CHAPTER XXXI.The problem of the boy is a great one, and the more we have to do with his life upon the street the greater the task of solution becomes. It is said that two great factors make the sum of human life—heredity and environment. We are told that if you will gather up soil from the arctic regions and carry it on a steamer southward, you will soon see it covered with vegetation. If the soil of the tropics is taken to the frozen regions of Franz Joseph Land, it will become barren. The soil of both regions is full of heredity, but the difference of environment greatly modifies the result. There are in all of us hereditary tendencies to both vice and virtue, and under favorable surroundings, these tendencies will be either dormant or developed.A thief may come from a morally healthy family, a happy prosperous home, but he is an unhealthy exception not the rule. It is the offense of our day that the tendency of life is toward destruction of character. The crowding of population to the cities, is gradually destroying the home feeling. This rapidly increasing rush from thecountry and small towns to the centres of individual energy, brings a dependent class of boys, and the official reports show a significant increase in the number of juvenile criminals, from small towns, and also that they are much younger than formerly. This does not mean that the energetic young man of the country should stay away from the cities, or should not seek employment or business in a city; it simply means that christian people should take a greater personal interest in trying to make the boy good before he leaves his home, and that the city people should make city life purer.So long as our best reputed citizens, the first men of many of our churches, own the dilapidated tenement houses, receiving from such occupants a rental sufficient to pay taxes, and without caring who occupies the premises or for what purposes, the criminal tendency must increase.For a time charitably-inclined people may check and partially correct an evil, but the tendency will remain, sure to assert itself in one form or another. If the present cheap-John tenements should be wiped out, and it were made possible for the proper classes to secure homes in the country, modest as necessarily they would be,it would go a long way towards correcting one of the greatest evils of the day.“The prison returns of one of our great States show that fifty per cent. of all young criminals come from bad homes, from tenement houses owned by rich men, and only nine per cent. from good homes.”Since the Humane societies are so well organized, and doing such magnificent work, much may be expected for the better in the condition of the houses of the poor. There are many streets in our great cities where people shudder when compelled to walk, on account of their bad reputation.The tenants may be bad, but are they worse than the owners of the property? Have you ever stopped to think who owns a building under whose roof lives a dozen bad characters?One Sunday morning, a gentleman in the city was walking down an avenue of considerable importance when he was surprised to see two young newsboys coming out of the rear door of a saloon, each trying to keep the other from falling to the ground.The building was old and rickety. On the secondfloor were not a half dozen whole panes of glass in eight window frames.Astonished at this, a question was asked, of a passer-by who owned the saloon property?“Mr.—— owns all the property on that side of the street. He is now teaching a Sunday-school class while boys are in his building drinking. This thing’s repeated every Sunday. It’s headquarters for young men.”When our leading men of business, our wealthy citizens, men of influence, men who stand high in the commercial world, are renting their property to persons who, for the money they make, are ruining hundreds of young lives, what can we expect?We need an era of enforcement of law, less of pretense, more of purpose. Whether the laws be good or bad, is not a question. If they are good, they should be enforced for the welfare of the community and the vindication of the State. If they are bad, they should be enforced so that their injustice may prove sufficiently oppressive to lead to their appeal.The saloons will always be with us, and so long as the State, and the city receive the price for their existence, and grant them recognition andendorsement, they should be protected in accordance with the laws governing their business, but beyond all this, there is a law, a moral law, a law of decency, of respect, for the welfare and happiness of mankind, that should appeal to every man engaged in the selling of liquors.Five men, of our acquaintance, engaged in the saloon business, have for many years mutually agreed to do certain things. They do not open their places of business on Sunday. They do not admit a minor into their saloons for any cause. They will not sell liquor to a man who shows the least sign of being intoxicated.If every man engaged in the saloon business would follow to the letter these few simple rules, thousands of good wives, and innocent children would be happy, and the influence for good could not be estimated. Our Sunday-closing laws should be enforced.The lives of a majority of men, hard-working men, are dreary enough for six days of the week without having all of the desolation compressed into the seventh and drilled into them through the avarice of selfish men who aim to take advantage of a man under the influence of liquor, andtake from him his last cent and then throw him into the street.We are learning to regard the majority of youthful offenders, especially in our large cities, as the victims of environment, sufferers from lack of opportunity for good. In nine cases out of ten, boys who are found in saloons come from well-to-do families, and are permitted to be there through neglect and carelessness of their parents.
