The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-11-12

and he SAID TO the lau, WHaI naV'
they done for you to make you better?'
"Well, replied the lad, "the first tim,
was brought up before the judge h,
said, You ought to be ashamed of your
self And then | committed crime
again, and was brought up before the
same Judge, and he said, You rascal
And after awhile | committed some
other crime and | was brought before
the same Judge, and he said, You ought
to be hanged " That is all they haC
done for him in the way of reformation
and salvation. ooh, F" you say, :.'these
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 responsibility. 'Oh, y
you say, Il have no patience with these
rogues. - ask you in reply how much
better would you have been under the
same circumstances? Suppose your moth
er had been blasphemer and your ia
Their a sot and you had started life with
body stuffed with evil proclivities and
you had spent much of your time in a
Gel ar amid obscenities 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 came i'll without
any s10ils, aud 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? | have no sympathy
with that executive clemency which
would let crime run loose or which
would sit in the gallery of a courtroom
weeping because some hard hearted
wretch is brought to justice, but do
say that the safety and life Of the COM
munity demand more potential infu-
ences in behalf of these Offenders.
The American Jail.
l 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 in among old offend
ers. | saw there one 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 a vermin
covered blanket over them. Those peo-
pie, crowded and wan and wasted and
half suffocated and Infatuated l said
to the men, How do you stand it here?"
"God knows, said one man 1--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 ja1ls 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 we'll cal
culated 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 i'll 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. | call upon the people to
rise in their wrath and demand ref
ormation. call upon the judges of our
courts to expose the infamy | demand |
i'll behalf Of those incarcerated prisoners
fresh air and clear sunlight and in the
name of him who had not where to lay
his head a couch to rest on at night. In
the insufferable stencil and sickening
of some of the prisons
there is nothing but disease for the
body, idiocy for the mind and death
for the soul. Stified air and darkness
and vermin never turned a 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 i'll 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 We came dnto me"
UntrustwOrthy Officials.
In this class of uprooting and devour
ing population are Enthusiastically off
3ials. "Woe unto thee, q land, when
thy king is a 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-
Ieled crime between 1866 and 1871? 1t
was because the judges of police in that
,ity for the most part were as corrupt
as the vagabcnds that came befor7 them
FOR trial These were the days of high
carnival for election frauds, assassina-
5ion and forgery We had the whisky
ring and the Tammany ring and the Erie
ring. There was one man during those
years that got $l2S, 900 in one year for
L.,