Ten minutes late--half a day"s fine.
At the end of the day aching feet, aching back, system ill-fed, not enough earned to live upon honestly--and that prospect stretches ahead farther than her poor eyes can see.
"What"s the charge, officer?"
"Disorderly conduct, Your Honor."
There"s the criminal, good men, politicians, women and bishops, that you are hunting so ardently.
THE BOY
Same story, practically.
He plays on the tenement staircase--cuffed off the staircase.
He plays ball in the street--cuffed, if caught by the policeman.
He swings on the area railing, trying to exercise his stunted muscles--cuffed again.
In burning July, with shirt and trousers on, he goes swimming in the park fountain--caught and cuffed and handed over to "the society."
A few months in a sort of semi-decent imprisonment, treated in a fashion about equivalent to that endured by the sea turtle turned over on its back in the market.
He escapes to begin the same life once more.
He tries for work.
"What do you know?"
"I don"t know anything; n.o.body ever taught me."
He cannot even endure the discipline of ten hours" daily shovelling--it takes education to instil discipline, if only the education of the early pick and shovel.
He has not been taught anything. He has been turned loose in a city full of temptation. He had no real start to begin with, and no effort was ever made to repair his evil beginning. ----
"What"s the charge, officer?"
"Attempted burglary; pleads guilty."
"Three years in prison, since it is his first offence."
In prison he gets an education. They teach him how to be a good burglar and not get caught. Patiently the State boards him, and educates him to be a first-rate criminal.
There"s your first-rate criminal, Messrs. Bishops, good men, politicians and benevolent women. ----
Dear bishops, n.o.ble women, good men and scheming politicians, listen to this story:
In the South Sea Islands they have for contagious diseases a horror as great as your horror of crime.
A man or woman stricken with a loathsome disease, such as smallpox, is seized, isolated, and the individual sores of the smallpox patient are earnestly sc.r.a.ped with sea sh.e.l.ls--until the patient dies. It hurts the patient a good deal--without ever curing, of course--but it relieves the feelings of the outraged good ones who wield the sea sh.e.l.ls.
You kind-hearted creatures, hunting "crime" in great cities, are like the South Sea Islanders in their treatment of smallpox.
You ardently wield your reforming sea sh.e.l.ls and you sc.r.a.pe very earnestly at the sores so well developed. ----
No desire here to decry your earnest efforts.
But if you ever get tired of sc.r.a.ping with sea sh.e.l.ls, try vaccination, or, better still, try to take such care of youth, to give such chances and education to the young, as will save them from the least profitable of all careers--CRIME. ----
Rich good men, nice bishops, comfortable, benevolent ladies--every man and woman on Blackwell"s Island, every wretched creature living near a "red light," would gladly change places with any of you.
Sc.r.a.pe away with your sea sh.e.l.ls, but try also to give a few more and a few better chances in youth to those whom you now hunt as criminals in their mature years.
G.o.d creates boys and girls, anxious to live decently.
YOUR SOCIAL SYSTEM makes criminals and fills jails.
THE WONDERFUL MAGNET HOW WILD SUPERSt.i.tION SETTLES DOWN INTO SCIENTIFIC REALITY
Everybody knows something of the peculiarities of the magnet. As a boy you led tiny painted ducks around the water basin, holding a magnet in your hand, or you owned a horseshoe magnet that would pick up nails and needles.
You know now in a general kind of way that the magnet is a very useful as well as a somewhat mysterious thing.
The old Greeks and Romans simply knew that some remarkable iron ore found in Lydia, near the town of Magnesia, and hence called magnet, was capable of drawing and holding pieces of metal.
The ancients had the wildest theories concerning the magnet, just as we have wild theories about things that are new and strange to us to-day.
They thought that the magnet could be used in cases of sickness, that it could attract wood and flesh, that it influenced the human brain, causing melancholy. They believed that the power of a magnet could be destroyed by rubbing garlic on it, and that power brought back again by dipping the magnet in goat"s blood.
They believed that a magnet could be used to detect bad conduct in a woman; they believed that it would not attract iron in the presence of a diamond. They believed much other nonsense quite as ridiculous as the nonsense that we believe to-day. ----
It must have seemed a great waste of time in wise men in the old days to discuss the magnet or think about it at all. Please observe how the apparent nonsense of early speculation finally ripens into actual utility, and learn to respect those who deal as best they can with questions that seem beyond our comprehension.
First the magnet was made actually and wonderfully useful in the compa.s.s. Who discovered the compa.s.s n.o.body knows. It was probably invented by the Chinese and brought to Europe through the Arabs. Anyhow, some genius found out that a small needle brought in contact with the so-called lodestone, or magnetic ore, absorbs the qualities of the lodestone, and when placed on a pivot will always point to the north.
In the magnet there were and there still are many mysteries. A form of perpetual motion seems to be embodied in the principle of magnetism. One strange fact is this, that the weight of the metal is exactly the same before it is magnetized and after it is magnetized.
Early students thought that the magnet pointed toward some particular spot in the sky, perhaps some magnetic star. One genius felt sure that there must be huge mountains of lodestone near the North Pole. This suggestion was followed by ingenious yarns to the effect that in the extreme North ships had to be built with wooden nails, instead of iron nails, as the magnetic mountains would draw the iron nails out of the ship.
After this came the more rational conception that our own earth is a great magnet, and that the little magnet in the compa.s.s simply obeys in pointing, the greater force of the earth magnet.
This editorial generalizing on the magnet is brought about by an incident telegraphed from Vallejo, California. John Gettegg, apprentice in the Navy Yard, had imbedded in his cheek a flying piece of steel. To get it out would apparently have demanded a painful and difficult surgical operation, as the piece of steel had entered the bone. But the head electrician, Petrio, simply placed near the wounded boy"s face an electro-magnet capable of lifting five hundred pounds, and the sharp piece of steel instantly flew out of the cheek and attached itself to the magnet.
So much for one proof of the value of developing what may seem at first to be a foolish set of experiments.
In thousands of ways to-day this magnetic power is utilized.