EVENTS IN BRIEF
[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]
Congress of Juvenile Court Judges.—Eight hundred invitations are being sent out by Judge Muir Weissinger and his advisory board of the Juvenile Court, for the third annual conference of juvenile court judges of the central states to be held in Louisville November 14, 15 and 16. The invitations go to judges in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado. Special invitations are issued to officials of institutions in Kentucky interested in juvenile corrections and the juvenile judges in other states are asked to bring with them such probation officers and other officials as may wish to attend the conference.
Reformatory versus Prison.—That the proper classification of prisoners is of basic importance in any effort to reform and rehabilitate them, and that courts are often parties to the creation of almost insuperable difficulties in this regard is shown in a recent article in the Rahway (New Jersey) Herald:
D. George Wight, commissioner of charities and correction of New Jersey finds that there is no uniform rule under which the common pleas judges of the state deal out sentences. There are a number of first offenders in the state prison who should have been sent to the reformatory, and there are numerous cases where prisoners should have been sent to the state prison instead of the reformatory. Dr. Wight also shows that there are a number of hardened criminals confined in the reformatory.
The out-of-place presence of these detained persons interferes with the work in the prison and in the reformatory. Mr. Osborne, warden of the state prison, concludes that reformation is an almost impossible achievement in the state prison, and Dr. Moore, superintendent of the state reformatory, is of the opinion that the presence of hardened criminals in the reformatory prevents the carrying on of efficient reformatory work in his institution.
Under the existing laws it is provided that the male first offenders between the ages of 16 and 30 years shall be sent to the reformatory. Notwithstanding the provisions, Dr. Wight’s statistics show that from June, 1909, to June, 1911, there were committed to the state prison 240 prisoners of the first offender class, and less than 25 years of age. Dr. Wight shows that this total is twenty-five per cent. of the commitments during the two years which the statistics cover. There have been 231 commitments to the Rahway reformatory in the past year, and of this number at least fifty-five per cent. are second offenders, and some of the men are serving their third and fourth terms in prison. The report of Dr. Moore shows that of the commitments in the past year sixty-nine are second offenders, thirty-three are third offenders, eighteen are fourth offenders, five are fifth offendersand six are sixth offenders, leaving 104 first offenders committed during the year, with a total of 234.
The investigation shows that the sentences imposed by the trial judges have not been based upon the seriousness of the crime, but upon the individual preferences of the court.
A Prison Program for New York.—Commissioner Frank E. Wade, of Buffalo, has embodied the results of a recent careful inspection of the county penitentiaries of New York (New York, Albany, Onondaga, Monroe and Erie) in well digested reports to the commission, and in addition recommends a policy of action for the state which deserves quoting. For years the inefficient county management of most of the penitentiaries has been notorious.
“Control of the penitentiaries under existing conditions is essentially a state function. The prospects, however, of state ownership are not promising for some time to come. The initial cost will be so great that, in the present condition of state finances, the proposition for the purchase of these institutions is not likely to meet with favor; furthermore, there are some related problems which should be settled before state ownership of penitentiaries. I refer to a state farm for vagrants, a reformatory for male misdemeanants between the ages of 16 and 21 and the development of industries in the penitentiaries.
“The state is already committed to the farm colony plan and its successful operation will decrease the number in the penitentiaries of the most hopeless class of inmates as far as penitentiary treatment is concerned.
“A state reformatory for misdemeanants, where boys between the ages of 16 and 21 can be committed on an indeterminate sentence and receive instruction in trades and letters, is the most necessary and urgent prison reform under public discussion. These boys can now be committed only to penitentiaries and jails, except in the city of New York, and the penitentiary and jail associations and treatment confirm them in criminal habits.
“The introduction and extension of industries in the penitentiaries is of vital importance. The present idleness of the prisoners in all the penitentiaries (except New York and Onondaga county penitentiaries, where the product can be increased fifty per cent) is tending to destroy their future usefulness and turn them into loafers. It is the duty of the state commission of prisons to present the evils of this idleness to the public and to endeavor to have the county authorities furnish employment for all the prisoners, as required by law.
