, 1885-12-30
THE PLEA or THE CHILDREN.


icai Dspravity-A Great Problems
re r. r. in Globe Domocratl
Dickens picture Of q school for train
ing child thieves is literally true in all
our large cities. Those who have Ia do
with distributing children, taken from
the crowds Of New York, hto western
homes, are frequently compelled to send
back boys and girls Of 10 or IL because
of precocious and hereditary vic
iousness. Passions that would not in a
healthy organization appear before 10,
in these children are violent at 10.
There is no possible way of managing
them in the way of trust and love. 1t
is inherited grossness. When the curse
OF deprayity gets to DO n fixed bias, or
instinct, what the t~heologians call mat
ural depravity," it is perfectly normal
that the child should be bad. Such
badness is not to be dealt with in the
way of punishment. Whatever theolog-
ians may determine about eternity, it is
clear that punishment is not the right
treatment for a naturally bad creature
in this world. What we have to do Is
to stop the increase of total depravity
and as soon as possible bring it to ex-
tinction.
Congenital disease of aphysical sort Is
only less terrible than congenital moral
disease. But you ha,s only to walk
along a tenement t~horoughfare to OBJ
serve how few of the children of the
lower classes are free from some sort of
m~alformation. Forgetting altogether
that not one in one hundred approaches
any idea OF form or feature, there is
present an astounding proportion of con-
stitutional deformity. From the face
to the feet there are ulcers and sores.
tickets and fits and st. Nitus meet us
in every other tenement. O~pthalmia
alternates with crooked and crossed
eyes. Moral obliquitity inds all sort,
Of oblique physical expression. Bone
diease, cancer and all possible out.
breaks Of poisoned blood are common.
1t was the writer s fate at one time to
go more or less among the tenements OF
New York city. While it is true that
feesle health, miserable wages paid to
women and sudden losses drive a large
number to these crowded buildings, yet
by far the largest part of the occupants
are such by heredity. You can tell a
natural born tenement dweller by his
looks. There is an utter lack of the
individual about him. When not crimi-
nal, he is a case of arrested develop
mont. | could never get over the idea
OF their all being parts or numbers Of
some n thing. Each one is defective
somewhere; in legs bowed, or in arms
skinny, or in eyes bleared, and hardly
a shapely head among them. The
children are born as a part of the sys-
tenn. do not refer to those tenements
that are largely filed with dangerous
brutes and thieves, but those a grade
higher.
Morals and physique go together. In
a fifth-story room l found a liquor-sell-
er's family, consisting of eight girls and
the wife. They had no hesitation about
barrel inery, although it left them for
a time in a state of nudity. 1t was not
immortality, but a non-morality a total
lack Of moral sentiment or sense. How
could it be otherwisei They occupied
but TWO rooms, and one of them was
hardly bigger than a closet The OPP
portunisy Of those eight girls in life is
what concerns us. | do not care a half
penny what you think about their fate
in eternity, / want to know what chance
they are going to have here and now
There is nothing in your Chinese prom
lem, or your negro problem, or your
tariff, 10 compare with this problem of
the children. Multiply this eight by
10, 900 and imagine an army of so, 900.
| will not run the figures beyond thou.
sands, because you can get a mental
picture of !, 900. But the childran that
lack decent moral and physical beget-
ting and culture go far beyond that in
these states OF ours.