Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-02

many a young life which otherwise would be a hopeless wreck, and of reducing largely the amount annually spent upon the conviction and punishment Of our criminals. We should bear in mind that the majority of young law-breakers have grown up without any moral training whatever, and generally are the children of parents of low order of intelligence and the most limited comprehension Of moral obligations. The state owes 1t to it's citizens to do whatever Is possible 10 save the youth of the commonwealth and to see to it that young offenders do not become hardened reprobates because Of sentence or punishment out of propor- tion with the offenSe committed. TO place young boys and girls into constant association with abandoned criminals in prisons. chaingangs and convict camps, is to eternally destroy them-bodies and souls. That they should be punished, and adequately punished, is of the high est importance; but sentences passed up- on young criminals should not prove to be destructive of all future hope of re- claim Wherever these reformatories have been established they have more than equalled the most sanguine expecta- tions of the projectors. The one in suc- cessful operation in Augusta, Ga, was re- ferred to in my columns many months ago, for this subject for a long time has interested many Alabama women, and al very active in trying to arouse general concern in this important matter. May or VanHooSe will make success Of this reformatory, for there Is no cause which appeals more thoroughly to the humani- tartan than this, and every citizen of Birmingham must feel a profound con cern in the establishment of such pow CT for good as reformatory for young criminals
 This question is now beginning to oc- cupy the attention of southern people very generally, for daily is brought to our knowledge cases which render it imper- ative that some provision be speedily made for transgressOrs of the law who may yet be reclaimed and made honest citizens. A few days ago the following editorial appeared in the Atlanta Con- stitution, and as it applies with almost equal force to Alabamans as to Georgi- ans it is given in full:
 Tt was pitiable wreck of a young life that was consigned to the penitentiary the other day by Judge Lumpkin, when a five-years' sentence was imposed upon Gyp South.
 "Perhaps no name is more familiar in police circles than that of this unfortu- nate victim, who from his birth has been the football of indifference, of crime ana of wrongly constructed penal system Almost born into crime, he has never had
 
 anything else than an Ishmaelite. For him there was no agency through which to be introduced to a better life; no words but curses; no hope for the future; no guidance for the present. It was through no responsibility of his own that his youth was cast in criminal places. and in that condition for which he was not responsible the law lent it's strength to bind him.
 Wise legislators could enact laws to punish him, but not to reform: economic legislators could appropriate money to make a prisoner of him. but not to make free through building up. His downward path could be accelerated by state aid, but not checked. When will the legisla- lure of Georgia learn that money spent to reform Is better than money spent to make criminals? In the election of leg islators to be held next October the good people of every county should make the candidates speak out on this question. .'The case under point is but one in many There is not a county in the state in which there are not boys being raised up for the penitentiary. They are to found in the homes of wicked parents; they are to be found in the jails and chaingangs; they are to be found in the penal camps everywhere; If they had any spark of conscience left 1t is being squeezed out of them. The question is one of statewide importance and 1t should not be smothered by mere con- sideration of dollars and cents"
 While Birmingham mothers are nurs- ing their households through the present epidemic of measles 1t may prove com fort to their weary bodies and brains to learn that the entire country seems to have the measles. No city Is exempt, and it's insidious, unbecoming, nerve-dis- tracting symptoms have even pene- trated the sacred precincts of Washing ton City, and the children and grand children of statesmen are Sneezing, coughing, weeping and incarnadlned just like our own little provincial chil- -dren who have not yet dreamed of cab inets, senate chambers or white houses. There are some things that political success and official position cannot save us from, and one of these inevitable hu- man happenings is the old-fashioned measles. One of the remarkable facts connected with this disease is the num- Der of children that always remains to have the measles in a large family. You know there are few drawbacks to ex- tensiye households, households like flocks of sheep for besides the impossi- bility of being clothed and fed like ordi- nary sheep the children of such exag- gerated families always have a genius for measles and kindred ailments. can recall a family, known and loved in the years that are gone, that was made up of many fine specimens of childhood, and with a regularity worthy of a bet ter cause six or seven of those same chill dren had measles every winter. Perhaps the strangest part of this story Is that I never heard that any of those children had measles twice. Yet do know that for several seasons a devoted mother nursed from six to seven of them through attacks of this dire disease. I am not a good mathematician.a and have never satisfactorily solved this problem. but the picture remains with me for all that, and the facts are correctly given. The measles came, they were taken" they went; and yet the next winter the