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Juvenile Court Record

PUBLISHED BY THE VISITATION AND AID SOCIETY
T. D. HURLEY, Editor, 79 Dearborn Street, Chicago, Ill.
Eastern Office, 53 W. 24th Street, New York City

The JUVENILE COURT RECORD is published monthly, except in the month of July. Single copies, 10 cents. Subscription price, $1 per year.

Entered at Post Office, Chicago, as second-class matter.

The JUVENILE COURT RECORD is the official organ of and published by the Visitation and Aid Society and will deal with social problems in child-saving work and give an account of the workings of the Juvenile Court.

NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS can commence with current number.

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Not only the City of Philadelphia, but the entire country as well, has been appalled at the reports of the testimony which has been gathered by Coroner Dugan, of the City of Brotherly Love in regard to the helpless little babies that have been done to death, sold or "adopted" by the proprietors of Philadelphia baby farms. The details of horror will for a long time haunt the memory of those who have read the testimony from day to day. A big city, even at its worst, could scarcely produce a blacker page of history than has been furnished by Philadelphia during the past two weeks.

History of this description is not unheard of. It has been before; it will be again. Chicago has been forced to battle with the same problem, but owing to the determined efforts of the Juvenile Court Record and the Visitation and Aid Society, the traffic in babies has practically been stamped out here.

Philadelphia requires a license-no other safeguard is provided. There is no examination; there is no test of character; in case of concealment of a birth no severe penalty is imposed. Any woman may open up a lying-in hospital. The law practically puts a premium on baby farming and makes it easy by making the vocation one that any person can enter, to practice and abuse.

As a matter of fact, while the majority of midwives. are grossly ignorant, nevertheless they are good, sober, kindly, greatly overworked women, full of friendly aid for those they serve, plying a hard trade for little pay. Almost without exception they are entirely without systematic training. The first mothers and babies who come into their hands fare badly. In the end experience instructs, in a crude way, though at the expense of the unfortunate helpless first cases. Fully one-quarter of the mothers of the poorer class who are cared for in maternity hospitals suffer in the delivery of their children through the blunders of midwives.

Leaving out of consideration the ignorant but wellmeaning midwives, there is no doubt but that, scattered among them, are many women like the ones that have recently been exposed in Philadelphia. Every year or two cases of this kind are laid bare and the country is shocked at the revelations that are made. In some cases these unscrupulous midwives are licensed, sometimes not. Here in Chicago there is seldom a time when the county jail is not the temporary abiding place of at least one midwife or woman physician who is awaiting trial for malpractice. In the case of Philadelphia, the vile trade of malpractice, murder and baby farming is made easy because the law puts absolutely no guards against attendance on women in child birth.

Midwives should be licensed and required to pass an examination. The law should provide for rigid and frequent inspection of lying-in hospitals. Until this is done, baby farming will go on, with all its attendant horrors.

The midwife is a necessity, although, as a matter of caution, she should be replaced by an educated woman physician. So long as the midwife is tolerated, she should be required to pass an examination, evidence of good character should be required, and she should be required to renew her license yearly. No lving-in hospital should be permitted to exist without a regular physician, who should be registered, and frequent inspection should be required by some competent medical body and by the city. Most important of all, a failure to report a birth within forty-eight hours should be made a penal offense. with fine or imprisonment or both, as the penalty to be imposed. Moreover, for a second offense, a practicing registered midwife or physician should lose the license to practice.

Baby farming and baby murder-and mother murderwill cease when the law requires that all births must be reported, at the risk of a penitentiary sentence, and not before.

Philadelphia has been criminally lax in this respect. It is to be hoped that the revelations in regard to the workings of the Ashmead baby farm will rouse her into activity along this line, and that she will at once place such restrictions upon the midwives that a recurrence of the baby-farm scandals will not be possible.

INSTITUTIONS AND THE LAW.

