REFORMING TRAMPS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4993, 28 June 1926, Page 3

REFORMING TRAMPS.

HEALTH CURE FOR. CROOKS. AMERICAN DOCTOR’S SYSTEM. A criminologist who claims to be able to cure criminals by dieting them recently arrived in- London to help in the work of reforming British “hobos,” or tramps. He is Dr. .Ben L. Reitman, Director of the Hobo College, Washington Boulevard, Chicago-

• “The Hobo College,” Dr. Reitman told the “Westminster Gazette,” “is an institution for the treatment of. tramps, ex-convicts, drunkards', aud drug addicts.” The methods of the college are original. One of the most succesful cures described by Dr. Reitman had little else in it than a change, of diet. “The man was Dan Devine,” said Dr. Reitman. “He was a drunkard, a tough, a thief, and a fighter. He had been in gaol, where he spent most of the time in solitary confinement for knocking the- warder put. “We got him when he came out. We gave him the job of janitor at the Hobo College, and put him on a special diet.' His breakfast consisted of oranges, toast, coffee, with cream in it, a,nd a tomato. z Sometimes he had grape fruit. His other meals were much the same, but with plenty of vegetables, cereals, and yeast, which he ate in considerable quantities raw.

“We made him exercise his leg muscles by morning walks —hitherto the muscles of the .upper part of his body had been brought most into play, for, as I said, he w,as' a fighter. “In a few weeks he was one of the kindest men in the college. Naturally, among the people who came to the college were many who had to be cleared out—thrown out, in fact. Our reformed criminal used to do this in the kindest way. He never even lost his temper.

“We saved another man from a, life of crime by using a pair of spectaclesWe discovered th.a,t his ‘kink’ was due to bad eyesight, which affected his brain and caused him to become violent.

“We get professors from the Universities of Chicago, doctors, and students of sociology. They meet our down-and-outs and talk to them. I remember a recent meeting for drunks. There were aboutj 500 1 present —and Chicago i= a prohibition city!

“We don’t offer them free food or jobs. We pick up a book of statistics and rema,rk casually: T see 170 drunks were admitted to the County hospital last week. Forty of them are in the madhouse now, thirty of them are destined for an early grave, and .the rest will go the same road if they continue drunks.’ “This may sound strapige to English ears, but it has worked wonders on our Chicago toughs. I believe it will do the same here.”