Alumni Day at a Reform School.—It does happen! This was what occurred at the Lyman School for Boys, Westboro, Massachusetts, on November 15, 1913.
The trustees of the School, Superintendent E. L. Coffeen, and Superintendent of the Parole Department, Walter A. Wheeler, sent letters to all of the 144 boys who have become twenty-one years of age the past year, inviting them to a dinner and celebration in their honor at the school. About one fourth of them attended, and as many more sent letters of regret, containing remarks of warm appreciation. Some of the boys were in the Army and Navy; others had moved out of the State. For any one of the boys to attend, meant the sacrificing of a day’s work and the cost of carfare.
The program included a football game between the present inmates and an outside team, a reunion of boys with old officers and teachers, an inspection of the new features of the school, which they had not seen in the last five or six years, and finally a banquet.
The usual speeches were made by the trustees, superintendents and invited guests, but the feature was the voluntary address in behalf of the boys made by one of their number. After thanking those present for what the school training and the friendly oversight of the parole board had done for him, he pledged the old boy’s interests in doing whatever they could to help the younger brothers “make good” when released from the school.
It is intended to have a Home Coming Celebration every year, of which this was the successful experiment.
After Forty-Three Years.—Pardoned after forty-three years—the best years of his life—in a State penitentiary! Seeing the new world for the first time at sixty-six—such is the experience of John Taborn, pardoned by Governor Cox, of Ohio! Why, it’s like coming to life again after half a century of death, says the Bay City (Mich.) Times.
When Taborn entered the State prison at Columbus in 1870, Grant was President. The telephone was unknown; electric lights were not dreamed of; there were not electric cars; skyscrapers in the largest cities were four or five-story buildings; Edison had not conceived the phonograph, while flying machines and wireless telegraphy were the dreams of madmen. The United States navy consisted of a few iron-clad and many wooden ships.
When he was pardoned, Taborn was taken about Columbus by Warden Thomas’ secretary to see that he was not confused by the traffic and injured. He gazed in awe at the electric cars; he got lost in the revolving door of an office building, the height of which astonished him; he enjoyed his first ride in an elevator; he smoked a good cigar, but was puzzled by the safety matches, which would not ignite when scratched on his trouser leg; he heard a phonograph and talked over the telephone for the first time in his life.
Despite his sixty-six years, Taborn is active and has keen sight, reading without glasses. In the prison he learned three trades—that of machinist, shoe-maker and molding—and plans to begin his last span of life as a machinist.