It always has been the belief of the Juvenile Court Record that a system must be absolutely perfect in order to bring about the best results. A single small flaw in a stone lowers its value hundreds of dollars. A single scratch on the case of a piano may effectually prevent the sale of the instrument. The flaw in the stone may be so small as to be quite beyond possibility of detection by any one but an expert; the scratch on the case of the piano certainly will in no way interfere with the musical quality of its tone; but the mere fact that there is a flaw lowers the value or ruins it utterly.

Some facts there are that must be faced bravely. They

may be unpleasant. We even may fear to recognize them, dreading the consequences which our very recognition may bring about. But the brave man, when informed by the surgeon that disease is lurking within him hidden from the sight of ordinary eyes, bares himself for the knife without question.

For some time the Juvenile Court Record has been aware of the fact that many of our institutions are operating entirely without the pale of the law. Take, for instance, the cases of the Chicago Erring Woman's Refuge and the House of the Good Shepherd. Since 1871 the courts of Chicago have been sentencing girls to these two institutions. Every girl that has been sentenced during that time has been committed illegally. These two institutions were incorporated as private institutions, and the court had no more right to sentence a woman to either of them than it had to commit her to the private home of any citizen.

Realizing that here was a leper spot on our childsaving system that sooner or later was bound to harm the efficacy of the work the Juvenile Court Record has taken up the work of bringing all institutions within the laws of the state. In the cases of the Erring Women's Refuge and The House of the Good Shepherd, the institutions have, through the efforts of the Juvenile Court Record, been made a part of the House of Correction.

It is with great regret that we have felt called upon to direct attention to this matter. Our zeal for the perfecttion of the child-saving work of Cook County has led us to do so. There should be no flaw to which anyone can point a doubting finger. The machinery of the court should be and must be perfect. The Juvenile Court Record stands ready to take up the matter with any institution that may desire to modify its charter so as to make its work legal, if it is not so at the present time, and to assist in every way to straighten out the tangled threads.

DANGEROUS FRUIT STORES.

Justice Timothy D. Hurley, President of the Visitation and Aid Society, has been instrumental in uncovering a cesspool that has been vitiating the morals of Chicago school children for a long time, masking itself under the guise of fruit stores. A recent raid which resulted in the arrest of ten boys for operating slot machines, convinced Justice Hurley that the fruit stores are the feeders of the gambling trust and take the place of the all-night saloon wine rooms as loafing places for men and young girls.

Once in a while reformers are reminded that it is possible for them to look so steadily at one evil that other evils, every bit as menacing, pass unnoticed. From the From the facts that have been brought to light by Justice Hurley, and verified by Superintendent Bodine and Chief Probation Officer McManaman, there is no doubt but that a desire to curb the saloon and pool room has overshadowed the growing evil of gambling and other most demoralizing features of certain fruit stores. There is no doubt but the latter need regulating just as much as do the former.

It appears that the open-all-night fruit store, with the slot machine attachment, is in reality a training school from which boys are graduated to the John Worthy School, the ruform school, and later to the penitentiary; and the Girls to the House of the Good Shepherd, or the Erring Woman's Refuge, quite as readily-in fact, more so than from the saloon.

Boys who gamble in the fruit stores are encouraged to steal, so it is proved. Young girls who sit till the wee sma' hours in the back rooms of these places run every

bit as much risk as if they had spent the night in saloon wine rooms.

The fruit store threatens the young-the saloon menaces the adult. The fruit store that is kept open all night and caters to this class of trade may therefore be said to be more insidiously dangerous than the saloon. If half that is told in regard to these fruit stores is true, and the stories are all well-substantiated, it is obvious that a very plain duty lies before the police and the reform agencies, and all the forces that make for good in our city.

IOWA HAS WAKED UP.

At last Iowa has placed a Juvenile Court law on the statute books of the state. Juvenile Courts will be established in Iowa by virtue of a bill passed April 6 by the House of Representatives by a unanimous vote. The measure had previously passed the Senate and was recommended by the Governor.

Owing to the efforts of Mrs. Isaac Lea Hillis, of Des Moines, Ia., President of the Iowa Congress of Mothers, the Iowa State University will at once introduce a chair of Juvenile Court law, where men and women will be systematically trained for probation work in the Juvenile Courts of Iowa. This is one of the most important steps that has been taken in Juvenile Court work in the history of the children's court.

