Читать книгу The New York Tombs Inside and Out!. Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison онлайн

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Victor Hugo says, “He who opens a school closes a prison,” which is true if that school teaches the morality of the ten commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, but not otherwise.

In Great Britain in 1880 the number of pupils in the schools increased to 3,895,324, while the prisoners numbered only 30,719; but the greatest decrease in the prison population is seen in 1899, when the school pupils numbered 5,601,249, while the prison population fell to 17,687. That is to say, the prison population decreased 38 per cent. while the population of the country increased 11 per cent.

Notwithstanding all that may be said, it is our humble opinion after years of observation that criminality is largely the result of ignorance, idleness and indolent habits. Since I have been in the habit of visiting reformatories I have often thought of Isaac Watts’ philosophy, “Satan finds mischief for idle hands to do.” It is the young loafer and idler who is around the streets night and day “killing time” that gets into trouble. Whenever parents rear their children in idleness they simply sap the foundations of personal character and fit them for criminality. A report of the Elmira Reformatory shows that of thousands of persons who were received into that institution since it was first opened over 83 per cent. are classed as laborers and idlers.