“The enactment of a law permitting the superintendent of prisons to market the product of the penitentiaries will be of great assistance. Staple industries could then be established and industries supplementary to those in the state prisons could be installed in the penitentiaries.
“The proposition of paying prisoners or their families a portion of the earnings is involved in the development of the industries in the penitentiaries. At present the idleness and the heavy cost of maintenance will not permit such payments, but if the earnings of prisoners were materially increased a substantial percentage might be given.”
Mr. Hall on Prison Reform.—Albert H. Hall, who has the gift of “speakin’ out in meetin’” to some purpose, outlined at the recent annual conference of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology what Minnesota has recently done, and recommended a law which has been enacted this year in his own state. He stated the provisions of that law, giving the reasons for each. All sentences, except for treason or murder in any of the degrees, shall be indeterminate: they shall be without limit of time. A board of parole is established, with the prison warden as a member ex-officio, to observe the prisoners, study them minutely, inquire into their history and watch their tendencies and their motives, and learn all about them. With this knowledge about them, the board establishes a record of marks, giving credit for merits and charge for derelictions,and on the basis of such register the board may release the prisoner on parole when it deems it expedient. The prisoners are to be provided with the rules and regulations, enabling them to score themselves, if they like, and giving them the right of a hearing before the board if they think the official score does not give them full credit.
In order that all shall be treated absolutely alike, petitions from outside persons for the release of any prisoner will not be received or acted upon. The initiative is to rest with the board, and it may modify its conditions of parole during the period the prisoner remains under its observation. The prison warden is made a member of the board because of his intimate knowledge of the prisoners.
Another feature of the proposition is that the prisoner loses his citizenship when he is sentenced, and its restoration rests with the governor, to whom the board of parole is to certify when it grants an absolute release, stating the reasons for the release.
Addressing himself to the merits of the general proposition, Mr. Hall declared that the deterrent of crime is not the punishment, but the fear of conviction. What any person respects more than anything else is his honor, and he shrinks from being branded as a criminal. The system proposed puts him on his own honor and gives him hope and ambition.
Changes at Atlanta.—Widespread newspaper attention has been given to proposed changes at the Federal prison at Atlanta. Hereafter the emphasis will be placed upon reformation instead of on punishment. The convicts will no longer be regarded as dangerous and unmanageable animals, to be subjected only to hard labor, coarse diet and various degrees of punishment, but they will be treated as men: men facing a future filled with the opportunity of reformation, and the influences of prison life will be directed towards the development of their manhood and the creation of new hope in their bosoms.
In the prosecution of this new plan a prison library will be inaugurated, a school established, concerts given by a band to be formed among the inmates and games permitted in the leisure hours. Good behaviour will be rewarded by increased opportunities for instruction and amusement; bad conduct will be punished by curtailment of privilege.
A Governor to Stump for Prison Reform.—The Boston Advertiser reports thatGov.Foss having pardoned 51 convicts, and broken the record, will make prison reform an issue on the stump. He says:
“I have pronounced ideas on the subject. I have received many letters commenting favorably on the reforms that I suggested in my address before the American Bar Association. Massachusetts is standing still on the treatment of its prisoners.
“There are hundreds of so-called criminals in the prisons who may be cured just as people in hospitals are cured of disease.
“Only a very small number of the men in prison are habitual criminals. I don’t wish my ideas to be misinterpreted. Some of my political opponents are attempting to picture me as opening the doors of the prisons. As a matter of fact, I have very decided ideas on the protection of the public from the habitual criminal.
“There are many men in the prisons, however, who commit crime when under the influence of liquor. They become brutes when under the influence of liquor, but when sober and temperate are perfectly normal, first-class citizens who may become a credit to their various communities.”
Transferring Prisoners.—A recent Auburn (N. Y.) newspaper item states that forty-four prisoners were that day transferred to Comstock prison, a journey of about 200 miles. “At 9.30 the prisoners were manacled by twos, with handcuffs on their wrists, and short lengths of chain between their feet, making the act of walking as difficult as athree-legged race. They were marched by twos to the outside prison gate, and lined up while the guards placed themselves in position. At the word, the gate swung back, and the line of gray suits filed out, with a guard in blue at the side of every ten or twelve men. Marching to the New York Central station across the street, each man carrying a small bundle containing a few private belongings, they waited for the train which was half an hour late. A crowd of morbidly curious quickly rushed to the spot.
