The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-09-26

| midnight
 In the city are over one hundred men
 and women from foreign parts, rep
 resentatfves of nearly fifty civilized | nations of the world. These distin-
 gufshed travellers are all guests of the
 United States. Uncle Sam has in l E1ted them to travel free of charge | through two thousand miles of our 1 eastern and central States. Sitting 1 In the same or adjoining sections were delegates from China, Japan, Russia;
 from New Zealand, Porto Rico, Trans Vaal; Finland, Morocco, Siam; from Argentine, Liberia. France. In short, 1 from almost a half-hundred nations, | Uncle Sam is taking them around the country to show them his best prisons; l taking them to Elrnira Reformatory:
 to Auburn, New York: to the Ohio 1 State Reformatory at Mansfield: to
 the Indiana Reformatory at Jefferson 1 v1lle; to Chicago. to Indianapolis, and I Incidentally to Niagara Falls for a
 and the fifty Americans who are trav- cling with them as a corps of national guides are representatives from the world over, now in this country to at tend the coming session of the Inter national Prison Congress at Washing ton. American Governors. Mayors, Chambers of Commerce have showered invitations galore upon this body of visitors to our shores. Later, at Wash ington, the President of the United
 States will address them at the open A44S u4O0I1uS O1 Lue COAGT0SS, CII0 III St
 of it's kind ever held in the United
 States.
 And-as usua1-when the United
 States takes hold, it manages to have
 the biggest yet of it's kind. This
 Crime Congress is peculiar. It is not
 massive in the number of it's attend
 a thousand visitors daily at the ses-
 sions between October 2d and 9th in
 Washington. This is a, congress of
 representatives. It corresponds in
 TxyaU fo oP ,ko%
 in that a very few persons represent
 a whole State. or in this case, a na-
 ton. For instance, the one hundred
 delegates to this International Con-
 gress represent a billion and a half of
 civilized people, The delegates are
 not all Christians; the follower of the
 ern problems of the treatment of the
 criminal with the follower of Moham-
 med, while the student of Confucius
 will debate with the adherent of the Greek Catholic Church as to the value
 of the indeterminate sentence and pa role.~
 In short this is a world congress to study crime. and to consider means ly serious problem. the world over. Crime is not confined to the United States. Only a few weeks ago, one of the most remarkable examples of the international nature of crime was seen when two great continents followed breathlessly the wireless chase of an EA4S4Sn IuS1CIV0 dCrOSS LLS AClduC1C. The problems of crime are very similar in many countries. America learns from Europe, and Europe from the United States. Many of the European prisons are constructed on plans work ed out first in the Eastern Peniten- tiary at Philadelphia in the early part of the nineteenth century. Our Amer ican reformatory system was borrowed from the English and Irish system of treating prisoners in vogue in the seventies of the nineteenth century.
 Indeed. this great prison congress, which now has become the greatest deliberative body of the world in the study of crime problems, was founded by an American and he a. New York l CT, the secretary of the New York Prison Association, Dr. B. c. Wines. 1 He it was who in 1871 suggested to l the United States Government that 1 the problems of crime had become in l ternational. and that it would be well | if civilized nations would get together | to compare notes. Crime was costing | country. And so, in 1871, the United States commissioned Dr. Wines to travel through Europe and sound European nations as to their interest in the proposed international crime congress. Favorable responses were received on all sides, and in 1872 the was called at London. an English speaking capital. the United States being altogether too far off.
 Even at that first congress the SOO&A GIL as in successive congresses. In some ways, the United States has been the most radical of the many nations in the International Prison Congress. This country has not philosophical by any means so much as many European countries ID of the criminal, and the subleties of criminal law. Rather has the American people as in so many other ways, also in prison matters gone ! -iT71n aH learning 1 when possible by it's mistakes and by it's successes.
 For instance. only four years after he first congress, in 1876, the first 'eformatory for adults in any country vas established at Elmira. New York. Today. the Elmira Reformatory, the S famous throughout the world as an example of the American reformatory method of dealing with crime. The innate in Elnira has to make his way out of the institution. not by es- ,aping over the walls, but by winning lis way by industry, by deportment nitted to the reformatory for dedn- te period, but on indeterminate entence. He may stay there, if he ; loes not win good marks, for the en- ire period that he might have been l to the reformatory, had the ourt pronounced a definite sentence. 50 the inmate is stimulated to reform, ,t least while within prison walls.
 The foreign delegates are coming to his congress in greater numbers than o any previous congresses, for Amer ( ca is not only in general a land of : narvels. but it has done many lad : 'anced'' things in the treatment of | rininals that have not yet been ' wholly accepted as sound on the other | idle of the water. For instance, it : 5 very much a question with Europ- f ans to what extent the indeterminate ' should be used. The inde- ' erninate sentence is the sentence ap- [ lied to Elm1ra men. Europeans are r 1ore accustomed to the conditional . z beration of prisoners. a system by 7 yhich the prisoner shortens his time F f Imprisonment by good fkshavior, : nd is then discharged and is no long : r under the supervision of the law, zhereas the indeterminate sentence is i.