174 



I he Review ot Keviews. 



AuffUSt 1, 1$06. 



CHINA TOWN, SAN FRANCISCO. 



In Blackwood's Magazine an eye-w-itness describes 

 the visit he and another Englishman paid, in com- 

 pany with a detective, to Chinatown, the main cess- 

 pool, as he says, of the San Francisco — now gutted 

 and purified by fire — Chinatown, " this disease- 

 centre of the West," with which an outraged but 



America s Great Fires Comijar. u. 



The accompanying cut from the Indianapolis Xoui shows 

 graphically the area covered by the great conflagrations 

 at Chicago Baltimore, and San Francisco. 



long-forbearing Providence has now finished. It is 

 the best description of the district I have read ; but 

 I wonder whether the writer realises the extent to 

 w'hich Chinatown was honeycombed underground 

 by passages down which criminals and other un- 

 desirables disappeared. I quote the description of 

 the haunts of female \'ice : — 



The first series were Chinese, each furnished with a 

 little grille above the entrance from which passers-by could 

 be solicited. It was degrading ot its kind. but. in its 

 Oriental colouring, respectable in comparison with the 

 scenes which followed. We had no knowledge that human 

 beings of European nurture could sink so low in the de- 

 pravity of vice, or that a civilised community could 

 tolerate in its midst such a miserable centre ot filthy 

 tratfio as existed, until the timely earthquake, in the 

 heart ot San Francisco. We have seen tlie Yoskivara dis- 

 trict in Tokio, have wandered through most of the large 

 seaport towns of the world, but have never witnessed a 

 parallel with that human market in China Town. There 



are streets and streets of tiny cubicles, each of which 

 contains a woman whose existence is a dejradation of the 

 laws of nature, and an outrage against civilisation. The 

 brief survey that we had ot this shameful spectacle was 

 sufficient to cause us to turn with relief to the less sordid 

 slums ot the Chinaman's location. 



All that was depraved, however, was not centred 

 in Chinatown, and the writer describes being taken 

 to a '■ refined sink of the most positive iniquity," a 

 fashionable restaurant to which San Francisco 

 brought its wife and even its daughter, by " a mem- 

 ber of that public body whose duty it should have 

 been to have rooted out all this depravity": — 



There was little in that restaurant, from the copies of 

 high art pictures upon the walls to the ornaments on the 

 counter, that were not devised by the evil-minded director- 

 ate to act as stimulants to vice. 



HOW TO SAVE THE CHILDREN. 



A Useful Hint from the Far West. 



Mr. Judge Lindsey, of Denver City, is a philan- 

 thropist who appears to be the Benjamin Waugh on 

 the American Bench. The Arena for April gives a 

 delightful account of the way in which he has car- 

 ried out the principles laid down by the author of 

 ' The Gaol Cradle and Who Rocks It/' and the ex- 

 cellent results which have followed therefrom. He 

 began by securing — 



legislation making the parents responsible for the mis- 

 uemeanours of the children. This is a great victory. Next 

 the Judge addressed himself to the attitude of tlie state 

 towards the offending child, introducing an innovation that 

 was thoroughly revolutionary in chacacter. Keeping In 

 view the fact that the young are largely irresponsible vic- 

 tims, he has made the School Court a genuine state con- 

 fessional, where the young have learned to know that they 

 will receive lov.ng, sympathetic and strengthening counsel 

 and advice in all efforts to atone for wrongs and to become 

 strong, brave, self-respecting men and women. 



Hundreas of children are to-day among the brightest 

 and most, promising of Denver's young citizens, who under 

 the old system would have been in reform-schools or pri- 

 sons, or Ishmaelites of civilisation, embittered by the deep 

 conviction that the State was their enemy, and with the 

 feeling tliat they had little or no chance of a fair show 

 in lite. 



The coui-se pursued by Judge Lindsey has demanded 

 work, patient, tireless, loving service. 



Some idea of the success of Judge Lindsey's efforts may 

 l>e gained from the fact that during one year three hun- 

 dred children voluntarily came to the Judge, confessed to 

 wrong-doing, and asked for his aid and discipline to help 

 them become what they wished to be — zood boys and girls. 

 The system has been introduced and brought into practical 

 operation in Salt Lake City and in Omaha. He will tell 

 you that in the former city the boys sentenced at the 

 reform-school are given their commitment papers and sent 

 unattended to Ogden, and in only one instance has a boy 

 attempted to run away, and for that the court officer was 

 responsible. 



If girls between twelve ajid fifteen are foujid walking the 

 streets after ten o'clock at night, without a chaperon, the 

 probation officer takes them iu charge. The mothers are 

 summoned, and the Judge gives them a lecture showing 

 ihem what will almost surely come as a result of this 

 morally criminal negligence. He shows them that they are 

 the real offenders, and fines them twenty-live dollars each, 

 but suspeTids the payment of the fine until the children 

 are again found on the street at unreasonable hours. The 

 result is that the children are rescued from threatened 

 evils that might easily lead to their ruin before they 

 realised their peril. 



Though moral ansesthesia seems to have settled over many 

 of the great public opinion-forming influenc^e, there are 

 numerous agencies, fundamental in character, that are 

 working for the furtherance of democracy and the rights 

 and upliitmeut of the common man. The School City and 

 the School Court are two of these agencies that are 

 leagued with the light of a brighter day. because a juster 

 and .\ freer d\y 



