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WASHINGTON, D.
D. C., JUVENILE COURT.

Washington's need of an entirely separate court for the hearing of cases against juvenile offenders was emphasized recently in a number of speeches delivered at the first annual banquet o the "Hungry Club," an organiaztion composed of persons interested in sociological and philanthropic work in the city.

Mr. Thos. C. Noyes acted as toastmaster, and speeches were made during the evening by Mr. Zed H. Copp, probation officer of the district; Judge C. W. Heuisler of the Juvenile Court of Baltimore. Mr. John W. Douglass of the Board of Children's Guardians and Major Richard Sylvester, superintendent of the metropolitan police. Great interest was evinced by the guests in the several speeches, and the meeting was characterized by a spirit of enthusiasm.

After the guests had disposed of an excellent menu, Mr. Noyes announced that the general subject for consideration was "The I'revention of Crime Among Children." Under this general theme, said Mr. Noyes, would be considered three topics-the present condition of the Juvenile Court in Washington, the operations of the Juvenile Court in other cities and the needs of Washington.

The tendency of the authorities during the last few years, said the toastmaster, has been to deal with the youthful offender before he has developed his wayward 'tendencies in degree. Efforts are being made to prevent the dissemination among young boys of so-called literature of degrading character, and to pre vent the youthful offenders against the laws from coming in contact with the degrading influences of the station houses, the police court, etc.

PRESENT CONDITIONS.

The toastmaster called upon Mr. Copp to speak of the present conditions of the Juvenile Court in Washington.

Mr. Copp said that the Juvenile Court is an innovation in jurisprudence and in criminology. The first juvenile court in the country was organized in Chicago July 1, 1900. The first session of the court for youthful offenders in Washington was held January 13, 1902. As the Juvenile Court now exists, said Mr. Copp, it meets every reasonable expectation, and the faults of the institution, if any, are in the system. The influence of the court, he said, is everywhere noticeable.

Mr. Copp said that some of the disadvantages of the present system were as follows: The Juvenile Court has no certain time for meeting, and the sessions are frequently postponed until late in the day on account of the congested condition of the adult court. The youthful offenders are held in the regular courtroom while waiting for trials, and hear evidence in profanity and cases of even worse character, or else they are kept for hours in stuffy cells, and their parents are obliged to wait around the dingy Police Court. Another disadvantage, he said, is that there is too much work to do and too few to do it. In conclusion Mr. Copp said:

LACK OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION.

"So long as the present conditions of the courts and alleys of the city exist we will have to deal with children of depraved tendencies. Another thing that adds to the number of youthful offenders in Washington is the lack of a compulsory education law here. Too many children are permitted to remain out of school by their parents. Many children are also allowed to roam the streets at night with scarcely any restraint. The boys and girls who are thus free from parental control are growing up trained in the life of the streets. There should be a curfew law in Washington to correct this bad practice. The immoral conditions among adults in the courts and alleys of Washington are also conducive to the development of criminal tendencies among the boys and girls who are obliged to live in those squalid quarters. These things demand the closest attention of the citizens of Washington.

"Provision should also be made in the national capital for a 'guide hall,' an institution similar to the Y. M. C. A., where the colored youth of the city might feel free to go and spend their evenings. City farm gardens should also be provided for, as they will not only assist in the cultivation of a desire for country life, but will furnish a means of livelihood to many.

"When the question of properly caring for the child has been solved there will be no further need for jails, charitable institutions, police courts, policemen, etc."

In commenting on Mr. Copp's remarks Mr. Noyes mentioned his experiences several years ago as police court reporter. At that time, he said, children were thrown in cells with professional criminals, where they learned many things they should not have learned from those versed in criminality. The conditions now are somewhat better, he said, but the improvements in the system must not stop where they are. Without casting any reflection upon any of the judges, he said that the mind of a who has devoted a large part of the day to deciding cases

of adult offenders is not in proper frame to decide the cases of juvenile offenders. Provision should be made for a separate court and separate judge.

CONDITIONS IN BALTIMORE.

