Waterbury Democrat., 1901-03-11

Robert F. Lee.)
 in country families form very pleasant reading. One mother states that the old lady with whom she stays treats her ''like an own daughter" and that every ything that the baby does is just right Phillips Brooks said ''he who helps child helps humanity with dis tinctness, with. an immediateness, which no other help given to human creatures in any other stage of their human life can possibly give again." In neighboring town a boy seven years old was to have been sent to a reform school. An associa tion official, hearing of the case, went after the lit tie fellow and placed him with people who wanted a bright, intelligent boy. He had been left to look out for him. self entirely, and although not vicious bore a hard name. For several months he has been with his new parents with out causing them an anxious thought and has proved unusually amenable to loving teaching. After tucking him in bed on the night of his arrival, and giv- ing him kiss. the mother was startled by the sobs which suddenly burst lOIlii. dctOlll llltu DN tilt lhtl ' . IIp~ tie speech: II Inever had anyone to kiss one good night before.''
 The following is said to be report of an interview with Judge Tuthill, of Chicago: How about the born crim- nals, judge; the degenerates? ''The what? Born criminals? There are no born criminals. If I believed that I should lose my faith in God. So- .iety makes criminals; environment and education make criminals, but they are not born so." Do you be- ieve, then, that your children, ii their environment were the same, would commit the same offenses as these children who daily appear be- fore you?" II don't think so: I know it."> Relieving that crime is never so much the result of heredity as of envronment, the association is especially directing it's efforts to- wards helping the youths, the large boys and girls, to home sympathy and influence. If lives in the early formative period are subjected to moral and refining influences. with the idea of home that is theirs and love waiting them in it, they are much less likely to yield to temptations as they present themselves. Of those who have all ready been sent to reform schools, of paroIed prisoners and those who have served entire sentences, this is more especially true. No one is willing to employ them while many applicants with good characters and recom- mendations are turned away. and there really seems no decent chance for them to exist in this world. Not long since a boy from a reformatory applied to the \. M. C. A. of his home town, and the secretary sought
 There is now a prison population of about aSO,O00 in our country, or near 1y double the number of ten years ago. This means that one in every 500 of our citizens is an ex-prisoner, as an average of one per day is dis charged. Who will employ them? How will they live? Some have fam lilies. Who will give work to the son of an ex-jailbird? The American IIome-Finding association desires that homes be founded for these men in different parts of the country, and especially one near Chicago. where they may stay when destitute and out of employment, thus removing one of the gHeat incentives to crime, ahiect want.