The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1895-01-31

assigned to, and are willing to adopt any
method prescribed by those who have
selfish motives, or to placate small pOr
ton of people who raise hue and cry
against the least encrOachment on their
particular trade or calling. 1t is fact
as we'll settled as time itself, that "idle
ness breeds crime, disorder and inSan-
ity," and in order to eradicate criminal
thoughts, the mind must be diverted
by good healthy employment; employ
ment that will occupy the brain power
as we'll as the physical power of man,
and to no class of men is this kind Of
work so desirable as to those who are
deprived of liberty. Penned up day
after day under strict dicipline; notion
less during eight or ten hours out of
the twenty four, is it to be wondered
that man so situated, realizing that
the hours of his life are gradually
slipping away, and at the end of one
two or possibly ten years he shall be
thrown upon the world no farther ad-
vanced than when, in an unguarded
moment, he committed the act that
brought him to his present position,
breaks down. loses his reason, and is
condemned to death? Yet such will be,
is the condition of the convict in several
penal institutions at the present day.
Is this law? Is this justice? If so. it
is a mistake to fancy the world is pro-
crossing. The darkest ages tells no
more wretched tale. No judge ever yet
sentenced prisoner that he did not ex-
press the hope that he would leave
prison better man. If he be humane
Judge, this is his heartfelt prayer.
Think you that judges will continue
sentencing viOlators of the law to
prisons that make men insane, simply
from the inability of prison authorities
to properly care for them by being debar
red from employing them at labor that
will teach them to sustain themselves,
that will strengthen them mentally and
physically, and return them to society, at
least as good as when they were placed
in their charge? 1t cannot be con
ceived that they would. And yet, take
proper employment away from the con-
vict and you might as well send him to
the asylum at first, for he will soon be
fit subject for one. We see evidences
every day of the terrible effect the want
of employment has upon men who are
intelligent, who are possessed of minds
and hearts susceptible to the best
thoughts, whose sole desire is to learn
that, which will be of benefit to them
when they are again in the world; but
with nothing but the gloomy past to
occupy their attention, suffering
compulsory inertia, with nothing to ex
ercise either mind or body, are rapidly
nearing the threshold of imbecility.
Why will people be SO short-sighted as
to put bars against men who are anX
iOuS to enter the world fortified with
that which will keep them from future
temptations? Is it charitable, IS it
humane, to, while Furnishing fellow
men for sin committed. place every
obstacle in their path towards their de-
velOpment into something better, nObler
than their past has been? Is it not
cheaper in the end to educate them in
some useful industry that will be use
full. and make self-supporting citizens
of them and relieve eleemosynary
and penal institutions that are taxed
to support them, even, if by so doing,
their employment conflict with every
known trade or occupation of man u?
A moments intelligent thought will
convince the most skeptical of the
truth of this. The underlying princi-
pie of all christian feeling toward our
fellowman is, build him up. do not
crush him down. No matter how low
man has fallen there is hope for him;
and it is a duty society owes itself, for
its own protection from the criminal
class, to root out the evil in man and
make him better; and this can never
be done by simply placing one who
violates the law behind stone walls
and iron bars, then forget him. or
fancy that for few years, at least
society is safe, the man is secure. At
the expiration of his sentence he re-
turns to that society worse than when
he was exiled from it, if proper means
are not applied to teach him better;
and this can only be accomplished by
teaching him some useful industry,
that will not only convince him that
he is supporting himself while in
prison, but that he can rec enter the
world possessed of that, the want of
which, perhaps, too often we might say,
has placed him where he is-a good use