Judge Heuisler was then introduced. He declared that the Juvenile Court strikes at the root of the problem of prevention of crime. It is axiomatic, he said, that it is much easier to prevent crime than to inflict punishment for its commission. Continuing, he said:

"The juvenile courts are a godsend to the police officer. The millennium mentioned by Mr. Copp is by no means near, and Maj. Sylvester need not fear that he will lose his position because of the scarcity of crime. That ideal of government is a long ways off, and even with well-directed juvenile courts it will take time to eradicate criminal tendencies in humanity.

"There is one thing sure, though, about the operations of the juvenile_court. It must be entirely divorced from the adult court. In Baltimore we have a separate Juvenile Court, to a certain extent. The legislature, after providing for the institution, forgot to make laws to govern it; but we try to run the court by administering justice to each individual whose case comes before us. In doing this I have tried to use a maximum of common sense, together with what law there is available." Judge Heuisler told of the operations of the Juvenile Court in Baltimore, and related incidents of the court. He emphasized the need of kind, intelligent and tactful probation officers. These officers, he said, must follow the youthful offender into his home and endeavor to correct the conditions there. "Do not drag the child out of the hole and sponge him off and then throw him back into the same hole again," said Mr. Heuisler. "The hole must be cleaned out, too, and the co-operation of the parents or guardians must be secured."

The speaker disapproved of using the patrol wagon for the purpose of carrying young boys to the places of detention and to the court. In conclusion, Mr. Heuisler emphasiezd the need of proper care for the boys and girls who transgress the laws.

WHAT IS NEEDED IN WASHINGTON.

Mr. Douglass, in speaking on the needs of Washington with regard to a juvenile court, stated that the Juvenile Court in that city is now held without any authority of law, but an arrangement with the judges of the Police Court. Among other things he said:

"We have here now an old hulk of a building called a Police Court, in appearance an offense to the sight and a disgrace to any city. In this ramshackle affair the Juvenile Court is held. Washington ought to have a new Police Court building, in which should be set aside a bright, attractive room to be used for the hearing of cases against youthful offenders. The children should not by any means be brought into contact with the adult breakers of the law. The Juvenile Court should be established by law, and after that has been done and a new building has been provided, competent officers should be secured and a competent probation system should be adopted.

"It seems that the time is ripe to strike for a separate Juvenile Court for Washington at the coming session of Congress. We cannot spend too much money to save the child offenders from becoming criminals. The needs of the city are imperative and the people of Washington should take the matter up at once." Major Sylvester spoke briefly with regard to the needs of the city in order to prevent crime among the children. Among other things he said a law providing for a compulsory education is necessary, and a curfew law should also be enacted. Suitable playgrounds should be established for the youth of the city, and there should be a separate court in which to hear and decide the cases of children who have violated the laws.

Within a very few days Scranton, Pa., will have a Juvenile Court. It is expected that with the opening of the next session of the Criminal Court the judges of the courts of Lackawanna County will make an order establishing the new Juvenile Court in accordance with the law just passed by the last legislature. Jesse Reynolds of Irving, Ill., aged 11 years, was taken to Hillsboro, Ill., recently, to be sent to the Reform School. The application was made by his grandmother, Mrs. Rachal Revnolds, who stated that she was unable to do anything with him. County Judge McMurray did not like the idea of sending a boy of that age to the reform school and through his good offices he succeeded in securing a home for the boy with Matt Miller near Hillsboro. Jesse is a bright appearing little fellow and will have a good home and it is to be hoped that with the kind treatment that he will receive, he will live to be a useful citizen.

JUVENILE COURT FOR MOBILE.

By MRS. ERWIN CRAIGHEAD.

Mobile has been the first in many matters looking toward the betterment of the condition of the children-as is evidenced by the fact that this city is the only one having the kindergarten system in connection with her schools instead of making it a charitable movement, as in other places-and so I hope that Mobile will be the leader in the movement for the establishment of a Juvenile Court.

Juvenile courts are regular establishments in many places, and they are proving of the greatest assistance, saving many children from the certain ignominy that attaches in some degree to those who have been inmates of state institutions, and that such an adjunct to the courts of Mobile would be beneficial is unquestioned. We all get so busy, we have so many things to do that it seems every moment is filled, and we have little or no time to attend to these things. But they are most important. So far as I have looked into the matter, I infer that the Juvenile Court is a regularly organized legal court. It is more for the children who are not naturally bad enough to be sent to the reform school, but yet who need some restraining power. I believe that no child under sixteen years of age should be sent to any penal institution unless the conditions, as well as himself, are all bad.

