The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-30


 juvenile courts. The system is so estab- lished that the school law, child labor law, law forbidding the sale of ntoxi- cants, tobacco and firearms to children and substantially every other law that pertains to their welfare. may be en- forced in the same court before the same judge-an advantage that has made for the efficiency of the Denver juvenile court.
 Judge N. B. Feagin of Birmingham, with his chief probation officer, L. H. Putnam, has done splendid juvenile court work for five years past without the aid of the elaborate laws of such cities as Indianapolis, Chicago and Denver. The results in Birmingham go to show that it is the spirit and the work rather than the law that Is most important in the ju- venile court. Perhaps the most interest ing feature of Judge Feagin's work is that he Is furnishing a practical solu- ton for the difficulties of the negro child in the juvenile court of the south.
 He is working out a system of division of the races very much. as in the schools, and to this end he has, through the col ored churches, provided probation officers for the colored children Many of the colored children are taken to a farm under the supervision of this probation force. The results in redeeming many of the dangerous class of young negro boys who are growing up in the southern cities have been remarkable. The juvenile court of Birmingham is doing work sig nificant for the whole south.
 The women of Birmingham have estab- lished an industrial school maintained almost entirely through their work and efforts, and in this way have met one of the special difficulties of their section- it's lack of industrial schools, or what were formally called reform schools in the north and west. Until very recently there has been no place to send so- called criminal children except to the jail or the penitentiary.
 This individual enterprise in making start presages the coming of state industrial schools as 1t did in the or ganization of kindergartens, play grounds, night schools and detention sch ools. The lack of such schools stood out strikingly in county jails in the south where I have seen pinched white faced boys 10 and II years old herded with thieves burglars and dope fiends."
 A guard in one jail in a town of 5000 people talked with me while | 1O-year- old white boy was being "jol- lied" by a burglar. He said that as many as 10 to 12 boys between 10 and 16 years had been in this jail at one time There were six of this age at the time 1 was there.
 I was promised that different ar engagements would soon be made for | them. The matron of that jail told me | she believed there were several hun | dred boys that night in jails in that l state under similar conditions. Assum- ing that there were only 200, it meant at ! such experiences and that in 10 years 1000 boys under 16 were so treated. Crawford Jackson of Atlanta, Ga., who is making a crusade for Juvenile l protectories in the south, shows us 1 pictures of our boys in stripes on the l chain gang mixing with various types 1 of criminals. I have seen one or two such instances myself. The state can poorly afford to add to criminality Tn such frightful manner, but the in l dustrial school will surely come. In Mobile, Ala, Mrs. John B. Water man. with help of one of the local | Judges, secured from the Alabama iegis- lature a special act creating very | effective court and probation At the same time a statewide Juvenile court law was passed, but some or US pro visions put it so out of harmony with | the actual local conditions Wltn Whieii it had to deal that 1t was later re- pealed. This does not affect the usua act for the county in which Mobile IS the chief city, and for this reason anu because of exceptional conditions in Hirmin gham, these two principal cities of Alabama will not be interfered with. | The court presided over in Mopile py Judre Clark, with Mrs. Roberts as pro nation officer, has made splendid record, and carried out the spirit ana efficiency which Mrs. Waterman put into her campaign which created it.
 In Louisiana juvenile court law was nassed as the result of agitation py the 1 women of the state and some hlei, prominent among whom was Michaei 1 Hvman. superintendent of the Jewish | Ornhans' Home of New Orleans. The law was not properly attached to the l indicial system of the state, ana was declared unconstitutional for reasons that can be avoided in the legislature next May when 1t will De proposeu ! again. The recorders court III NeW 1 orleans has set aside separate uas | for the trial of children ana IS cai ryins on a real juvenile court so far G ax;stirg laws will permit. The So- 1 ctatv for the Prevention of. Crueity | to Children has established an indus tr,al school in one of the old planta- ! tion houses near the city with separ- ate departments for white boys ana colored boys under a probation olhcer | who with his wife are doing much to ,nonrove the conditions for these poys. | -----.s--
 FAMOUS ART TREASURES.
 Ar. Purchased In France by J. Pier.