Part 2

The two judges who sit in the Manhattan court are Magistrates Harris and Cornell. Each magistrate sits fifteen days alternately, then five days in one of the regular criminal magistrate’s courts, and then ten days holiday. Under Judge Harris and Judge Cornell the domestic relations court experiment has been tried out and proved successful. Under these two magistrates there has been established a progressive procedure in regard to husbands who refuse to live with and support their wives and families. When a woman appears in this court the judge listens to her story and if he feels that there is ground for action or need of legal interference, he will issue a summons which is really a legal form of request to the husband to appear in court on a certain day. The wife is then told to come back on the same day. If the husband appears in response to this summons, all well and good.

On the other hand, if he fails to take cognizance of the summons, a warrant is issued for his arrest, and he is brought to court willy nilly. When the moment for trial comes, the woman is put on the witness stand and after being duly sworn, proceeds to tell her story, without let or hindrance. If the corporation counsel happens to be present he represents the woman, and the defendant is entitled to counsel, although most of them are willing to tell their side of the story and abide by the decision of the judge. In the absence of the corporation counsel the presiding magistrate questions the woman, not in a hostile way at all, but with the idea of drawing from her all the facts which shall enable him to attain a wise decision. When she has finished the defendant takes the stand in the usual way and the judge questions him with a similar desire to elucidate the trouble. If the case is flagrant it is within the power of the court to sentence the man to the workhouse for a period of not more than six months. Many women urge that their neglectful husbands be sent away, but it is in this connection that the law is perhaps not all that it should be. If sending a man to prison provided his wife and children with bread and butter and rent it might frequently be a good thing for society in general and the family in particular to have the man locked up. Unfortunately, a man sent to Blackwell’s Island for six months is obliged to do work for the state, but this precludes all possibility of his contributing to the support of his family during the period of his incarceration. Furthermore, the law will not allow the prosecution a second time of a man who has just served a term of imprisonment for non-support or abandonment within one year of the first prosecution, so that if a woman asks the court to lock up her husband and the court complies, that woman voluntarily surrenders all legal right to take further action against him or collect money from him for a whole year. There is an agitation just now to have the state pay a prisoner for the work he does during his term of imprisonment and have the money forwarded to his family. This surely is a wise and reasonable provision.

If the court stipulates that a man making nine or ten dollars a week must contribute three dollars and a half or four dollars a week to the support of his family, that man is either placed on probation to one of the two regular probation officers attached to the domestic relations court, or he is placed under the supervision of the department of charities, alimony division. Money to be paid through the department of charities is regulated in this way. The defendant is instructed to bring or send the stated amount to the office of this department, at the foot of East Twenty-sixth street, a certain day in the week, and then the wife or whoever is to receive the money must call in person the following day and, upon accepting the amount, is required to give a receipt which is duly sent to the remitter. These receipts often figure in court at a later date as evidence of the amount of money which has actually been paid by the payee. It frequently happens that a man will contribute faithfully for several weeks and then payments will cease. In some instances this secession of payment is for a legitimate reason--the man may be sick, or may have lost his position, whereupon he is given an opportunity to explain in the court the reason for his delinquency. When the wife appears in court and tells the magistrate that her husband has become delinquent, the clerk of the court sends out a printed form which reads as follows:

Dear Sir--I have been informed by your wife, So-and-So, that you have failed to comply with the direction of the court to pay her----so much----per week. I desire to inform you that unless the direction of the court is complied with at once, a warrant will be issued for your arrest and you may be compelled to furnish a bond to insure the payment of the said money for the support of your family.

Respectfully,

If the man appears in court in response to this notice, all well and good, otherwise he is arrested by an officer and brought before the judge to explain his failure to comply with the direction of the court.