“When the train finally pulled in, the prisoners were marched up the steps of a special car and down the aisles in regular order. Some difficulty was experienced in getting the men, impeded as they were, up the car steps, and they all smiled at the bystanders as if they were enjoying the little trip in the open air. The guards took up their positions inside the car, the doors were locked, and the train pulled out, leaving the crowd to comment upon the late spectacle.”
Germany’s methods could teach us much by comparison. Transfer of prisoners is specially frequent because in Prussia practically all persons are under a central authority, the department of justice, which transfers prisoners according as fluctuations of population in the prisons occur. By arrangement with the railroads—which in Prussia are under governmental control and operation—specially constructed railway prison cars are attached to early morning or late evening trains, the cars being so constructed as not to afford public display of the prisoners. From the interior of the prison the prisoners are conveyed in vans to the railway stations. So important and frequent are these transfers that a small corps of prison department officials are assigned solely to this special work. This is a “made in Germany” humane plan that deserves our contemplation.
A Michigan Prison Farm.—The Detroit (Mich.) News prints the following editorial, entitled “Prison Farm Redemption”:
The state at large has not heard more encouraging news of progress in any of its institutions than Warden Simpson sets forth in his report on the management and operation of the prison farm at Jackson. The farm is not a big one—only 30 acres in extent—and it admits of little more than experimenting. But the warden and his charges have done some important work on it in the summer now ending. They have grown cabbages, peas, beets, parsnips, carrots, onions, radishes, lettuce, cucumbers, sweet corn and tomatoes enough of the staples to supply the prison for a whole year, and enough of the seasonal produce to give the prisoners fresh vegetables during the summer. One of the new silos will be filled with the ensilage from the green corn. The shelves in the fruit cellars hold 5,000 quarts of canned strawberries, while the memory of seven “feeds” of fresh berries and cream, not to mention shortcake, still lingers with the prisoners. Fifty bushels of huckleberries have been picked from the prison farm marsh. When the tomatoes and apples are ripe, 5,000 gallons of them will be put up for the winter table. In four months 133 hogs have been fattened and slaughtered, yielding 22,077 pounds of fresh pork. All this has been done at a monetary profit to the state. For the bigger profit reference is made to the warden’s own words:
“The inmate working upon the farm, in addition to his useful service, is forming for himself habits of industry, growing fond of his work, perhaps to the extent of following this vocation at the time of his parole and release, thus taking him away from questionable haunts and evil associates known to him of former years in his city home. In my opinion there is no work, trade or calling to which men striving for a livelihood may fall heir, so conducive to the development of health, happiness, honesty and independence, combined with all the attributes of a good citizen, as practical and successful farming.”
“The inmate working upon the farm, in addition to his useful service, is forming for himself habits of industry, growing fond of his work, perhaps to the extent of following this vocation at the time of his parole and release, thus taking him away from questionable haunts and evil associates known to him of former years in his city home. In my opinion there is no work, trade or calling to which men striving for a livelihood may fall heir, so conducive to the development of health, happiness, honesty and independence, combined with all the attributes of a good citizen, as practical and successful farming.”
The Montpelier (Vt.) Jail.—The Reviewmentioned briefly the remarkable success of Sheriff Tracy of Montpelier, Vermont, in allowing his prisoners to go out to work for farmers and other employers. In the Atlantic Monthly for August Morrison I. Swift tells interestingly of the results lately:
“The state of Vermont contains a prison where the inmates are treated upon a novel plan. They are trusted and treated like other human beings; they come and go almost as freely as the members of the jailer’s own family; so far as possible, whatever suggests punishment or disgrace is banished, and they are made to feel that their imprisonment is designed to improve them as men and to restore them to social life not only with full self-respect but with the cordial respect of the community.
“This great innovation in prison practice was made possible by a state law authorizing all sheriffs to set their prisoners at work either inside or outside the jails. In Montpelier, where this prison stands, the inveterate prejudice against prisoners has been swept away.
