made with a movement of the lips. Coué states that with a little practice this will cause the distress to leave you in 20 to 25 seconds. Don't forget that there must be no effort at practicing auto-suggestion, no exertion of the will, and no laborious concentration of the mind. Remember the Lady Bug. Just say Coué's little rhyme with trust, enjoyment, and ease, and the results will amaze you. Don't watch the Unconscious; let it alone. You have sowed the seed; don't expose it to see if it is growing. You will kill it if you do. Don't make negative suggestions. In a condition of anger, for example, don't affirm the passing of your anger, affirm the feeling of sympathy, patience, and good humor.

Is it reasonable to believe that the Imagination, once put in motion, can work such miracles? Everybody admits that the Imagination plays a tremendous part in life. We know that there is something within us which can make a man faint at the sight of blood, can make the heart pound madly in a moment of excitement or fear, can exhaust the energies of a body in a moment of anger, can turn one dizzy in high places, and can banish a headache in a moment of pleased absorption. But people in general haven't the faintest conception of how boundless, how limitless are the power and influence of the Imagination. And it is of capital importance to note that Coué the terms Subconscious and Imagination as synonymous. The Subconscious is a vast unexplored region in which resides the mystery of Life itself. It is the storehouse of

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memory, and is apparently incapable of forgetting anything; it is operative in telepathy; it is the determiner of our moods; it is the seat of the emotional life. Further, it is the supervisor of our physical functions, being in absolute control of the digestion, assimilation, circulation of the blood, the action of the lungs, liver and kidneys, and the activities of enormously important glands. In short, it is You! And the objective mind is merely its servant. What a man's Imagination believes and accepts is, so far as he is concerned, the truth. Against it the Will doesn't stand a show.

Observe, for example, that if a man lays a 12-inch plank, 30 feet long, upon the ground, anybody can walk from one end to the other of it without steping over the edge. But who could walk it if it were lifted to the height of a cathedral? In spite of every effort of the will, one could not go forward without falling. The explanation is that in one case you imagine that you can walk the length of the plank, and that in the other case you imagine that you can't. So long as you continue to imagine you can't your will is powerless to enable you to do it. You picture in your mind that you are going to fall; and the only result of an effort of will under such conditions is to intensify the picture painted by the Imagi nation. This is the Law of Reversed Effort.

We are never free from Auto-suggestion-it is always operative; we are applying it every minute of our lives. And the trouble is that it is Spontaneous Auto-suggestion instead of Conscious Auto-suggestion. We make haphazard and irrational use of a force which we might just as well use rationally, and to our incalculable gain. It will now be clear why Coue is insistent that in the use of Conscious Auto-suggestion, there must be no effort-for effort involves a use of the Will, calls into mind the critical, doubting faculties of the mind, and results in the operation of the Law of Reversed Effort. A mechanical repetition, with a movement of the lips, will take automatic effect because there will be no opposite suggestion present to controvert it.

By so pleasant a discipline may a man build himself a character. Perhaps, suggests Coue, some might prefer the formula, "Every day, in every way, by the help of God, I am getting better and better." But whatever you do, don't forget that it must be "as a little child"; and don't forget the Lady Bug.

Nat. B. Pow., J. '23.

I

AM beginning to suspect that every suburbanite leads a double life. I have week ended with many of them, and I know. Especially I have in mind Jim Waverly, star salesman of an important company, a big, jovial human being with a laugh like the exhaust of an automobile, and a fund of comic stories which Al Jolson might envy. There are fifty concerns that have given him their business for years just because of the joy that he carries with him into their offices.

Recently I spent a week-end with him. An attractive little woman, with a couple of bounding youngsters, was waiting for us in a car. Jim kissed his wife perfunctorily, asked the boys if he hadn't told them a hundred times to keep their feet off the upholstery, and took his place at the wheel. A sudden frown gathered between his eyes. He pointed to the hood and looked accusingly at his wife.

"That big scratch wasn't there this morning," he said; "how did it come?"

"I was just going to tell you, Jim," she answered, nervously. "The baby climbed up there. I came out of the back door and there he was. I though. surely he was going to fall; it scared me 'most to death, but I got him just in time."

"It's funny to me that with all the folks around the house to watch him you can't keep the kid off this car," Jimmy responded.

With which genial little comment the week-end started. It continued just like that all day Sunday; and all Sunday evening. The sun was flooding the house the next morn. ing, but there was no sunshine in Jim's soul at the breakfast table. He grumbled about the coffee.

