...

.190..

Does the child attend church?

Where?

Is the child at work?

Name and address of employer.

Character of employment.

Is the child at school?

. years on or

Whereas, in a certain suit or proceeding lately before the Juvenile Court in said County of Cook and State of Illinois, wherein the alleged delinquency of.... was inquired into by said Court, and said Court found the said..... to be a delinquent boy of the age of. about.... The Court thereupon entered an order in compliance with "An Act to regulate the treatment and control of dependent, neglected and delinquent children," in force in the State of Illinois, July 1, 1899, committing the said.... ...to the House of Correction of the City of Chicago, Illinois (John Worthy School), there to remain until he arrives at legal age, or until discharged by said Juvenile Court.

Your are therefore hereby commanded to take the body of said.... .....and deliver him to the Superintendent of the said House of Correction of the City of Chicago, Illinois, there to remain until he arrives at legal age, or until the further order of said Juvenile Court.

And the Superintendent of said House of Correction of the City of Chicago, Illinois, shall also hold said. ...subject to the pro

visions of the law in such case made and provided. And hereof make due service and return as the law directs.

Given under my hand and the Seal of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, this......day of......

..A. D. 190..

Clerk.

Received into my custody at the House of Correction' of the City of Chicago, Illinois, this..........day of .A. D. 190.., the within named.... who was delivered to me and by me received, pursuant to the directions of the within writ.

Superintendent.

tion where he will be maintained at public charge. With the probation law he can place the child on probation, and let his behavior and the subsequent report of the probation officer determine whether the child need be sent away. Fortunately for the furtherance of the probation plan, it is economical as well as moral. Its effect in relieving the taxpayers from the public maintenance of many delinquents who under this plan are maintained at their parents' charge is so obvious that it reinforces greatly the support of the system on ethical grounds. In Massachusetts, where the probation law has been in operation a dozen years, the district attorney has prepared figures showing that it has saved the State much more than the cost of its operation, though it is administered there by salaried probation officers. On the side of morality the saving is still greater, though less definite. If this saving of character could be translated into dollars and cents the cash gain to the State through the diminution of crime would be seen to be even greater than the saving in maintenance. It gives the child a chance.

Without probation a child guilty of some offense is in fear for a day; if dismissed with a rebuke he is apt to lose his fear of the court and of the law. As his fear evaporates he yields again to temptation, and is finally sent away, a public charge, and in danger of moral injury through association with other delinquents. With probation he lives in fear for many weeks. The sword of Damocles is over his head, and his own effort must avert it. He must report weekly to his probation officer and bring a weekly report from his school or perhaps from his employer. If his reports are not good, the probation officer may report unfavorably to the judge and he will be sent away. Better than all this, however, the child soon learns that he has found a friend. He finds some one who has time to hear his story, to sympathize with his point of view, to help him at work and help him at school, and talk with his teacher, and encourage him to keep at his best. A boy in trouble is better for a friend outside his immediate family. The family are apt to remind him of his confidences at inconvenient moments. Often a much-tried mother nags a boy until he grows callous. Often the parents are ignorant or indifferent, or even hostile. It is amazing how often children are brought into court by their own parents either to get rid of them or to be saved the pains of training them. So far in Buffalo nearly one-half, etc. If the State should take charge of all the unruly boys who are too much for their mothers, but whose offenses are domestic rather than against society, our institutions would be swamped with them. The probation law stands between the impatient parent and his own impatience. Every magistrate knows the mother who sends her child away in desperation, and then becomes more desperate in her desire to undo what she has done. The reformatory has been held up by her as a bogey, unwisely often, and the parents are sometimes driven to make good their threat. There are no better friends of the probation law than the parents. A judge who is not omniscient needs time, and needs some one's else time than his own to find the facts. Often enough it appears that the fault rests wholly with the parents, step-parents it may be, who lack sympathy with a child's love of pleasure, or who are neglectful or dissolute. In fact, a reformatory for parents is as much needed in New York State as one for children. In reaching the children, however, of course we reach the parents of the coming generation and can so raise the stream at its source. The probation law is a notable instance of the greater human personality, the greater love and patience, the sentiment without sentimentality, which are entering both penology and charity and disarranging the Procrustean forms of court justice.