“As late as two or three years ago, when the men did not return promptly to the jail at the time appointed the sheriff would become nervous and go out to walk the streets looking for them. That is all past now, not only because of the unsuspected traits of human nature that experience has unfolded but because of the marvellous practical success of the system. During the four years, out of 800 prisoners treated upon the new plan only two attempted to escape, both of whom were recaptured and sentenced to long terms in the house of correction for betraying the trust reposed in them. With such a record as this the sheriff no longer feels perturbed if his entire corps of prisoners is scattered in every direction during the day, and he is perfectly assured that at night they will reappear at the jail.
“During the whole period their labor earned above $6,000, of which a total exceeding $2,600 was kept by themselves. As a rule the men have carefully saved their money, limiting permitted purchases for themselves to send it home to those dependent on them.”
Intemperance and Imprisonment Causes of Poverty.—Just at the time when a board of inebriety has been appointed in New York, the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, one of the largest and oldest relief societies of this country, announces the results of a statistical study, commented upon thus in the New York World:
“Only two families in every hundred of the 1,573 which have been in the care of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor this summer were brought to poverty through intemperance. The percentage goes against preconceived notions and is indeed surprisingly small. It should disturb that prosperous complacency which sees in poverty only or mainly the penalty of wanton misdeed. The association’s report for 1909 showed that intemperance, imprisonment, desertion, ‘shiftlessness and inefficiency,’ all told, accounted for not 12 per cent of those brought to want.
“The figures for that year showed that 65 per cent of the poverty was due to two causes—sickness and unemployment. This summer the two causes account for 68 per cent of the poverty noted, and 43 per cent, or nearly half, was due to sickness alone. Here are causes of misery which society can abate or largely remove and the economic evils of which it can provide against through some form of insurance.”
Prison Labor in District of Columbia.—The establishment of an industrial plant in connection with the new district workhouse and reformatory is being considered by the commissioners.
The plan under consideration is to have school furniture, garbage cans and a variety of articles which the district annually is forced to buy manufactured at the plant.
With the object of determining the feasibility of the scheme, Commissioner Judson recently visited the Hampton Industrial Agricultural Institute, at Hampton, Va., where he observed the manufacturingmethods that are employed as a part of the course taught in the school.
It is the opinion of Commissioner Judson that the establishment of an industrial plant by the District, the labor to be supplied by the reformatory prisoners, will prove both practicable and economical.
In the event of the plan materializing, the District, it is said, may sell the articles manufactured at the plant to the different departments of the local government, but may not dispose of them to outside buyers. It was stated today that the commissioners will soon endeavor to secure a new reformatory site.
A “Hobo Army.”—During the first day of September a much-heralded army of the unemployed “descended” on Washington. Thousands had been announced by James Eads How, who for years has been with evident sincerity trying to organize the vagrants of this country into a union. Mr. How’s army numbered at the most several hundred in Washington. The deliberations of the conference furnished space writers of summer newspaper stories with material. But, as the Elizabeth (New Jersey) Journal says: “So far as any impression on the national congress is concerned, the self-styled hoboes might as well have met in Atlantic City.”
Yet there is a real significance in the repeated efforts of James Eads How to organize his hobo brotherhoods inSt.Louis, Chicago, New York and elsewhere. His organization efforts seem futile, but his almost fanatical persistency has attracted more newspaper attention to the fact of an ever-present vagrant armythat will not workthan has any other public event in this field, unless it be the campaign in New York in 1911 for a farm colony for habitual tramps and vagrants. How is pushing the vagrancy problem into the foreground, but perhaps not in the way he imagines.
The Nemesis of Finger Prints.—An editorial in the New York Times of September 5th states that the evidence of guilty finger prints has hitherto been little used in criminal trials. No one has been convicted upon such evidence unsupported by other proof, although in a case of burglary a few months ago the corroborative testimony was supplied by the felon’s confession, made after he had compared the telltale whorls photographed upon the window pane of his victim’s house with his confirmatory digits. A grand jury has this week for the first time returned an indictment upon recorded prints on file at the central office of detectives which are reported to be identical with the faint impressions upon a dusty case found in a loft that had been looted by their stealthy maker. If he is convicted, Captain Faurot of the Police Department’s Bureau of Identification will have won a notable triumph.