The work of the domestic relations court is constantly increasing as the functions of the court are being more widely heard of throughout the city, especially among the foreign population. The largest number of cases that come before this court are classified under the nationality of Russia. There is an injustice in this classification, however, inasmuch as the “Russians” are 99 per cent. Russian or Polish Jews. Very many of the cases brought by the Jewish women are extremely difficult to handle owing to the fact that the desertion has oftentimes taken place in Europe. A man living in the ghetto of Warsaw or Bialystok or Wilna will decide to come to America to seek his fortune. Not having money enough to bring his wife and family, he starts out alone leaving behind him the assurances that he will return for them, or will send them money to bring them over. As a rule two or three letters at least are sent back to the old country, containing money orders for little sums of money, then the letters will cease. Sometimes the wife waits for four or five or six years before in despair she sets out in quest of her husband. Sometimes she finds him married to some American woman or some woman he has met over here, and then she goes to court with her trouble. The law here is confronted with the situation obviously impossible to handle with equal justice to all parties concerned without working hardship somewhere. The wife from the Old World with her children certainly has first claim upon the man, but at the same time the wife whom he has married here has perhaps married him in good faith, knowing nothing about the other family, and so have her children been born.

The Italians are the second largest nationality in the classification of the domestic relations court cases. The Italians are very apt to be disorderly persons. They are hot tempered, quick to strike and a great many times an Italian wife appeals to the domestic relations court because her husband has been cruel to her and struck her, and this court is obliged to send her to the magistrates court in order that her husband may be treated as a disorderly person. In justice to the Italians of Northern Italy, it should be stated that it is very rare to find an Italian in the domestic relations court who originally came from any province in Italy north of Rome. The great mass of Italians who get into this court are Neapolitans, Calabrians and Sicilians. The third group are from Central Europe, Hungarians, peoples from the Balkan states, Galicia and other provinces of Austria. The French rarely are obliged to appeal to the domestic relations court. The French are naturally a home-loving people, and anything like a domestic break is rare among them. Only two or three times since this court was established have French couples been obliged to appear there. A great many people classify themselves as Americans when as a matter of fact they are foreign born, so that the figures in regard to the number of Americans in this court are misleading. Negroes, however, turn up here in great numbers. Colored men often have no sense of responsibility whatever and they are constantly forsaking their wives and families or going off with somebody else’s wife. The excuses offered by colored men who are haled into this court are often very amusing.

For the most part, however, this is not an amusing court. The long line of people who press before Judge Cornell and Judge Harris day after day, is for the most part a sordid, hideous line, and the tales the complainants tell fill one with contempt and sourness toward humanity. The domestic relations court offers an even seamier picture of life in this city than the magistrates courts. While it is true that occasionally a family of the better class makes appeal to this court, for the most part the clients are illiterate and very poor. A very large per cent. of the cases that are brought here are people who, if abandoned, would become public charges. That is why the state interests itself to the extent of providing a counsel for complainants, in order to protect itself from the burden of caring for helpless women and little children, whom some individual has simply deserted. There are people who pretend to find amusement in the rehearsal of the marital woes of the poor. To be sure, occasionally a case turns up with its funny side, but to me the recitals are heartbreaking and dreary.

In the state of New York the failure of a man to support his wife, if there are no children, the crime ranks as a misdemeanor, and six months in the workhouse is the maximum penalty which can be imposed upon him. The domestic relations court, in specializing on this phase of law, will undoubtedly lead to certain reforms and amendments to the existing law tending ultimately to develop a system of domestic relations jurisprudence. It is a great boon, as it stands today, to suffering poor women. Any woman without a dollar in the world can walk into the domestic relations court, tell her troubles to the clerk of the court, and then if her case is a worthy one, she is within a few minutes placed on the witness stand, where she can repeat the recital to the judge. The whole proceeding of bringing her husband to the bar of justice and getting the court to forcing him to provide for her is speedy and absolutely without cost. A woman under our present system of life ought to have a court of this kind in which she may take refuge, because the world at large is, at the present time, so unfair to women. A woman can serve a man for years, bear him a large family of children, and suddenly be deserted and left with the burden of support for herself and family on her. If her husband is faithless, all she can do is to appear before the supreme court and apply for a divorce, but in this domestic relations court the judge will make her husband contribute to her support and to the support of his children.