A day in a juvenile court is fascinating and the experiences of a probation officer not less so. The little curly headed culprits are so anxious to tell their story to the judge, or sometimes so stolid that either way it is pathetic. There is much weeping when children are found guilty, and sudden relief when the meaning of probation is explained to them, and the confidences made to the probation officer are irresistible. I have the honor of being an officer in the Buffalo court during the opening year of the new law, and, though an assistant under me takes the brunt of the work, I attend nearly every session, oversee the work, and have some of the children report to me personally. One small boy, David, had been four times to the truant school and had stolen twice before the theft for which he was found guilty. The police officers and the truant officer thought it foolishness to give him more time. He was very small and begged very hard not to be sent away, and one more chance seemed allowable. Judge Murphy put him on probation, and on the next Saturday when he reported to me I said, "David, they were all laughing at me in court because I gave you another chance." He put his paw on my knee and answered, "We'll get the laugh on them." Unfortunately, this laugh was misplaced. For three weeks David reported that he was attending school daily, but that the teacher was too busy to make out his weekly reports. Inquiry showed that David had really been to school just one day during these three weeks of probation. He had to go to Rochester. Another boy, Harry, was keen-witted, a reader, and had a good home, but was unruly and truant. He was put on probation, but would still run away and disappear for several days at a time. His teacher refused to keep him at school, and his mother insisted on his being sent away. An experiment in a

country home proved unsuccessful. Finally Harry was given his choice between the Rochester Reformatory and the George Junior_Republic, and both were described to him clearly. He chose Rochester because he could learn engineering and electricity there, and I think his choice was a wise one. He wrote me from Rochester, "What you told me about this place is not half true"; but whether it is better than he expected, or worse, I do not know. I believe it is better. Boys from an orphan asylum nearly always prefer Rochester to the asylum.

In Buffalo the probation term is limited absolutely to three months. This was done by an amendment which was necessary to save the bill from defeat. Elsewhere the probation is indeterminate, and may last until majority, except in Massachusetts, where the probation 1S determinate, in the discretion of the judge, and may be renewed from time to time. It is a common practice in the Central Court in Boston, where seven judges sit in rotation for a week each, for a judge to make the probation term seven weeks, so that the same child comes before him again later. In the other courts of Boston the periods vary from one to three months, rarely longer. In all of the courts renewals are frequent. The determinate probation has advantages, for a goal ahead helps striving. Whether or not the indeterminate probation has greater advantages I am not qualified to say. Certainly, however, an arbitrary limit of three months defeats much of the good which is obtainable.

The Buffalo law also prescribes that when practicable the child shall be placed with a probation officer of the same religious faith as the child's parents. This was another amendment necessary to save the bill. It leads to some difficulties which do not exist in children's courts elsewhere. Of the five probation officers in Buffalo the Jewish officer has had but one child in his care since the court opened, while some of the others are overburdened.

Some indirect results of the probation law are interesting. Much juvenile lawlessness formerly ran riot without arrest because the officers knew that the judges would not send a child away for petty offenses, and mere rebuke meant so little that the child fresh from court would jeer at the officer who had arrested him. With probation an arrest is taken more seriously by the children. Again, the presence daily in the court of a group of disinterested men and women of character helps to maintain the moral tone of the court. They sometimes see things which the court unaided might not see. A pettifogging lawyer, who was reaping fees from parents on the pretense that his services caused the judge to put their children on probation instead of sending them away, was excluded from the Buffalo court on report of the probation officers as to his practices.

