The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-08-09
PUNISH vAGRANCY WITH LABOR.

Il So far as lies in the power of legal authority,
The advice Of Gilbert and Sullivan ought to be
followed in the correction of prisoners. Making
the punishment fit the crime more than any
thing else, operates upon criminal human nature
to convince it Of the iniudicousness of breaking
the law. So far as il may square with legal prac~
tice the better course in dealing with all Grim
finals manifestv is to impose punishment that
Furnishes.
As to vagrancy, sense and the poetic fitness of
things alike decree that the punishment should
be work. The vagrant is a complete loss to society,
FIRST BY of the dead weight of his idleness,
secondly by virtue of his misdrected and per-
nicious activities. When society becomes ex
asperaed with his sloth, there is one logical way
in which it can punish him. and only one: That
il. 10 put him under authority to press the crown
of involuntary servir1Ide upon his sweating brow,
10 put the fear Of the Lord and the fear of the
Law of labor into his lazy heart, if necessary at
the end Of strap. Once it has the vagrant TO
rights society owes it TO itself to exact from him
q measure of produetiveness.
II ought not to be true, but it Is true neverthe-
less. that these self-evident observations should
need emphasis in Richmond. Yet the disposition
of the hundred and more yagrant negroes
raled in city alleys early Sunday morning de-
mands earnest protest Arrai gned before Jus
tire Crutchfeld, these hundred and more worth
less individuals, who have been living, directly
Or indirectly, at the expense of the city, not
put TO work, they should have been, and as
the Justice had The power 10 compel them 10 be.
Instead, they were, in Every instance in which Il
sentence imposed, sent to the Jail, instead of
the rock pile. 1t amounts simply to this; that
worthless sluggards whose crime OF vagrancy
compelled their unofficial support by the city, are
now TO be officially supported. They are to oe
kept in idleness a punishment for idleness.
Any one who knows tho d. b, c's of character
OF this class of negroes imagine from this fact
how far short of deterrent effect upon vagrancy
such action will fall
To seize a hundred negroes who won't work.
and having solemnly charged them with not work
ing, to sentence them by preventing them from
working!-"it is to laugh
Some days ago. following the suggestion of a
rommittee appointed to report to the State Board
of Charities we pointed out number of reasons
why the fee system" should be abolished We
have direct evidence that the fee system fig
urrd m the disposition OF the grst of this latest
police raid. 1t figures, nevertheless, in the re-
suits of such disposition, in that the City Ser
geant receives a handsome total in fees for feed
ing ON high-cost-of-living' meat a motley crowd
Of negroes SO worthless, passionately lazy that
. they have been accustomed, when ii happened they
could not steal, to actually go hungry rather than
70 to work
Under such system, the city is a loser in every
rnspsct. It's punishments do not seriously retard
the practice of vagrancy-otherwise, in fact. II
enforces the idleness for which it is supposed to
a punish. 1t pays for such idleness. Whereas,
y II corid enforce work for Migrants, and let the
8 statc apply proceeds Of work exacted from such