Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-03-31

The lecture room of the high
school was well filled last night when
]. G. Phelps Stokes, the millionaire
settlement worker of New York, lee
tured on Social Responsibility. The
affair was under the auspices of the
Raritan Club.
Mr.. Stokes, who is a tall. slim
young fellow, who seems to take life
very seriously. arrived at the high
school shortly before s o'clock. His
wife, who was expected to accom-
pany him, did not come.
AT SIS o'clock the lecturer was
introduced by the chairman of the
( Raritan Club committee, Harry X.
Goldenbock Mr.. Stokes took for his
subject, Social Responsibility" and
tried to show throughout his lecture
that the betterment OF the classes
lays with society and not with the in
dividual
He spoke of the great advance in
the past years of medical science. He
told of how years ago the great black
plague visited Europe and that in its
path We're left thousands of dead.
This has been taken in hand by not
one person, but by many, and society
had practically done away with this
trouble, so that now one rarely hears
of the black plague, except in some
far away town in India, where civili-
zaton is not advanced. Mr.. Stokes
oil Of ha f,,I L
typhus fever, of how during the civil
war in this country, it spread through
the army, killing the soldiers in the
barracks and in the camps by the
thousands. He explained how this
had been taken up and now a case is
never heard of.
In talking about the disease known
as tuberculosis, or hasty consump-
ton, the speaker said that at the
present time the death rate of this
disease was greater than anything
else and he blamed it on the fact that
the many workshops were so unheal-
thy and on the fact that nearly every
boss worked his employe until he was
sick and that as soon as society, as
it was doing now, got together and
demanded better workshops and
homes for the people, the sooner
would all that trouble be wiped out.
Crime in the Country.
Mr.. Stokes spoke about the crime
in the country today. He said he did
not think that it was increasing, but
was rather decreasing and that this
fact was due to a number of modern
ways devised by society. He spoke of
what he considered the unjust way
of sending men TO prison. He eX-
planned that if man was convicted
of a crime and sent to Jail he was
made to put on a uniform and his
misfortune was always kept before
him with the fact that someone was
trying to get even with him for some
thing he had done. This, Mr.. Stokes
said, was under the old way, but in
one place he had visited he found
that the prisoners were treated en-
tirely different and the matter of i'm
prisonment remained with the pris-
oners themselves.
In this prison, Mr.. Stokes explain
ed. the warden is not called by that
title. He is known under the title of
superintendent. In the morning the
prisoners are called at $50 o'clock.
They can then get up and go to work
if they want to, and if they do not
feel like working they can stay in the
cells all day. but the amount of work
a man does and the way in which he
does it, that is, if for eighteen months
he tries his best to prove that he is
doing better, will count for a good
mark, and when the officials think
that he will be able to go out in the
world again and lead a good life he is