p. 16 | BOY CRIMINALS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 17, 1898

BOY CRIMINALS.

“Generally speaking, the good little boy is scarce. There are 90,000 criminals behind the bars in this country under thirty years of age, and 10,000 in reformatories, ranging from seven to seventeen years. There are more children in the House of Refuge and various reformatory institutions in this State than there are criminals in our jails.”—Philadelphia Press.

And yet we are gravely told that the world is getting better! With the rising generation reeking in criminality, how is it possible to cling to such a delusive hope? Speaking of the “last days,” the Word plainly says that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” When not only the criminality of men and women has become alarming, but when even the children are devoting themselves to evil, who can doubt that the last days so clearly prophesied of are reached? And when the older people are so completely given over to pleasure, fashionable follies, and even crime, what else could be expected than a generation of children who will multiply upon the evils of their fathers?