The writer takes exception to my suggestion that the offenders should be put on a well balanced diet of gruel and water, sent to school and church and the rest of his waking hours be put at hard labor. Says it will cause them to be bitter against society and be like some of these boys that have taken revenge and went on a crime spree that has landed them permanently behind bars and in many cases caused them to murder some one.
Our jails are not suppose to be torture chambers, but neither are they suppose to be places where the offenders are coddled and fed appetizing food. They are there because they have committed crimes against society and are being punished for it in order that they will have a remorse of conscience and thereby be returned to society as assets to that society and ready to carry on their fair share of the load in helping to build a better civilization. Criminals start as youths, and because they are not brought 'out of the kinks' when they are still in the formative stages, they many times go on and develop into criminals or at the best fail to develop into profitable citizens.
I know a minister who lived near a reformatory. He had charge of all the boys and girls who came to this reformatory and were of his religious faith. He was never interested in their background. To him they were not case histories, just human beings who had stepped over that imaginary line and landed where they were in his charge.
On only one occasion did he look into the past of these young people, although he had free access to the files all the time. That experience taught him differently.
It was with a young girl. As she grew to respect her minister, she became brave enough to ask him one day if he knew hey past. He had looked into the files on this one girl and told her so. The reaction left such a horrifying complex on this young woman that he determined to never use the files again. After all, it was the future that counted.
As he met these young outlaws, he would verbally tear them from limb to limb for not going to church or not doing this or that, that had in the end landed them behind bars. He would get them to feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves, then he would start building from there.
As a result of his attitude towards them and his forcefulness in teaching, the Rev. B. R. Lange stands out with men such as Father Flanagan; for of the more than 200 youths he came in contact with in his teaching and praching at the reformatory, not one of them returned to the institution as second offenders. That is a phenomanal record, considering the calibre of those he had to work with.
Rev. Lange didn't coddle them. He just followed the Biblical instruction of Solomon: "A wise father reproveth his sone and he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes."
What I am trying to say is that it is our attitudes toward our fellowmen that counts, and a diet of monotonous but nutritious food will probably go a long way toward giving them that remorse of conscience that they need to humble themselves.
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The Egg Shampoo
For those who haven't tried an egg shampoo and would like to this is how it is done.
Take a well-beaten egg, pour it over the scalp a couple of times and then rinse. You'll get a more thorough rinse if you don't use hot. Many use just the egg whites but both yolk and whites may be used although the yolk is harder to rinse out.
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