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baggea vi nave -------them to this Children's Court without de-Except in special cases where they could te at once bailed out by their parents they are not to be taken to the pQlice station. And if any child is brought to a police court it is made the duty of the Magistrate sitting to have him or her dispatched in-stanter to the Children’s Court. If it should become necessary to arrest a child at night or before or after the court' is an session-which rarely happens-then that child is to be turned over to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children— the Gerry society.Such children will be kept in the rooms of the Gerry society over night, and will be taken down In the morning at the opening of the court. There, kept quietly in upper rooms of this old-fashioned building, which was for many years the headquarters of the Department of Charities and Correction. their number added to by shoals of children brought in as the day wears on and lessened by the rapid disposal of cases on the part of the Judge who only has children’s affairs to consider, they will wait their tuifn as if they were in school, but in a school with power unimagined.CHILDREN DEFINED.In the twinkling of an eye, therefore, the career of the “smart” boy of the street is shorn of its romance. Gone are the possibilities for the half-grown, wild girl who has before this seen in arrest after thievery or small escapades only pleasing adventure.The law that made this Children s Court construes all who are sixteen years of age | and under as children, and places them under the authority of this court. In the new courtroom, under this new plan, both will now disgustedly find themselves of no more account than the veriest “ kid,” and without the importance their, youth gave them in police court annals.This is a factor to be taken into consideration, and it will show itself to be of much significance in this new method of handling one of the greatest of problems. But the newly created Children’s Court has other reasons for existence. In place of having to pass on many a cause the Judge of the court will give his whole time to these children’s cases, sitting here day following day for two months at a time. This practice, if it does not perhaps make perfect will at least secure for these children wiser, more expert, justice than they haveever had before.It is calculated that within the first twelve months of this court’s existence 9,000 children will come before it on criminal charges, to say nothing of cases of abandonment, failure on the part of parents to care for, and a hundred like circumstances. Some say that 9,000 is too high an estimate, this being 10 per cent, of all the criminal arraignments a year in New York. But whether 9,000 or not, the number will certainly be not far from that. The keynote of the Children s Court is expressed in this phrase of The Juvenile Record of Chicago: “It is wiser and less expensive to save children than to punishcriminals.”Officially, this Children’s Court will be known as the “ Court of Special Sessions, First Division, of the City of New Y'ork, Children’s Part.” It is, as its title implies, but another courtroom of the Court of Special Sessions. The act of the Legislature that created it provided for another Justice to be added to the five that already made up this court, and arranged that but one Judge at. a time should occupy the Children's Court bench, instead of the three that sit at the rAcrnlar Sneciai Sessions.Judge happens to be sitting mere win dc garbed in his robes, and all the traditions of the court further down town will be k,ept up.THE COURT STAFF.A small staff will actually man it. for the reason that most of the detail—the real work of caring for the children while they are waiting in the building to be called up for examination—wil be-taken in hand by the Gerry Society. This association will be no small part of the court, no inconsiderable fraction of its machinery.Actual punishment, in most instances with the young wrong doers of both sexes, will be but a last resort—as often as possible it will be case after Case. of suspended sentence and probation. The Gerry Society will in these instances be the “ probation officer,” and it will be to this society . the young offenders must report once a week to give account of themselves and show that they are walking in the right path.Another thing the Gerry Society will do. Brought more than ever into contact with needy children, it will relieve cases of juvenile destitution and suffering, and when such cases come before the presiding judge he will have only to send for the Society agent in the building. The association has been given one of the roms on the second floor to use as an office and supply room. This apartment adjoins twckrooms, one for boys and the other for girls, where the children will await their turn.These children’s rooms wil also be under the society’s care, and in them the youngsters wil be fed when necessary and’carefully looked after. Each will accommodate thirty to forty children. They are furnished with benches. Though the entire building is fitted up so as to dispel the jail idea, nevertheles it has been thought best in these children's rooms to have the windows heavily barred, lest some ambitious boys and girls might be verturesome enough to attempt escape.The old main office of the Charities and Correction Department, with Its entranceCircuit, and the Supreme.As closely as it is possible to compare the legal systems of one State with afe-s other, the Illinois Supreme Court is equivalent to the New York Uourt of Appeals, and the Circuit Court witfsu-the New* York Supreme. The Juvenile Court is a Circuit Court, and the Circuit Court of Illinois is descended’ from the old English Chancery Court as regards its powers. Thus this court can and does go much further than the New York- Court will be able to do, and one of its powers is that of guardianship. These, questions Judge Tuthill has adjudicated very satisfactorily.ROBESPIERRE’S CLOCK.ROBESPIERRE’S clock, which stood in the room occupied by him in the house of the carpenter Duplay. is now In the possession of Mile. G6niat, an artiste of the Franqaise. The clock, aside from its historical value, is most interesting on account of the curious works. The face is of copper, and has only one hand. At the Chicago exhibition this clock was an object of much interest. It Is to be placed in the Carnavelet Museum, by the side of the great clock of the Tuileries, which struck so many historical hours from the time of the Directory until the burning of the Tuileries on the evening of May 24, 1871.A HERCULES FOUND.AC Boscoreale, a small village near Pompeii, excavators have discovered a magnificent bronze statue of Hercules reposing, seated on a rock, with his club on his shoulder. The work is in a good state of preservation, and is similar in style to the famous Farrese Hercules in the Vatican in Rome. The Director of the museum at Naples is superintending the trans-1 portation of the statue.
Newspaper Details
New York Times
New York, New York, US
Sun, Aug 24, 1902
Page 22
Full Page
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