Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1854-06-03
CRIME IN PoPULoUs CITIES.
RON rnr pHrIADrLrHIA AmrRIcAs AND GAZETTE.

PROM THE PHILADELPHIA AMERICAN AND GAZETTE.
We have on every hand numerous and wel-provided
penal charitable benevolent reformatory and educa
tiona establishments to all Of which large share of
attention given by pubc-prted individuals who seek
to raise from the slough Of degradation the ve the out
cast the criminal and the ignorant We have scores OF
coporeurs and missionaries of every kind penetrating
the haunts Of these wretched beings, and seeking, by
every means known to religion, morality benevolence,
and law, to lure force them do better. Yet the
number of the vicious and the amount of the crime battle
their efforts in great measure and paupersm and de-
graduation 60 on increasing FAST apparently as if no
such exertions were made and no such institutions
existed. 1t is wonder that crime multipes, and it
must continue to do until energetic measures
adopted to inquire into and the actual condition
and dependence of the vagran children who infest
streets. The Pennsylvania Journal IF Prison Discipline
thus refers to this point
"We should be slow to con6de in any estimate that
puts the number of regular systematic professional
beggars in Philadelphia less than 70O or the number
Of vagrant begging children at less than 1900 In the
former include all the stepsitters, and the
standers and the music grinders and all others who solicit
aims in the street at the doors gates Of dwellings
In the latter include all the boys aud girls who go
about with baskets bags picking up chips and bits of
wood from the pavements and from board yards search
ing for COAL and trying the atches of back
doors and gates upon pretence Of begging for cold VIC
tuals Though not strictly beggars, all the children who
60 about peddng shoeaces, matches, tooth picks fruit
sc. must for present purpose be cassed with the
rest In respects their exposure to the contraction
vicious habits is far greater than of the regular beg
gng group We have cold winters morning, as
carly as o'clock, company Of thirteen women and
children, boys and girls, black and white huddled to-
geher around the gate Of Of principal hotels
each with basket, and all awaiting the first opening Of
the gate to rush In First come FIRST served is the
motto, and barrelfu Of bones, haconsumed vegeta-
bles and fragments Of bread would be thrown out to be
eued by the haggard party according to taste and APP
petite We have police officer pass this selfsane
shrekng shyerng company crouching down at the alley
gate if by contact to keep each other warm and turn
his eyes upon them as if they were pigs or dogs
Does he not know that these the seeds from which
those sturdy thieves and dunkards and rioters that
sometimes prove nearly match for him and his fell
lows? Would he pay little heed to handful of shaw
ing blazing under the floor Of dwelling in the
middle Of loft of paper warehouse? But the certainty
at neglect of the blaze will be followed by the destruc
ton of the building is greater than the certainty that
neglect of these vagrant beggars and street children
will result in majority of cases. in an open and bold
career of crime"
Here army of young outcasts in fair way to be-
come criminals of holder character Eighteen hundred
vagrant children How are these little wretches to be
taught the rudiments of trade calling by which
they may obtain honest livelihood? Not surely by the
professional beggars professional vagabonds who
their parents have charge Of them Not by the pub
lie Institutions for adequate effort is made to bring
them within their influence and probably, if any such
effort made to gather them into those institutions
they would not be of sufficient capacity to hold them As
proof of this it may be stated that during the year
1852 the coored House of Refuge became crowded
to obige the managers to notify the magistrates that they
could not receive into it males of the age of fourteen years
and upwards except under peculiar circumstances There
is undoubtedly great deficiency of in the pre-
misses This fact became apparent two years since to
bo IN nlr fhap, 10
premium Of hundred dollars for the best essay and
fifty dollars for the next best essay the produc
ing and the for preventing Juvenile delinquency
Years ago it stated in the British House of PEERS
by distinguished member Of that body that than
twenty five thousand children in London lived by begging
or stealing Our own total Of eighteen hundred seems
small when compared with this but taking into consde-
ration the superior size of London and other circumsan
which combine throw into that metropolis the great
of the crime and vagrancy Of all England the dis
proportion sensbly dminishes Moreover learn from
the twenty annual report of the Board of Managers
Of House of Refuge that "uvenile delinquency has
frghtfuy increased in the large cities Of the United
States, and the still at work it will no doub
60 augmenting in volume. These miserable children
being schooed in crime effectively if they
actually under the of adult There
is believe indeed that many of them really
under such evil tuition The following extract which
find quoted by the Managers of the Refuge in of their
publications. exhibits the manner in which such things
occur:
"Vcious propensities imbibed at very early age
by children in the crowded population Of city Parents
whose extreme poverty casual calamity or moral turp
tudc induces neglect of their offspring expose them at
to be caught up by the prohgate and knay to be
made unsupectng agents in the commission of offences,
and to be trained into habits of dleness cunning, and
predatory vagrancy boy nine ten twelve years Of
age cannot range uncontrolled through the street for
week without forming dangerous associations without
being entrapped by veteran rogue, who, conscious
of his notorety eagerly enliss with affected kind
ness exaggerated menace, unknown instrument for
his purposes Children, too, accomplish petty hefts
with and with frequent mpunity they pass unno-
tced by the busy if detected treated with indul
gence Success gradually emboldens they become proud
of their Skill form combinations among themselves, and
grow ambitious to surpass each other in their daily
ibuons to the hoard of common guide and pretended
protector"
THE VALUE OF AN INDUSTRIAL CALLING.