The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1890-04-03
Judge Gfldersleeve.


H. A. GiIdersleeve's late illogical article
on criminals and deals with it in the fol-
lowing able manner:
At recent meeting of one of our socie-
ties. an article by Judge Henry A. Glider
sleeve, of New York, upon crime and the
treatment of criminals was read from the
Irish American. There was dissent from
the statements of the Judge; especially
from the sentiments of the first two para
graphs of the article. We quote these in
full:
There is no doubt in the mind of anyone whose
professional duties bring him in contact with
malefactors, that crime is a disease, and that
criminals are If may the phrase moral in
valids. What DR.. Dugdale so well illustrated in
his brilliant little book THE Jukes'' has been
long known to every magistrate or experience
and to every warden of every correctional insti-
tuition. The great majority of wrong doors appar-
emily start out at birth with a moral, or rather
immoral, bias from which they seldom recover.
Not one in a hundred ever reforms or is "con-
verified" So far as have seen in my own career
upon the Bench few. if any, ever display any
desire to change their mode of living and be-
come law abiding citizens. While called con-
versions are common, real ones are very rare.
OF every ten convcts five will pretend pitabe
contriton in order to gain the sympathy of would
be phianthropists, and what is of far greater i'm
portance, the tobacco. fruit books and delicacies
Gin which such sympathy finds expression.
The evils in this regard are SO great that 1t
might be wise policy the part of legislators to
enact laws prohibiting prisoners from receiving
flowers, fruit and other decacies at the hands OF
anybody and also restricting all visits to those OF
their lawyers, clergymen, and immediate rela-
tives. The lionzing of criminals is deplorable in
every respect and certainly does harm. Most OF
the trouble, 1t must be admitted is ascribable to
the other That sympathy which is so beau
tifal a characteristic Of wOmanhOod, at times be-
come morbid and. escaping all legitimate chan
nels, vents itself upon evil doors altogether un-
worthy of its benefcence.
It may be said in reference to the
pOstulates of the Judge that all prisoners
are not criminals; that all criminals are
not professional criminals; that all crim-
mails are not habitual criminals. We may
agree with the Judge that criminals are
moral invalids. In such fact is the en-
enlargement of cure-Of reformation. The
percentage of moral invalids who recover.
or are cured. is as great as the percentage
OF physical cures and recOveries. We
neither dismiss nor taboo doctors, nor do
we discard remedies when physical natures
or minds are diseased; nor should we when
moral natures are diSeased-when men are
moral invaids.
II Judge GilderSleeveS remarks be con-
fined to professional criminals it may be
somewhere near true that mot one in
hundred ever reforms or is converted"
The remark applied to prisoners in a body
is not, will not be true. Men everywhere
do turn from unrighteOusnesS to righteous
ness. The prisoners OtfenSe is not more
difficult to turn away from than it is to
turn away from the thousand and one sins
which men commit, which are outside the
list of crimes. Nor is it more difficult for
prisoner to reform than for other men to
reform. Bad men who are not rated as
criminals, who are not prisoners. do reform.
are converted, and neither prisoners, nor
criminals. are excluded from reformation or
conversions; certainly not by any act not
their own, nor by any prOvsO of divine
ton or economy.
THE Jukes" of DR.. Dugdale have been
doing illustrative duty for many years and
their history has determined the whole
question of criminality for some people;
and there are those who have concluded
that there are no prisoners. no criminals
but "Jukes." The majority of prisoners.
or violatOrs of law. are not "Jukes." The
story of the ''JukeS" may not be known to
our readers. 1t is briefly this. One
bad woman had descendants to the number
of fifty OF hundred, and every one of
them was bad person. 1t is lamentably
true that the iniquitieS of the fathers are
visited upon the children to the third and
fourth generation, but all who are bad have
not come to badness by heredlty. Good
men and women slip and fall in a moral
sense, and such ones become offenders
and prisoners. Not all who are under the
ban can attribute their conditions and posi-
tons to parents, or to any ancestry. Cases
of departure from rectitude are as common
as cases of inherited turpitude, which are
supposed to make men and women perpetu,
ally and Incidentally wrong. The great
argument for reformatory belief, action
and methods is founded on the fact of per-
sonal departure and estrangement from the
right one known and pursued, and the
possibility of personal return thereto, and a
new endorsement of the right. Conversion
is fact of history, and reform is coming to