CHAPTER XXXI.The problem of the boy is a great one, and the more we have to do with his life upon the street the greater the task of solution becomes. It is said that two great factors make the sum of human life—heredity and environment. We are told that if you will gather up soil from the arctic regions and carry it on a steamer southward, you will soon see it covered with vegetation. If the soil of the tropics is taken to the frozen regions of Franz Joseph Land, it will become barren. The soil of both regions is full of heredity, but the difference of environment greatly modifies the result. There are in all of us hereditary tendencies to both vice and virtue, and under favorable surroundings, these tendencies will be either dormant or developed.A thief may come from a morally healthy family, a happy prosperous home, but he is an unhealthy exception not the rule. It is the offense of our day that the tendency of life is toward destruction of character. The crowding of population to the cities, is gradually destroying the home feeling. This rapidly increasing rush from thecountry and small towns to the centres of individual energy, brings a dependent class of boys, and the official reports show a significant increase in the number of juvenile criminals, from small towns, and also that they are much younger than formerly. This does not mean that the energetic young man of the country should stay away from the cities, or should not seek employment or business in a city; it simply means that christian people should take a greater personal interest in trying to make the boy good before he leaves his home, and that the city people should make city life purer.So long as our best reputed citizens, the first men of many of our churches, own the dilapidated tenement houses, receiving from such occupants a rental sufficient to pay taxes, and without caring who occupies the premises or for what purposes, the criminal tendency must increase.For a time charitably-inclined people may check and partially correct an evil, but the tendency will remain, sure to assert itself in one form or another. If the present cheap-John tenements should be wiped out, and it were made possible for the proper classes to secure homes in the country, modest as necessarily they would be,it would go a long way towards correcting one of the greatest evils of the day.“The prison returns of one of our great States show that fifty per cent. of all young criminals come from bad homes, from tenement houses owned by rich men, and only nine per cent. from good homes.”Since the Humane societies are so well organized, and doing such magnificent work, much may be expected for the better in the condition of the houses of the poor. There are many streets in our great cities where people shudder when compelled to walk, on account of their bad reputation.The tenants may be bad, but are they worse than the owners of the property? Have you ever stopped to think who owns a building under whose roof lives a dozen bad characters?One Sunday morning, a gentleman in the city was walking down an avenue of considerable importance when he was surprised to see two young newsboys coming out of the rear door of a saloon, each trying to keep the other from falling to the ground.The building was old and rickety. On the secondfloor were not a half dozen whole panes of glass in eight window frames.Astonished at this, a question was asked, of a passer-by who owned the saloon property?“Mr.—— owns all the property on that side of the street. He is now teaching a Sunday-school class while boys are in his building drinking. This thing’s repeated every Sunday. It’s headquarters for young men.”When our leading men of business, our wealthy citizens, men of influence, men who stand high in the commercial world, are renting their property to persons who, for the money they make, are ruining hundreds of young lives, what can we expect?We need an era of enforcement of law, less of pretense, more of purpose. Whether the laws be good or bad, is not a question. If they are good, they should be enforced for the welfare of the community and the vindication of the State. If they are bad, they should be enforced so that their injustice may prove sufficiently oppressive to lead to their appeal.The saloons will always be with us, and so long as the State, and the city receive the price for their existence, and grant them recognition andendorsement, they should be protected in accordance with the laws governing their business, but beyond all this, there is a law, a moral law, a law of decency, of respect, for the welfare and happiness of mankind, that should appeal to every man engaged in the selling of liquors.Five men, of our acquaintance, engaged in the saloon business, have for many years mutually agreed to do certain things. They do not open their places of business on Sunday. They do not admit a minor into their saloons for any cause. They will not sell liquor to a man who shows the least sign of being intoxicated.If every man engaged in the saloon business would follow to the letter these few simple rules, thousands of good wives, and innocent children would be happy, and the influence for good could not be estimated. Our Sunday-closing laws should be enforced.The lives of a majority of men, hard-working men, are dreary enough for six days of the week without having all of the desolation compressed into the seventh and drilled into them through the avarice of selfish men who aim to take advantage of a man under the influence of liquor, andtake from him his last cent and then throw him into the street.We are learning to regard the majority of youthful offenders, especially in our large cities, as the victims of environment, sufferers from lack of opportunity for good. In nine cases out of ten, boys who are found in saloons come from well-to-do families, and are permitted to be there through neglect and carelessness of their parents.
