Semi=weekly graphic., 1896-09-16
VAGRANCY.

He H. Jus tlCe Ol bHe tdW WdS Slflh- inglv illustrated in our Police Court this morning by the conviction of three white men on the charge of vagraney, who were fined $20 each and who will be compelled to work out their fines en the public streets.
 These men had committed no crime; they were simply without work or any visible means of sup port.
 And where can men find work in these days of a single gold standard, when business is in complete state of stagnation, no public improve ment or public building going on, and no work to do? Must unfor. tunate individuals, anxious for work but can't find it, be run into court and fined and subjected to the dis grace and humiliation of criminals simply because they are idle and can't find work to do?
 In the administration of police justice CD it has always been observed that this class of unfor tunate and involuntary offenders are given heavy fines while those guilty of greater offenses are let off with less irksome penalties.
 It is true that the public must be protected against idle and vicious vagabonds and vagrants, but such cases as these should receive justice tempered with mercy In times like these men cannot help being Idle. Their idleness, per chance, is not voluntary, but en- forced upon them by the artificial conditions that at present attend the unsettled conditions of finance in this country
 There are millions of idle men in this country who are deserving of the sympathy rather than the pun ishment of the public.
 And then, if our Police Court in- tends to take upon itself the respon- sibility of punishing those who are idle and have mo visible means of support, we would call the atten- ton of His Honor, the Police Judge, to the number of native and idle dead beats who were never known to do days work or pay a bill in their lives.
 There are some who have the will but not the work; there are others who can get the work but have not the will. It is the latter class, na- tive or foreign, that should be sought out and punished for their yagrancy. But such cases as these involve the most discriminating justice, and in all eases such offend CTS, If they can be called offenders1, should be given the minimum rather than maximum punishment allowed by law
 Who that has read Victor Hugo's novel of Lies Miserables" is pre-. pared to say that the sentence of seventeen years as a galley slave visited upon Jean Valjean for steal ing a loaf of bread for a starving sister and her child, was a just one? Did net the law in it's sup posed administration of justice, by such a sentence, commit d graver crime than the prisoner at the bar? In this case the interests of jus tice or society were not subserved. A widowed sister and her fatherless child were ruthlessly robbed of their only support, and sympathiz- ing brother made desperate bl pov- erty, hunger and the want of work, was degraded to a gallery slave be- cause he had offered the only assistance in his power to render, and had been guilty only of slight infraction of the law.
 If men can't find work, it is not within their power to alter their condition, and their unfortunate situation rather excites pity than vengeance.