Milford chronicle., 1891-04-17

prison hunks who would leap up at the
prospect Of reformation II society would
only allow them a way into deceney aud
respectability.
THR UNCHARIrABLE JUDGEs
oh" you say, Il have no patience with
these rOgues." ask you in reply, how
much better would you have been under
the same circumstancesi Suppose your
mother had been blasphemer and your
father sot, and you had started life with
a body stuffed with evil prOelivities, and
YOU had spent much Of your time in cellar
amid obseenities and cursing, and If at ten
yearsof age you had been compelled TO go out
and steal, battered and banged at night II
you came in without any spells, and suppose
yaur early manhood and wotnanhOOd had
been covered with rags and filth, and de-
cent society had turned it's back upon you,
and left you to cOnsort with vagabOnds and
wharf rats-how much better would you
have been9 have no sympathy with that
executive clemeney which would let crime
run loose, or which would sit in the gallery
Of a court room weeping because some
hard hearted wretch is brought to justice;
but do say that the safety and life Of the
community demand more potential inhu-
ences in behalf of public offenders.
In some Of the city prisons the air is like
that of the Black Hole Of Calcutta. have
visited prisons where, as the air swept
through the wicket, it almost knocked me
down. No sunlight. Young men who had
committed their first crime crowded in
among old Offenders. / saw in one prison
a woman, with child almost blind, who
had been arrested for the crime Of poverty,
who was waiting until the slow law could
take her to the almshOuse, where she
righrfully belonged; but she was thrust In
there with her child amid the most aban-
doned Wretches Of the town. Many Of the
offenders in that prison slept on the
floor, with nothing but a vermin covered
blanket over them. Those people crowded
and wan and wasted and half suffOcated
and Infatuated. / said to the men, How
do you stand it heref" God knows, said
one man, I'VE have to stand it." oh, they
will pay you when they get out. Where
they burned down one house they viii
burn three They will strike deeper the
assassin's knife. They are this minute
plotting worse burglaFies.
Some Of the city iails are the best places
know Of to manufacture fOotpads, vaga-
bonds and cutthrOats. Yale college is not
so we'll calculated to make scholars, nor
Harvard so well calculated to make scien-
lists, nor Princeton so well calculated to
make theOlOgians, as many of our iails are
calculated to make criminals. All that those
men do not know of crime after they have
been in that dungeon for some time, Sa-
tanic machination cannot teach them. In
the insufferable stencil and sickening sur
roundings of such places there is nothing
but disease for the body, idiOcy for the
mind, and death for the soul. Stiaed air
and darkness and vermin never turned a
thief into an honest man.
We want men like John Howard and Sir
William Blackstone and women like Eliz-
abeth Fry to do for the prisons Of the
United States what those people did in
other days for the prisons Of England.
thank God for what Isaac 4. Hopper and
DR.. Wines and Mr. Harris and scores of
others have done in the way Of prison re-
form, but we want something more radical
before will come the blessing Of him who
said, II was in prison, and ye came unto
me-"
TIE CRIME OF MIsGovERNNKET.
Again, in your effort to arrest this plague
Of crime you need to consider untrust-
worthy officials. "Woe unto thee, o land,
when thy king is a child, and thy princes
drink in the morning" 1t is a great
to a city when bad men get into
public authority. Why was it that in New
York there was such unparalleled crime be-
tween 1866 and 1871? It was because the
judges OF police in that city at that time
for the most part were as corrupt as the
vagabonds that came before them for trial.
were the days Of high carnival for
election frauds, assassination and forgery.
We had all kinds of rings There was one
man during those years that got one hun
dred and twenty-eight thousand dollars in
one year for serving the public
In a few years it was estimated that
there were fifty millions Of public treasure
squandered. In those times the criminal
had only to wink to the judge, or his law
yer would wink for him, and the question
was decided for the defendant. OF the eight
people arrested in that city in
one year only three thousand were punish
ed These little matters were faxed up"
while the interests of society were fixed
down." You know as we'll as lido that one
villain who escapes only opens the door for
other crimin0lities. When the two pick
pockets snatched the diamond pin from the
Brooklyn gentleman in a broadway stage,
and the villains were arrested and the trial
was set down for the general sessions, and
then the trial never came, and never any
thing more was heard Of the case, the pub
lie officials were only bidding higher for
more crime.
It is no compliment to public authority
when we have in all the cities Of the eOun-
Try, walking abroad, men and women no
5orious for criminality unwhipped Of JUS
ice. They are pointed out to you in the
street day by day. There you find what
IRE called the ''fences," the men who stand
the thief and the honest man,
lheltering the thief, and at q great price
handing over the goods to the owner to
whom they belong. There you viii find
hose who are called the ''skinners," the
men who hover around Wall street, with
great sleight OF hand in bonds aud stocks
There you find the funeral thieves, the
leOple who 20 and sit down and mourn
With families and pick their pockets. And
here you find the confidence men," who
,Orrow money Of you because they have a
lead child in the house and want to bury
{, when they never had a house or a fami-
y; or they want to 90 to England and get
large property there, and they want you
o pay their way and they viii send the
money back by the very next mail
There are the "harbOr thieves" the
'shoplifters," the -pickpOckets, famous
II over the cities. Hundreds Of them with
heir faces in the Rogues' gallery. yet do
ng nothing for the Last FIVE or ten years
,ut defraud society and escape justice.
When these people go unarrested and I'M
It is putting 3 high premium
lpon vice and saying TO the young erimi-
lals of this country, "What a safe thing IL
8 to be a great criminalf' Let the law
Iwoop upon them. Let it be known in
his country that crime will have no quar-
er; that the detectives are after it; that the
lolice club is being brandished; that the
ron door Of the prison is being opened
hat the judge is ready 70 call on the case
Zoo great leniency TO criminals 3 too great
severity to society.
IDLREESs INVITES THE DEvIL-
Again, in your effort to arrest this plague
Il crime you need to consider the idle pop
llation. OF course do not refer to people
Who are getting old, or to the sick or to
hose who cannot get work, but tell you
o look out for those athletic men and
women who will not work. When the
French nobleman was asked why he kept |
,usy when he had SO large q property be |