The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1895-12-19

house life in city like New York this
cannot be matter for wonder. The
old shanty on the rocks had something
of home in it which the best of flats
has not of itself. and the poverty
stricken occupants clung to it, some
times till the rock was blown from
under them, with a strength of atfec-
tion at which only the thoughtless
sneered The poor tenement is the flat |
idea on the scale Of the pigeon hole. |
The Frenchman | quoted had in mind
the experience with group of Partisan !
tenements typical of their kind. There |
were eight of them, and they contained
| 1000 tenements in 1900 rooms. The
result says the record-it was kept
mainly at the police station-was ''the
evaporation of the tenant against soci-
ETY." How could it have been any
thing else?
While such burning conditions con-
tinue to be the rule in the cities the
criminal tendency must increase among
the Young. BY extraordinary repression
or philanthropc efforts its manifesta-
tion may for time be checked, but the
tendency Will remain, soon to assert
itself when other cares or dangers oc-
cupy the public mind and divert atten
ton from it, The final destruction of
the home, and with it the collapse of
organized society as we know it. ought
to follow, but | believe that before this
point is reached we shall have passed
beyond the transition period in which
we now are, to safe readjustment.
We shall have accepted city life as a
great social fact fraught with pOssibili-
g ties so long unheeded. The crowds will
no longer be allowed to herd as they
can. The tenement of today will have
d ceased to exist The centrifugal reac-
:. tion. that is already making itself felt
? in the desperate struggle for rapid
e transit, will have developed, and we shall
have found houses again for the people
within the reach of their work.
The prison returns, quote from the
statistics of the Elmira reformatory
which tell us that 50 per cent of all the
young criminals came from bad ant
only 9 per cent. from good homes, point
out also that 81 per cent kept bad com
= pany and only per cent. good compan!
prior to coming. Here we have th'
street and it's idleness, the alternative
If OF the tenement that has no homes ant
t. the school in which there is no room
Is The recent school census in New Y Orl
ef showed that there were $4,000 truant
e, drifting about the streets. On tn
OF crowded east side. to which attention i
Is constantly attracted by it's growin
ne class of child thieves, a dozen neN
er schools will hardly supply the existin
In deficiency ''Malevolence," says tn
G. superintendent of the reformatory
he ''doeS not characterize the criminal, bu
he aversion to continuous labor" He
tn not as wicked as he is weak. He cOul
n have been managed, but was left
N, himself to the tenement and tn
)r- street.
mt AS an instance of the public inditfe
or ence that is responsible for both ten
meDt and truant, and more to blan
ad than both, let this serve: Today
lat months after compulsory educ
ed. tion law, intended to make truan(
tn impossible, was passed, six montl
no after it went into effect nothing hi
He been done to give it force in New Yol
wo city, No truant school has been pr
use vided, no machinery for carrying o.
ife the law The announcement that tt
lu- school census showed this army
of young idlers to be abroad stirred !
les, public interest. 1t filled the space of
gy, stick in the newspapers which ga
far, columns to the latest sensational mt
it der and to the collapse of the incor
me tax. Yet for the mischief the SOC
ne will do in their generation alone, a
in to keep them from doing more, NJ
ON York will have to pay many times
vet, share of the income tax for jails a
and courts and costly police machinery.
han lam convinced that the school it's
our management of it's not b1an
ent- less 1t is stupid, soulless. Its ev