hundreds of boys who should and do thank God that they ever came under these influences.

The influences of which I have spoken, all of which tend to good citizenship, are today one of the greatest forces of blessing which this country possesses. We talk about our secret service. We in Washington know something about it, and Congress was much disturbed concerning the appropriation which Mr. Roosevelt desired for secret service. Oh, men and women, the prisoners that every day go out from our penitentiaries in this country, if they have been properly treated in those institutions, make the grandest secret service guard which this country can possess. What do I mean? Criminals as a rule think they have been badly treated by the world in general. They think they did not have justice in the court, that their lawyers did not plead as they should have done, or in any event they have had hard luck. They have a grudge against society, but let a man stay in some penitentiaries that I could name for an ordinary term, six months, one, two, five or ten years, let a convict be under the influence of such a man as Major McClaughry, let the man live under him for a term of years, and when that man goes out he will feel a respect for the law of the land which he did not feel when he went in. For the first time in his life he has seen well organized society, for the first time in his life he has seen authority vested in a man of liberal education, of fine temper, of cool, calm judgment and of a sweet christian spirit. Any man who has lived under that influence for years must feel the influence of it. Some of the thunders of Sinai and the pleadings of Gethsemane must have been imprinted upon him. So, prison men, prison women, I ask you to rise to the limit of the possibilities in your relation to so many men and women. But if, on the other hand, the man coming out of prison feels that he has not been well treated, has not been fairly, justly treated, he goes out with an oath in his soul. He says, "I will get even with him yet.' What does he mean? He means he will get even with the prison official by breaking the law, by doing some desperate thing. But knowing prison men as I do, I know they are benefactors when they preside over their institu

tions up to the limit of their knowledge and their possibilities. I know men all over this country who are as truly missionaries of the gospel of Jesus Christ and teachers of civil government and keepers of the peace quite as much as any class of men in the republic. I know a man today at the head of a reformatory institution, who went from an official position in one of our great prisons, who said, "I am glad to go to the boys, because there is more hope of a boy than of a man criminal, but I could shed tears for the old bums that I am leaving." Do you not suppose when he left that great institution, when he left those "old bums" that he left a blessing with them? Of course he did.

Now I have a word to you women who are not directly connected with prison work. Your sympathies are right, your hearts are tender, but sympathy misdirected is not kindness. Intelligence in the application of the great truths which we accept and which we talk about is what these men and women in prison work have to cultivate.

Is it asked, Why this great conference? What do these people come together for? What is it all about? It is to go apart for a little while, to confer together about the mysterious process by which the crystals of good citizenship shall form even out of the hell broth of crime, and how that which will not crystallize shall be dammed up where it will do the least harm. We studied this morning how the mind and the soul are related to the body of the criminal in which they dwell, and how the law may step in and curb or destroy an elemental function of the body because the balance of power in that body has been destroyed and runs wild, endangering society. Can you think of any higher study? Can you think of anything more like the counsels of eternity when the Triune God considered the plan of human salvation? These divine humanities are all wrapped up in the prison work of today.

Oh, men and women, my parting salutation is: These prisoners will go out some time, and while you have them put the impress of the best which our civilization affords upon them. It will not sink deeply into some of them; it will make an im

pression upon all; it will make good men and good women of many of them, and you shall thus be saviors of your day and your country.

After music, President Gilmour introduced Judge Ben B. Lindsey, judge of the Juvenile Court of Denver, Colorado, who presented the

PROBATION AND THE CRIMINAL LAW.

BEN B. LINDSEY, JUDGE OF THE JUVENILE COURT OF DENVER.

The legislature that just ended gave Colorado a probation law making a new application of the principles of the chancery courts to cases of adult criminals. It is believed to be the first law of its kind. It only applies so far to misdemeanor cases.