The disposition of children after probation remains to be considered. The better acquaintance with a child's powers and qualities which probation brings makes the disposition of the children more intelligent, but not less difficult. It is too early yet to give results in Buffalo. About 200 children have been placed on probation, of whom thirty-two were put in my care. Eleven of these are still on probation, but of the other twenty-one only twelve were dismissed from probation without punishment, while nine, or nearly one-half, were sent to some reformatory. I believe that this large proportion is unnecessary, and is due to inexperience or unwisdom. I do not think it means lack of thought or lack of patience with the boys' failings. It should be said, however, that seven of these nine, or all but two, were sent away at the urgent request of their own parents, who were impatient because there was even any delay on account of the probation. The work of placing out children in Erie County has been greatly improved in the last five years, but there is still no large list of good homes, well investigated beforehand and well watched afterwards. The teachers often show a willingness to help in holding children to their best, but sometimes a child's presence in the school is so bad for the other children that he cannot be kept. This is true also of country homes. Three of the nine boys named above were tried first in the country without success. If a boy under 12 years of age must be sent away there are few alternatives for us in western New York. A child under 12 cannot be sent to Rochester except for a felony, and the George Junior Republic and the Berkshire Industrial Farm are both small and much in demand. The Republic has about 150 citizens, boys and girls, from all States in the Union, as well as from New York, and the Berkshire Farm has about seventy-five boys. "Father Baker's" is a well-known Roman Catholic reformatory near Buffalo, well administered and with good industrial training. Except these there are no reformatories for boys under 12, and in addition to these only Rochester for boys and girls between 12 and 16. Moreover, the State Industrial School, the Republic, and the Berkshire Industrial Farm seldom take boys except for a term of years. If an unruly Protestant boy merely needs to be taken from his family for a few months, until he appreciates his home privileges, there is no place. The Kensico Farm School is available for New York City only. There is a boys' reformatory at Charlton, Columbia County, but it has less than twenty children. There is need in this State, and apparently everywhere, of more boys' and girls' reformatories of the free type to supplement the work done at Rochester.

The following article is reprinted, without comment upon the soundness of its logic, from the New York Evening Sun of December 7. It is interesting as showing that juvenile courts are not universally accepted as a panacea for all the alleged evils of police courts and oft-told troubles of destitute families. It also is an excellent description of the routine of the children's court about to be established and the old magistrate system which disappears on New Year's day in New York City:

Since little children must come before the bar of justice for many causes in a big town like this, there is to be soon after New Year's day a special court for them to come to. This court is one of the provisions of the new city charter, which becomes operative on January 1. It is not expected, however, that the court will be ready for business before January 14, and it is one of the idiosyncrasies of fate that Commissioner John W. Keller will be out of office when this new police court becomes a reality. The new institution-which is, in effect, an outcome of longcontinued friction between the commissioner of charities and the city magistrates-will thus do little to help the political lot of the Tammany man. The city magistrates who opposed the police court for children have urged that some special disadvantages attendant upon such a court outweigh its advantages. They say that the court will become cumbersome and unwieldy, so as to render its existence a matter of only short duration.

The plans for the children's court are still incomplete in detail. It will be housed in the old structure once occupied by the Department of Charities and Corrections, at Eleventh street and Third avenue. The building will be adapted for a courthouse. A slight expenditure will doubtless make it fit for the new purpose.

Magistrate Deuel will be the first judge to preside at this new courthouse. Before him will be brought the cases of boy and girl prisoners who are less than 16 years old. This is the line of work taken in hand long since by the Gerry Society. Instead of the Gerry Society maintaining an agent at each of the seven existing police courts in Manhattan and the Bronx, the force will now be reduced and agents will be maintained only at the children's court.

After two weeks Magistrate Hogan will succeed Magistrate Deuel at the children's court. Magistrate Olmsted will succeed Magistrate Hogan. Only these three magistrates will sit in the children's court. They will also sit in the Jefferson Market Police court. The old method of rotation by which police court magistrates were, in their way, circuit judges, is to be entirely superseded by a new system. Magistrates Deuel, Hogan, and Olmsted are to sit in the Children's court and the Jefferson Market court as here stated, Magistrates Flammer, Brann, and Cornell are to have the Tombs and Morrisania police courts, and Magistrates Crane, Zeller, and Mott the Essex Market and Harlem courts, while Magistrates Pool, Mayo, and Meade will divide their time between the West Side and Yorkville courts. The old system, which has prevailed for many years, of having each magistrate in turn sit in each of the police courts of Manhattan and the Bronx becomes obsolete under the new arrangement.

This is only one of the factors in the establishment of the Children's court which has aroused the opposition of the magistrates. Some other features they also denounce vigorously. How far the mutual differences between the police court authorities and Commission Keller figured in the opposition to the plan is a matter of conjecture to their friends and his.

"When this scheme of Commissioner Keller's gets in full working order," said one of the magistrates to-day, "its evils will quickly show themselves. It will be one of the greatest hardships ever inflicted upon the poor people of New York. For the most trivial case a woman with a flock of children may be compelled to travel to Eleventh street and Third avenue, all the way from the Battery, from Riverdale, or from City Island, even. Proper justice has always been given to the children's cases in the existing courts. The cases that are under the care of the Gerry Society have always been considered before the regular business of the police court was taken up. In case the Gerry agents were not ready at the opening of the court, the young prisoners in their charge have been kept in the Children's Society's rooms until all other cases had been disposed of. In this way they saw nothing of the other prisoners, knew nothing of the daily routine of the police court. No more efficient way of handling the children's cases can be devised.