If the work of the Juvenile Court is to be effective it must be administered by trained men and women, who understand every step of the work and know exactly the result that may be expected from certain effects.

Iowa is to be congratulated for the step she has taken in the direction of training her probation officers. Other states will do well to immediately take steps in the same direction.

BEFORE AND AFTER.

A few days ago two children, neither of whom has reached the age of responsibility, were taken into custody in a Pittsburg department store, charged with shoplifting. In court the fact was brought out that these mere babes had been systematically trained by their shiftless parents in the art of thieving until they had become experts in crime.

Unhappily, schools of crime in the slums of great cities are not a novelty to the police, nor to the men and women who devote their lives to the work of moral reform. Five years ago the question as to what was to be done in instances of depravity of this nature was one that pressed itself upon the attention of all people who concern themselves about the eradication of viciousness. Today the problem has been solved. The two little Pittsburg children were placed under the watchful care of the Juvenile Court, and from this time on they will be looked after and guarded and taught the inevitable results of sin. They will be placed in homes where they will receive the training God means every child that is born shall have, and in a year or two they will have forgotten all about the past, and will eventually become self-respecting, lawabiding citizens.

Years ago an officer of the Visitation and Aid Society stood outside a hovel and listened while notorious "Mother Shevlin" taught a beautiful boy, her son, how to steal handkerchiefs out of coat pockets without being detected. As a result of the evidence secured that day, Vincent Shevlin was sent to a corrective institution for a time. Because Illinois had not, at that time, provided a law whereby the rest of the family of degenerate children could be brought into court and cared for, the little wild creatures were left to pursue their criminal way.

If the Juvenile Court law had been in force at that time, the Visitation and Aid Society, or any other society whose attention has been called to the case, could have brought all of the Shevlin children into court, taken them out from under the influence of their vicious, immoral mother, who educated them to be thieves and murderers, and placed them in wholesome surroundings, where their activities could have been directed into healthy channels. They They might have been taught a trade that would permit their thoughts to work along proper lines instead of utilizing their ingenuity, which really was of a high character, in continually planning fresh depredations. In all probability a home would have been found for them in the country, "far from the maddening crowd's ignoble strife," where, surrounded by the beauties of nature and watched over with solicitous, kindly care, the boys would have forgotten in time that they ever picked a pocket in Chicago. If the Juvenile Court law had been in force at that time Vincent Shevlin never would have been allowed to return home from the institution where he had been "sentenced," without first being placed under the care of a probation officer. As it was, the entire Shevlin famlin family has now been wiped out of existence, either by an ignominious death on the gallows, or at the muzzle of a policeman's revolver.

Lack of proper legislation was the cause of the degeneration of the Shevlin boys. They could have been saved,

in all probability, from the degredation which was theirs, if the Juvenile Court law had been in force at that time. And quite as important in the eyes of some people, the State of Illinois would have been richer by thousands of dollars and the records of the police department would be clear of many of the reports of murders and robberies which they now show. Most important of all, if it had been possible to get hold of the Shevlin boys and save them while they were still in the formative period, they would be alive today, law-abiding, self-respecting men.

The two little children of the Pittsburg Fagins are fortunate to be living in the day of the Juvenile Court law. Under existing circumstances, these mere babes will be placed where they may outgrow the lessons of their early days.

If people would but see it, the Juvenile Court law has in it that which will eventually do away with crime and bring about a better condition of things. Sociologists and chronic pessimists need have no fear. The leaven is working all over the country. Already the results brought about by the operation of the law more than justify the most sanguine hopes of the most optimistic supporters of the Juvenile Court. There need be no fear. The ultimate full harvest may require time, but God is in Heaven and all is well, and the Juvenile Court may be depended upon as the material factor which will eventually prove the key that will solve the crime problem.

