The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-02-19

be tried, locked up in an Iron cage In the court room. in full view of the jury that will try him, an iron cage, where perhaps there isn't room for all who are waiting to be tried. all who are ore sumed innocent to sit down. But at last his turn comes, he Is led out of the cage and gets tried he Is indifferently de- fended, hls offense is magnihed by gifted and trained professional prosecutor. He looks rough and tough, the jury scans him over, and concludes that he will not be hurt by spending a year or more in the garb of a convict. No use in his case for judge or jury to give him the option of paying a fine or going to the penitentary. He can't pay a fine, and declared guilty by the jury, to the peni- tentiary he must go, to be hired out to the highest bidder at so much per month and make revenue for the states coffers. He may have a wife, he may have help less children dependent upon him. never theess, not one dollar of what he earns In convict garb goes to their support. They in their innocence, are driven deeper down into poverty and subjected more terribly to poyerty's temptations, by the law which deerees that they have no claim on the earnings of the husband and father whom society Is being protected against.
 This, in case the poor man is con- yicted when he goes to trial. But sup pose he Is acquitted. Still he has been punished, he has been degraded. Maybe weeks, maybe months, he has been lock- ed up in a loathsome jail In theory, he has been presumed innocent. in prac- tce. he has been presumed guilty. And, when a jury of his peers declares him innocent, whether their verdict be in ac- cordance with fact or not, society makes him no restitution whatever for the un- merited suffering inflicted upon him. he is simply turned loose more poverty stricken than when he was locked up. Then, perhaps, he owed nothing, now he Is in debt to his lawyer, and in debt to those who took pity On his family dur ing his Imprisonment and kept bread in their mouths and a shelter over their heads in debt, and he is just able with the work of his hands to earn the barest necessities of life; in debt, because so- ciety took away his freedom and treated him as a criminal, though criminal he was not.
 Effect of Jall Life.
 What is likely to be the effect on the character of the innocent man who is locked up for months in human hell a place fit for the occupancy of human beings, only on the supposition that hu- man beings have become devils? Is he likely to be better member of society? Is he likely to feel more certain that there Is such thing as social righteous ness, and more certain of his individual obligation to regulate his life in recogni- ton of 1t? Nay, he will be exceptional, If he does not feel that society has deep- ly wronged him, and that 1t Is his right. somehow. to get even. In other words, there will have been developed in him the criminal tendency, the criminal dis position he will have been robbed of somewhat of his moral soul, while he was being robbed of sun and sky, and deeency.
 "Is there not illustration here of how the poor are destroyed by their povertyf Consider the penal provisions of our city code, and how they affect the poor and the wel-to- In their application. Certain things are set down as criminal offenses-- msdemeanors-and, in the case of the most common of these offenses 1t is left to the discretion of the police judge whether defendant found guilty shall be fired simply. or both fined and imprisoned.
 fcointinu.o on F.ohth Paqe.)