Sunday Washington globe., 1902-01-19

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have opened il with the ready knife
Of unscrupulous edge, skillfully handled.
They have scattered vice and multiplied
oiFenses against law and order, as like the
thistledown that is the sport Of every breasl.
of air they have drifted hither and thither,
not so much from original inclination as
by the force Of their surroundings They
are what willful nature and willful man
have made them.
As the future forest is in the pine cone or
the acorn 50 there is q potential rogues'
gallery ia every offender whose life is not
treated with care, skill and experience
while he is held within walls.
The newspapers for the last six months,
or for any similar period in the past, show
that. of the multitude of thefts, swindles,
burglaries and robberies that have occurred
during that time, only a small proportion
of the perpetrators have been punished or
even arrested. Warden f. C. Coffin, in an
address before the Society for the Study of
Criminology, in Columbus, O. said:
To take the most dangerous crimes
those directed against human life--for an ex-
ample, statistics show that in the year 1885,
I44o murders and homicides were committed
in the United States, while nine years later,
in 1895 not less than 1900 were committed
between January Ist and November 18th,
more than FIVE times as many in ten and
half months as were committed during
twelve months of the year first noted. II
will be found that crimes against property
have also multiplied at an equal rate. I'M
fortunately a very large proportion of the
laws violations are committed with inn
punity If all were punished it might
bankrupt the state to build and maintain
the iails and penitentiaries that would be
fl..t
This impunity indicates that the police
state nothing but the truth when they as
sert that the majority OF these unpublished
crimes are committed by old offenders,
men who have served sentences in Jail or
prison, who have become skilled in their
nefarious calings and in means of evading
the clutches of the law-unreformed and
professional criminals, the most dangerous
class OF men IN existence. Imprisonment
has not protected society against them, but
seems rather TO have confirmed them in
their evil ways.
Among this great sisterhood Of states,
Ohio is the first to demonstrate on large
scale what can be done to protect the COM
munity through the rehabilitation Of law
breakers confined, not in a reformatory but
a penitentiary, where all sorts, ages and
conditions of offenders meet together.
The demonstration has been made not
through the expensive endowment Of what
is known as an up to-date reformatory, nor
by the com plicated machinery thereof but
by the exercise of a right spirit that utilizes
a thorough experience fprison life A man
imbued with this spirit and endowed with
specialknowledge whose energy permeates
everything in the largest institution of the
kind in the world, enjoying the co-opera-
tion and counsel Of a board of managers of
kindTe.. feeling, and hundred officers of
various ranks animated by similar zeal and
inspired by his example, has been enabled
to do what Ieformatories established by
some other states and countries, at an enor-
nous expense to the people, have failed TO
attain. In other words an unprecedented
proportion Of the prisoners who have been
subjected to this influence and have been
discharged during the past have been re-
claimed to an honorable life.
tits a regretful fact that no reforniatory,
where many young men are confined has
reached that point Of success in the recon
stTuction of character that was, not un-
reasonably, anticipated by its founders
The system of few Of these huge gynnasia
for youthful criminals, not in Ohio, have
been ,cleverly formulated, with parts as in
tricate and nicely dove-lailed as a Chinese
the subjects received by them for treat
ment Being FIRST famous for the elaborate
ness and expensiveness Of their outfit, they
have finally become equally well known for
WHAT For the saving, to life of honor
able usefulness, a majority of their human
chargesY For the humanity with which
the erring youth has been led away from
evil7 Alasl No; but brought before the
public eye and conscience charged with the
very cruelty, harshness and inhumanity that
had reused mems indignation against the
old repressive system and opened the peo-
Dle's purse to found reformatories.
In a certain memorable instance, after
the smoke of the test had cleared away,
the residue OF fact showed, on analysis,
that harshness of treatment existed and
that, in the opinion Of the men in charge,
such institutions could not be managed
without it. Here was the spirit that had
made the old condition Of prison affairs
Stink in the nOstrils" of humanity, ad
mitted to be the animating and controlling
principle Of the modern reformatory If it
had been generally admitted that harshness
was indispensable to the proper reformation
of the youthful offender not one thousand
dollars, nor one hundred voices, would have.
been raised in any state to establish refor
matories. The reformatory was a protest
against that spirit of harshness, which has
been tried since the first community built
the FIRST prison. and had been found wanting.
That the worst charges brought against the
management OF such places have been sus-
tanned will not be stated, but none will
deny that harshness and severity have been
admitted.
Systems introduced with fanfare of
eulogy that anticipated success, because
cleverly formulated, we'll written aud sys-
tematically stated in books and papers that
might be called prospectuses, widely
heralded, sponsored by distinguished
names, approved by prominent men-who
had never given the subject days con
tinuous thought, nor spent a day on the
prison field in personal investigation-such
systems ought to be able 70 exhibit that
spirit Of gentleness, which is believed to
be the essence Of philanthropy, breathing
the breath Of life into every ramifcation Of
them, pulsating in the motion of every
machine in every shop shining from the
eyes Of every one Of the officers gentling
the tone Of every command and sweetening
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