LITTLE EXPENSE INCURRED.

In the Juvenile Court, the judge, it may be, and one or two necessary officers are salaried. Philanthropic citizens, men and women who are willing to devote a portion of their time to the betterment of humanity, assist in the work without compensation, and in this way an efficient and regular organization is effected at very little cost.

The children are brought before the judge of the Juvenile Court. Testimony is taken for and against the alleged offender, the same as in the other courts. The judge makes every effort, though, to determine the primary cause of the child's bad behavior. He interviews and cross-examines the parents and others who know of the family and the conditions. The judge, indeed, seeks to regard the child as though it were his own, and to judge it accordingly. If the conditions are in the least favorable, the child is paroled under the supervision of one of the citizens who assists the court because of love for humanity. The judge, before he allows the child to go, explains his duties in life. He explains that the child must first regard and obey the laws of its parent; next, those of the community; next, those of the state; next, those of the nation; and, last, he must regard the higher laws of God, the Creator. With this lesson impressed upon him he is allowed to go, but with the knowledge that there are others-many others-interested in his welfare, hoping that he will succeed in getting along as he should, and who believe in his honor and honesty. He is, in fact, given to understand that he is being given an opportunity to prove himself, and that the court and the people are watching him-all being willing to give him assistance if it be necessary. He leaves the courtroom knowing that he has privileges that he must not abuse. The probationary officer-serving without pay-encourages the boy to go ahead and do right, and in measure, he watches over him. When all this is done, if he transgresses again he is deemed a fit subject for the reformatory, and is sent there. THE NEGRO QUESTION.

Now, I do not see why we shouldn't have such an institution here. I know that the question of the negro will come up at once. But I cannot see why they, too, should not have their chance. They are with us, and always will be. I do not know what we would do without them, and, for one, I am very sure I would be sorry to have to do without them. If the colored child transgresses he should be given an opportunity to improve, and if not he should be placed where he will improve.

If the citizens of Mobile become interested in this important matter, and give the aid that I believe they should, and will, I am sure it would not require very cumbersome machinery. I have a letter from Judge M. B. Feagin, judge of the inferior civil court of Birmingham, asking if it is not possible for the Federation of Women's Clubs to take the matter up. It is possible that they might give it their assistance later on, after a movement is started.

I find that it is often the parents who are in fault. There is so general a misunderstanding of the rights and privileges of children. This is an age of overindulgence. Much of it, I think, grows out of the selfishness of the parents, who do not care to study the child and its desires, and who very often take exactly the wrong way with it. For instance, I have found that when a boy reaches a certain age, when he emerges from the almost constant influence of the home. he has greater wants, other needs, but so simple a matter as spending money for him is hardly considered by many parents. The child goes on, wishing a

thing very much, he plans a way to get it, knowing in many instances that it will be useless to apply to his parents for the money. He steals to get it. He does not know the enormity of the crime, usually, but when it comes to finding out, he fears a whipping, and he lies, commits another serious crime. If he gets out of it, he has acquired a knowledge that may be of the very greatest harm to him.

CHILDREN HAVE STRONG SENSE OF JUSTICE. Children, I find by my acquaintance with those who are brought to me to be recommended for entry into the reform school, have a strong sense of justice. If they are unjustly treated at home, they presently run away and often become bad boys. And this is often because the parents do not take the child into their confidence. All this the judge of the Juvenile Court tries to remedy, tries to bring about a good feeling between the parent and the child. The philanthropists and reformers nowadays, when methods and conditions are so much better understood, are all inclined toward the humane shaping of the mind of the child, all within the bounds of reason and common sense. They recognize that the community or state has no right to interfere with the treatment of the children except in cases of debasement or ignorance. The little folks are very susceptible to kindness and to reason, and the reformers work with that knowledge.

