Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-30

nothing in common with democratic prin-
ciples, nor with any sound theory of civil
ization. If, as is alleged, hoodlumism is
on the increase, there can be no doubt as
to where the responsibility for it rests, and
it has become necessary to use very plain
language in pointing this out. If boys
and girls fall into evil courses it is the di-
rect fault of their parents. If they haunt
the streets when they should be at home,
it is the fault of the parents. Ii they are
graceless, froward, intractable, vulgar,
vicious, it is the fault of their parents.
Every hoodlum boy and girl is standing
disgrace to his or her father and mother.
If our Juvenile population is SO depraved
as the adoption of this ordinance implies,
the fact is shameful to cur adult popula-
ton. But the evil cannot be cured by
thrusting parental dutieson tothe shoulders
of the municipality. It is not in the
power of corporation to supply the
discipline and the instruction which can
only be had at the domestic hearth. 1t
will be lamentable day for the American
people when they have to confess that
they have lost the capacity to train and
control their own children, and when they
are obliged to solicit the revival of the
Curfew system in order to keep their off
spring out of mischief.
| We have no respect for the parents who
are capable of proposing or aequiescing in
such a method of protection as this, and
we tell them plainly that there is no true
remedy in it. 1t is in itself disastrous
confession of the collapse of parental au-
thority an admission that parents are no
longer able to command the obedience of
their children, and that they are compelled
to appeal to the police for assistance. The
fact that such an ordinance as this should
have been introduced in other towns of
California only shows how general and
widespread is the Generalization of the
family circle in this State. The truth is
that nowadays men and women too COM
monty lack the judgment and the principle
which are needed for the proper training of
the young. A silly and sickly sentimental
ism has superseded the old-fashioned
modes of family life. A preposterous no.
ton of the ''rights of children has in
duced foolish fathers and mothers to treat
them with blind and unmeasured indul-
gence. As result they are taught only
what is hateful and mischievous. They
learn to be selfish, greedy, impudent and
graceless, and with such foundations it is
not to be wondered at that the characters
they develop are debased and vicious.
No well regulated family can possibly
need the aid of Curfew in keeping the
children at home at night. In such
family the commands of the parents will
be the undisputed law of the household.
In such family the attractions of home
will be superior to anything to be found
elsewhere. In such family the children
will have learned at an early period to
submit themselves in all things to their
seniors, and they will also have been
taught that refinement which is the surest
safeguard against degrading associations.
But when the parents themselves are
frivolous, feeble-minded, weakly indulg.
ent, absorbed in their own pleasures or
business, the home influence cannot exist,
the home itself perishes. The father
who spends his evenings down town." at
the lodge" or the billiard saloon, or the
counting. house the mother who thinks
only of her own amusement; are unfit to
bear parental responsibilities, and are
almost inevitably cursed with hoodlum
children. But how can the want of
true home, the absence of true home in
fiuence, be supplied by a municipal ordi
nance? This is to give stones for bread.
Hoodlumism is the sin of the parents let
that be remembered. Such an ordinance,
therefore, as our Trustees have enacted is
burning reproach upon the civilization of
the community. 1t is not the poor I'M
taught or ill-taught boys and girls who are
to be blamed. 1t is the responsible men
and women who have been intrusted
with the training of these helpless ones,
and who have so shamefully betrayed and
abandoned their trust. What hope can
there be for generation whose early years
have had to be drilled and disciplined by
police regulations whose early depravity
is such that public authority has had to be
substituted for the remonstrances of paren-
tai affection who have learned obedience
only through the threat of imprisonment
and open disgrace? And who are the
fathers and mothers whose wicked neglect
has brought all this evil about? Must
we believe that in spite of our schools
and our churches, in spite of our
societies for mental improvement, and
our dabbliDgs in art and science, in spite
of our prosperity and the pleasantness of
our surroundings, we have thus hopelessly
failed in attaining the very fundamentals
of healthy civilization? Is our condition
so hideous sham as this action of the
City Trustees bespeaks? Have all our
efforts and struggles toward higher con-
dition ended in this collapse of all i'm
provement ? To these conclusions, NOR
tifying as they are, the Curfew ordinance
inevitably leads us. Surely there ought
to be very formidable data in the possession
of the Trustees to justify the reproach they
have cast upon the city. If, however, the
situation is indeed such as has been i'm
piled, we assert that the remedy proposed
must necessarily be futile. No govern
ment can take the place OF parents, and if
the latter have become incapable of doing
their duty to their children the demorali- /
cation of society must have proceeded too
far to be cured by any such empirical ap-
plications.
GAvAzzI.
So Father Gavazzi is to speak here this
evening. What a long line of interesting
"reminiscences his name calls up. It was