THE CORRUPTING PRESS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 8, 13 June 1884, Page 9

THE CORRUPTING PRESS.

(From the Albany limes.) If there is one thing more than another that makes even the most devout follower of Herbert Spencer sigh for a " paternal system of government, or a good, strong, Shah of Persia sort of monarchy, it rtJ^S^i of 3 uvenile c."me arising out of or aggravated by SZ S^tu i k° • the / x Pl° its ° f youthful heroes, as boy detectives, boy scouts, boy brigands, boy burglars, and boy villains of every description. J «™JSS"i? afc ii oany J* 88 * 018 and dirk knive8 ' who *»* themselves together m cellars and garrets, from which they plan safe burglaries £m.?m P ° n dßkms , and express cars-boys whose chief reading is the blood-curdling tales above mentioned, and whose chief detestation is honest work, are not likely to make good citizens. It is rare £at one can take up a paper without reading either of . run-away SSZ^rt?"* 9l3 ! arreßted before any mischief is done beyond the a^t^Ti^i* atill or tbe amo * nt of a collection, or of some abominable deed more befitting the inmate of an insane asylum, Swir- me f, berof some Asiatic clan whose chief distinction and pride is in the murder of their fellow-beings. . r»^w e «°S er d - a ? a boy in Ca P c May endeavoured to poison his JSZ£;? ? er> "^I } l? d brother8 ' eith^ in revenge for a distasteful r^^l fw m * h !f t ather ' or to remov e. Eastern fashion, the relatives that stood between him and the possession of the family property. In New York, a couple of boys were arrested with a complete outfit of the weapons necessary to Indian warfare, purchased from the proceeds of a theft, and they intended to go into'the highwayman business in case Indians proved to be scarce. For some unknown reason-either because tbe police of that city keep a Jf'P** l 0?? kk ° v ? for run-avvay boys than they do at the West, or because incipient Indian fighters believe it to be the first station on the road to « the Rockies "-Baltimore is a great place for gathering in the bloody-minded truants. An important haul was made the other day, the culprits, however, being bad boys of their own. A series of robberiM of freight cars for several years, convinced the police that the depredations were the acts cf an organized gang, and a little watchmg soon discovered ibeir headquarters in a lonely house a few miles from the city, where about twenty juvenile thieves, male and femal°, Jlived in comfortable style. In the cellar was found a lot of plunder, rand in tbe shop of a Fagin in the city, who acted as " fence," many moie valuable articles were found, lhe ringleaders were ai rested after a struggle in a saloon in the city. fiS %£u?T ?m? m ? d Wben mere hoys > and their heads had been filled with tales of tbe exploits of robbers. The Boston police have been aroused by the mayor to ferreting out tne perpetrators of numerous outrages and thefts recently comW™ £ B " burb % of i hat cit 7- A young son of a prominent Boston merchant was fined for mutilating the marble tablet on the grave of Daniel Webster, in Marshfield. The police of Lowell arrested a band of five urchins, twelve to fourteen years of age, for highway robbery on boys of their own age. In their pockets were "found stones of stage robberies, and an account of the exploits of John T. bullivan. In South Foston a gang of banditti was found in a cellar, ineirages ranged from ten to eighteen years. One carried a revolver, and all were truants and reader of flash papers and the sort of litteratuie that comes under the namq of dime-novel. At Watsontown, Pa., last week a boy was arrested while changing a switch for the purpose of wjeoking a passenger train. He confessed that he had embarked in the train-wrecking business some months previous and had asked his associates to join him in making up a gang with a view to wrecking passenger trains and then plundering the wounded passengers. But he concluded that the " gallant warning racket" would have paid better on the whole. The last among the incidents of this sort wuhin a week, not counting the assaults by boys with murderous weapons, of which there have been several, was the robbery and wounding of a peddler in Schuylkill county, fa., by three young boys, who were found to possess a most artistic outfit, gold mounted revolvers, select library, etc. They intended to go to Idaho as soon as they had accumulated sufficient capital, and assume the roll of full-blown desperadoes. It is needless to say that all these bnsh-rangers, from the first to the last, were thoroughly provided with i-lang vocabularies, signs and countersigns, passwords, and ritual of that sort, enough to run fifty lodges of Good Templars and a lodge of Red Men te boot. To questiona as to the cause of their adopting that course of life the boys and the police give one unvarying answer : dime novels. The youth of our cities, towns and villages, are corrupted by \.le reading. It is thrust in their faces, flaunted from every newsstationer s and toy and candy shop. There is scarcely a working Doy or girl in all onr stores and shops and factories but buys one or two of these papers a week. They lie upon the tables in respectable country houses alonar with the Bible and Baxter's Sain fa Rest. ••* i. "1 novel a neceß sary outgrowth of our civilisation, or Y« it an unhealthy fungoid that may be pruned away 1 Is it possible tor parents and teachers to counteract the baleful effects of the readmg ot trash, or to so guard the youth in their charge as to keep the 1 oison from their minds ? Bat who shall watch over those who i!7 6 i.u O guardians? Tf repressive measures are ever justifiable they must be so in regard to trash literature sold to minors.