THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1906. A CHILDREN'S JUDGE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8314, 18 December 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1906. A CHILDREN'S JUDGE.

In the October, and November numbers of MpOlure's Magazine Judge Lindsey, the judae of the Juvenile Court of Denver, is made the subject of articles which; despite their author's, peculiar style aud the profusion of American slang and rliorn with which they abound, contain a deal of interesting detail and food for thought. In a small oolony like New Zealand it is difficult to realise to what an extent juvenile crime prevails under different oiroumatances. Juveniles, we can fortunately say, oome but rarely before our own courts to be dealt with, and present aa Jet no insoluble problem. So far from condemning them to the ordinary gaol, we are beginning to see the undesirability of their oases being heard even in open court. However, in the country where Judge Lindsey has instituted radical reforms and pioneer methods of dealing with child offenders, conditions are very different. His Juvenile Court, or "kids' court" as it is popularly called, is now famous, and has made his reputation. He had not much difficulty in foundiug it or arranging that all children's oases should be brought to it. His methods were thorough. He vie'ted the Industrial School «t Golden, to which he had been in tha habit of sending boys freely, and instituted reforms there. He visited the oity and county gaols, and found them sohoola of crime. Wnat stirred him up maatly was the sigh's of boys in the same cells with men and women "of the vilest type," and a little inquiry showed him that these children were allowed to associate freely with grown criminals. He found that in the five years before he went on the Bench 2,136 Denver boys had been in these gaela fur periods varying from a few hours to thirty days. He found that juvenile crime was on the increase generally in the United

States. He engaged the services of a clipping bureau, and iu bis "Problem of the Children" quotes some ot the results, such as "Five thousand boss arrested last year" (in one city); "4,000 out of 16,000 arreata last year were toy* under 20" (in a city of less than 150,000). Three quarters of the crimes committed in the United States, the judge says, are done by boys under 23. "And why not?" he asks. "The children of parents who die or fail in their duty are taken by the State and sent for their schooling into the streets or gaols, where they pick up false ideals and criminal aits. With few exceptions all these boy criminals whom society has sent to the slaughterhouse to be killed had been sent to gaol in their teens by society for other crimes. Aud>, most of them were first imprisoned as little cbil dren." We find Judge Lindsey thus described: "His petsonal appearance helps him. The judge is a short, slight, boyish looking young man, open-faced, direct, sincere, and he lays off the ermine, figuratively speaking, very readily. In chambers ho comes right down to earth, using boy ttdk, including slang. For this he has been criticised by good people, who think of Knglish as au institution to bo pure. The judge answers that he has something else in mind than the purity of the language, lie has found, 'after four years' experience' that the judicious use of n few of these slang terms not only does not hurt the boy, but actually helps him and wins his confidence,' i and ninoft the boys are what he is after, he will continue to talk to the boys to a certain extent 'much the same as they talk with one another.' ' So the admiring author delights to reproduce samples of the judge's court conversation, where he appears to address the boys as "fellers" advise them to "suitnh up," and every few minutes remark—"Say, kids, lot's out it out." His practice of putting young wrongdoers and ragamuffins on their honor and trusting them to go alone to the Industrial Sobool at Golden has been attended with immensa suooesß, and it is stated that out of hundreds he has trusted only three have failed him. Judge Lindisey must be allo.wed to be working out a solution of a great problem, and very successfully if half what is stated is true. The failures appear to have been weak boys.