A French Study of Vagrants and How To Treat Them.—An interesting classification of so-called “non-producers,” or vagabonds, has been made by Etienne Flandid, who has recently conducted a study of the criminal classes of France. M. Flandid has made his studies the basis of a report which is being considered by the French senate.
He divides vagabonds into three classes. In the first class are the infirm
and aged. These, he believes, should be properly clothed and fed and housed by the state or municipality. The second class contains the “accidental out-of-works.” Under M. Flandid’s recommendation these will be sent to a penal labor colony, where they will be kept and put to work until employment is found for them outside of the colony. It will be the duty of the state to seek to secure employment for them, and to notify them and release them from the colony at the earliest possible date. The third class contains the professional tramps, the fellows who do not want work and who would not accept employment if it were tendered them. This class is to be shut up in penal colonies for periods of from five to ten years. After serving the first sentence, if they do not secure employment, they will be returned to the penal colonies and kept there for life, with plenty of good, wholesome work to do. By ridding society of these three classes of people, or by providing for them in the manner stated, he believes that crime will be so greatly lessened that there will hardly be any use for the police forces, save to gather in the few vagabonds as they develop. He argues that nearly all crime is committed by one or the other of the three classes named, especially by the third class.
Speaking editorially of this report, the Dayton, Ohio, News says:
“Practically every country on earth today has its problems of the unemployed. France is not alone in the matter. Even in this country, where there is so much to be done, where conditions are better than almost anywhere else on earth, we have the three classes referred to by the Frenchman, and we have done little to improve conditions. We have our civic societies, and our reform organizations and our bodies of philanthropists. But we have not gone to the root of the matter as have the French, and we have no students devoting as much time to the study of the question as can be found in other countries. We complain much about the cost of living—as we have a right to—and we print thousands of columns about the trusts and the tariff, as is well that we should. But we are overlooking one of the real questions of economy
when we fail to study and to understand the problems presented to us in the way of the unemployed.”
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Resignations Follow Criticism of Juvenile Court of Louisville, Ky.—A somewhat acute situation has developed among those interested in the work of the juvenile court and juvenile probation in Louisville, Ky. As a result of what is by some persons characterized as the courts’ “totally irresponsible methods in caring for dependent and delinquent children,” Bernard Flexner and several other members of the Juvenile Court Advisory Board have resigned their positions. The straw which broke the camel’s back was the appointment by Juvenile Judge Muir Weissinger of a probation officer who is declared not only to be unfit for such a delicate position, but also to have a noteworthy political reputation. The Social Workers’ Conference held a mass meeting on March 16, at which were adopted resolutions calling for the removal of the probation officer in question. Speakers at the meeting declared that for a year conditions in the juvenile court have been intolerable; that children have been dragged into court and brow-beaten, some have been wrongfully placed in unworthy homes, and that all efforts to do something for them have come to naught. Judge Weissinger declared that he would not remove the objectionable probation officer until better evidence that he was unfit had been adduced.
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Domestic Relations Courts.—In view of the interest with which the whole country is watching the work of the domestic relations courts newly instituted in the larger cities of New York, it is important that the court’s own story of its activities be set before the public. Recently such a court was instituted in the city of Chicago. Pointing in this same direction is a recommendation contained in the 1910 report of the Boston Associated Charities that the delinquent husband and father shall be constantly under the supervision of the court during the continuance of its direction to him to pay for the maintenance of his wife and child.