In an instant the long, double lines stood, with their backs to the wall and facing the parade-ground.
Away out in the middle of it stood the commander, the drill-master of that very remarkable battalion. He was a handsome, pleasant eyed man, of about twenty-five, dressed in a trim blue uniform, very like that of a United States Army officer. He was really a naval officer, detailed there by the Government to be practically the colonel of a regiment of pretty wild boys. He was there to teach them discipline, order, obedience, only a shade or so more strictly than if they had been cadets at West Point, or the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
Other commands had been given and obeyed, and the entire force was now marching around the broad enclosure by companies, six of them, and each company was composed of boys of nearly the same height.
The first company consisted of boys, the oldest of whom may have been eighteen, and the rear company was made up of little fellows as young as twelve, or even younger.
Very nearly all of them, white or colored, moved as if they liked the idea of being young soldiers, but they had not been recruited like other soldiers. Some of them were there because they had no other home to go to nor any other school to be taught in. Many, however, were there for other reasons. For instance, that tall young fellow in command of the foremost company. The captain, in bright, blue uniform who handled his men so well. He is here for highway robbery and it will be a long time before they let him out, although he is one of the best behaved boys in the House of Refuge. He is not here altogether as a punishment, however, nor are any of his companions, no matter what their fault was. This is not a place of judgment, but of help and hope, and, not long ago, a well-known literary man, after inspecting the whole institution, said to the Superintendent:
“Sir, this is one of the footprints of Christ on earth. It is an effort, in His name, to seek and to save that which was lost.”
“Thank God!” replied the officer. “About eighty-five out of every hundred do well and become good citizens. We keep track of them, long after they leave us.”
Nevertheless, the House of Refuge has to be a kind of prison. It is on Randall’s Island, separated from the city of New York, on Manhattan Island, by a swiftly running branch of the East River, which is not a river at all, but an arm of the sea, and its rapid current is made by the changing tides.
If, in one view, this is a prison, in another it is a great boarding school, with very remarkable appliances for the education and discipline of its pupils.
The entire enclosure, of which the parade-ground is a part, contains several acres. The stone wall, twenty feet high, in front of which the battalion halted, guards all of one of the sides of the enclosure and parts of two other sides.