Almost every session of the Court is full of pathetic scenes and experiences where mothers and children shed many tears. The object of the Judge is to find out the truth in each case, and in this he often spends hours of patient labor. After a thorough investigation we take it for granted that a child is found guilty. The ruling motto of the Court is to deal leniently with a first offender. If he has a good home and parents who will care for him he is paroled, but if his home is of a vicious character he is sent to an institution where he will be cared for and learn a trade. The main object of the Court is to save the child from a degrading home influence and put him in a place where he can work out his own salvation either on a farm or in an institution. Some of the cases brought before this Court are as follows. We refrain from giving real names. John Smith, who lives on Avenue A near Tenth Street, is said to be an incorrigible; he is only twelve years old; he is the terror of the neighborhood; he stays out late at night, commits petty depredations on the small traders and otherwise annoys the people of the Avenue. After the Judge inquired into the merits of the case he finds that the boy is bad and that both parents are in the habit of getting drunk. The Judge finally decides to send the boy either to the farm of the Children’s Aid Society in Westchester County or to the Juvenile Asylum where he can learn a trade. Aside from the judicial interest manifested throughout the proceedings, Mercy weeps tears of sorrow over the wayward boys and girls and nothing but kind words are expressed regarding them and every one seeks to do them good. In former years the work done by this Court was carried on in the most humane manner by the Children’s Aid Society under the direction of Charles Loring Brace and, since his death, by Charles L. and Robert Brace, his worthy sons. The Children’s Aid Society has done more toward saving the children of the slums the past fifty years than all other humanitarian organizations combined. The following lines by Philo S. Child will in a measure express why children commit crime in this great city: “Alone in the dreary, pitiless street, With my torn old clothes and my bare cold feet, All day I have wandered to and fro, Hungry and shivering and nowhere to go; The night coming on, in darkness and dread, And the chill blast beating upon my head; Oh, why does the wind blow upon me so wild, