A Law for "Wayward" Young Men.
WHEN a young man steals a sheep or a pair of boots, which, by the way, have probably not been placed in his safe-keeping, society has little doubt what to do with him. It comes to the conclusion in short order that he is a thief, and puts him in jail at hard labor or in State prison. But if he has had a place of trust in some financial institution, and grossly betrays the confidence reposed in him, society is somehow struck all of a heap, and does not know what to do with him. The crime must be covered up, the deficiency made up by friends, there must be no prosecution, no publicity, and no penalty whatever, and the young man must be sent off to begin life again. Now we believe this is all a mistaken policy as regards the young man himself. We believe it is a terribly mistaken kindness. Some of our readers probably know cases in which this policy has been pursued, and the young men in whose behalf it has been tried generally become wanderers on the face of the earth, pursued by the phantom of that old concealed crime left behind, and often rushing into new ones. They were not vicious originally, but they were weak, flabby morally; they had about as much moral backbone as a jelly-fish, or a butterfly, and seeing older men indulging in expensive luxuries and vices, they began to run the same course until they were caught in the trap of crime. Leniency and sending off into new associations are simply wasted on such men. They need "taking down" to the foundation and a new start—a real one, not one of those new-birth conversions which do not enable a man to confess his sin till he has been found out. If conviction, penalty, and disgrace are the fit portion, and the best thing for the ordinary thief, they certainly are the best things for the embezzler. Let him take his punishment, with such professions of repentance as he feels justified in making, and such as courts are always ready to take into account in fixing the penalty. Then let him return to his home, where we all know him, and his father before him, and begin again. He will be better off than in some distant locality where vague rumors of crime greater than the fact may at any time penetrate to damn his peace of mind. But here, at the seat of his crime and failure, he will always have friends to welcome and encourage every effort for a more promising career, and who know the worst as well as the best.—Springfield Republican.