Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-09-14
RE1RIBUTIVE JUSTICE.
Four of Our Boys sent to Reform
School, Also One From Rudolph.

one OF the SaddeSt events the Re
PORTER has been called upon to chronicle
is the sentencing and departure for tie
State Reform School in Waukesha
Saturday of four youthful criminals and
one incorrigible. Four of the boys be-
longed here, and might have come up
good and useful men, pride and honor
to parents who are now shamed and
broken hearted over the disgrace and
sorrow brought upon them. Aching
hearts and dimmed eyes were in the
court room when Judge Williams in be-
half of justice, spoke the words that
broke up homes and were fraught with
grief and shame to parents, brothers
and sisters of four young boys. But
with fathers tender feelings, having a
boy of his own to love, and a mans
ripe judgement, in the hope of making
good men Of them he bravely did his
duty and it is most sincerely hoped the
result will be for the good of all. A
number of boys who have served full
terms at this school are now respected,
honest members of society here. The
course the boys were pursuing here,
would inevitably ended in disaster, and
that the strong hand of the law has
grasped the reckless youths, where
parental love or lenience too lightly
held them, may be their salvation. No
one thinks the boys were wholly bad,
or any worse than number Of others
who are yet undetected and likely to
follow.
In the school the decipline is strict,
but tempered with kindness, the routine
of work not burdensome, and the liv-
ing though simple and plain, such as
their physical needs require. The
course of study is practical and thor
ough and as a school it compares not
unfavorably with some institutions
where the cost of educating a boy foots
up from $500 to $400 year. Teachers,
principal, and matron Will be kind to
the boys and the temptations to wrong
doing will be removed with the oppor-
tunity. The Reform School turns out
men of stamp to be proud of oft
times, and the odium that clings with
such deadly pertinacity to those who
have once been inmates of a states
prison will not be their portion.
What seems a cruel retributlon on
boys whose wilful, reckless, laWlessness
! hoo cd int &c n
reality kindness, born of q desire to
save, not destroy. Duty wears stern
| face often, but if we disobey her man
| dates a Nemesis takes revenge for our
neglect. While duty forced justice to a
strict accounting in this case, it will
bring other boys who are on the same
track to realizing sense of the results
of lawlessness. 1t is hoped it will also
awaken our public officials to sense of
their duty to the youth of the cities.
| A more strict suryillience of the night
providers on our streets, the disturbers
of the peace in public places, will re-
move some of the evil influences that
| help form character.
The writer has investigated a number
of similar institutions, and knows of
scores of boys whose lives have been
moulded and trained in good and use
full ways through them. We sympath-
ize with the friends and our most
earnest desire is that each boy may
after the old habits are changed, and
the decipline and work of the new
developed manliness and self-denial re-
turn to us and prove their repentance
by honest manly lives.