Men have been convicted of crimes upon the disputed testimony of handwriting experts. There has always remained some doubt that the chirography of others might be so like their variable hands as to be mistaken for it. There was the chance, too, that some malicious foe had carefully forged the damnatory documents. But the convolutions upon the tactile surfaces of hands and fingers cannot be forged, there is not one chance in a hundred millions that they will resemble the finger prints of another, and their identification with the guilty one is capable of mathematical proof. It would seem that no evidence could be more exact. As its nature becomes known to those who make up our juries, convictions upon such evidence will be common.
Criminal Law and Criminology.—The American Association of Criminal Law and Criminology held its third annual meeting in Boston early in September. Governor Foss of Massachusetts in opening the conferences expressed himself as opposed to the long sentence and in favor of the indeterminate sentence and congenial labor for prisoners.
“The medical world would rise up as a body to condemn any method of medical treatment which left the patient more liable to a recurrence of the disease than he was to its first attack. And yet everywheremen are being sent out of prison with the prison pallor on them, penniless, weakened in body by unwholesome conditions and broken in spirit by the withdrawal of all hope, ambition and self-confidence.
“You are aware that in some places criminals are sent to jail with no guard, going freely on their honor; and that even when they reach the jail they find no prison wall, no armed guard waiting to shoot them down, but only a chance to test their own manhood again; a chance to live in a wholesome place, with sun and air, fair treatment and every incentive to regain their own self-respect.
“I realize that these measures are the extreme and radically opposite to the customary prison methods; and it may be necessary to proceed cautiously in following them. But they have proved effective, and they promise the only hope of betterment that I know of. We can begin to work toward them by gradually abolishing our city prisons, with their dark, cheerless interiors, and building our future houses of correction out in the country, where the sun and wind can get in and where all the men who do not forfeit such right can work in the open fields. There’s nothing dangerously radical in that!”
Professor Kirchwey, of the Columbia university faculty, spoke of the new sense of oneness in society as it is related to the problem of crime. “We can no longer think of society as arrayed against a group of its so-called enemies,” he said. “The criminal is a part of society. The motive power that must drive our reforms is not mere humanitarianism nor sentimentality, but a passion for society as a whole—a realization that society falls short of its oneness, its wholeness, so long as one of its little ones shrivels in the fire.”
He spoke of the institute’s work as a three-fold work: first, to reform criminal judicial procedure; second, to administer remedial measures; and, third, to study conditions, hereditary and environmental, with a view to determining the causes of crime. The third is the most important, he thought, because it is aiming to prevent crime. “It is,” he said, “a field of sanitation, of preventive medicine, of anticipating and preventing the social cancer of crime.
“The state has not been ashamed to avow itself the guardian of the delinquent child. May the time come when it sees there is no distinction of age in all its erring children. Why limit the guardianship of the state to the delinquent or dependent child? It’s impossible to draw the line between the delinquent child and the child not delinquent. They are all entitled to the care and guardianship of society of which they are a part. Society as a whole is responsible for all its members.”
The growing amount of crime among women was discussed. One-seventh of the number of women committed to prison are old offenders. The growing activity of women in industry was declared by President MacChesney to be responsible for a surprising increase in crime.
“In Massachusetts crime among women is much more an economic than a moral problem,” said Miss Mary Boyle O’Reilly. “The overwhelming majority of women in industry are low wage earners, often victims of seasonal trades with their alternate periods of over-work and semi-starvation.
“These young and unsettled workers, many of them homeless and suffering from malnutrition, are ignorant of business customs. Working at machines and trades that are soon learned, they are entirely at the mercy of their employers.
“In our Massachusetts prisons the population falls as prosperity increases in the great centers of industry, but immediately there is a shut-down in the mills of the State we are then forced to note a pitiable increase in the number of women who fall into evil ways.”
The sensation of the annual meeting (from the newspaper standpoint) was the scoring of conditions at the Deer Island (Boston) House of Correction by President MacChesney.