The problem of the boy is a great one, and the more we have to do with his life upon the street the greater the task of solution becomes. It is said that two great factors make the sum of human life—heredity and environment. We are told that if you will gather up soil from the arctic regions and carry it on a steamer southward, you will soon see it covered with vegetation. If the soil of the tropics is taken to the frozen regions of Franz Joseph Land, it will become barren. The soil of both regions is full of heredity, but the difference of environment greatly modifies the result. There are in all of us hereditary tendencies to both vice and virtue, and under favorable surroundings, these tendencies will be either dormant or developed.
A thief may come from a morally healthy family, a happy prosperous home, but he is an unhealthy exception not the rule. It is the offense of our day that the tendency of life is toward destruction of character. The crowding of population to the cities, is gradually destroying the home feeling. This rapidly increasing rush from thecountry and small towns to the centres of individual energy, brings a dependent class of boys, and the official reports show a significant increase in the number of juvenile criminals, from small towns, and also that they are much younger than formerly. This does not mean that the energetic young man of the country should stay away from the cities, or should not seek employment or business in a city; it simply means that christian people should take a greater personal interest in trying to make the boy good before he leaves his home, and that the city people should make city life purer.
So long as our best reputed citizens, the first men of many of our churches, own the dilapidated tenement houses, receiving from such occupants a rental sufficient to pay taxes, and without caring who occupies the premises or for what purposes, the criminal tendency must increase.
For a time charitably-inclined people may check and partially correct an evil, but the tendency will remain, sure to assert itself in one form or another. If the present cheap-John tenements should be wiped out, and it were made possible for the proper classes to secure homes in the country, modest as necessarily they would be,it would go a long way towards correcting one of the greatest evils of the day.
“The prison returns of one of our great States show that fifty per cent. of all young criminals come from bad homes, from tenement houses owned by rich men, and only nine per cent. from good homes.”
Since the Humane societies are so well organized, and doing such magnificent work, much may be expected for the better in the condition of the houses of the poor. There are many streets in our great cities where people shudder when compelled to walk, on account of their bad reputation.
The tenants may be bad, but are they worse than the owners of the property? Have you ever stopped to think who owns a building under whose roof lives a dozen bad characters?
One Sunday morning, a gentleman in the city was walking down an avenue of considerable importance when he was surprised to see two young newsboys coming out of the rear door of a saloon, each trying to keep the other from falling to the ground.
The building was old and rickety. On the secondfloor were not a half dozen whole panes of glass in eight window frames.
Astonished at this, a question was asked, of a passer-by who owned the saloon property?
“Mr.—— owns all the property on that side of the street. He is now teaching a Sunday-school class while boys are in his building drinking. This thing’s repeated every Sunday. It’s headquarters for young men.”
When our leading men of business, our wealthy citizens, men of influence, men who stand high in the commercial world, are renting their property to persons who, for the money they make, are ruining hundreds of young lives, what can we expect?
We need an era of enforcement of law, less of pretense, more of purpose. Whether the laws be good or bad, is not a question. If they are good, they should be enforced for the welfare of the community and the vindication of the State. If they are bad, they should be enforced so that their injustice may prove sufficiently oppressive to lead to their appeal.
The saloons will always be with us, and so long as the State, and the city receive the price for their existence, and grant them recognition andendorsement, they should be protected in accordance with the laws governing their business, but beyond all this, there is a law, a moral law, a law of decency, of respect, for the welfare and happiness of mankind, that should appeal to every man engaged in the selling of liquors.
Five men, of our acquaintance, engaged in the saloon business, have for many years mutually agreed to do certain things. They do not open their places of business on Sunday. They do not admit a minor into their saloons for any cause. They will not sell liquor to a man who shows the least sign of being intoxicated.
If every man engaged in the saloon business would follow to the letter these few simple rules, thousands of good wives, and innocent children would be happy, and the influence for good could not be estimated. Our Sunday-closing laws should be enforced.
The lives of a majority of men, hard-working men, are dreary enough for six days of the week without having all of the desolation compressed into the seventh and drilled into them through the avarice of selfish men who aim to take advantage of a man under the influence of liquor, andtake from him his last cent and then throw him into the street.
We are learning to regard the majority of youthful offenders, especially in our large cities, as the victims of environment, sufferers from lack of opportunity for good. In nine cases out of ten, boys who are found in saloons come from well-to-do families, and are permitted to be there through neglect and carelessness of their parents.