CHAPTER 19.
In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited Charlestown.
Among the changes, too numerous to attempt to indicate, which mark the lapse of a century in that quarter, I particularly noted the total disappearance of the old state prison.
"That went before my day, but I remember hearing about it," said Dr.
Leete, when I alluded to the fact at the breakfast table.

"We have no jails nowadays.

All cases of atavism are treated in the hospitals." "Of atavism!" I exclaimed, staring.
"Why, yes," replied Dr.Leete.

"The idea of dealing punitively with those unfortunates was given up at least fifty years ago, and I think more." "I don't quite understand you," I said.

"Atavism in my day was a word applied to the cases of persons in whom some trait of a remote ancestor recurred in a noticeable manner.