Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1897-11-13
AW1OMAC G IT. VA, SATURDAY NOVEMBER ID 1897.

people are incorrigible. suppose
there are hundreds of persons this day
lying in the prison hunks who would
leap up at the prospect of reformation
if society would only allow them way
into decency and respectability "Oh, "
you say, Il have no patience with these
rogues. I ask you in reply how much
better would you have been under the
same circumstances? Suppose your moth
er had been a blasphemer and your IA
ther sot and you had started life with
body stuffed with evil proclivities and
you had spent much Of your time in a
cellar amid obsccnities and cursing and
if at 10 years Of age You had been COM
PEELED to go out and steal, battered and
banged at night if you cane in without
my spoils. and suppose your early man
hood and womanhood had been covered
with rags and filth and decent society
had turned its back upon you and left
you to consort with vagabonds and
wharf rats, how much better would
you have been? l have no sympathy
with that executive clemency which
would let crime run loose or which
would sit in the gallery of courtroom
weeping because some hard hearted
wretch is brought to justice, but do
say that the safety and life of the conf
munity demand more potential influ-
ences in behalf OF these offenders.
Tho American Jail.
stepped into one of the prisons OF
one of our great cities and the air was
like that of the Black Hole OF Calcutta
! AS the air swept through the wicket it
almost knocked me down. No sunlight
Young men who had committed their
first crime crowded i'll among old offend
ers | saw there ono woman. with
child almost blind. who had been ar
rested for the crime of poverty. who
was waiting until the slow law could
| take her to the almshouse where she
rightfully belonged, but she was thrust
in there with her child, amid the most
abandoned wretches of the town Many
of the offenders in that prison sleeping
on the floor with nothing but verlnn
covered blanket over them. Those pco-
pie, crowded and wan and wasted and
half sulfocated and Infatuated said
to the men, How do you stand it here
"God knows, said one man; we have
to stand it Oh, they will pay you
when they get out Where they burned
down one house they will burn three
They will strike deeper the assassin s
knife They are this minute plotting
worse burglaries. Many of the lails are
the best place / know of to manufacture
footpads, vagabonds and cutthroats
Yale college is not so we'll calculated to
make scholars nor Harvard so well cal
culatcd to make scientists nor Prince
ton so well calculated to make theolo-
gians as the American Jail is calculated
to make criminals All that these men
do not know of crime after they have
been III that style of dungeon for some
time satanic machination cannot teach
them Every hour these jails stand they
challenge the Lord Almighty to smite
the cities cali upon the people to
riSe n their wrath and demand ref
ormation lcall upon the judges Of our
courts to expose the infamy | demand
in behalf of those incarcerated prisoners
fresh air and clear sunlight and in the
name OF him who had not where to lay
his head couch to rest on at night. In
the insutferable stencil and sicllening
surroundings of some of the prisons
there is nothing but disease for the
body, idiocy for the mind and death
for the soul Stifed air and darkness
and vermin never turned thief into an
honest man We want men like John
Howard and Sir William Blackstone
and women like Elizabeth Fry to do
for the prisons of the United States
what those people did in other days for
the prisons of England thank God
for what Isaac T Hopper and Dr.
Wines and Mr. Harris and scores of
others have done in the way of prison
reform, but we want something more
radical before upon our cities will come
the blessing of him who said II was
in prison and ye came unto me. "
Untrustworthy officials.
In this class of uprooting and devour-
ing population are untrustworthy Off
Gals. "Woe unto thee, 0 land, when
thy king is child and thy princes
drink in the morning 1t is great
calamity to a city when bad men get
into public authority Why was it that
In New York there was such unparal-
leled crime between 1866 and 1871? 1t
was because the judges of police in that
city for the most part were as corrupt
as the vagabonds that came before them
for trial These were the days of high
carnival for election frauds, assasslna-
ton and forgery We had the whisky
ring and the Tammany ring and the Erie
ring There was one man during those
years that got SIPS, 600 III one year for
serving the public In few years it
was estimated that there were 500. 0o0,-
600 of public treasure sQuandered. In
those times the criminal had only to
wink to the Judge, or his lawyer would
wink for HIM, and the question was de-
cidcd for the defendant OF the 5000
people arrested in that city Ill one year
only 5000 were punished These little
matters were fixed up, while the in
tercsts of society were fixed down
You know as well as that criminal
who escapes only opens the door OF other
criminalitias 1t is no compliment 70
public authority when we have i'll al!
the cities of the country. walking
abroad. men and women notorious tor
criminality. unwhipped OF justice They
are pointed out to you Ill the street day
by day There you find Whit are called
the "fences the men who stand be
tween the thief and the honest man
;belterlng the thief and al great pri.e
handing over the goods to the owner to
whom they belong There you will find
those who are called the 'skinners,
the men who hover around Wall street
and State street and Third street, with