New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-06-24

Court and ~ were baiIed for future appear
ance. Now came the distribution. Chief OF
Police Savage sent 40 home to parents and
friends out of the city; to parents and friends
in the city: 10 to places of respectable employ
ment in the city; s to Charity Home, tenn
norarily: TO an Insane Asylum; were sur
rendered by bail % have "shrunk away" anu
their whereabouts are unkpown;" ana are
still TO he accounted for. The cases were all
called in Court last Tuesday. The Chet Oh
Police addressed the Court at some length, ana
in what we certainly regard as speech DONG
eoual honor TO his heart and his head. lie
declared, to begin with, that in his opinion
there was great deal "of hope for fallen
"women.n He believed in the efficacy or
"wholesome restraint, useful employment, and
"kind treatment and encouragement" I'VE
"have spared" he said mo pains in this
"work, and good people have come forward
with their aid and encouragement. 1t is not
call / could wish, yet | trust that something
"has been done to justify the experiment"
"If we save but One,n he concluded, "were
"she my daughter or yours we would think
sit worth all the labor Very extraordinary
language this to come from q finty-hearted
Perhaps as he, familiar with the whole sub
iect thinks "the experiment" of kindness and
assistance worth trying, Others may not be so
loudly positive in their predictions OF predesu-
nate failure.
Can a human being become so positively
degraded or manhood being so
absolutely dethrOned-that all hope of re-
generation, of resuscitation, of the recon-
struction of character, must be dismissed
There is class of self-righteOus persons who
will answer this question categorlcally ana
promptly in the affirmative, for 1t is part OF
their belief that even in this world more than
a moiety of mankind are doomed to be damned
in the flesh. Such, however, we beg permission
to say, was not the teaching of the Founder
of our Faith, and such is very far from being
the theory of Christianity. Neither is it the
theory of any Social Reformer who has heart
! and head sufficient for his work. He believes
his occupation would be gone if he did not so
believe-in the possibility of making radical
changes for the better i'll whole classes OF either
sex; he believes, however the human heart
may be numbered by unhallowed desires, or
the head misguided by ignorance, or the body
desecrated by indoent indulgence, that the
seed of better things is never wholly lost, and
that it may be developed in purity, in know
ledge, in wholesome activity Much may be
lost which can never be regained in this world,
because life is so short and the rebuilding of
character so slow process; but society is
practically gamer from the moment any UNI
worthy member of it abandOns his evil ways
So immensely is it a gamer when whole classes
are reached and rescued-a gamer not merely
in spiritual things but in wealth, in comfort
and in social safety-that the shOrt-sightedness
which will but grope, the indifference which
will not move, the selfishness which simply
minds its own business, the preoccupation
which leaves no time for active benevoence,
are really among the very strongest proofs OF
human peryersity.