The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1871-04-08
DAILY PRESS.
"Tnke Her Up Tenderly."
CORTLAND.
SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1871.

The Governor has made an excellent selec-
ton of Commissioners to investigate the sub
iect of an Industrial School for Girls and to
receive propositions from towns to aid that
enterprise. 1t was decided in the inscrutable
wisdom Of the Legislature that there should
be another commission to investigate instead
of an appropriation to begin the work Oh sa'-
walton and reform. The conduct of the Leg
islature in this matter is like the propoSeu az
ton of Congress on the Ku-klux outrages-
while the evil goes on increasing and adding
daily LARGE numbers to its long list of victims
provision is made for gathering further infor-
nation. To preserve the appearance Of con-
sistency the House and Senate should have
voted to abandon the reformatory institution
for boys at Cape Elizabeth and to turn the
embryo criminals out to take their chance in
the world with their weaker, more suffering
and more to be commiserated sisters who are
10 wait other weary years before help is ex-
tended to them. "The Lark" of whom one
reads in Victor Hugo's Les Aiserables needs
shelter and good counsel much more than the
selfreliant Petit Gavroche.
But no appropriation ,cas made, and we must
take up this mangled matter at the best. Inc
new commissioners must 60 over the wolk
already well enough done by those first ap-
pointed aud then their report will be accept
ed and their suggestions followed as the Leg
islature of 1872 may decide. "One more un.
fortunate" will follow another over the
"Bridge of Signs" that here as we'll as else
where spans the dark stream of erring wo-
mans destiny before this new stick of red
tape can be unwound.
But Mayor Kingsbury, the chairman of the
now Board, and the other gentlemen compris
Ing it, will, if we are not mistaken, defeat the
evident intention of the Legislature by really
doing something and so stimulating public
feeling on the subject that there will be no
more dilatory maneuvres next winter. They
are all of them men who are thoroughly alive
to the enormity OF allowing homeless, unin-
structed and friendess girls to incur penalties
in comparison with which those of the most
hardened criminals are light and easy to be
borne, solely because of their ignorance and
helplessness. The case of vagrant girls is SC
infinitely worse than that of depraved boys
and their destiny is so incomparably more
gloomy that, if the State can give them nj
Independent succor, it ought by all means t.
empty the very jails and poor houses to MAKE
room for the most hopelessly destitute ant
suffering of created beings. AS a matter o.
justice the interests of the common schools
themselves land hardly any other are so i'm
portant) ought TO be postponed to those o
this special provision for rescuing the bodies
and souls of children from the lowest degra
dation. Men with sisters and daughters need
only to have this thing mentioned to them to
enlist them at once as its advocates. We
know that our Mayor will miss no opportuni
ty to impress the importance of this enter
prise on those who have the power to help it
on, tor his interest is thoroughly excited, and
30, we are sure, is that of his associates,