Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-11-17
A MORAL PAL0 ALTA.
A HALFWAY HOUSE ON TIE
HIGHWAY TO HADES.
and the Manner in Which it
May be Averted.
Written for the RrooRp-UN1oN.l

level, excuse is offered for drawing atten-
tion to matter which, though only of
State interest, is none the less pressing
and acute. l ailude TO the establishment
of home for boys, an which institution
there is none whose want at the present
time is more keenly felt by those to whom
the reclamation of our juvenile waits is
not matter of absolute Indifference. The
need for the erection of than institution of
this character is so pressing, that refer
ence to it is never out of season, and while
the subject does not lend itself to very at
tractive handling, / hope by my treat
ment of it to invest the topic with the de-
gree of interest which its importance and
urgency claim. With tn exception of the
San Francisco Industrial School, purely
county affair, there is no institution in
this State which answers the character of
being a reformatory in that wide sense to
which public edifice alone can CORE
spond. Prolific as California is in uni
versities, in colleges and in orphanages,
these, for the most part, fill educational
of the first pamed) maintained by private
charity exclusively, cannot be expected
10 take cognizance Of the wants of the class
for whom it is the normal province
OF THE STATE To LEGIsLATE.
With the shapes which the qualification
Of private muniticence may take, it is the
business of nobody to meddle, yet it could
be wished that endowments, which it is
now the fashion to lavish on universities
and polytechnics, might be diverted to ac-
complish for the morals what the former
set of institutions accomplish for the facul-
ties. The most urgent want of this State
at present is a moral Palo Alta, whose
office, while educational in subordinate
sense, will be primarily to reclaim and save
that unfortunate class of juveniles who,
every year, are lost to the community for
the want of it. In his last report to the
Board of Directors, Warden Aull, of Fol-
som, calls attention to the "crying need"
of this State for the erection of boys
reiormatory, and gives his experience of
the demoralizing influence of prisons on
the minds of those young offenders whom
our magistracy commits to their care. The
want of an institution of this character is
nothing less than State disgrace, and its
absence is rendered the more indefensible
by the knowledge of how every kindred
institution but this has been called into
being, in many instances duplicated and
Implicated, by private and public philan-
throphy. With an obliquity which is truly
astonishing, donations, bequests aud en-
dowments are freely layished on objects
which are often aesthetic merely, and at
best only educational, but neither the mag
nanimity Of the citizen nor
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE LEGISLATURE
Seems equal to taking the step necessary
to found an establishment, the want Of
which is more keenly felt as the numbers
Of juvenile delinquents in our State Peni-
tentiaries become more congested. Nearly
every State in the Union, and certainly
every country in Europe, has some half
way-house where incorrigible children
convicted for the first time of crime may
have the chance accorded them of reform
ing, ere contact with prisons shall render
this process impossible of achievement. In
California, however, there is no house of
rescue, the bourne for the sophisticated
malefactor and the infantile transgressor
being the same. The judiciary recognizes
to the full the evil results which follow an
association Of juvenile delinquents with
penitentiaries, but with no State reforma-
tory to consign these erring striplings to-
there is no alternative open to the former
but to commit the offenders to either the
county Jail or the State Penitentiary. Of
the two evils, the latter is probably the
least, but only in that sense in which the
frying pan surpasses the fire in enjoying a
cooler temperature. Both these institu-
tions are fatal to juvenile reformation, and
the boy whois sent to them will inevitably
lose in their environment the few tatters
of innocence and self-respect which clune
to him before he entered them. How boys
| are ruined by
CONTACT WITH PRISON ATMOSPHERE
Is best illustrated by the numerous in
stances of relapse into crime on the part
of those of their number to whom execu-
tive clemency has been granted. The lat
| ter interposes when the consequences it
would anticipate are already fulfilled, for
in the cases of lads, the residence in prison
of few months, in many instances of a
few weeks only, is sufficient to accomplish
the ruin of a lifetime Pardon in the case
of adult criminals is sometimes attended
| with good results, but rarely in the in
stance of the juvenile culprit, on whom
clemency is exercised in vain. If an
analysis was made of the various relapses
into crime among the recipients of execu-
tive clemency during the past three ad-
| ministrations those who at the time of its
bestowal were under the age of eighteen
would be found to furnish the greatest
number. The latter have been made Grim
inals before their time, and being plunged
into an environment of infamy, resent the
injustice the community has inflicted on
them by becoming its enemies for life
The penitentiary IN this State has to ac-
| commodate band of urchins who are per-
| force committed to it in the absence of any
reformatory or training-ship to send them
to. In other words, they are made crimi-
mails because the State will not furnish the
| apparatus by which they might be trained
| into artisans or sailors. The penitentiaries
| instead of being tenanted by the exclu.
sively criminal, are tenanted
BY THE EXCLUSIVELY UNFORTUNATE.
In the latter category are included
many criminals it is true but also class
who are sent there by necessity which
| if the State did its duty, would never ex-
ist. 1t is idle to contend that the War.
dens and authorities of the penitentiarie:
should segregate the juvenile portion O.
their wards from the adult portion. I'm
der existing arrangements this cannot be
done, and, even if it could, the blending OF
young criminals with young criminals i,
almost as baneful as the blending of The
latter with old ones. The very name "con
vict" has withering effect on the growth
of young natures, who, so far from con
tracing any good from the society of theil
contemporaries, will contract only evil, be-
ing fortified in their example by the uni
versal practice of those around them. Il
is possible for adult growth to pass through
the fires of penitentiary without receiv
ing any appreciable scorch from them, but
I