The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1893-10-31
PUBLIC HANGINGS.
ARP SAYS PRECAUTIONS SHOULD BE
CARRIED OUT PRIYATELY.
The Georgia Philosopher Gives Some Advice
to the Legislature Needed Reform.
Discusses Other Matters.

the members are politicians, of course, and
will keep an eye on their own personal
advantage, but we trust they will keep the
other on the public welfare. Tote fair gen
tlemen, tote fair with us. We want no
fooling around. Do your work and do 1t
quickly and go home. The people are al
ready burdened with taxation. The PLAIN
truth is there are thousands
who can't pay their taxes, and
the newspapers will be I'LL OF
sheriff sales. Have mercy upon the peo-
pie. You will have more Applications Tor
all sorts of appropriations, but L wouldn't
| grant a SINCE one outside OF maintaining
| the government on the most economical
basis. Wait until we recover from the
| present distress. Some things are needed
| very bad right now, but We can't afford
| them. One thing we ought to have above
| all others, if we could afford it. and that IS
| a reformatOry prison with workshops and
| other attachments for criminals under SIX
teen years of age. What are we to do with
the boys who are going TO destruction! "A
few years ago Mrs. Lou Gordon visited
| Eimra, n. T., to see the reformatory there
and she wrote a very interesting and III
| structive letter about it. Two thousand
| boys under sixteen working like heroes in
| the shops IA different trades, and every few
months humber discharged as reformed
| and good places found for them among the
! farmers or the mechanics. Boys of that
tender age can be reformed, but not when
serving sentence in the chaingang with
| hardened criminals. We had that system
| in our old penitentiary. / remember well
| a man who stole some money when only
| sixteen years old. He was sent to the pen
Tertiary for four years and learned Il
trade. -Four years of work painting
| wagons made him Il good artisan. and he
stuck to it and kept good name and was
| respected. When the war came on he was
among the first to volunteer. He joined
a Rome company and fell with his face to
| the foe at the first battle of Manassas. He
used to tell me how kind the principal keep
| er OF the penltentiary was to him and how
| ne got new ideas of life, and its duties from
ul'tt good man and resolved to come out of
there reformed. That good man was DIR.
alexander, the father of my friend, DIR. Jim.
mat Is the way to do it. The boys want
KIND words. They want a friend Most
or tnese young criminals have had n hard
| HE with no friends to encourage them
perhaps an incorporate father and a mis-
eTaDle mother and poverty in the place call
| ed home.
What can we do to stop the progress of
crime i'll our state? 1t is increasing in
Iatlo every year-increasing much faster
IMAM population-increasing among a rising
| generation. The chief consoS
seem to be idleness and the " lack
OF parental restraint. ''Idleness is tbe
| parent OF vice said Ben Franklin.
ana he knew, for he liked to have turned
| out yagabond. Work was all th.t saved
nm M, Inc most striking difference between
ce parents OF the present day and those of
nlt? years ago is in the way they control
thelr children In the olden times children
feared their parents, but now the parents
tear the children. why don't you stop
Because l can't. l have talked to him
and so has his mother, but it don't do any
good" ''
Yes. talked to him. Fifty years ago y
father would have taken that boy behind
r rnd s aho and md, talked to him with
fooling around with the boys. Obedience
TO parents was a cardinal principle in the
household. | remember boy who got 9
good ttreshing for speaking disrespectfully
was all, but his father heard it aud then
his back answered for the disrespect The
poor mother cried and when the father
had gone she rubbed the marks with lini-
ment, and that was all. If Solomon dideu.
know, who did? lie must have had scvcr:I
hundred boys TO look after, and seckoE
had an acre of two of switches. II Il schOu.
teacher whips boy nowadays he is threat
ened with prosecution and a big fuss
made over it in the newspapers, and the
boy comes out martyr and Il hero. When
DIR. jim and | were boys we were afraid
to let our fathers know that we go5 Il
whipping at school. One day Jim Wilson
ran away from John Norton to keep from
found it out that night and next morning
marched Jim up to the schoOlhouses and he
took his medicine like Il little man. But l
know some preachers sons who need medl-
cine. but they don't get it anywhere. The
teachers and the fathers are afraid of the
boys.
we had first-cass southern outrage in
our town the other day, and L am surprised
that it haseDt got III the northerh papers.
A negro boy of sixteen was lynched right
here in John Anderson's livery stable.
John Anderson is one of our best citizens.
but he actually connived at this lyncmnS.
The boy is street vagabond and was
caught stealing the lunch out of buggy
thof was left in the stable. He had eaten
No one from another buggy and had begun
on the second when discove~ed re Was
tied in a stall and his mother sent tor she
weighs about POO pounds ana ,N Wneh s she
exclaimed. Oar now, told YOU 3d. TANK
de GOOD Lord | dun got you DIS tlmr'
I bin tryin' to git hold of you for SIX 1nuhts
and YOU git away frum me cherry tiine.
Rut / rot YOU now. tank de Lord Shc
asked for a whip or COW hide or Something's
but was given Il light buggy trace. she
stripped him IN poSterlor IaShloH anu
bent him over cross bar. ana those AlcRS
and those yells were awful 10 near anu
owf,lller TO behold She Ynched him While
John Anderson and other humane gentle
men looked on and approved. That darkey
will never steal another lunch from that
stable nor any other stable.
BIT there is one law | do hope the leg
slature will pass. Let these public hang
ings be abolished. We had one here last
week and several thousand people gathered
there to feast upon the scene. Now, l
don't raise my hand in holy horror about
mon going to see a man hung-but one
time ought to satisfy any man, and no tune
for women and children. 1t should not be
Witnessed as Il farce or frclic, but ia Their
as a funeral. There We're, perhaps, thou
sand white women around the gallows, and
some few whose only appropriate place was
at home. 1t is encouraging morbid and
debasing curiosity and women with tender
hearts and refined feelings have no business
at such places. 1t WEI profit US to initiate
the older government, such as England and
Germany, whose executions have been prl-
waite for half century. Some thoughtful
persons say that public executions are Il
warning to the vicious, but this was not,
for there stood the man with a cigar in
his mouth selling book and showing no
sign of fear or repentence-but rather Il
desire TO play the hero to the last What
kind of q warning is that
which tries with death as he did?
An Intelligent Englishman said to me
that since he had been in the south he
had noted one striking difference between
our criminal procedure and theirs. eng