The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1891-04-23


and in the other case the house of COR
rcction, left them just as bad as they
were before. The secretary Of one Of |
the benevolent societies of New York
saw lad fifteen years Of age who had
spent three years OF his life in prison,
and he said to the lad. What have
they done for you to make you better:"
"Well," replied the lad, "the first time
l was brought up before the Judge he
said, You ought to be ashamed of your
SELF And then l committed a crime
again, and was brought up before the
same judge, and he said, you rascal y
And after while / committed some
other crime, and l was brought before
the same judge, and he said, You ought
to be hangcd.'" That is all tn ey had
done for him in the way Of rcfor nation
and salvation. "Oh," you say, "these
people are incorrigiblc." | suppose
there are hundreds of persons this dav
lying in the prison hunks who would
leap up at the prospect of reformation,
if society would only show them a way
into dcccncy and responsibility. "Oh,"
you say, Il have no patience with these
roSucs.' l ask you in reply, how much
better would you have been under the
same circumstances? Suppose your
mother had been Il blasphcmcr and your
father sot, and you had started lite
with body stuffed with evil prociivitics,
and you had spent much Of your time in
n cellar amid Obscenities and cursing,
ana ii at ten years of age you had been
| compelled to 20 out and ST. :, battered
and banged at night if y,uc nc in with
out any spoils and suppos your early
manhood and wOmanhoC had been
covered with rags and filth and decent
society had turned its back upon you,
and lett you to cOnsOrt with VaIahOndS
and wharf f-ratS-hOw much better would
you have been? | have no sympathy
with that executive clcmcncy which
would let crime run loose, or which
would sit in tho vallcry Of Il court room
weeping because some hardheartcd Il
wretch Is brought to Justice; but do say
that the safety and life Of the commu-
nIty demand more potential influence in
behalf Of public offenders.
In some Of the city prisons the air IS
like that OF the Black Hole in Calcutta.
| have visited prisons where no air
swept through the wicket; it almost
knocked nc down. No sunlight, Young
men who had committed their first crime
crowded in among old offenders. | saw
III one prison woman, with one child
almost blind, who had been arrested Tor
tho CRIME OF poverty, who was waiting
until the slow law could take her to the
almshouse, where she rlghtlully belonged
but she was thrust in there with her
child amid the most abandc ned wretchcs
OF the town. Many Of the offenders
III that prison sleeping on the lloor, with
nothing but Yermm-cOvcred blanket
over them. Those people crowded and
wan and wasted and half sullocated and
lnturiatcd. | SAID to the men, "IIow do
you stand it hcrc?" "God knows, -
said one man, I'VE have to stand it -
on, they will pay you when they get out.
Where they burned down one house
they will burn three. They will strike
dccper the asSassin'S knife. They arc
Tins minute plotting worse burglarics
Some OF the city jails arc the best places
l know of to manufacture loot-pa Dis
vagabonds, and cut-throats. Yale col
| lcgc Is not so well calculated to make
: scholars, nor Harvard so well calculated
tomakc scientists, nor Princeton so well
calculated to make thcolOoans, as many
OF our .iails are calculated to make criml.
nails. All that those men d. not kn ow
OF crime after they have been in that
Dungeon for some time. Satanic machI-
nation can not teach them. In the sui
lcrablc stencil and sickcning surround
lngs OF such places there Is nothing but
disease for the body, idlocv for the mind,
and death for the soul. Stuffed air and
darkness and vcrmin never turned a
thel into an honest man.
| We want men like John Howard and
Sir William Blackstone, and women like
Elizabeth Fry, to do for the prisons of
the United States what those people did
in other days for the prisons Of England.
thank God Tor what Isaac ~. Hopper
and DIR. Wines and Mr.. Harris and
scores OF others have done in the way
OF PRISON reiOr N; but we want some.
thlng more radical before will come the
blessing OF him who said: II was in
prison. and yc came unto me-"
Again, i'll your effort to arrest this
plague OF crime you need to consider un =
trustworthy officials. "Woc unto thee,
y lamb, when thy king IS a child, and
thy princes drink IN the morning." 1t
Is a great calamity to 4 city when bad
men get into pnblic authority. Why
was 1t that in New York there was such
unparalleled crime between 1866 and
1871? 1t was because the Judges of
police in that city, at that time, for the
most part, were as corrupt as the vaga-
bonds that came before them for trial.
Those were the days OF high carnival.
tor election irluds, assassination and
forgery. We had all kinds of rings.
There was one man during those years
that got one hundred and twenty ciuht
thousand dollars in one year for serving
the public. In few years it was esti-
mated that there were fifty millions of
public treasure sQuandcrcd. In those
times the criminal had only to wink to
the Judge or his lawyer would wink for
him, and the question was decided for
the defendant. OF the eight thousand
people arrested in that city IN one year,
only three were punished. These little
matters were ''fxcd up" while the in
tcrcsts OF society were "fxed down.
\ on know as well as | do that one VIII
lain who escapes only opens the door for
other criminalites. When the two pick
pockets snatchcd the diamond pin from
tho BROOKLYN upDt tlpmon in n Rroo1r,,,