The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-11

limit, but it is quite simply to say you are fourteen and to produce a parent s certificate to that effect Most of the trouble, indeed in enforcing the law comes from false affidavits from parents. Even when these are found to be false it is not always possible to induce the police magistrate to put the fear of the law into the hearts of the offenders by severe sentences. In recent address P. Tecumseh Sherman, state commissioner of labor, said that in Queens county-the Borough of formation of Greater New York-some of the magistrates either dis missed all offenders or suspended sen tence
 With drudgery on the one hand and the mysterious call of the street on the other. many high-spirited youngsters shake off all parental control and take to the nomadic life of the city arab. On the ease with which this can be done the records of the New York Juvenile asy- lum throw much light. Any unusual wave of emigration-such as that now in progress from Russia and Southeastern Europe-results almost immediately in an influx of children of that particular nat ionality to the asylum. In most cases unable to make themselves understood. without definite plans and helpless as chl- dren, the immigrants are forced to settle among their fellow countrymen in the al- ready overfiowing foreign quarters of our great cities and especially in New York, the chief gateway to the country. Herded here, whatever family life they may have brought with them vanlshes. The parents remain Russians or Hungarians or Italians or Greeks or Croatians: the children learn in the gutter to be Amer icans and one of the first things they are thought there is to despise the old country ways of their parents.
 Begins to Forage.
 Once the boy has thoroughly mastered this lesson, he sees no reason for toil-
 ing in factories and stores, on the tail- end of delivery wagons or dragging heavy baskets of bread and laundry over the city. Instead he enters on an individual foraging campaign, the watchword of which is You're not guilty if you're not caught" Formerly society's defense con- sisted in catching as many as possible of the nimble-footed and nimble- -witted young nomads and packing them off to jails and
 "reformatories'' of various names for terms just long enough to enable them to learn all that the other inmates knew and to re-enter the world wiser and | cleverer criminals than before. The es- tablishment of the childrens court was one blow at this vicious system and the | gradual adoption of the cottage home l plan for reformatories-a plan of which the model village of the New York Juve- nile asylum Is the most thorough example yet undertaken in this country-is an- other.
 | Children are no longer committed to | the asylum for terms of month or | so. If they are sent there as to a refuge l from neglect and starvation they remain | until suitable provision can be made for | them elsewhere. If they have been com of many, for being simply incorrigible, l they remain until they have learned bet | ter-a regeneration which it is assumed l has taken placew hen theyhaveearned
 by good conduct a small sum of money | This money Zn be earned in about q | year and a half. During this time they | study in school, work at some trade or on | the form of 2S5 acres which surrounds
 the cottages, and live as nearly as theau- | thorities can make them the normal life
 of healthy children. How necessary is the | work doneby he Juvenile asylum is
 shown by the fact that each year 9OOt
 children are tried for criminal offenses ir | this great city.