“The buildings are so far behind the times that they must have been built before my State was established. The sanitaryconditions are very bad. There is no attempt at classification or segregation. Youths of tender years convicted of minor offenses are thrown among adult prisoners who have been guilty of serious offenses. Prisoners of all types are thrown together and this should not be so.”
Referring to the women’s prison, Mr. MacChesney said, “I saw one case there that is most deplorable. It is that of a little girl but 17 years of age. She was sent to the institution after being convicted on a charge of vagrancy. She is there thrown among pickpockets and others who have committed serious crimes. Two of your own judges, who were with me, agreed that she should not have been sent there and that girls of that age should be segregated from older and hardened women.”
The men’s dormitories at the institution were also the object of severe criticism. The men’s cells, constructed before the civil war, with no sanitary arrangements at all, were termed barbaric, and, as one member said, “ought to be dynamited.”
While many Massachusetts newspapers expressed satisfaction that the conference had raised the Deer Island issue again, the self-satisfaction or complacency or resentfulness of some of the editorials showed that not all of the “cocksureness” of Puritan times regarding the high character of home habits and institutions has departed from the Bay State.
Jail Poetry.—Upton Sinclair recently “did” eighteen hours imprisonment in the New Castle (Del.) workhouse for violating a Sunday blue law. Seven hours of the time were spent on the stone-pile. The inside cells and the “doubling up” practices led to the following verse:
THE MENAGERIE.Oh, come ye lords and ladies of the realm,Come from your couches soft, your perfumed halls,Come watch with me throughout the weary hours.Here are there sounds to fill your jaded nerves,Such as the cave men, you forefathers, heardCrouching in forests of primeval night.Here tier on tier in steel-barred cages pent,The breasts ye breed and hunt throughout the world.Hark to that snore, some beast that slumbers deep,Hark to that roar, some beast that dreams of blood,Hark to that moan, some beast that wakes and weeps,And there in sudden stillness mark the soundSome beast that rasps his vermin hide.Oh, come, ye lords and ladies of the realm,Come keep the watch with me, the show is yours.Behold the source of all our joy and pride,These beasts ye harness fast and set to drawThe chariots of your pageantry and pomp.It is this blood ye shed to make your feasts,It is their treadmill that moves all your world.Come sit and think how it will be with youWhen God shall send his flaming angel downAnd break these bars, so hath he done of yore.So doeth he to lords and ladies grand,Who feed upon the blood of other menAnd loose these beasts to raven in your streets.
THE MENAGERIE.Oh, come ye lords and ladies of the realm,Come from your couches soft, your perfumed halls,Come watch with me throughout the weary hours.Here are there sounds to fill your jaded nerves,Such as the cave men, you forefathers, heardCrouching in forests of primeval night.Here tier on tier in steel-barred cages pent,The breasts ye breed and hunt throughout the world.Hark to that snore, some beast that slumbers deep,Hark to that roar, some beast that dreams of blood,Hark to that moan, some beast that wakes and weeps,And there in sudden stillness mark the soundSome beast that rasps his vermin hide.Oh, come, ye lords and ladies of the realm,Come keep the watch with me, the show is yours.Behold the source of all our joy and pride,These beasts ye harness fast and set to drawThe chariots of your pageantry and pomp.It is this blood ye shed to make your feasts,It is their treadmill that moves all your world.Come sit and think how it will be with youWhen God shall send his flaming angel downAnd break these bars, so hath he done of yore.So doeth he to lords and ladies grand,Who feed upon the blood of other menAnd loose these beasts to raven in your streets.
THE MENAGERIE.
Oh, come ye lords and ladies of the realm,Come from your couches soft, your perfumed halls,Come watch with me throughout the weary hours.Here are there sounds to fill your jaded nerves,Such as the cave men, you forefathers, heardCrouching in forests of primeval night.Here tier on tier in steel-barred cages pent,The breasts ye breed and hunt throughout the world.Hark to that snore, some beast that slumbers deep,Hark to that roar, some beast that dreams of blood,Hark to that moan, some beast that wakes and weeps,And there in sudden stillness mark the soundSome beast that rasps his vermin hide.
