Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1891-04-18
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ny introducing luOuStllcS iItO Cl4C pms
on, but we want something more than
hammers and shoe lasts to reclaim these
people. Aye, wo 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 grudgt
against them, and they in turn have O
grudge against society.
They are harder in heart and moro
infuriate when they come out. of jai
than when they went in. Many of the
people who so to prison go again and
again. Some years ago, of fifteen hun
sdred prisoners who duringgthe year hoe
benin Sing Sing four hundred he'd
been there before. In q Ilouseeofs cor
rection in the country, where during
certain reach: of ,tiino there had apeeI
five tho sand sfeopIe more q 81 shrss
thousand lad been there before So
in one case the prison and in the Other
case the house Of correction left then
Just as bud us they were before:
The secretary of one of the benevo-
lent societies of New York says alad
of fifteen years of age had spent three
years of his lifo in prison, and he said
to the lad, What lave they done for
you to make you bottcr" well, re,
piled the lad, 1.-The first time was
brought up before the: judge lie 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 incorrigibIc. suppose
there arc hundreds of persons this day
lying in the prison hunks who would
leap up ut tho prospect of reformation
if society would only allow them n way
into dccency and responsibility. "Oh,"
you say, II have no patience with these
rogues." ask you in reply, how much
better would you havo been under the
same circumstances
Suppose your mother had been u
blasphemer and your father Il sot. and
you had started life with a body stuffed
with evil proclivities, and you had
spent much of your time in u cellar
amid obsconities and cursings, and if
ut ten years of ago you had been CON-
PEELED to 80 out and steal, battered and
banged ut night If you ca1nc in without
any spoils, and suppose your early man
hood and woInanliood had been COW
cred with rags and filth, and decent So
ciety had turned it's back upon you
and left you to consort with vagabonds
and wharf rats-how much better
would you have been3 have no SYM
pathy with that executive clemency
which would let crime run loose, or
which would sit in the gallery of q
court room weeping because some hard
hearted wretch is brought to justice;
but I do soy that the safety and life of
the community demand moro potential
influences in behalf of public offenders.
FoULNEss OF PRISON L1FE.
In some of the city prisons the dir is
like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta.
1 have visited prisons where, as the cir
swept through the wicket, it 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 n child almost blind, who had
been arrested for the crime of poverty,
who was waiting until the slow law
could take her to the alInshouso, where
she rightfully belonged; but she was
thrust in there with her child amid the
most abandoned wrctches of the town.
Many of the offenders in that prison
slept on the floor, with nothing but
q vermin covered blanket over them.
Those people crowded and wan and
wasted and half suffocated and infuri-
ated. said to the men, "How do you
stand it hereg' God knows" said one
man, 1--WE have to stand it." Oh, they
will pay you when they get out. Where
they burned down one house they will
burn three. They will strike deeper
the assassin's knife. They are this MIN
ute plotting worse burglaries.
Some of the city jails arc the best
places l know of to manufacture foot
pads, yagabonds and cuttliroats. Yale
college is not so well calculated to
make scholars, nor Harvard so well
calculated to make scientists, nor
Princeton SO well calculated to make
theologians rs many of our jails are
calculated to mako criminals. All that
those men do not know of crime after
they have been in that dungeon for
some time Satanic Vaccination cannot
teach them. In the insuferable stencil
and sickening surroundings of such
places there is nothing but disease for
the body, idiocy for the mind and
death for the soul. Stified air and
darkness and vernnin never turned a
thief into an honest man.
We want men like John Howard and
Sir William Blackstone and women
like Elizabeth Fry to do forthe pris-
ons of the United States what those
people did in other days for the prisons
OF England. / thank God for what
Isaac T. Hopper and DR.. Wines and
slr. Harris and scores of others have
done in the way of prison reform; but
we want something more radical before
will como the blessing of him WHO said,