DENVER JUVENILES TELL WHY THEY ARE BAD

Most of the time of the Denver juvenile court was taken up Saturday, March 26, in the examination of the letters written by boys of the court in competition for prizes offered by Judge Lindsey, and the awarding of the prizes.

In speaking of the letter-writing experiment, Judge Lindsey said:

"During the past year in the juvenile court we have found a great deal can be done by work with the boys. They have helped us enforce the law in many cases. For instance, during

the past week six or seven complaints have been made by boys in our court against men for violating laws for the protection of childhood. These cases are liquor cases, tobacco cases and the distribution of immoral literature. At Christmas time I offered prizes to the boys who would write the best letters upon the subject: What, in your opinion, causes boys to get into trouble; that is, "swipe" things, play truant or do other bad things? Why do they do it? Are they more afraid of doing wrong or of getting caught? Is there, in your opinion, any difference between swiping an apple or a dollar? Will any of the boys you know "swipe" things? Does it pay the judge to be square with a boy? Will most of them be square in return? What do you call being "square" with the judge? Is it square to bring a poor report? Why do some boys bring poor reports?'

"I did this because at each session of the juvenile court we have a Saturday morning talk in which such things are discussed and I was anxious to know how the boys thought about it.

"We considered a number of things in awarding the prizes. One thing that struck us was the fact that 50 boys out of over 100, who are on probation, and wrote letters, only one made any reference to God, the Bible, or the Ten Commandments. This was the boy who won the prize. He wrote the letter while confined' in the detention school. We have withheld the names, not that there is anything to be ashamed of, but because we prefer to do so for other reasons.

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SECOND PRIZE.

"Dear Judge-There are several reasons why boys get into trouble. The principal one is, that a good many boys do not get the proper care, and don't have enough interest taken in them by their parents and the average parent don't know their boys know as much as they really do, and they don't keep after their children enough to see that their morals are kept perfectly and upright.

A boy likes to be respected and in most cases he don't get the sympathy that he should get.

"Another reason is the going with bad company and the desire to have some fun and excitement. If a poor boy swipes anything won't he sell it and have a good time with the money, which he don't often get? In reality there are very few really bad boys who realize what they are doing when they swipe something and who mean to be thieves. Most of the boys who get into trouble are merely mischievous and are just trying to have some fun. Some boys think that swiping an apple or a bag of peanuts is not wrong, but it is just as bad as swiping money. I go to a school which by most people is thought to be a lawabiding school, but two-thirds of the boys are mischievous and if they are mischievous won't they get into some kind of trouble? Of course there are some really bad boys who need to be sent to Golden, but very few. Of the boys who get into Judge Lindsey's court only 5 per cent are sent to the Industrial school, so that proves itself.

"Some boys think that because they were the "jigger" or because they didn't actually take the stuff, that they were not in it, and some boys think it is wrong to snich, but it is all right sometimes, as they afterwards find out.

"Every person who reads this article asks himself if it is best to throw a boy in jail, have him sentenced in the criminal court and treat him as if he had no feelings at all, or, to treat him as the juvenile court treats him today.

"Several of the boys in Golden were in jail as many as six times and did it do them any good? No, it only made them worse. "The best way to make a boy obey is to give him sympathy and show him you mean to be his friend and not his enemy. Isn't it best to trust to his honor, which is one of the sacred things he has, rather than to throw him in jail, where he meets worse influences than he has at home? It is best to be square with a boy and he will be square in return.

"The boys know the judge gave them a square deal, and they know it is not square to bring a poor report and that is one of the reasons why nine-tenths of the boys in Judge Lindsey's court bring good reports today.

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"Associating with evil companions is the first step a boy takes towards stealing. He hears remarks made by them which he does not hear at home, and which he does not pay much attention to at first, but by associating constantly with these evil companions, he thinks these remarks are fine, and he soon falls into their habits.

"When some of these boys proposes to steal apples, or something else, he is asked to go with them. He hesitates at first, but by their coaxing and telling him not to be a baby, and probably repeating to him some of their other acts they did, he consents to go. Thus, little by little he becomes a thief, and if he has been successful in his thefts, he begins to believe that he cannot be caught, and he goes after bigger "game" only to be caught at last.