Drink is frequently at the bottom of domestic troubles, but not nearly so often as most people would think. Drink, especially whiskey, frequently makes a man irritable and quarrelsome, which leads to family rows and frequently to disorderly conduct. The greatest number of cases that come into this court are against shiftless, worthless, idle men who seem to belong naturally to the submerged tenth. One day this week I sat with Judge Cornell for an entire session of the court and the run of cases which appeared that day gave ample indication of the tone of the court. One case was of a colored girl who has been married less than a year, who had brought her big black husband into the court to explain why he had abandoned her. The explanation was frankly given. He was so accustomed to living with white women, he said that he could not bring himself to live any longer with the wife of his own color. He was bonded to pay his wife $1 a week. Another woman, neat, pretty and intelligent, a California girl, not yet twenty, had had her husband arrested because he insisted that she go on the streets and make money, not only for herself but for him, as a public prostitute. An Irish woman complained that her husband who made good wages drank it all up. He countered by stating, under oath, that his wife was an habitual drunkard, which made no impression whatsoever on the court, because the woman was particularly prepossessing and without a single incriminating mark upon her. There were the usual number of Jewish women whose husbands had simply gone off saying they would have nothing more to do with them. And one or two Italian women, with small babies in their arms, whose husbands had got angry with them and put them out of the house or struck them.

It is a miserable, pitiable phase of life that one sees in the domestic relations court, but that the court is so overworked, so constantly busy, is justification enough for its establishment and indication that any large community requires some such institution to placate and bring together men and women, husbands and wives, whom oftentimes trifling difficulties are about to separate, and to make it impossible for husbands to desert their wives with impunity. That there should be only three such courts in this country is a striking commentary on the life we lead when it has been proved and demonstrated so extraordinarily by the domestic relations court in New York city that the need is so great. A visit to the domestic relations court will not insure a pleasant afternoon or an amusing hour, but it will prove an enlightening experience.

IN THE PRISONERS’ AID FIELD

=PRISONERS’ AID WORK IN CALIFORNIA=

The San Francisco Post reports that:

“A statement of the work of the California prison commission during the past year shows that a remarkable number of men and women, who have been released from prison, have been given employment by this organization through the good work that is being accomplished at Golden Rule Hall. At this place those who have been discharged from prison are provided for until suitable employment is found for them.

“During the past year 465 have been placed in positions, an average of nine a week. Of these 26 were over 60 years of age, and four over 80. Fourteen consumptives were placed either in positions of light employment or in homes or hospitals. More than 200 were sent direct from prison to employment; others, who were either invalids, cripples, or aged, were temporarily boarded at Golden Rule Hall. Another good office of the commission is to look after the wives and children of prisoners.

“All of this work has entailed a great deal of expense. The building and equipment of Golden Rule Hall, to take the place of the building that was destroyed by fire, has put the organization into debt. An appeal is being made to the public to lessen this difficulty, and to help along an institution that is doing much toward preventing a repetition of crimes by ex-convicts.”

As to the renovation of San Quentin prison, the Post says:

“Within a few months the new 800-room concrete and steel cellhouse now in course of construction at San Quentin prison will be completed.

“The building is a prison within a prison, and is a class A structure, 600 feet in length and 60 feet in height. The cells are built in the center of the structure and run its full length. There are four tiers with 200 cells on a tier. Four hundred of these cells are separated by steel bars and are so arranged that twenty-five may be bolted at the same time. Eight hundred prisoners may be locked up three minutes after they reach the inside of the prison.

“The walls and the cells of the new prison are built of reinforced concrete and in every foot of concrete steel bars are laid, running parallel and perpendicular, making it impossible for a prisoner to cut through at any point of his cell.

“All the steel and iron work was turned out by the prisoners. Every part of the new building was manufactured and erected by prison labor. The roof of the structure is of copper and slate and has been pronounced by experts to be of the finest workmanship. The inside is finished with plaster and so clever is the workmanship that it resembles enamel work.

“Work is now being done on a wall sixty feet high and six feet thick by the prisoners. This will surround the cellhouse. Upon completion an electric light plant and heating apparatus will be installed.

“Warden Hoyle plans when the new cellhouse is ready for occupancy to put his new grading system into execution. The new prison will house all the first termers and they will not mingle with second and third term convicts. Each grade will have a separate yard and under the first grade the prisoners will wear a uniform.

“The second termers will be together and wear a different kind of a uniform. The third grade will consist of life termers and hardened criminals. These will wear stripes.

“The first-grade prison will be known as the reformatory, and at any time a prisoner’s deportment is bad he will be sent into the second-grade prison.”

