The record-union., 1897-07-20

under State care under the law. The
cases are those, indeed, where charity
and benevolent effort alone can save to
the State such children and secure their
training to good citizenship, the kind OF
prevention that is worth whole brigades
of police and all manner of stringent
laws for punishment of crime
| There are reported by the officers re-
ferTed to a half-doZen cases similar to
! that detailed-varying very little. In
none of them is there adequate provis-
/ ion made for the rescue of these chill
| dren. Some are too young for insti-
! tutions, none have committed crime for
/ which they can be sent to Whittier or
lone. They are in training, however,
for vicious ways and must become cost
| ly charges upon the taxpayers of the
community
In most cases, we are told the par
ents are quite willing to cast off re-
sponsibility and permit the humane So
cieties to take them. In the majority of
cases the father is found to manifest
more affection for the children than the
mothers. In many instances the moth
er has drifted to the lower levels of the
abandoned womanhood, and is not in
sensible to the fact that her children of
her own sex are moving in the same
current
Three cases are cited to us in which
the mothers actually trained their girls
in way to lead them to lives of shame.
In two cases fathers were doing the
same thing. In all instances of that
order the parents can be punished when
the elimination of the crime comes on,
but not before. In all such cases the
societies may apply to the courts and
receive warrant of authority as guard
| ians.
Then comes the difficulty of finding
homes for these unhappy little ones. A
few can be disposed of in institutions,
but the mass of them must be cared for
outside of asylums and reformatories.
| To this task of e-finding the socie-
ties cannot bend their energies and
! lend their means without seriously Grip
ping themselves for their initial work.
| The number of cases in which children,
! by act and by environment, are being
trained UP to war upon society, we are
assured, is amazingly, humiliatingly
large. The proposition will not be chal-
lenged that society has a right to in
tervene to prevent child being trained
in criminal ways, either by willful neg
j iect or affirmative act, but intervention
is difficult, and its results are by no
means satisfactory. because the money
means is not provided for saving to the
State greater cost by far than the sum
that would be needed to put such chill
dren under proper guidance.
In some States, we believe, there is
State or county provision for just the
cases referred to, but in California we
do not have it. The county hospitals
and homes for the INDECENT, such as
| that for Sacramento County, are not
adapted or equipped for the care of
children, and only here and there are
/
kind where they can be sent; and in
only a few of these can they be taken
without some contribution TO their phys
zeal support.
The class of children for which there
seems to be no provision is made up of
those who should not be thrown into
criminal associations in institutions.
They should not be brought into con-
tact with tyros in crime. Their need of
all things in the world is homes, where
they can have good training, and be
raised up useful citizens to the State,
and be taken out of the class that be-
comes a menace to society and heavy
cost to it in Furnishing crime.
In nearly every case these children are
to be pitied Now and then only is
one found that is evidently hereditarily
vicious and irreclaimable from that
state On the contrary, these unfortu-
rate little boys and girls, from ) to 10
and II years of age, are in that peculiar
classification from which they may be
turned to good or evil easily, and very
RAPIDLY The question burdening the
Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children, to whom these children are
first reported, as a rule, is, What shall
we do with them?" The answer is OF
course, Secure homes for them" But
that is precisely where the need is not
met by means to that remedy-at
least, not by means sufficient to meet
the demand for them.