The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-01-26

is SO established that the school law,
child labor law, law forbidding the
sale of intoxicants. tobacco, and IRE
arms to children, and Substantially
every other law. that pertains to their
welfare, may be enforced in the same
court before the same judge-an al
vantage that has made for the efft-
cheney OF the Denver juvenile court
Splendid Results.
Judge N. B. Feagin, of Birmingham,
Ala, with his chief probation oH1cer,
L. H. Putnam, has done splendid 5u-
yenile court work for five years past
without the aid of the elaborate laws
of such cities as Indianapolis, Chi
cago and Denver. The results In B1r-
mingham go to show that it is the
spirit and the work rather than the
law that is most important in the jul
venile court.
Perhaps the most interesting feat
ure of Judge Feagin's work is that
he is furnishing a practical solution
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 and he has,
through the celored churches. provid-
ed probation officers for the colored
children. Many of the colored chill
dren are taken to farms lnder the
supervision of this probation officer.
Results in redeeming many of the dan
gereus class of young negro boys who
are growing up in the southern cities
has been remarkable. The juvenile
court of Birmingham is doing work
significant for the whole south.
Corrective Methods
The women of Birmingham have es-
| tablished an industrial school main
| tanned almost entirely through their
work and efforts, and in this way have
met one of the special difficulties of
| their section-its 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 chill
| dren except to the jail or the peniten-
| tiary. This individual enterprise in
making a start presages the coming
| of state industrial schools as it did
in the organization of kindergartens,
| Fairgrounds, night schools and deten-
| ton schools.
| The lack OF such schools stood out
strikingly in county jails in the south,
where l have seen pinched, white
| faced boys ten and eleven years old
herded with thieves, burglars and
'dope fiends" A guard in one jail
in town Of 5000 people talked with
me while a ten-year-old white boy was
being "jollied" by a burglar. He said
| that as many as ten to twelve boys
between ten and sixteen years had
been in this jail at one time. There
were six of this age at the time / was
there. l was promised that different
! arrangements would soon be made
| for them.
The matron of that jail told me she
believed there were several hundred
boys that night in jails in that state
under similar conditions. Assuming
that there were only two hundred, II
meant that over one thousand boys a
year a least had such experiences, and
that in ten years ten thousand boys
under sixteen were so treated Craw-
| ford Jackson, of Atlanta, Ga, who is
making a crusade for Juvenile protec-
tories in the south, shows us pictures
of our boys in stripes on the chain
gang mixing with various types of
| criminals. I have seen one or two
such Instances myself. The state can
poorly afford to add to criminality in
! such frightful manner, but the indus
| trial school will surely come.
On the Gulf Coast
| In Mobile, Mrs. John B. Waterman
| with the help OF one of the local
| judges, secured from the Alabama
legislature a special act creating a
very effective court and probation At
| the same time a statewide juvenile
| court law was passed, but some of its
| provisions put 1t so out of harmony
with the actual local conditions with
1 .s.I, - l. Il =
repealed. This does not affect the
usual act for the county in which Mo,
| bile is the chief city, and for this
| reason and because of exceptional con-
ditions in Birmingham, these two prin.
cipal cities of Alabama will not be
interfered with. The court presided
over in Mobile by Judge Clark, with
Mrs. Roberts as probation OFFICER, has
made splendid record, and carried
out the spirit and efficiency which
Mrs. Waterman put into her campaign
which created it.
In Louisiana a juvenile court law
was passed as the result of agitation
by the women of the state and some
men, prominent among whom was Mi
chael Hyman, superintendent of the
Jewish Orphans Home of New Or
leans. The law was not properly at
| tached to the Judicial system of the
state, and was declared unconstitu
tional for reasons that can be avoided
in the legislature next May when il
will be proposed again. The record
er's court in New Orleans has SET
aside separate days for the trial Of
children, and is carrying on rea-
Juvenile court so far as existing laws
will permit The Society for the Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Children has es
tablished an industrial school in one
of the old plantation houses near the
ethyl with separate departments fol
white boys and colored boys, under
probation officer who, with his wife
are doing much to improve the con
ditions for these boys
Why
should your baby suffer? When he
is fretful and restless, don't expert
| YOauf IN him ond ypca oru nId Thin Q