Morning journal and courier., 1886-05-31
BOYS IN THE STATE PRISON.
Face to Face With One of the Ugly
 Truths of EOedaY.

Face to Face With One of the Ugly
 Truths of Eosday.
 Joaquin Miller in the Chicago Timesl
 Here we are face te face with the ugliest truth in the United States. Twenty-Five of these boys only seventeen years old. As before stated, there many others much younger. I find here ia this prison ferty-five boys who are not yet quite twenty years old; all native born, all handsome, healthy and finely educated lads as a rule. They do not seem to be vicious. In fact the record of their crimes show that they were good d-natured, petty burglars hanging about the cities, and not given to bloody deeds at all. But not one of them had ever done an honest days work until here. They are mostly employed in the jute factory along with the Chinamen. The Chinese are placed there because they are as rule more skillful than white men. Then the boys are put there because they will thus be shut off from the older criminals to a great extent. All who work in this wonderful factory, which is going to be productive of much good to both State and citiZen-giving the farmers cheap bags for grain-receive some extra pay, and so will not leave the prison penniless.
 But at the very best the outlook for these
  The outlook for the State of California is still worse. And if, as has been said before, California is the focus and mphasized ex- presson of the United States in advance, what sad things are to be prephesied of our coming generation all over the landl I call the attention of the country to this condition of things out here, and point out that en- ployment might be found by many 8 good philanthropist in looking after the young men in the cities East by compelling them to go to work. The problem is not SO much concerning those who are in the prisons now as those on their way there. CONFIRMATION wI7H BOY CONNECTS. "What are you here for, my son.'' Burglary"
 The boy, pale blonde. did not lift his eyes. He was sitting St dinner along with all the others in a remote corner of @ vast dining hall with it's thirteen hundred guests. Far away in another remote corner sat the two hundred Chinamen, all silently eating by themselves. The colored people also were in a group together. The Indians it in almost anywhere.
 Burglary, first time, hope"
 "First and last, sir; can't you get ne cut O heres"
 The pale little fellow hardly lifted his voice at all, and he declined to lift his eyes in the least, but kept stirring his soup in aoiseless and nervous fashion, as if his 
 "Will you tell me why such fine lad is here?'
 "They won't let me talk, sir; and 50 you see can't tell you. But won't you please get me out?"
 ''Yes, they will let you talk. They let me wander all about and talk with whom I please and I want to talk with you."
 ''Guess I'd better not talk much; but oh, gosh, I wish you'd get me out O bere." And the boy went on stirring his soup. And as he did not lift his eyes or say more 1 passed on around to full faced and black-haired lad whose eyes were everywhere. "Burgla- ry! That's me. Second offense; sorry; you betr and won't never do so again. You see I knew just what you wants to ask; and an- swer in advance to save you trouble. Now won't you please try and get mo out7'
 The hardened little convict poked his fel- low prisoner with his elbow, and they both giggled as they bent their heads to their tin soup-plates.
 But the fact is you get but little informa- tion from these lads They put on a sort of banter and air of defiance the minute you approach them, and lie right along to keep up their courage and show of hardihood. l was told by one of the officers that this same boy spent a good deal of his time in tears. And I am bound to admit that personally and directly did not get much light on the subject of inquiry from any one of these two hundred boys at San Quentin But my old-time friend General Barnes, one of the eminent lawyers ct San Francisco, spent weeks where have only spent days in this investigation, and he tells me, as he has told the public oftentimes in his lectures on this subject, that these boys are in the State's prison because the commonwealth permits them no other p1ace-because they are not permitted to work elsewhere
 IT IS PARTLY THEIR OWN FAULT.
 General Barnes boldly testiies that these boys have not been permitted to learn trades. He had the present apprentice law of California placed on the statute books. But he says that the custom of bringing skilled workmeR from Europe has shut up every possible avenue or opening for the Americans. These men from abroad he says are better skilled than the American is will ing to make himself. And so he can get employment while the native Californian must starve or turn to crime for bread.
 Yet, it is to be admitted that it is partly the American's own fault. For these boys, every one of them, ought to be still under the masters control and still learning trades. In fact some of them are even too young to become apprentices. So you see the best law in the land that could be devised could not save, or even help some of them. And so we must go still farther back and deeper down for the reason of this juvenile deprav- ity.
 For my own part I never come full face before any of these terrible problems of life without being more and more persuaded of the wisdom and forethought of our fathers and the divine wisdom of holy writ. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread all the days of thy life" There is more good and bigger and better lesson in this one half line of the Bible, 'tSpare the rod and spoil the child," than all the books that have been written in America.
 "What in the world is the matter with your young men of California;" asked of the famous and ch-loved bishop the other day.
 Liberty" was the lacenic answer. Then the bishop took off his spectacles and wiped them slowly with his large white silk hand kerchief. And as he looked seriously at the fire he said: "Yes, sir, liberty; leisure! A man can no longer correct his child without being reported; society inferferes. They would have taken the side of Absolom against David. Men have become wiser than the Bible with all it's record of experience in human nature. No man can put his chill dren out to work without the interference of nfh fhnro No %n r1r Iii