110 
JUVENILE VAGRANCY, ETC. 
pedlars, and Yankee adventurers of every grade. 
Such, at least, will be our destiny, if we mould 
the foreign elements, now cast forth upon us 
like a flood, to the present type of Yankee char- 
acter. 
It has been wittily said of England, that she 
had long since swallowed Ireland, but had never 
yet digested her. We are taking unmeasured 
potions of a similar quality, and if we have 
not vigor enough to assimilate the better parts 
and make them contribute to the growth and 
strength of our system, and cast the remainder 
into the draught, to subserve some baser uses, 
we shall soon find a deep-seated disease, a mor- 
al poison, creeping through our frame, paralys- 
ing every function of the body politic, and at 
last consigning our national fabric to a prema- 
tui'e and dishonored grave. 
But we have full confidence in our ability to 
regenerate the world, whether we are to carry 
forth the germ of intelligence and true civil and 
religious liberty, and transplant them for future 
development and growth abroad, or whether we 
are to envelope the stagnant mass thrown upon 
us, and impregnate it with our own leaven. We 
have the ability — have we the disposition ? In 
this last great undertaking — we will not say, des- 
perate enterprise — New York has the honor to 
lead the forlorn hope. What then is the rem- 
edy for the mass of vagrancy and crime congre- 
gated from every country and clime, and fester- 
ing in our midst 1 
We have penitentiaries, jails, work houses, 
juvenile places of refuge, and police stations. 
Let all these remain as they now are. They are 
valuable means of repression at least, and in 
many instances, of reformation ; and for num- 
bers' of the older, and more incorrigible subjects, 
they are indispensable. But we require to 
superadd to all these, some general and expan- 
sive plan, or system, something sufficiently large 
to embrace all who need its corrective influence, 
or its benign and salutary aid. 
Our plan, then, is simple as nature, and almost 
as untaught as the forest or fields. Give us only 
the earth — a sufficiency of our good old mother 
earth, with just enough of plain, substantial 
buildings to afford required shelter for inmates, 
animals, tools, and harvests, and add to these the 
means of instruction — in brief, let us have a few 
farms, with common district and Sunday schools 
attached, each under the guidance of two or 
three competent, judicious male and female 
managers, to impart the proper religious, intel- 
lectual, and physical education, and we have 
ample provision for the reformation, education, 
and support of all the vagrants, paupers, juve- 
nile delinquents, and petit-larceny adults, now 
infesting the city and its suburbs. Money 
enough would be required to purchase and pre- 
pare the farms and buildings; and an annual 
amount for salaries of managers, and perhaps 
the supplies of clothing, &c. Yet we are in- 
clined to believe that in a judicious location, judi- 
cious management would nearly cover every 
current expense. 
The name of such institutions is not unim- 
portant. No house of refuge, reform school, or 
similar designations should invest the graduate 
with a perpetual badge of implied infamy and 
disgrace. Let them receive the softer names, of 
the home of the friendless, the orphan's farm, 
or some other endearing appellation, and let 
them be homes, not only for the really father- 
less, but for all such as inherit an orphan's woe, 
who are not adequately supplied by a parent's 
care. Here they may remain till they have 
reached their majority, learning not only the 
most proper management of the farm, but such 
auxiliary arts as those of carpenters and join- 
ers, blacksmiths, tailors, and shoemakers, as 
their respective tastes might dictate. With 
suitable rewards in money, for overwork, by 
the time they were of age, the industrious might 
accumulate quite a little capital to commence 
life with, enough to buy them a few acres of 
government land, and a few tools to work it ; 
or they would at least be fitted to earn an hon- 
est and respectable living, at wages in the coun- 
try, away from the temptations and vices of the 
city. 
Similar institutions, so modified as to suit 
their different requirements, might be arranged 
for adults. In all, the tillage of the earth should 
be the primary occupation. Let them be far 
removed from the haunts and associations of 
the city, and let no walls nor bonds constrain 
their stay except those of a realising, unmis- 
takable sense of increased comfort, health, and 
respectability beyond what they had abandon- 
ed. If a pupil or a pensioner absconded from 
the premises, let him go till vagrancy or crime 
renders him again a candidate for admission ; 
and if such results prove troublesome, let a 
work house with stone walls and iron doors, 
become the future receptacle of the unman- 
ageable. 
The machinery in all this arrangement would 
be of the simplest kind. One, two, or three 
hundred acres of land in every farm, and eco- 
nomical buildings, with implements and furni- 
ture for each, would be all the permanent capital 
required. If the number of applicants increased, 
increase the land, and hire a few more manag- 
ers ; if it diminished temporarily, lease a part 
of the ground or work it on shares ; or if they 
were permanently lessened, sell it and dismiss 
the agents. 
While we know of nothing more simple, we 
know nothing more likely to be efficacious 
than the above, and we believe it could be at 
once introduced with entire success. Good 
managers would be the principal requirement, 
after the requisite funds ; and the last would 
simply be a division of immoderate appropria- 
tions in the city, to moderate ones for securing 
the same objects in the country. We believe 
Mr. Coleman and others, have given the details 
of something of this kind, in France. We have 
not read these details, and know of nothing 
similar in this country. If properly undertaken, 
it cannot fail of success — Who shall have the 
honor of demonstrating it ? 
Salt Injurious to Poultry. — Do not give 
poultry salt, nor salt food. It is poisonous to them. 