In my work I have found that many parents call upon me in serious trouble as to what shall be done with the child. They have trouble in making the child do what it ought, and at once the reform school is mentioned to them. Then they come to me. I talk it over with them, trying to dissuade them from so radical a course. I cannot, however, go into the matter as a judge in a court could. An outsider cannot ask the parent many questions that would be in the judge's province. But in my experience I find that the great trouble with the children is a disinclination to obey. They have never been taught to do so. They have been allowed to do things almost as they liked, but upon certain occaNot sions they are called upon to do certain things, at once. being accustomed to this, they rebel. The parents compel them, if possible, and then there come dissensions and often the child grows worse. It is best not to make issue with a child wherever possible to avoid it-if the offense is not really serious it is often best to overlook it-not to see it. But there should be a constant discipline. Not too exacting, but the child should be taught that there are certain duties in life that must not be shirked. The child should be given some confidences-it should, it has the right to, know why it is prohibited from certain things. But after the prohibition, for every transgression there should be certain and adequate punishment.

A CASE FOR ACTION.

There are cases, I believe, where the child should be sent to the reformatory instanter. A woman came to me not long ago with her boy. It was impossible to tell when he was telling the truth. The child had not done anything so very bad yet, but he was on the road to become a bad criminal. His mother, it was evident to me, is an opium eater. In this case the child_should be sent to the institution because there are no good influences at home.

I am sorry to say that I sometimes think that the parents wish to get rid of their children, this being why they try to get them off to the reformatory. There may be many reasonsremarriage, separation, etc. In this, as throughout, what we have to think of is the child.

This matter has been on my mind for a year or more, and I have hoped that some of the philanthropic people of Mobile would investigate to determine if the plan would be feasible for this city. In connection with the Juvenile Court I think it would be well to have a matron at the police station, to have charge of the women and children there. This Juvenile Court, as I understand it, is in all respects the same as regular courts, but the judge has larger jurisdiction, in that he may parole children whenever he deems it advisable. Warrants may issue from this court, and subpoenas as well. If the parents or neighbors are subpoenaed to appear in the Juvenile Court, they must do so, or the penalty will be the same as in other tribunals of justice. In this court there is no doubt but that remedies for troubles would very frequently be found without humiliating the child or the parents. As it is now, there is no one to especially attend to these matters and so they are not attended to. I have often advised parents to take their children before the judge of one of the courts of the city, but there is always a disinclination to do this. So the remedy, and one that would be a help, I believe, to parents and children and would assist many a boy to become better and manlier, is the establishment of a juvenile court.

"THE LEAST OF THESE"

By CLARA E. LAUGHLIN in the Interior. People in the District Commonly Called "The Slums."

The frost held off a commendably long time in Chicago this fall. October was golden, glorious, and the first half of November was of like sort. But early in the week before Thanksgiving there came a morning when the dwellers in steam-heated apartments awoke to find frost on their window-panes, and over in McHenry Street something very like terror was in Mrs. Casey's eyes as she realized that winter was at hand.

Months ago Mickey, driven to desperation by his father's cruelties, ran away from home, and though they have searched diligently for him in the places they thought he might be, not a trace of "the man o' the house" have the Casey mother and children been able to find. It is reported in the neighborhood that poor Mickey, with his scant allowance of wits and his pinched little under-fed, overworked body, has "gone on the levee," and that he is floating. about with the other flotsam and jetsam of a great city's human wreckage, in the five-cent lodging houses and the "barrel-houses," where the dregs of humanity settle and where the lowest, most brutal forms of crimes are bred. Poor Mickey may raise his feeble hand against social law and order, but social law and order mustn't blame him, for it allowed him to go to work for the support of his family when he was only eleven years old, and to go to work, for ten long hours of each day, in a wall-paper factory where he breathed air filled with arsenic and worked at a temperature of 110. And as if this were not enough to undo him, he has had to suffer since his babyhood the brutal cuffings and kickings and beatings of a bestial father. Every cent that he earned, save only enough for a bite of lunch each day, Mickey turned over at the week's end to his mother, but when his father regularly made him give up his lunch money to him, for drink, and enforced this requisition by blows, Mickey's endurance was over-reached, and he left the cellar home one morning in the late summer and has never been heard from since.

Six weeks ago Mr. Casey left, too. He left on a Sunday night. The night before, Angela Ann had been paid four dollars for pasting labels, and this little sum, minus Angela Ann's carfare and five cents a day for lunch, was all that the Caseys would have for another week. And the rent was due, and the credit at Israel Goldstein's was suspended until something should be paid on their account.

