Beauty for Ashes. By Lady Henry Somerset. (L. Upeott Gill
and Son. is. net.)—In this little volume Lady Henry Somerset describes the treatment of female inebriates at her Cottage Homes at Duxhurst, near Reigate. The advantages of a cottage system in an institution which receives inmates of all classes and characters are obvious, and not a little of the Duxhurst Home's success is no doubt due to the oppor- tunity which the system gives of supplying each patient with an appropriate environment and a human and domestic life. Lady Henry emphasizes the morbid quality of the craving for alcohol, and pleads most forcibly for a more exact discrimina- tion between the inebriate, the imbecile, the insane, and the criminal. She thinks, too, that our reformatory system would be more successful if we dispersed our patients instead of appropriating particular institutions to particular localities. Finally the book tells some remarkable stories of cures effected, and shows by statistics that out of the patients who have visited the Home since 1905 and submitted to a reasonably long course of treatment, two hundred and five (more than seventy-three per cent.) are known to be doing well—a remark- able testimony to the efficacy of the Duxhurst methods.
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