The Delinquent (Vol. IV, No. 5), May, 1914

Entered as second-class mail matter at New York.
One dull grey morning during the closing days of September, 1912, I sat poring over the records of the —— State Prison at a desk in the administrative offices where I was employed, when the shrill voice of a woman rang out on the street directly outside my barred window, attracting the startled attention of the prison clerk, the doorkeeper and myself. They rushed into the room past me and raised the sash. And what a sight met our eyes! There, beneath the stone ledge, stood a poor wild-eyed Slav woman, tying a stout rope from behind both wrists of her son, a lad of about twelve years, punctuating each knot with cuffs on his ears and wild gesticulations and admonitions in her native tongue and in broken English.
“Now you go to school, huh?” the woman cried when she had tied the last knot behind the lad’s back. But the little fellow seemed as unmoved and dogged as she was excited and persistent. With another cuff behind his ear she sent him sprawling along the sidewalk. But never a whimper from the lad. The doorkeeper, accustomed as he is to the hardest of characters that pass in and out the grey prison doors, and to pathetic scenes on visiting days, melted at the sight.
“What are you doing to that boy?” he shouted at the woman from the prison window. She turned quickly, and with eyes ablaze, retorted: “Dot’s not you’ business!” and then gave her attention to the boy, cuffing and pushing him on ahead of her. “You’ll get arrested, if you don’t stop treating your boy that way!” the doorkeeper warned her. But the woman kept on cuffing and pushing the little fellow while shouting back over her shoulder as she moved away: “Dot’s not you’ business!”
The doorkeeper and clerk shook their heads, looked at each other and left the office in silence. We were stunned by what we had seen, and marvelled that such a thing could happen in the capital city of one of our foremost states in this civilized century which boasts its wonderful advancement in every branch of life.