Mrs. Shugar was insistent, and as it is possible to live on little or no food for several days, if need be, but not possible to live on the sidewalk, Mrs. Casey decided to pay "th' rint" and trust to Providence for food.

But before Mrs. Shugar appeared on her ninth call for the rent, Mr. Casey took occasion to forestall her by demanding the money and setting out for Milwaukee. And not wishing his family

hundred and ninety-ninth critical emergency of the Caseys. The best that could be done was to get a month's rent paid and leave money enough to lay in a store of flour and beans and such staples as would ward off actual starvation till the chronicler got back from the East. There wasn't even time to superintend the laying in of the food stock,-it had to be intrusted to Angela Ann. And the chronicler went away with some misgivings, for long and intimate experience of the Caseys and their kind had taught her that while the poor often need money, and need it sorely, their most insistent and ever-present need is the need of

MOLLIE.

to suffer the anguish of uncertainty. Mr. Casey advised them, before leaving, that it was doubtful if he ever came back.

The next night, after her day's work was done, Angela Ann presented herself, full of woe, in the office of the chronicler of these "short and simple annals of the poor." Mrs. Shugar had descended, full of wrath and breathing forth threats of immediate eviction; there was no fire and no food and Mollie couldn't go to school because she had no shoes. The chronicler was on the eve of departing for New York and was working long and late to get her desk cleared before leaving, so there was literally no time to visit McHenry Street and take the helm in the nine

guidance. They have a whole great stock of virtues, God knows, that we of better education, kindlier experience, have not. But they have not, for the most part, any great wisdom in the disposal of their little means. Doubtless they are not more ignorant of food values, all told, than thousands of persons of infinitely greater education, academic and economic. There have been schoolma'ms by the hundred who have thought (if they have thought at all) that a bakery pie was as filling and, therefore, as satisfactory food as a thick broiled steak. And there have been bank clerks who have never dreamed that ice cream and doughnuts, eaten "on the fly" at a lunch counter, were not sufficient nourishment for the midday meal of a hardworking man. Yes, and every day of the year, and every hour of the day, the rich and the university-bred and the traveled and the cultivated, wantonly abuse their stomachs, deliberately invite the terrible twinges of gout and the horrible pangs of dyspepsia. Is there any one who feels entitled to cast the first stone at the Caseys because they are prone to invest money given them for flour and beans and rice in doughnuts and cream puffs and indescribably awful lemon cream pies out of Israel Goldstein's? But human as the propensity may be, it is not to be encouraged. And what Mrs. Casey needs, as much as a bit of cash is the hearty, unfailing interest of a friend, the careful concern of some one who will show her how to bake great brown earthen pots of navy beans and nourish the children at the cost of a few pennies; some one who will encourage her to bake home-made bread, instead of buying the chalk and ammonia and alum compound sold at Goldstein's for bread, at two loaves for five cents; some one who will make it plain to her that beef liver fried hard as boot-soles costs as much as soup and destroys more energy than gallons of good soup can build up again. Some one to "take interest,"-that's what the Caseys need, and what all the Caseys' kind need. If every one who has just a little bit to spare.-a little time, a little experience, a little friendly interest, a little, be it ever so little. money,would feel personally responsible, before God, for one family of Caseys, there wouldn't be any "slums"!

But to return to this immediate crisis in the Casey affairs: The chronicler was absent in New York, but there remained to the Caseys a very good friend, one who has stood by them for years, helping them over unnumbered hard places and giving them (and a score more like them) out of all proportion to her means,-for people with big sympathies always have the slenderest possible purses. When one thinks of the poor as a conglomerate mass of misery, deplorable but "always with you" and therefore not to be helped to any appreciable degree, he can have no idea how it feels to be intimately acquainted with certain individuals of the poor-faithful, anxious mothers, lovely little cold and hungry children, pitiful little

