The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-07-04
Five Dollars or Thirty Days.

Five Dollars or Thirty Days.
Recently. in one of our courts, a color
cd boy, aged about l6 years. was con-
victed, and sentenced to pay a fine of S
or serve thirty days on the chain-gang.
The offense of which he was convicted
was not a heinous one. He was sus-
pected of an intention to commit a theft,
having been caught in a part of a dwelling
house which he had been forbidden 20 en-
ter. 1t may be that he had no intention
of doing any wrong; still, the testimony
justified the verdict, and, as the law now
Is, the sentence. He had no money. and
mis- mother the only friend willing to as
sist him, was too poor to pay his fine. She
had other mouths to feed from her scant
earnings. The boy, therefore, became a
member of the chain-gang.
We call attention to this case not for
the purpose of critlclslng the prosecution
or the courts, but for the purpose of i'm
pressing upon this community the necessi-
~ for a reformatory, to which boys and
girls who may be convicted of minor
ohenses, may be sent for punishment and
reformation.
is doomed to moral destruction. Whatever
desire he may have had to become an
honest man and respectable citizen is
crushed out of him there. Being thrown
into association with men who are old in
crime, and who glory in their immortality.
he is certain TO sink lower i'm the depths
of degradation, and to enter upon a GRIM
inal career when he has obtained his free
dom.
The statement is not unfrequently made
that negroes do not regard service on the
chain gang a Disgrace and that those who
have served a term on the chain-gang are
not stunned by people of their race. The
statement is not true The respectable
negroes have as little as possible TO do
with chain-gang convicts. They might
have pity on a boy convict and overlook
his disgrace. but the boy would always be
conscious of a feeling of degradation, and
it would prevent him from making an
earnest effort to become a respectable citi-
zen.
How many boys In this country are sent
to the chain-gang each year we do not
know, but the number must be quite large.
Each one of them is sent to his destruc-
ton. Once the shackles. are placed upon
his limbs he is a lost soul. He losses his
respect and becomes an enemy of So
ciety
The community seems Indifferent to the
fate of these human beings. Money is
contributed literally in the churches for
the conversion of the PARKWAY heather
and sympathy is active for the starving
millions of India, but no one suggests that
steps be taken to strengthen the moral
characters of the colored youth of our
city. There are thousands of them living
in novels and the cutters who listen to lit
tie else than the foulest language from
their earliest years, and whose moral sense
is so blunted that 1t is almost as natural
for them to do wrong as right. If they
are not heathens, what are they? The
wonder is, not that some of them are
sent to the chain-gang, but that so few
Of them are
When the feet Of a few of the chain
gang convicts we're frozen a couple of
years or so ago. there were expressions Of
the greatest indignation throughout the
city, and yet not one citizen protests
against sending boys TO the chain-gang,
which makes life for them here and here
after practically hopeless. The injury
done to the convicts whose feet were frost
bitten was inhnitessimal in comparison
with the injury done the youths who are
being sent to the chaln-gang.
And yet, strange as 1t may seem. no
suggestion is forthcoming that we should
have a reformatory for the boys and girls
who commit minor offenses, and that an
honest effort should be made to open the
way for them 10 become good citizens.
There is no movement to lift them up and
III them to become decent members of so
ciety We help make criminals at home
while giving our money to make Chris
tians of heathens of other lands.
This matter is a vastly important one.
The negroes are here among US 1t is to
our interest that we should make use of
every possible agency TO lift them to a
higher moral plane. The negro boys
should have every encouragement to be-
come honest and industrious men. In
stead of sending those of them to the
chaln-gang who commit small offenses
against the law, we should confne them
apart from the old criminals and deal
with them in a way that would not utter
~ destroy their self respect.