Los Angeles herald., 1910-11-21

y. GRIbfIih
and that no state has taken a back
ward step.
When this convention of humanitar-
ians had adjourned, it is very inter-
esting to know what some of the lead
ers had to say and the impressions
they carried home. Sir Evelyn Rug
gles- Brise, president of the Interna-
tional Prison congress, which again is
to meet in London in 1915, among
other things is quoted as follows:
"This coming of the old world to the
new to learn what lessons the new has
to teach is an historic fact and may
be an epoch in human thought and at
titude toward the criminal. In Eng
land we have been at great pains dur
ing the last two or three years, by
scientific and exact investigation, to
disprove the popular conception of the
criminal. We have personally exam
ined 5000 of our worst conYicts, men
sentenced to penal serviture and guilty
of every form of crime With regard to
each we have collected and tabulated
no less than 90 statements-that IL,
measurements, family history, mental
and bodily characteristics, etc, the
tabluations now proceeding at the BIZ
ometric laboratory of the University
college, London, under the direction of
DR.. Carl Pearson. The results will be
published shortly and we are only able
to say at present that so far no evil
dence whatever has emerged from this
investigation confirming the existence
of criminal types, such as Lombroso
and his disciples have asserted"
Hon. J. S. Gibbons, chairman of the
prison commission in Ireland, said: 81
have to give every erson, whether
tried or untried- and especially the un-
| tried, a separate room to sleep in, and
would lose my job if I put two pris-
| oners in a cell" CIow would such
4ules affect San Quentin, where over
! 200 prisoners occupy one roomD
! Again, Mr.. Gibbons continues: Half
| the people in prison should never have
been sent there. Every goal, every
prison should be a reformatory. Our
! object should be first to make our
! goals and prisons perfect as reforma-
! tories and then to have them empty"
Takashi Sanagi, commissioner of the
! prison bureau of the department OF
! justice, Japan, made several telling re-
| marks, among which he said:
"The prison should be place for
| the treatment of men with humanity
and not with cruelty; it should be a
| place for correcting them and not for
! infieting pain upon them. Punishment
! is resorted to under unavoidable cir
/ cumstances when the object IS TO re-
! move evils from the state. For fifty
seven years societies have existed in
Japan for the protection and encour-
agement of liberated prisoners and our
| government annually donates $lO,OOO
| for their aid.
Another interesting delegate from
| Great Britain was Thomas Holmes,
secretary of the Howard association
| asd after his investigation very forcl-
! blv expressed himself: "At jefferson
| willie and Mansfield I was struck with
| the highly developed work and SUBJ
| division of work in the Industrial de-
| partment of the refOrmatories. An m
/ dustry in prison, whether or NOT IL
pays the state, should be such that
| the prisoner can follow 1t aIter ms
release. On returning to England I
will advocate the appointment of paid
probation officers and the training Of
! such officers before their appointment
I shall urge a reformatory for adults
| and the indeterminate sentence with
| safeguards
among her speakers was A. $ Golden
weiser, a lawyer of KieV, who made
use Of the following: "A complete
moral satisfaction was felt by us in
such institutions as Industry, where
the work of rehabilitating the young
is carried on in a manner that makes
| the man feel envious who has spent
half his life as trustee OF a similar m
stitution, but without the means, the
space and the personnel of Industry.
! NV especial admiration was excited by
the men and women who voluntarily
become fathers and mothers to the
bows intrusted to their care. The
homes gardens and exhibits, and
most of all, the kind and cheerful ex-
pressions on the faces of the children
! will remain a sacred memory to all
of us. There are a thousand sufficient
reasons for the abolition of capital
n,Inislrnent and Americans must know
| them all, and yet they persist In this
cruel practice. Why Is it that gem
erous Americans are still working un-
der the dreadful alteration that there
are circumstances that Justify one man
i'm saying to another, Go and Kill this
criminal >"