The State should not provide this machine for the moral destruction of her unfortunate youth. If this be the real and true condition of affairs, what can be done to change them? I would suggest the erection, at once, of a reformatory. Classify the prisoners. Let those who are in for the first offense be separated from those who are professional and debased criminals. Give these youthful offenders the benefit of schools, connected with the reformatory. Let them have moral instruction, and many of these young men will be reclaimed, However well a criminal is treated, when behind prison walls, however good the advantages granted him, all this will avail but little, if some provision is not made to aid him when he leaves the prison. Many prisoners, at the time of their discharge, may be, in heart, as pure as angels, and resolve to lead good lives, yet they are convicts, and carry out with them the shame and disgrace of such a life. They must live even if they are disgraced. They must have work. Who will employ a convict? Should a man, just from the prison, come to you and frankly inform you that he was recently discharged from a felon's cell, that he had been convicted of horse-stealing, for instance, and wanted employment with you on the farm, how many of you, my readers, would give him work? You would be afraid of him. You would decline hisservices, and who could blame you? But the convict must live, and it is easily seen, how, that after applying to several for work and being refused each time on account of his past trouble, he would, after a time, become discouraged and return to a life of a criminal. Hunger drives him to deeds of desperation, and more especially is this the case if he have a wife or helpless children depending upon him. On his discharge from the prison the State presents him, with a shoddy suit of clothes (very cheap), buys him a ticket for the town from which he came, and then lets him shift for himself. Disgraced, penniless, friendless, helpless, how is it possible for anyone of them ever to secure another foothold in life.
Something should be done, to help these men to secure work for a time after their discharge from prison. This would prevent a vast majority of criminals from returning to the prison after their first term. That my views on this subject may not be considered visionary, and that I may not be regarded as standing alone in my suggestions, I will give a portion of the report of Rev. J. Gierlow, ex-chaplain of the Missouri penitentiary"The increase of crime is necessarily attracting the attention of all thinking people, and there is abundant evidence that crime-causes are increasing, for which there seems to be no adequate prevention. It has been said, that nearly all crime originates in the saloon, but this statement requires discrimination. Very few professional thieves are inebriates. That class of criminals are sober men, they could not ply their trade without a clear head, nor do they go with those who drink, for they talk too much. No, intemperance to a considerable extent, is only a secondary cause of crime which must be reached by well-ordered, sanitary, hygienic and educational measures. Diseased bodies and unbalanced minds are largely characteristic of criminals; and these are two factors in producing crime.
