Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-04-14

Justice, and when he gets in prison
what do we do for hini2 With great
gusto we put on the handouts and the
hopples; but what preparation aep we
making for the day when the hand ffs
and the hopples come Off Society
seems to say TO these criminals, @Vil-
lain, go in there and rot" when it
ought to say, "You are an offender
against the law, but we mean to give
you an opportunity to repent; we mean
to help you. Here are Bibles and
tracts and Christian influences Christ
died for you. Look, and live"
Vast improvements have been made
by introducing Industries into the pris-
on, but we want something more than
hammers and shoe lasts to reclaim these
people. Aye, we want more than SER
mons on the Sabbath day. Society
must impress these men with the fact
that It does not enjoy their suffering,
and that it is attempting to reform and
elevate them. The majority of Grim
inals suppose that society has grudge
against them, and they in turn have a
grudge against society.
They are harder In heart and more
infuriate when they come out of jail
than when they went in. Many of the
people who go to prison go again and
again. Some years ago, of fifteen hun
dred prisoners who during the year had
been in Sing Sing four hundred had
been there before. In house of cor
rection in the country, where during a
certain reach of time there had been
five thousand people, more than three
thousand had been there before. So,
in one case the prison and in the other
case the house of correction left them
just as bad as they were before.
The secretary of one of the benevo-
lent societies of New York says lad
of fifteen years of age had spent three
years of his life in prison, and he said
to the lad, what have they done for
you to make you betterr WELL" re-
piled the lad, ''the first time ! was
brought up before the judge he said,
You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
And then committed crime again,
and was brought up before the same
Judge, and he said, You rascal' And
after while committed some other
crime, and was brought before the
same judge, and he said, You ought to
be hanged" That is all they had
done for him in the way of reformation
and salvation. "Oh," you say, 'these
people are incorigible. l suppose
there are hundreds of persons this day
lying in the prison hunks who would
leap up at the prospect of reformation
If society would only allow them a way
into decency and responsibility. "Oh,p
you say, III have no patience with these
rogues." / ask you in reply, how much
better would you have been under the
same circumstances9
Suppose your mother had been
blasphemer and your father sot, and
you had started life with q body stuffed
with evil proclivities, and you had
spent much Of your time in cellar
amid obscenitles and cursings, and if
at ten years Of age you had been COM
pelled to go out and steal, battered and
banged at night If you came in without
any spoils, and suppose your early man
hood and womanhood had been COW
cred with rags and filth, and decent So
ciety had turned its back upon you
and left you to consort with vagabonds |
and wharf rats how much better |
would you have been9 have no SYM
pathy with that executive clemency
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 |
influences in behalf of public offenders.
FoULNEss OF PRISON LIFE.
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, IL almost
knocked me down. No sunlight.
Young men who had committed their
first crime crowded in among old Of
tenders. saw in one prison woman,
with IA child almost blind, who had
been arrested for tho crime of poverty,
who was waiting until the slow law
could take her 10 the alnshouse, where
she rightfully belonged; but she was
thrust in there with her child amid the
most abandoned wretches of the town.
Many Of the offenders In that prison
slept ON the floor with nothing but
n vernin covered blanket over them.
Those people crowded and wan and
wasted and half suifocated and infuri-
ated. said TO the men, 'gHow do you
stand it here" God knows said one
man, ''we have TO stand H.. Oh, they
viii pay you when they get out. Where
they burned down one house they will
burn three They win strike deeper
the assaSsin's knife. They are this MIN
ute plotting worse burglaries
Some OF the city jails are the best
places l know OF TO manufacture foot
pads, vagabonds and cutthnoats. Yale
college Is not SO well calculated 10
make scholars, nor Harvard SO well
TO make scientists, nor
Princeton so we'll calculated 10 make
theologlans as many OF our jails are
TO make criminals All that
those men do not know OF crime after
they have boen in that dungeon for
some time Satanic machination cannot
laaeh them. In the insufferable stencil