Arizona republican., 1900-11-07

| the yearly allowance of $104 per capita
 Further, the society collected in the
 same year the sum of $9,69075 from parents whose children have been com-
 mitted to institutions. This money has been paid over to the city fund for the | maintenance of public charities and in 1 stitutions.
 As soon as a child is taken in hand
 by the agent of the society it is con- ducted to the building of the society. On the first floor the child is given to matron who has it bathed, examined | and dressed in clean clothes. On the | second floor are the offices, where a force of clerks is always busy with the
 books of the organization. Here also are the rooms of the board of officers
 the room of the president and that of the superintendent. On this same floor is the museum, a place of most curious interest, which contains instruments of cruelty and crime seized by the so- ciety. In the cases are bottles of in- toXicating drinks. of poison and of chemicals of various kinds. There are also whips, lashes, cudgels and sundry devices of fiendish minds Sorry mu- sical instruments and begging outfits fin one case, and in another are signs and placards taken from children that have been put out to beg or fake. In the upper part of the building are the play rooms, the hospital, the living rooms; the roof is a play ground, fenced in. and divided by a grill to keep the boys separate from the girls.
 Two rooms are set apart for vicious children. The society houses children only while their final disposition is in process of law. Afterwards they are delivered to the institutions appointed by the court.
 The society has at times thirty to forty cases in the courts in one day. Each morning the wagon of the society may be seen on its way to the criminal courts building. The wagon looks like a police patrol and has wire screens on all sides. These cases are directed by F. Fellows Jenkins secretary and su- perintendent of the society. MT. Jen- lIins has been with MT. Gerry since the beginning. One of the most valuable services rendered by the society was the killing of the child padrone system. Children were formerly brought here in droves to beg. to peddle and to play musical instruments in the streets. The padrone starved them and kept them in rags, meanwhile pocketing all their takings. The padrone system is still practiced among fruit and push-cart peddlars, who are beyond the control of the Gerry society.
 'The Fairest Wheel was developing the gambling instinct most frightfully among the children of the poor until the hand of the society crushed it.
 The device is a kind of wheel of for tune and was to be found generally in candy and toy stores near schools. Both the inventor and the storekeepers were making money easily until com plaints began to pour in from mothers who found their children begging and fiIching pennies immoderately, yet never showing any return for them. Storekeepers were arrested. Their fines were indirectly paid by the promoter of "The Fairest Wheel" Finally the so ciety got on the track of this genius, one Alfred B. Wilson," Before he could be brought to trial he fled from the city. But ''The Fairest Wheel" was banished from New York. MT. Wilson" recommended operations in Philadelphia, where he was speedily squelched through the instigation of the New York society.
 Child thievery has abated also be- cause the society has enforced the law that prohibits pawnbrokers from talk ing pledges or making loans to any person under 16 years of age.
 MT. Gerry's fixed conviction that the use of children as public entertainers Is ruinous to the moral and physical being has resulted in much benefit for talented youngsters ard in a deluge of abuse for their protector. Several years ago he called in the aid of the law to prevent the performances of a child pianist. The child was admitted by all qualified to judge to be marvel ously talented, and as the young prod igy seemed to be well cared for the outcry against the society was long and loud. But MT. Gerry never hinched, and the law upheld him. Shortly afterwards the child was talk en to Europe, and the episode faded from the public mind. Ten years later the same pianist reappeared. now in the vigor of youth. His musical gifts had been developed under the guidance of the most accomplished foreign in- structors. The public wondered and admired. but few knew that the musi- elan owed the training in his art to the generosity of the man who had re- strained him from concert playing ten years before.
 If Elbridge T. Gerry had not so much wisdom in the law, his wealth and de- termination would hardly have brought his enterprise to such a height of sue cess Although the interests of the so ciety have occupied so much of his life,