The doorkeeper and clerk shook their heads, looked at each other and left the office in silence. We were stunned by what we had seen, and marvelled that such a thing could happen in the capital city of one of our foremost states in this civilized century which boasts its wonderful advancement in every branch of life. “Is that mother right?” I asked myself. “Will her boy bend and become a dutiful son and worthy citizen? Or will he mistake his mother’s good intentions, administered so cruelly, run away from home and finally land here in prison?” From whatever side I viewed it, the situation was pathetic. The poor mother, no doubt, had great hopes for her boy through giving him an education which, perhaps, she and her laboring husband were denied. But what boy, with his misdirected faculties ahunger for adventure and mischief, can see things with the mature eyes of an ambitious parent? Would that the Slav woman might have known how much of the rod (in this case the rope) to administer and how much to spare in her boy’s case! But what parent knows? I kept thinking of that Slav mother dragging her child along the street on the end of a rope; thinking of the stubbornness of a boy, so tender in years, yet so indifferent to such barbarous treatment. I thought also of how much good so self-willed a lad was capable if properly guided; how much harm, if nourished by evil influences. My mind travelled into the interior of the prison, whither so many men and women have drifted and are still drifting, from just such a start as that truant boy’s. Not that their parents had tried to put their good intentions into execution so barbarously, but the fatal misunderstanding between parent and child was there just the same. I have seen men come in, serve their time, go out and then come back again and again for similar offenses. And yet they were once good innocent boys, born of good, industrious and well-meaning parents, who had great hopes for their future careers. In the end Society suffered from the repeated damage they had done, their parents grieved in disappointment and sorrow, and the erring boys finally become social outcasts and parasites, of no use to themselves nor to any one else. Surely, thought I, there must be something radically wrong or stupid with a world that permits so much damage and misery to go on unchecked.