"The charter revisionists took away four clerks from our force for the next year. But the new court will have to be equipped with a head clerk, two assistants, and a stenographer. This will cripple us. Our courts are greatly overburdened. With this radical reduction in their working force, the chances are good that within a short time the police courts will be hopelessly behind in their work.

"In order to accommodate this court, our well-established circuit system, which is a model in every way, must be abandoned.

In its place, the twelve magistrates are divided into four sets of three each. Each of these sets has two police courts assigned to it. The Tombs court and the Morrisania court are given to one set, as they so nearly balance. The Tombs Police court is by far the businest police court in the city, if not in the country. Business at Morrisania is light, half sessions being the rule there almost all the time.

"This whole idea of a Children's court was a 'fad' on Keller's part. He desired to extend his power into the police courts. As it is now, all children who come to us for commitment are referred to the Gerry Society for investigation. The Gerry Society agents conduct these investigations faithfully in every instance. If the case shows that the children or their parents are destitute, then we are compelled to call the attention of the Department of Charities to the case. They put an inspector on the case. The inspector, the chances are, never leaves his desk. He reports that destitution does not surround the child and that it should not become a charge upon the city. If the magistrate ever insisted upon the child being committed at city's expense, Commissioner Keller would of course become angry and accuse us of saddling charges upon the taxpayers. Of course, he will be out of office when the new court starts its work, but it will take a long time to undo the effects of this court of his making.

"The idea of a children's court may be all right in theory. Such a court runs successfully in Rochester. But a single children's court equipped shorthanded will, in the city of New York, do more harm than good."

Those advocates of the Children's court who were not in politics-including a good many women of this city-might reply that practical difficulties are not the question at issue. The experiment, at any rate, is to be tried. If the first step that costs a child's self-respect can be best avoided by an isolated court, then the advocates say the new court will be a permanent one. But practical difficulties will be watched with care alike by the opponents and the friends of the Children's court.

TRAFFIC IN CHILD LIFE IN ILLINOIS.

Paper Read Before the Sociological Union by T. D. Hurley. As the result of patient, earnest thought and effort, covering a period of several years, put forth by persons interested in the question of child saving, Illinois has advanced from the rear to the front rank. Her efforts in this respect are recognized and commended by all persons interested in the subject throughout the country. It can be truthfully stated that from an institutional standpoint Illinois is recognized as the ideal state in the union. Certainly every citizen within her borders should be proud of this condition, especially when one takes into consideration the fact that a few brief years ago in this respect she was the most laggard state in the union.

In describing this condition it is best to begin with the educational system, which is practically complete. When the child becomes wayward he is now taken in charge by a trained officer and if necessary sent to the parental school; if dependent, proper provision is made for him; if neglected, those answerable for his support and maintenance are compelled to do their duty to the child, and, if delinquent, he is treated, not as formerly as a criminal, but as a child who needs government, discipline and care. After all these methods are exhausted, should the child proceed in his downward course, he may then be sent to the reformatory. However, the reformatory is the last resort and all remedial agencies are exhausted before the child is treated or considered as a criminal.

We should not be satisfied with this condition of affairs, as other work is necessary to complete the system. Looking over the field we find that the state has not as yet taken up the question of proper supervision of children placed in homes to the extent that it should, and the further question has been overlooked, that of the traffic in child life, which is the subject of this article. With proper laws governing these two subjects Illinois would then be in an ideal condition for the proper care, management and supervision of her dependent or delinquent wards.

The law has always been solicitous about the child's property. Should a child inherit or become possessed of property of any kind, real or personal, it is only through his guardian, properly appointed by the court, that he can transfer the title to his property, and then only on order of the court. Should a guardian transfer his ward's property without a proper court order he does it at his own peril and subject to account to the court. We find sixty pages of statutes covering the question of child life in our state, and, in addition, thousands of volumes have been written by able authors on the various phases of the question, but none of these, as far as I am apprised, goes to the root of the question. All of these laws certainly are for the