New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-06-10
E1YC IN TIE DOCK,

They have an informal way of administering
Justice i'm the Philade pha courts which Is not
without it's Sound sense and force boy was
brought up before Judge Briggs last week,
charged with stabbng another lad. The culprit,
il appeared was head of q gang, and the
victim, out of wholesome fear of the future,
rave evidence in his favor Instead OF
sending the boy for years to prison to the
enforced companionship of older thieves and
rifians, the jury acquitted him, requesting
that the Court "should admonish john" John
was therefore brought up before the Judge,
who put the case of this boy and all others of
the same class into forcible fatherly talk,
unusual enough on the bench, but with
yiyor and sound sense in it which many
Judges and all fathers might use with adVan-
tage. In lieu of the ordinary vague morallties
and injunctions to so and SIN no more,
the good Judge sharply set before John
the fact that he was an exceedingly VICIOUS
boy Oh the high road to the galOws, and that
his viciousness was due to frequenting the low
thcatcrs lin front of one of which the ARRAY
took place., where he learned that guilt and
murder constituted heroic life. Having
stripped John of any complaccnt belief that
he was a hero, or anything but silly, foul
minded child, the Judge babe the boy come to
his house, and he would do all he could to put
him in better path of life.
A few Judge Briggscs or ether sensible,
kindly men, in the place of the machinery OF
our prisons, might d. something for the
"Johnsr in this and the other large cities.
Nothing is more hopeless than the sensual,
reckless faces of the gangs of such boys (and
worse, of the girls who accompany them) that
crowd nightly into the variety. theaters anu
concert saloons. The Philadelphia jurlst
touched the root of the matter when he said
that these places "aro institutions of educa-
ton from which criminals graduate lie
based his opinion on his own experience in
tho courts, when he affirmed that to these
haunts more than to any other cause
could be traced the fall not only of ignorant
bows. such as the Culprit before him. but Of
Young men of promise and fortune. elf the
claw gave the power he added, 81 would
break up every such place, and that mt once
Not long ago we cited the Mayor OF Phlladel-
dclphia as saying that it was to the sensational.
feverish literature provided for boys, ana to
the low variety halls where such literature was
dramatized, that he ascribed the rapid Increase
of juvenile crime in that city. No doubt
children who read wholesome books and are
taken to good dramatic performances are not
going to fall through those lower means. But
John and his like have no money to buy
st. Nicholas or tickets to Booths or Wallacks
yet they must have amusement. Any re-
form falls short of the mark which does not
provide for this necessity of human nature.
If the low theatrical shows could be closed by
law, as Judge Briggs suggests, the lads who
frequent them would find equally cheap and
vile excitement in rat-pits and dance-hOuses.
The fact is, the first reform needed is the es
Enlistment of low priced and decent places
of amusement, in lieu of these. We have
Holly-tree Inns and innumerable other devices
20 allure adult men from taverns and other
haunts of dissipation. Why is nothing done
for the boys, who are far more malleable SUBJ
jects of refOrmf
Now vileness and crime are not necessary
elements in entertainments which please the
most ignorant lad. The bOOtblack who spends
his last penny for The Police Gazette, or for
ticket to q Bowery saloon, would DO just as
delighted with q Christmas pantomime or o