Even where adults guilty of crime are subjected to probation, as may be done in many states already, the proceeding is in the criminal courts. In cases of non-support and contributory delinquency by adults, probation has been permitted by law in our own court for the past six years, but under a criminal court proceeding. The departure effected by this law is that the proceeding is in the chancery division of the civil courts much as in the cases of delinquent children in our juvenile courts. For the last nine years the legal proceedings as to children have been in chancery rather than under the common law criminal jurisdiction. Children over seven years of age were tried as criminals before the change first came in Illinois and Colorado by laws first passed in 1899. The new proceeding is also somewhat analogous to cases against lunatics, dipsomaniacs, inebriates, dependents, etc.-a proceeding always to save them, to help them and not to hurt them.

The principle as to adult criminals, though new in application is not new as a principle. It is a power of the State technically known as parens patriae-the overparent as it weredealing considerately and helpfully with certain of its citizens as its wards to be cared for, aided, assisted, helped, etc. Time and again have our Supreme Court upheld statutes invoking this

power in the interest of certain classes of its citizens who, by reason of deficiencies or misfortunes, are regarded as weaklings to be cured, strengthened, helped and saved to society rather than eliminated from it, or their hatred encouraged against it only to make society a worse victim in the end. Under it, the state has established at great expense our institutions for the cure or care of dipsomaniacs, the insane, inebriates and dependents. And because this class of weaklings are known to be such in most cases because of habits that are generally worse and less excusable than many of those habits or circumstances often responsible for crime, has never caused any serious contention that the state meant to or did thereby encourage such evil habits, nor has it dimmed the humanitarian spirit that justified them.

Like such proceedings the case is one concerning the individual rather than the act or thing done by the individual. The act is the incident to set in motion a legal plan of saving the individual through the doing of real justice.

It was thought wise to first apply our new probation law to misdemeanors only. This includes the great majority of cases in which probation is ever granted in any court. It covers such common offenses as drunkenness, non-support of wife or child, vagrancy, petty stealing, violation of city ordinances, most of the laws for the protection of youth, certain forms of assault, neighborhood rows, etc.

A few concrete cases may serve to illustrate the difference between the old and new methods of procedure.

Here is a recorded case of petty larceny by a young woman in a London shop, reported in a book entitled, "Old Bailey Experiences," being a treatise on Criminal Jurisprudence and the Actual Working of the Penal Code of Laws, published by James Fraser in 1833, and for which I am indebted to Mr. Mornay Williams, of New York City. It concerns the then existing law in England to punish with death, stealing in a shop, or lifting anything off a counter with intent to steal.

“Under this act, one Mary Jones was executed. The woman's husband was pressed, their goods seized for some debt of his, and

she, with two small children, turned into the streets a-begging. 'Tis a circumstance not to be forgotten, that she was very young (under nineteen) and most remarkably handsome. She went to a linen-draper's shop, took some coarse linen off the counter, and slipped it under her cloak; the shopman saw her, and she laid it down; for this she was hanged. Her defense was (I have the trial in my pocket) that she had lived in credit and wanted for nothing, till a press-gang came and stole her husband from her; but since then she had no bed to lie on; nothing to give her children to eat, and they were almost naked; and perhaps she might have done something wrong, for she hardly knew what she did. The parish officers testified the truth of this story, but there had been a good deal of shop-lifting about Ludgate and example was thought necessary, and this woman was hanged for the comfort and satisfaction of some shopkeepers about Ludgate street. When brought to receive sentence, she behaved in such a frantic manner, as proved her mind to be in a distracted and desponding state; and the child was sucking at her breast when she went to Tyburn." The hanging did not stop the stealing. It only increased. The state thought when it choked the woman it choked evil. There was the mistake.

Now under our new probation law in Colorado let us follow a typical case coming to the attention of the writer only recently. A young woman employed in a large department store in Denver was complained of for stealing fifteen dollars. Our proceeding as directed by this new probation law, would be like this:

Case would be carefully investigated in advance. The district attorney, having the assistance and advice of the probation officer, finds the facts about as follows:

Young woman, 22 years old, eldest daughter of mother with six younger children; father bad; frequents gambling house tolerated by police, lost his wages there, took to drink, became worthless; left home two years before in an apparent state of despondency (no doubt feeling his own sin, but too weak to recover from it). The temptation to the young woman to steal was very great. It is perhaps her first offense. The petition is in the civil division of the court having chancery (as distinguished from