"Now, to keep away from all temptations is to avoid evil companions and do as our parents and our kind friend Judge Lindsey would have us do, and by doing as they tell us, we all would become good citizens and have the respect of all. "C. D.'

"(Age 14, Maria Mitchell school.)"

Judge Lindsey:

FOURTH PRIZE.

Denver, Colo., Feb. 15, 1904. Dear Sir-My opinion in regards to boys getting into trouble is general disobedience. Sometimes they need something and have not got the money to buy it. I do not think all boys want to be bad. I do know two boys who swipe. I do not know why one does it. The other does it because his father punishes him unless he gets a certain amount every day. I do not really think he is to blame. I do not think there is any difference between stealing an apple or a dollar. As to how many boys swipe things I could not answer all; two-thirds of the boys I know besides the two 1 mentioned would. I cannot answer why, for some boys will lead good lives and some will not. I think Judge Lindsey is the best one to judge. I think most of the boys will be good if they get the second trial. I think it will pay the judge to be square with the boys most of the time. I think most of them will be square in time. It is not square to bring poor reports; sometimes it cannot be helped, other times it may be carelessness. I have not always brought the best reports, but it was not because I did not want it good. I know I have tried and yet sometimes it would happen to make a bad mark on my report, but nevertheless I will keep on trying. I do not want to be bad, for I know I have a good mamma and she has worked hard for us and I want to help her if I can. I never heard any of the boys say that Judge Lindsey was not square, so I think whatever he does is all right in most boys' opinion. I hope this is satisfactory. I remain yours, S. H. (age 11), Webster School.

PARENTS SENT CHILDREN OUT TO STEAL

AT THE HEARING,

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Michael de Pippa, His Wife, and the Children, Roxie and Nellie, Who Were Sent Out on the Streets to Pick Pockets. (Sketched in police court by a Pittsburg "Leader" artist during the hearing.)

Two flowers of childhood were planted in crime and trained by a ruthless lash grasped in an unmerciful hand. These flowers were hardened when at an age that should be most tender, and bore fruit-a golden fruit, which went into a greedy pocket. It was a strange tale that was fitted together at the Central police station in Pittsburg-a tale that read as if it grew under the pen of Dickens.

A boy and girl were arrested in a downtown department store. They were charged with being pickpockets, and when they were shut in from the street, the boy's nerve broke. He told of how he and his sister had been picking pockets and reaping a harvest that a professional grown-up would envy. He further told that he was sent into the streets to become a thief by his father, and that he learned fast because, when returning home empty-handed, he was beaten and suffered to go hungry. The boy and girl were held to the juvenile court by Magistrate Thomas B. Stewart. The father was fined $100 and costs, or 30 days to the workhouse. He shrugged his shoulders, paid his fine, for he seemed to have no trouble about money, and disappeared, without once looking at his children.

The boy's name is Roxie de Pippa and he is 7 years old. His sister, Nellie, is a year younger than he. The father, Michael de Pippa, looks as if he might be about 45 or 50, but his face was dirty, creased and rough, and it was hard to judge. He lived at 30 Basin alley, in the Wylie avenue hill district. He has not worked for a long time, yet he has considerable money. A bank book was found in his trunk when detectives made a search of the house.

Roxie and Nellie entered the 5 and 10-cent store on Fifth avenue. The boy carried a few papers and the girl was wrapped in a long shawl. The manager of the store, H. J. Horton, found them on the second floor. He had been looking for them, for they had more than once been caught in the act of picking pockets. He took one under each arm and carried them to the basement, the children all the while screaming lustily. Horton telephoned for Detectives Shore and Lally, who took them to Central station.

"I never took anything," said the boy in Magistrate Stewart's office during the hearing. "Nellie took things. I watched outside and she would steal. She would take the money home. My pap would take it from her and send her out for more."

