Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-02-16
GREAT DiFFrcuL Y IN THE REFoRaA-
TON OF CRIMINALS

almost unrecognized obstacle to all esforts
in that direction, in the sinister and
persistent influence of conyicts upon one
another after their discharge. A very
startling illustration of this has just &C.
Cured. a man named Frank Armstrong
committed suicide the other day in San
Francisco, in sheer despair Of escaping
from the blackmailers who for years had
made his life miserable, and whose hold
upon him consisted in the fact that he
had been a convict. This man was not an
habitual criminal, but some five years ago
he got drunk, and while in that condition
stole an oYercoat from a hotel. Quite
probably no thought of theft was IN his
mind. He NAV have imagined that the
coat was his own. Bat he was arrested,
tried. and sent 10 the penitentiary for
year. When he came out he was deter
mined to live honestly, and so far as ap-
pears he did live honestly. He obtained
work, and behaved himself well. But he
could not keep off the men who had known
him when he was in prison. They black
mailed him mercilessly. Fearful that the
exposure of his past offense would cause
his discharge, he paid his prosecutors to
let him alone. 1t was fatal mistake, no
doubt, but men in his position are not with
out serious apprehensions of the influence OF
prejudice upon the minds of their en-
ployers, and they often yield to the threats
of their former prison mates as the least of
two evils. To yield in such case, how
ever, is to court ruin. The wretched
class to which these jail birds belong has
no sense of honor, no feeling of pity, no
sympathy with one of their own number
who is struggling to lift himself above the
slough of crime. On the contrary, they
hate him for wanting TO liberate himself
from their society, and they find truly
devilish qualification in pulling him down,
and making him once more as vile and as
hopeless as themselves.
On former occasion we related the par
ticulars of a case which began very much
like Armstrong;. A discharged convict
in San Francisco made up his mind to be
honest, and was fortunate enough to find
work at once. He was a man of
exceptional business capacity, and soon
made himself indispensable to his employ
ers. But his convict associates found him
out, and as usual undertook to blackmail
him. Had he yielded he would have been
lost, as poor Armstrong was but he deter
mined not to become the thrall of these
villains, and he administered sound
thrashing to the frat who threatened him.
On the second occasion he promptly
knocked down the would be blackmailer,
and after that he was let alone. No doubt
the convicts might have secured his dis
charge by informing his employers what
he had been, and it is somewhat surprising
that they did not take that mode of
revenging themselves. However, the 1nan
was not molested, and he succeeded not
on1y III hlnnihS MS way W q iospoHslDic
position, but in time was received as
partner in the firm with which he had
worked so long. That man is still living,
a prosperous and upright business man.
But had he yielded to the first natural
suggestion of his fears. he would doubtless
have been bounded by the scoundrels
who knew of his disgrace, until he was
forced back into crime, or took Armstrong 8
method of releasing himself.
Those who censure the convict from the
frigid standpoint of virtue that has
never been tempted those who ascribe
his frequent lapses to an Inherent apti-
tude for vice those who think that
human nature is somehow different in the
criminal classes would mitigate the
severity of their judgments could they
realize the extent of the obstacles with
which the path of the discharged prisoner
bristles; could they see the hight and
ruggedness of the sleeps he has to climb
before he can gain footing on the table
land of Responsibility. Watched by the
police, dogged by his old associates, his
nerves are kept in frightful tension con-
tinually. Do what he may he never knows
but that the next man he meets may
recognize and expose him; and sad expe-
rience has taught him how little present in
dustry, sobriety, honesty and capacity
usually weigh with an employer against
the statement That man has been a
convict' In such cases the heart of the
employer contracts. He becomes the pitt.
less agent of the injustice of Society. His
sel6shness exaggerates all the possibilities
of what he has heard, and turning a deaf
ear to intreaties, he orders away the poor
wretch Indignantly, feeling all the time
that the latter has done him an injury in
trying TO become honest through hi;
means. And because the discharged
convict knows what he has to expect il
his dismal secret is exposed, he too often
allows himself to be made the easy prey Of
blackmailers.
His earnings then are absorbed by
these vampires, and after time the hope.
lessness of his situation becomes so clear
to him that he must be very resolute man
if he does not reach the conclusion that
enfranchisement is impossible il he does
not, so concluding, throw up his hands and
sink into the depths. Armstrong was 80
far resolute that he would not turn crimi.
nal but his life was robbed of all pleasure
and hope, and at last death seemed to
him the ouly solution of the dreadful prob.
lem thrust upon him by Society. There is
nothing in that tremendous work of Victor
Hugo's, Les Miserables, more awful than
the glimpse of the Inducements of the
criminal life revealed to us in this sad case.
Society rolls heedlessly on, crushing and
mangling countless victims in its ponderous
progress. Above, philosophers and sages
moralize, priests preach, and cynics sheer.
Below, the tragedies of life are being
wrought out in obscurity, and the dim
outlines of them are misconceived and
misinterpreted by the careless spectators.
| Yet it is necessary for the development of