Oh, come ye lords and ladies of the realm,
Come from your couches soft, your perfumed halls,
Come watch with me throughout the weary hours.
Here are there sounds to fill your jaded nerves,
Such as the cave men, you forefathers, heard
Crouching in forests of primeval night.
Here tier on tier in steel-barred cages pent,
The breasts ye breed and hunt throughout the world.
Hark to that snore, some beast that slumbers deep,
Hark to that roar, some beast that dreams of blood,
Hark to that moan, some beast that wakes and weeps,
And there in sudden stillness mark the sound
Some beast that rasps his vermin hide.
Oh, come, ye lords and ladies of the realm,Come keep the watch with me, the show is yours.Behold the source of all our joy and pride,These beasts ye harness fast and set to drawThe chariots of your pageantry and pomp.It is this blood ye shed to make your feasts,It is their treadmill that moves all your world.Come sit and think how it will be with youWhen God shall send his flaming angel downAnd break these bars, so hath he done of yore.So doeth he to lords and ladies grand,Who feed upon the blood of other menAnd loose these beasts to raven in your streets.
Oh, come, ye lords and ladies of the realm,
Come keep the watch with me, the show is yours.
Behold the source of all our joy and pride,
These beasts ye harness fast and set to draw
The chariots of your pageantry and pomp.
It is this blood ye shed to make your feasts,
It is their treadmill that moves all your world.
Come sit and think how it will be with you
When God shall send his flaming angel down
And break these bars, so hath he done of yore.
So doeth he to lords and ladies grand,
Who feed upon the blood of other men
And loose these beasts to raven in your streets.
American Prison Association.—The American prison association will hold its annual meeting at Omaha, Nebraska, from October 14-19, 1911. Among the subjects to be discussed are: the resolutions of the 1910 international prison congress in their application to the United States; prison construction; mental deficiency and moral delinquents; prison recreation; the prison physician; the prevention of crime and insanity; psychology of the criminal; physical defects as a factor in the making of criminals;the jails of Florida; farm work for misdemeanants; statistics of crime; tuberculosis in prisons; governing boards; payment to prisoners and their families; some facts concerning prisoners’ dependents.
The following standing committees will report: prison discipline; prevention and probation; jails, lock-ups and police stations; reformatory work and parole; discharged prisoners.
Among the speakers will be Professor Charles R. Henderson, Judge C. A. DeCourcey, James A. Leonard, Joseph F. Scott, A. H. Leslie, Frank Moore, J. K. Cutting, Henry W. K. Scott, Charles M. Miller, Franklin H. Briggs, Dr. Theodore Cook, Jr., Dr. Daniel Phelan, Dr. William Healy, Dr. William Martin Richards, George W. Wickersham, W. H. Eichorn, A. W. Gilchrist, L. A. Halbert, Frank L. Randall, Mrs. Imogen B. Oakley, Eugene Smith,Rev.Thomas W. Houston, Guy H. Humphreys, William H. DeLacy, William H. Venn, Miss Eva Booth, Joseph P. Byers.
Surely a splendid program. Every one interested in prison reform should attend the Omaha meeting.
Baltimore,Md., July 31, 1911.
Editor,The Review,
Sir—Referring to the article inThe Reviewfor July, regarding “Parole in Maryland,” the reporter of the BaltimoreAmerican, from which paper this was taken, drew a great deal upon his imagination and as a result did not make correct statements.
Probation has been in service in Maryland for several years, but its use has grown very rapidly during the past two years under the new system instituted by the supreme bench. The mention made of $600 having been collected year before last by the Association and the probability of $5,000 being collected this year referred entirely to non-support cases. The practice of the courts has formerly been to order the husbands to pay their wives direct, but as the system worked very badly this is being gradually changed to a great extent by the courts ordering that the alimony be paid through this Association; a great improvement has been noted under the new arrangement.
The earnings of our probationers last year amounted to about $40,000. This was ascertained by carefully kept records from reports made monthly by the probationers. One can easily see the importance of this work to the city and state if viewed only from an economic point of view.
Charles D. Reid,Executive Secretary.