St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-12-24

expiration of that time in strange
town, without q cent. 1t is cold
weather. and the inevitable Is forced
upon the stranger. He applies at police
headquarters for place to sleep.
From that moment he is branded as
warrant. Two or three days more of
pr0fitless searching for work, and sleep
Jess nights among the yilest of the vag-
rant herd, and the term ''habitual" is
added to that of vagrant. Then some
evening the half-starved wretch thrusts
bis features into the warmth of the jail
room, and, instead Of being allowed to
sleep unmOlested as before, he is placed
i'm a cell with charge of yagrancy OPP
pOsite his name. In the police court he
gets thirty days.
"Just what he was after" says some
WiSeacre.
The assertion is true enough of some
eases; but is it to be presumed that
among the hundreds of men decently
and cieanly clad, who are forced to this
sort of thing. there are none pos
adherence? Who would not bail
with delight the opportunity to work
Tor however small sum per day. This
man goes to the wOrkhouse. There the
jail barber sets the brand of Cain on
him by shaving of his beard and mus
tache and cropping his hair closely. 1t
seems trivial thing enough, this hair
cropping business, but when man has
worn his beard for term of years it Is
part of himself. To cut it off means to
disfigure him. Then he is put into a
prison suit and the degradation is COM
plete. Of course he is a prisoner, but
then why? What crime has he commit
ted to be herded with the scum Of crea-
ton? His time expires, this man is dis
charged. What then? He hasn't dol
lar in the world. He is known to the
police as having been sent out for va
grancy, sufficient in itself to cause his
rearrest, if he is found lettering, and
what can he do but loiter? By the
greatest good luck he may get some
thing to do before he has been out of
jail over couple of days, but if he does
not, God pity him! for he speedily will
find himself AGAIN in the w0rkhouSe
with another thirty or perhaps ninety
the workhOuse system. The prison
official above referred to in discussing
this question said:
The city government of st. Paul, as well
as those OF most American cities, is making
more criminals every year by their work
house systems thun the penitentiarieS would
accommodate were they of four times their
present capacity. Men are sent to the work
house for trivial offenses on suspicion. and,
III fact for no other oifense than that they
are without means. They are discharged in
an equally resourceless condition, reincar-
cerated, and subjected to indignitieS which
no mau, however honest, CAN endure with
out becoming an enemy of mankind and at
war with the world. Philosophers have phil
osophized and theorists theorized on the
question. Why is America, the most pros
porous country i'll the world. still the most
tramp-rloden? The answer is simply that
The workbouse system of the country gives
an unfortunate man no opportunity to re
anything but a tramp. These men when
sent u the workhouse should be made to
work hard and should be allowed five cents
a day for the work they perform. Then, when
discharged, the unfortuue, though by no
means wealthy, has enough to sustain life
couple of days while he is looking for work.
A well known ST. Paul Chinese iaun-
dryman, named Sin Wal, who has for
years been in business on Jackson
left yesterday for China on sad mis-
sion. Sin Wah received advices from
+ TaiDing, China, Monday, that his ell
|; tire family, mother, father sisters and
brothers, sixteen in all, were killed in
the gunpowder explosion at that place,
in which 500 lives were lost