Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-12-31
PLAIN AND ORNAMENTAL PRINTING;
FmnIorment of Convicts---GOOd Move.

The City Council at its last meeting TOOK
step in the right direction, to be followed by 9TH
ers we trust in quick time. resolution was
adopted requesting the Judiciary Committee to
report to the Council what legislation, if any. is
necessary to enable the City Council to pass an
ordinance which shall make the wilful and re-
p.ated violation of the City Ordinances punish
able with hard labor in streets, instead of the
present system of confinement in the city
prison.
1t is passing strange that such an inquiry is
necessary at this age of our eity-that we should
so long have supported viOlators of ordinances
like gentlemen of leisure at the public expense,
instead ofmaking them partially pay theirway in
some useful employment, so long as they choose
t. become guests of the city. The bali that
has been stated should be kept in motion, even
if it results in chain and rascal's leg at the
end of it, to the horror of some Of our squeam-
ish contemporaries. Chain-gangs are employed
in many of the cities, and have been for years,
and with advantage to the public in more ways
than one They are terrors to the evil doers,
honest labor had a falling out before the person
fell into the meshes of the criminal law. Sell
dom indeed that industrious people in lawful
employments violate ordinances. The idler's
brain is the devils workshop, and the very best
way to turn the devil out of house and home is
to set the DEVILS own to downright hard labor.
Blistered hands and aching bones are far better
curatives for public disorders than ten, twenty,
or thirty days on bread and water.
The truth is-and shameful one it is too TO
this enlightened people-that our County Jail
and City Prison have ever been little better than
schools of vice, or rather public hotels for
rogues of high and low degree, where, after be-
ing lodged, fed and otherwise taken care of at
the public expense, the recuperated and eduea-
ted villain comes out to prey with increased
success upon the community to whom he owes
60 much If caught again he goes back again
to his old quarters, in many cases glad to see
the landlord and partake of his free and whole
some cheer What burlesque on punishment
for crime From the free and easy monthly
lodger of the jail the transition in due time to
the yearly boarder of the penitentiary is almost
matter of course, as the overfowing cells of
that labor institution demonstrate. 1t has now
an army of over seven hundred convicts at work
in the service of the State, who pay their way
and something over. Such should be the case
with the inmates of our city and county prisons.
We referred short time ago to the example
Chicago has set in making the criminals of that
city saw the wood for public use, and break
stone for MacAdamizing streets-work done in
the yard of the City Prison. Similar and con-
stant employment might be furnished here, and
the wretched condition of our streets much of
of the time for months past, show that the TAX
PAYERS are long suffering and forbearing Peo-
ple towards their City Fathers, who tolerate
from year to year our present expensive and
entirely unremunerative prison system. The
street crossings, even on the most frequented
thorougkfares, are suffered to remain shoe deep
with mud from day to day, while moiety
of the prison tenants, in charge of an overseer
MIGHT be made useful as street cleaners from
morning to night, ordinance or no ordinance
The neglect of the streets and street crossings
the past year has been disgraceful to the author
ties in the eyes of citizens and strangers, and
should be reformed altogether. Nearly every
body, saveIthe occupants of our free institutions
in most things except pedestrianism on the
streets, has suffered in patience, comfort, clean
illness, and sometimes in health, from the fire.
auent mortar-bed condition of Cleveland streets
and crossings The only remedy appears to be
frosts, and this season nothing stays frozen
here longer than in the horse latitudes."