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=SUPPORTING A GOOD WARDEN=

The Prisoners’ Aid Society of Baltimore has recently taken up the cudgels for the retention in office of Charles A. Hook, warden of the Baltimore city jail. A letter to the mayor of Baltimore details some of the improvements effected by Warden Hook.

“The citizens of Baltimore have every reason to be proud of this their one definite penal institution. It has reached an excellence of administration and a physical condition that place it easily among the foremost institutions of similar nature throughout the country. The improvements have been very marked, and from simply a correctional and detentional institution it has been transformed into a place of real helpfulness and reformation.

“This state of efficiency is the direct result of the wise, practical and broad-spirited administration of its warden, Mr. Charles A. Hook. Warden Hook is a student of criminology. He has taken advantage of every opportunity to meet the wardens of other institutions and gathered from these conferences that which would be helpful to his own administration.

“It is becoming more and more evident that the administration of a penal institution should be as scientifically based as the administration of a medical infirmary, and no greater boon can be conferred for the welfare of the municipality than the removal of this office from political influence.

“To state concretely some of the very many improvements of this institution I would name the following:

“The addition of 328 new concrete cells for men and women, with all modern improvements for hygiene and sanitation.

“New hospital and operating room in the main building.

“A library for the prisoners.

“New hot water system for bathing purposes.

“New beds made especially in the institution for the purpose of extreme cleanliness.

“New sterilizing plant for infected clothing.

“New baths and clothes rooms for prisoners.

“New four-story workshop, of brick and cement.

“New jail workshop, where articles used by the prisoners are made.

“The substitution of machinery for the hands of the prisoners in the bakeshop.

“In the moral features of the institution:

“No official is now allowed to strike a prisoner except in self-defense.

“All cases of infringement of rules are settled by the warden himself.

“Dark cells and shower baths for punishment abolished.

“All prisoners have the ear of the warden and he gives every Sunday morning to visitation and the consideration of personal requests and grievances.

“Prisoners working in the shops with sentences of three months or over are allowed one-fourth of their earnings, one-half payable during confinement and the remainder on release.

“Through the personal interest of the warden and his assistants a large share of the amount earned by the prisoners during confinement is paid to their families.

“The definite result of these marked improvements in the physical condition and the moral and spiritual administration is very apparent in the number of inmates who are brought to realize the possibilities of a better life through reformation, and by this specific work the population of the jail is smaller than it has been in past years.

“Every co-operation and sympathy have been granted the work of the Prisoners’ Aid Association by Warden Hook and his assistants, and through this co-operation a splendidly large number of men and women are being returned to society law-abiding and self-respecting.”

EVENTS IN BRIEF

=[Under this heading will appear each month numerous paragraphs of general interest, relating to the prison field and the treatment of the delinquent.]=

_Congress of Juvenile Court Judges._--Eight hundred invitations are being sent out by Judge Muir Weissinger and his advisory board of the Juvenile Court, for the third annual conference of juvenile court judges of the central states to be held in Louisville November 14, 15 and 16. The invitations go to judges in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado. Special invitations are issued to officials of institutions in Kentucky interested in juvenile corrections and the juvenile judges in other states are asked to bring with them such probation officers and other officials as may wish to attend the conference.

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_Reformatory versus Prison._--That the proper classification of prisoners is of basic importance in any effort to reform and rehabilitate them, and that courts are often parties to the creation of almost insuperable difficulties in this regard is shown in a recent article in the Rahway (New Jersey) Herald:

D. George Wight, commissioner of charities and correction of New Jersey finds that there is no uniform rule under which the common pleas judges of the state deal out sentences. There are a number of first offenders in the state prison who should have been sent to the reformatory, and there are numerous cases where prisoners should have been sent to the state prison instead of the reformatory. Dr. Wight also shows that there are a number of hardened criminals confined in the reformatory.

The out-of-place presence of these detained persons interferes with the work in the prison and in the reformatory. Mr. Osborne, warden of the state prison, concludes that reformation is an almost impossible achievement in the state prison, and Dr. Moore, superintendent of the state reformatory, is of the opinion that the presence of hardened criminals in the reformatory prevents the carrying on of efficient reformatory work in his institution.