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Long years of loving interest in the Caseys have given her many privileges with them and they resent nothing that she does, but love her with a whole-hearted affection passing words. She inquired if the rent was paid, and learned that it was; inquired into the state of the pantry and found due purchase, according to instruction, of oatmeal and flour and navy beans, etc. It was supper time when she called, and the Caseys were crowded about their kitchen table, which was strewn with crumbs and (if the truth be told, rather sodden with "spillings," but in the center of it, fast asleep, lay a little pussy cat, only that afternoon rescued from the alley by one of the children, and adopted, after many pleadings, on the promise that each would contribute a share to its food supply. Pussy had chosen to go to sleep in the middle of the table, soon after her rescue and formal adoption, and when supper time came and she still slept, it never occurred to her happy possessors to disturb her, nor did it occur to pussy to be disturbed by the chatter nor the crumbs nor the "spillings." And on the floor, looking eagerly expectant, sat Nellie, the most wretched-looking of all the tribe of yellow curs, who had been adopted, on the same promise, some time before. And faithful to the promise, Nellie was fed, now from this wee, grimy hand, now from that, and it was enough to make the tears come to the eyes of a person who always has enough to eat, when that one reflected that the times were few in the lives of these children when they actually had an appetite at rest.

When the caller had noticed Nellie and been told about the pussy and ventured to ask (the tears being not far distant) if the children didn't think they were keeping a good deal of live stock, there was a perceptible constraint in the eager little group about the table. Mrs. Casey looked a bit guilty and the children showed signs of some awful secret struggling to burst the bonds of silence.

"We're after buying a hin," said Mrs. Casey, at length, "aff a bye in the alley. fer tin cints."

"A hen?" gasped the visitor.

"Sure!" Johnnie replied, delighted now that "murder was out," and dived behind the stove calling, "Here, chickey, chickey, chickey."

"Chickey" seemed to have no mind to come forth, but Johnnie insisted, and presently emerged with the most abject of all the feathered tribe,-not so very feathered, either, for its plumage seemed to consist of about a third of the proper allotment, and was woefully bedraggled at that.

"Ni-ice chickey, chickey," cooed the little Caseys, crowding about it and stroking its sad-looking feathers, unconscious that it was not the handsomest of fowls. It was the first live chicken they had ever seen and their investment in it had been a matter of something more than sentiment. Undoubtedly they had desired the chicken, but probably they would not have felt justified in investing ten whole cents in it, were it not that they dimly remembered hearing that hens laid eggs.

Now, eggs are a great delicacy in McHenry Street. You and I couldn't eat the eggs that find their way thither, but McHenry

Street esteems them highly, because McHenry Street has never known the taste of a fresh-laid egg,-no, nor even of one that the grocer calls "strictly fresh." If asked to speculate what a king has for breakfast, the Caseys would probably guess, without an instant's hesitation, "fried eggs," with a possible addition of fried potatoes. The purchase of the hen, therefore, seemed the shrewdest of investments, besides being very pleasant from a sociable point of view. But alas! poor "chickey," tied securely to the stove leg, had merely pined, and moulted a little more, and the Caseys were smitten with skepticism touching some things set forth as facts in the First Reader where, as every one knows, it states: 'The hen lays the egg."

All this being duly related to the chronicler in New York, she made haste to inquire, first thing on seeing Angela Ann, a fortnight later, for the welfare of the "hin."

Angela Ann's face grew sober, then overcast.

"Sure, it's kilt," she said. "My ma says we're not after needin' no hin to look at, an' we'll joost ate it, she says." And there followed an account of the sorrows attendant upon this almost cannibal feast.

But things so much graver than the necessary death of the hen have weighed, even on the childish spirits in the Caseys' cellar, this fall, that what might have been a tragic episode has become simply one phase of what promises to be a tragic fate. Winter is upon them and this is the situation: The rent of their vile cellar, where the damp stands in beads on the walls, is seven dollars a month, payable promptly, under penalty. Food is terribly high and so is fuel. There are seven of them,-Mrs. Casey, Angela Ann, Johnnie, Midget, Mollie, Dewey and the baby, and their income, for rent and fire and food and shoes and clothes, is something like three dollars a week, when Angela Ann's carfare and lunch pittance are extracted from her four dollar wages. Johnnie is but twelve years old, and it will be four years labor will try to protect Johnnie from Mickey's fate, and this is labor will try to protect oJhnnie from Mickey's fate, and this is an effort worthy of all praise, but in the meantime the seven Caseys must eke out existence somehow on the exceedingly meager wages of Angela Ann. Nor is there much, if any, hope that Angela Ann will ever earn much more, for innutrition and the damp cellar and paternal abuse and going to work as a cashgirl in a wretched, cheap "emporium" when she was only thirteen, have rendered the poor child but ill-fitted to win more than the most precarious subsistence.

