The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-07-27
Our Special Contributors---ISo5.
WHAT MOLDS THE CRIMINAL.
Mills of Crime and Misery.
~ By JACOB A. RlIS.
s0000O000 100000


1t never will in a healthy boy until
ne has chance of healthy play. In
this respect our cities have sinned
grievously. For every dollar here
after laid out on parks and play
grounds, it is certain that they will
get two back. The thief and the
tough grow naturally enough out of
the gutter. It's associations and the
"exasperation against society" that
afforded them nothing better, do the
business. The street and the gutter
were the only Fairgrounds the chill
dren OF the poor in too many of our
cities have called theirs all these
years. In the school they were
stuffed into dark cellars and told to
"play." In the yard, if there was a
yard, the landlord forbade them. In
the street it was against some ordi-
nance or authority. The result was
to smother the play in the boy and
breed the mischief instead. Boys
must let off their steam somehow. If
the harvest was bad, the boy was not
to blame. 1t was only the past win
ter that the first open air school play
ground was authorized by law in New
York City, where 100000 children at
tend the public schools.
The gambling mania and the penny
dreadful are evil companions of the
street that bear an active hand in
mastering the boy into the ranks of
criminals. The saloon is their ally,
and the saloon is the boys club as he
grows into early manhood. 1t is not
altogether his fault that he has no
other. From it he takes his politics
and gets his backing in his disputes
with the police. That he knows it to
be despised and denounced by the
sentiment responsible for the laws he
broke with impunity all his days,
while to him it represents the one
potent, practical force of life, is we'll
calculated to add to his mental con-
fusion as to the relationship of things,
but hardly to increase his respect for
the law or for the sentiment behind
it. We need an era of enforcement
of law next-less of pretence, more of
purpose.
Sunday in the Tenements.
There is one other source of corrup-
ton OF the young in our cities l shall
mention here at the risk of being mis-
understood, the so-called Puritanical
Sabbath. | am we'll aware that a
large number Ct good people regard
this as one of the safeguards of our
institutions. know it on the con-
trary to be fatal stumbling block
to thousands of young men. Sunday
is the one day of freedom, of enjoy
ment, of those who work the week
through. But anything more DESC
late and discouraging than Sunday
in the tenements of American cities
is not to be conceived of. When
there are museums, libraries, they
are shuttight, in Difference to the day
or false sentiment that has unchris-
tianized it. Fairgrounds, pleasure
grounds, there are none within reach
of the poor. II there is park the
band that would make it attractive is
banished. There is nothing left but
the dreary street and the saloon cor
ner to lounge on. Every corner in the
tenement district is saloon corner,
and the sidedoor slams the live-long
day inviting the idlers in defiance
of law and police. 1t is idle to say
that they could go to church if they
wanted to, for even the churches
have deserted them to follow the rich
to their homes. But even if they had
not, what is there in this view of
their day of rest and recreation to at
tract them to the churches that up
hold it? 1t is difficult to approach
the subject at all with any degree of
patience in the face of the facts that
are patent to everybody. We need
Christian Sabbath to make the
Christi IN faith attractive to the great
mass of our city youth and to keep
them from going straight to the bad.
And by "Christian" l mean one that
takes account first of the fact that
their lives are dreary and barren
enough for six days in the week with
out having all of their desolation
compressed into the seventh and
drilled into them again. There ought
not to be any possibility of mietake
about this, nor should there be any
delay in undoing very old and very
grievous wrong. Half of the fight
ing and rioting, as half of the drunk
enness of our cities, now occurs on
Sunday. And so it will be until we
learn to understand that the Sabbath