The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-06-15

Inc boy who, in March last, gave q keeper
In the House of Refuge his death wound, was
found guilty yesterday by an intelligent jury
OF mansiaughter in the third degree, and was
sentenced to one years hard labor in the
State Prison. 1t was not by any means an
ordinary case, and the four days trial in the
Court of General Sessions developed facts
which were certainly extraordinary. The
learned Judge who tried the case ouicklv
realized that its mainsprings Of interest law
outside the scene on the tier in the Housa
of Refuge, wherein a brutal keepers taunts
and kicks on one side were overbalanced by a
shoe knife in the grip Of an Infatuated lad of
bad antecedents on the other. In recognizing
this and giving full latitude to the counsel
on both sides, the City Judge acted commend
ably. and the astounding revelations of organ
lied inhumanity resulting from his ruling
certainly justified him. After careful and
impartial charge by the Court the case went
to the jury, with the result above mentioned,
and what there was Of criminality in the kill
ing of the keeper is legally avenged on the
boy who stabbed him. That portion of what
was on trial in the Court of General Sessions
is, therefore, done with. The keeper whose
inhumanity made mockery of his Office, as
an agent in the cause of reform, is beyond the
reach Of further accountability; the boy,
Justus Dunn, changes his prison house with
the evil record Of early unmanageableness
and evil tendencies behind him, leading up
to harsh memories of place where re-
form was sham and the boy delinquent
represented only machine for lasting shoes,
to be whipped like helot kicked, cuffed or
hung up by the thumbs if the shoes were not
lasted fast enough or the boy made rush to
be free of such reform. Before him he has
the prospect of a year among adult felons, and
afterwards blasted, perhaps vicious life
worn out in hopeless war upon society, unless
some miracle of Providence intervenes to
snatch him from the hard-eyed fates that
grimly watched him from his birth.
And all this, too, looking back
upon and damning, in every reproach that
society may hurl upon him hereafter, the in
stitution whose ignorance, cruelties and self
ishness helped to form the social Ishmaelite out
of the neglected, erring boy. 1t is, then, with
with strong reason we demand whether the
yesterday decides all that was in issue in that
trial2 So far as the law was concerned
it may be answered in the ALTERNATIVES;
but there is fearful reckoning for which SEN
tence must be pronounced in another place.
The management of the House of Refuge is
hot vroo Ind fo No houo
oath of the parties involved themselves
sufficient, not merely to warrant their
removal from the positions they fill
so dangerously, but to necessitate
radical change of the dreadful system
they miscall reform. It can readily be seen
a system of which kindness or sensibility was
a part, and it would be quite as useless merely
to remove the incompetents and leave the sys-
tenn unchanged.
The reform of the hardened, adult criminal
is work of which many doubt the
possibility but the child, boy or girl, in
duced by bad surroundings to begin early in the
way Of crime, cannot of certainty be placed
in that hopeless category. If the print of evil
has been traced upon their young, plastic
minds, there are surely means whereby it can
be erased, so that the hand of charity may
leave its clearest impress on them. The
Of this is task calling for high
powers of mind, patient study of character,
and humane disposition to administer sys-
tenn of reformation that leads instead of drives,
that fosters and nurtures the germs of good in
stead of stamping them out in blind repression;
that recognizes the corrective influences of re-
ligion instead of making what little religion is
means of persecution for its sake an object of
hate and contempt. Furthermore, it should
not make the boy contractors chattel, to be
whipped or thumb-hung into efficiency to fill
the contractors pocket. 1t should look, in
fine, to the period when their work of reform
society. At present he seems to be, on emerg-
ing, cowed, sullen thing, with hate be-
hind him and distrust before him, not
q boy as we picture one, but
a cunning, furtive being, the ready-made ma
terial for an evil associate to make lifelong
CIluIAuul VI. oupcAIAlChucAI cOucS, Will Iue
aid of such beings as Silas Brush, Gildersleeve
and Sprole, has developed the present system.
He admitted that thumb-hanging was his
special adaptation. 1t is no response to this
mans manifold shortcomings to say that he is
unctious to outsiders if he is an expo
nent Of the Inquisition to his unfortunate
charge. The very oily platitudes uttered in
ignorance and scorn Of the idea that young
delinquent needed any other religion than
some cast-iron ''broad truths pronounce his
incompetency to deal with the subject 1t met
his narrow notions if it was only ''unsec-
tional," without any reference to whether it
attained its presumed object of doing good.
A man whose best efforts appear to have been
the introduction of exquisite tortures in this
age of philanthropy could certainly place lit