Mrs. Casey is a physical wreck, with a consumptive death staring her in the face. She has never known how to read or write and her worldly wisdom has been almost correspondingly small, but she has been a good woman. If there, was but one talent delivered to her, at least she has not despised it nor buried it in a napkin, but she has been faithful according to her light. She has reared her children gently, lovingly, trying with all her simple might to "kape thim good," as she expresses it. She has suffered untellable horrors and has remained unembittered. She has gone without, in the seasons of famine, that her children might have a little more, and has never considered herself a heroine. She has worked hard, all her life, and loved much, and been true to the charge delivered to her, and what more can one say of the wisest and best? And now she feels brought to bay. Added to her terrible anxiety about Mickey, who has, she fears, "gon' wrong," she is in terror about the future. A little bit of temporary relief is something, but it is only a reprieve.

Mrs. Casey and her children ought to be moved out of that death-dealing cellar. Their dream of Paradise is a snug little four-roomed cottage out on the wide, rolling prairie lands in the outskirts of Chicago, not too far for Angela Ann to reach her work for five cents. They ought to have this cottage; they ought to have the rent assured to them, for the winter at least; they ought to have coal; they ought to have a barrel of flour and a few other staples to help out the food Angela Ann is able to earn for them; they ought to have shoes and flannels, and as a man cannot live by bread alone (much less can little children!) they ought to have a "square meal" for Thanksgiving, and just a little something not strictly necessary, but blessedly superfluous and joy-giving, for Christmas time.

There is organized charity? Yes! But organized charity has thousands of demands upon it; it has such hard work to separate the worthy from the unworthy that it must not be too harshly blamed if it is prone to be a little suspicious, a little cold, a little mechanical. And it has so much to do it cannot undertake to regenerate, but only to "tide over," now and then. There is no organized charity on God's earth that is going to step in and lay a loving hand on Mrs. Casey's toil-bowed shoulder and face the look of terror in her eyes, and say, "Don't worry; they shan't be hungry or cold, those little children to whom you've been so faithful. Some one that has a little more than he needs will share with you, who have so much less than you need. You must never feel that this is a cold, uncaring world, where your hunger and your sorrows find no sympathy. There is some one that loves you and believes in you and will stand shoulder

to shoulder with you in your yoke of care under a too-heavy load!"

There is no organized charity that will do this. Is there any love that will do it, anywhere?

ART

THE

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The best railway line between CHICAGO, ST. LOUIS, KANSAS CITY and PEORIA. Take the "Alton" to the St. Louis World's Fair, 1904.

WINTER TRAVEL

PERSONALLY CONDUCTED PULLMAN TOURIST CARS TWICE A WEEK TO

CALIFORNIA

VIA SALT LAKE THE

Colorado Midland

Railway

BEST OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN SCENERY AND SPECIAL LOW RATES. ASK FOR OUR BOOKS

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"The Mystery of Alcoholism Revealed"

Is pronounced by doctors of medicine and divin-
ity, and teachers. The only scientific work on
the subjects treated ever written for the lay
reader. It tells what causes the appetite for
drink. It describes the diseases caused by it
and tells how they are cau ed, and how in-
ebriety is inherited. It describes how drink
affects the mind and the will. It is founded
upon the author's years of study and experience
in the treatment of Alcoholism; upon his
chemical and microscopic examinations and
autopsies. It teaches the doctrine of total
abstinence.

Parents save your boys from the horrors of a
drunkards life by teaching them the facts
about intoxicants at home.

Book is bound in cloth, 170 pages. with halftone engraving of author, and index. Prepaid to any address on receipt of $1.50 by P. O. order or registered mail. Address

H. C. BUSH, Traffic Manager, Denver C. H. SPEERS, Gen. Pass. Agt., Denver

H. W. JACKSON, Gen'l Agt., 306 Marquette Bldg., Chicago

T. J. SAVAGE, M. D., Xenia, O.

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