"Three women in the house," he sputtered, "with nothing to do all day but to learn how to make good coffee; and they can't learn."

I maintained a discreet silence. When Mrs. Waverly had told me

how she had enjoyed my visit (which couldn't have been very true), and I had told her how glad I was I had come (which wasn't true at all), and Jim had given her a little husbandly peck on the cheek, we climbed on board the smoker. And immediately the change began.

"Hello, Jim," cried three commuters, in unison. "How's the gentlemanly bootlegger," echoed another. Jim broke forth into one of his famous laughs and we made our way to a seat, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries all the way. The Jim of Mixenhurst was gone; the Jim of Business had returned.

Jim takes an awful lot of pains to sell himself to every two-by-four jobber on his list; he makes every customer think that he is the greatest fellow in the world; but he has never made the slightest effort to sell himself to his wife.

Being a salesman I would say that "marriage is like life in this-that it is one long, glorious job of selling." We are all salesmen. The goods we sell are our own characters and abilities and personalities. And the trouble with lots of men is that they sell a very superior quality of these goods in the office, and a very ininferior quality at home.

The good salesman often under. praises his goods; he lets the merchant discover some points of strength for himself. At home he applies the same pyschology. He makes it a point to exceed his wife's expectations now and then; to give her a fresh and unexpected vision of him. Finally, the wise salesman knows that a sale is only begun when the order is signed that to keep the customer sold is much harder. This is the most important principle of selling; and wives fail to appreciate it fully as much as husbands. American, Jan. '23.

Indecision-the Worst of Habits.

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INDECISION is nothing more than a vice, like drunkenness, drugtaking, or drumming with your fingers. It is simply a bad rut into which people fall, and ruts are as fatal to human beings as they are to automobiles.

A marked and almost invariable characteristic of the efficient man is the habit of decision. You can tell an efficient man by his desk. I called on Paul Dupuy, who owns and man. ages "Le Petit Parisien," the Paris newspaper of enormous circulation. There were three or four papers on the table. He picked them up, called a clerk and disposed of them before he left, leaving his desk clean; and said, "I do not like to go away leaving anything undone." That remark may contain a hint of one reason for his success.

Quite different was the desk of an actuary in a life insurance company. It was piled a foot deep with all kinds of papers, and it took him ten minutes to discover that he could not find the paper he was looking for. I was not surprised when I heard later that this official had died of softening of the brain.

You can also tell the character of a woman by looking at her houseat least whether she has the golden habit of decision. Of course every house gets cluttered once in a while and at certain times of the day; but the point is that the houses of some women stay cluttered because their souls are cluttered.

It is a good thing to go through your catch-all every so often and clean up. Junk accumulates from the habit of indecision. The reason the top bureau drawer looks like a Kansas town after a cyclone is because you could not make up your mind what to do with this, that or the other, and so just put it there for the present.

Decisiveness is a characteristic of mastery. The noticeable thing about

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any master's work is the sureness of his touch. Yet there are people who take a vacuous pride in indecision. Lucille, for instance, just never anher letters; she can't get around to it. She's too busy being temperamental. And Hortense has commenced at least six diaries, and managed to keep them up for a dozen days each. She could never form the decisive habit of attending to it regularly. And charming Eva is always late. The reasons of her lateness are many, but the greatest common divisor of them all is indecision. She could not decide when to start getting ready; she could not decide what to wear.

The reason we fall into indecision so easily is that decision involves thinking which consists of weighing probabilities. People hate to do that. Nobody can tell exactly what is best nor exactly what is right. All we can do is to weigh the evidence on one side and the other, and see which is heavier. Most of us hate to decide things, because we are not certain. The decisive man has the advantage over the indecisive, not in the fact that he is always right but in the fact that he can be depended upon as they say in the street, to "get action."

Contentment is what we are all after. And contentment is almost entirely a matter of good habits, and among all the good habits the habit of decisiveness is chief. Even in love, most of the tragedies arise not from too much passion but from indeciseness of passion. Most people suffer, not because they want too much but because they do not know what they want. Indecision is a form of weakness, and the greater portion of the tears and heartbreak of this world come upon us a result of the sins of weakness.

Indecision has its root in fear, and fear is the fundamental sin. There are many things we may have to be; but we do not have to be afraid. There are few better rules of life than the three that come down to us from an early English poet: "Be bold, Be bold, and everywhere, Be bold."

Dr. Frank Crane in The American, Jan. '23.