Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-12-16
Causes of Crime---warning to Parents.

saTes B55Es le5eIvinE BOOKS sc. &c
Causes of Crime---Warning to Parents.
Parents and guardians, especially in cities and
large towns, are in a great me easure responsible
for the vice and crime which so alarmingly pre-
vail among the young. They not only permit
grogshops, restaurants, gaming houses, billiard
rooms ten pin alleys, club-rooms, and other al
Iurements to idIeness and vice to stand with
open portals for the young, but neglect to find
steady employment for them, and to exert that
restraining influence so absolutely requisite at
the age when unbridled license is almost certain
to lead to ruin. Moral instruction by precept
and example are neglected, and boys and girls
are permitted to grow up with but tsmt I'M
pressions of their duty to parents, to society,"
and to themselves. Over-indulgence becomes
a potent auxiliary to neglected training, and
the most critical age of life-that which forms
the character-is too often left to the guidance
of unchastened desires and propensities rather
than to the suggestions of parental counsels,
and an ever wakefuI, because enlightened con-
science. The street school and the night school
of the city dens of iniquity, are the broad roads
to ruin in which thousands of youths are per-
mitted to travel, until the drunkard's delirium,
the felon's cell, the suicides cup, the murder
er's gallows, brings down gray hairs with sorrow
to the grave.
For illustrations we need not go out OF our
own city, our own circle of acquaintance. Mel
anchoy examples are on the right hand and the
left, but we are specially reminded of these
causes of crime by the recent arrestin lndinapo-
lis of some ten or twelve boys of from fifteen to
twenty years of age-some of them, the Journal
says, sons of highly respectable citizens, and
nearly all of them respectfully connected
charged with a series of burglaries which had
alarmed the city, and led to vigorous and sue
cessful efforts to trace out and apprehend the
perpetrators. Stores and dwelling houses had
been entered and robbed by the youthful gang
and considerable portion of the property was
found at their depot and elsewhere, and recov-
cred. The Journal remarks:
Altogether, the matters connected with the
arrest of the boys are as deplorabe as we have
ever been called on to chronicle. The whole
cause of the vice and crime into which these
young persons have been enticed is clearly trace
able to their absence from the parental roof at
night, which has led to the formation ofimproper
associations and the embracing of one vice after
another, until they have reached that point IN
criminal progress of which we speak.
SS---
The Richmond Enquirer on the Message.
The old Richmond Enquirer that usually en-
dorses fully every Democratic Message, good or
bad, grumbies like "Black Republican" over
the comprehensive tale of James Buchanan. 1t
styles the Lecompton part "re-Opening an cid
sore, which time and the careful avoidance OF
additional recrimination are alone sufficient to
heal" and "regrets that the President should
have thought 1t necessary to commence his
message with a long and labored review OF the
Lecompton question, which has already oeca-
stoned sufficient disaster to the party Nor
does the Enquirer chime in fully with the Presl-
dents recommendation in regard to the rule OF
admission OF Territories as States, but says ut
will be due to proper impartiality towards
sectional interests, that Congress shall admit
Kansas, with or without the ratio of population
generally required to elect representative"
The intervention of the General Government
in Utah. for the protection of persons and prop
erty in that Territory, the Enquirer pronounces
the very best of argument against the doctrine
of Squatter Sovereignty and entire non-lnter-
vention in the Territories. The Enquirer also
finds "an unpleasant side to our foreign rela-
tons" in the Presidents message. 1t says:
When we consider the fact that there are
grave pending difficulties with Great Britain,
Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, New
Grenada and Paraguay, we at once perceive
a complication of possible strifes, IN which we
can gain but little, and must lose much.
The proposition of the President for Fede-
raj bankrupt act, which is to give the General
Government immediate and permanent control
over State corporations, the Enquirer says is
as unconstitutional and as dangerous to State
sovereignty as Mr.. Calhoun ever described it to
be" Virginia statesmen are exhorted by the
Enquirer to meet the proposal of the Exeeu-
tive with firm denial"
The Enquirer equally opposes "any retro
grade step which proposes to introduce specific
instead of ad valorem duties; and protests
"against any federal approximation of land Ol
money to works of internal improvement
even to Pacific Railroad
The Enquirer winds up its objurgatiOn Of
these doctrines of the message, by calling on the
Hon. R. NJ 7. Hunter, and Hon. John Letcher
the present representative men of Virginia De
mocracy, -" to take position on these questions
before the people of Virginia"
Democracy is fast becoming unit