Then the father, who was arrested the 'evening before, became indignant. He said he never told them to steal and that they never brought any pocketbooks home to him. It was all a lie. He had lived in Basin alley for only a month, and, although he had not worked for three months, he had money that he had earned. He was never arrested before. "Hah, no," he said, confidently, when asked by the magistrate.

Then the little girl, Nellie, was questioned. She was a pitiful figure, reaching just to the top of the magistrate's desk. Her little body was wrapped in a tattered shawl that reached to her

feet, which were covered by the curious pointed toe shoes of Italian make. As the magistrate stooped and spoke to her in a kindly voice she fingered a transcript that lay upon his desk, covering it with dirty finger marks. The magistrate took the transcript from her, and, being thus made lonely, two big tears coursed down her cheeks.

"No, I didn't; it's a story," she said.

She was shrewd, and evidently having been well coached her shrewdness was effective. It was evidenced that she had been training to be strong in just such an emergency.

Miss Edith Morrow and Miss Muller, saleswomen in the five and ten-cent store, testified. Miss Morrow told how the children, both carrying newspapers, often came into the store and stood before the heater to warm themselves. A woman had been robbed She fastened susof $40, which she carried in a pocketbook.

picion upon the girl and the little one handed over the book. The woman was overjoyed to recover her money, and in the excitement Roxie melted through the crowd and out onto the street.

Two weeks before, continued the same testimony, the little girl and boy were walking through the store. A shopper carried her A dish fell from pocketbook along with purchases in a basket. the basket, but did not break. The girl, Nellie, picked up the dish and the woman thanked her. A few minutes later the woman missed her pocketbook, and the little girl was gone. Complaints were made to the management every day that pocketbooks had been lost. Many people asserted they were robbed, as their chatelaine bags had been opened by the pickpockets.

Miss Muller testified in the same strain, and J. H. Horton, the manager, told of his reasons for suspecting the children.

CAUGHT WITH POCKETBOOKS.

"Why, we have caught them with pocketbooks in their possession, and they have promised us never to do anything of the kind again. These children were in the store when Mrs. Euler, of Forty-fifth street, was robbed of $125. I understan they confessed to the detectives that they had taken that book. I have been on the lookout for them for some time. A pocketbook was stolen, and after making inquiry, I learned they had been in the store when the theft was committed. Yesterday I was notified that they were on the second floor, and I caught them. You see, every time they would be caught with anything on them, they would cry, and the women who would gather would be Detective filled with pity and persuaded me to release them. Wallace caught both of them in the store about three weeks ago. He took them into custody, but they screamed so and aroused so much sympathy that he released them.''

The father, Michael de Pippa, was then examined by the magistrate. He told an interpreter that he had not been working for three months and sent his children out to sell newspapers and beg. He denied ever receiving any money, but when confronted with the fact that he had a bank book, stammered that he earned the money by working. He could not explain the fact that when the detectives searched the trunk of the little ones at their home, they found quite a sum in dollars and halfdollars. Each child also had a bank that was well filled. differs somewhat from "Fagin" in "Oliver Twist.'

This

Petro Angelo, connected with the "front office," stated that about three months ago, he investigated an attempted murder in Basin alley. The mother of Roxie and Nellie had been stabbed in the neck. The father had disappeared. The woman told him she had stabbed herself, but he said he had learned sufficient to assert that she had been stabbed by her husband during a quarrel.

Then the magistrate pronounced his sentence, the father paid his fine, the mother wept and the children told the story they would not tell the magistrate.

"She would steal. I never would, I sell papers," said Roxie. "It's a lie. I never stole," said Nellie.

"Hah! Didn't you knock down the dish off the woman's basket and take her pocketbook? Hah! Tell me that."

"I never did." And Nellie, taunted to fury, struck her brother with all the strength of her little arm. The blow was promptly returned by Roxie, who had small scruples about the distinction of sex. Then Nellie shrank into a corner, her mouth quivering, and wiped tears away with a handkerchief that had once been white. She was a pitiful little waif.

"Well, she did, all right," said Roxie and he grinned.

The girl's tears vanished in an instant and she displayed that

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