The Potter journal and news item. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1872-1874, 1874-01-07


Nautilus is popularity regarded as
a calculating King Herod. But that
gentle country clergyman at least
gave much prayerfui thought and a
most humane answer to the social
questions that beset his conscience;
and if the polite world still insist
that the subject of the reckless null
F.. duplication of the pauper class must
not be discussed, it is certainly bound
to see that that vast population is
not born to the alternative Of starva-
tion or crime. Yet this is precisely
the only future which bcckons thous-
ands on thousands OF American chill
dren to-day. In the state of New
\ York tie depredations Of criminals
are reckoned greatly to exceed the
sum of thirteen millions Of dollars
annually. This loss represents the
/ injury through one form of crime on
/ ly. The number of ''jail-birds" rep
resents ten per cent Of the actually
dangerous classes. Our three state
prisons discharge over one thousand
prisoners annually. Our six peni~
tentiaries send out nearly lime thou
sand. The yield of the worllhouscs
and county jails is vastly greater.
The Bridewells of this one state cost
some three millions a year.
Inhumanity is a costly laziness
truly. For it is because We permit
Mary and Joanna and Tim and Ter
ence to be born to the nature Of the
street and the gin-shop, and trained
| in the schools Of thieving and vaga-
bondage, that they come to demand
the higher and dearer tutelage Of
jails and penitentiaries. Societies
assume that crime and degradation
are alien to it, and legislates for them
with ignorant Indifference. In reali-
! tv, they are the wretched fruit OF its
loins, claiming parental consideration
and help as other deformed and
dreadful births claim it Of natural
parents. The Children's Aid Socie-
ties, noble and successful as they are,
can do little more than point the way
which the state should take, Their
usefulness is limited; first. by mar
row means: second, by their attitude
Of charity. For the kindly service
that they do is the true birthright
ofevery pauper child, guaranteed not
by generosity but by justice.
Mary and Joanna educated to no
nice perception Of mcum and taum,
barter what seems to them useless
lead-pipe for useful bread. Society
holds up its hands at such Juvenile
depravity and, at best, packs them
off to the Reformatory. This huge
dreary barrack where an army Of
graceless children goes through te-
dious routine Of moral and industrial
drill, is to these wild little Arabs.
an abomination Of desolations
Ever afterward virtue, industry, re-
spectability, stand for the symbol Of
this doleful place, and are scorned
and feared Of them. They come back
to the outer world Of busy occupa-
ton. Virtue has no use for them.
Vice wants them and will pay a GER
tain wage. To thieves and pimps
and swindlers of all sorts they have
market value. More crime, more
short sentences in nerciful consider
alton of their youth, more yengeful
hate of that law and that society
which to them seem simply tyran-
nous and indicative, and by and-by
state prison for them and evergrow-
ing taxes for ourselves.
But suppose that the state held all
children of pauper or of criminal or
drunken or notoriously dissolute pa
rents, as we'll as deserted children, to
be her wards. Suppose that at birth
they were placed in homes, not in
reformatories, the domestic and not
the military idea inspiring the whole
discipline. Suppose that up to the
age Of sixteen they were to be held
as infants in the eye of the law, no
penal sentence following ofenses, but
simply a remanding to these homes
Of purity and patience. No sane
person doubts the result. Are the
difficulty of finding the right guard
ians and the enormous expense urged
as objections? But among the multi
tudes Of motherly, intelligent, unem-
ployed women, hungering for work,
these tender. patient, and judicious
step-mothers stand waiting for just
such call. And for the expense, if we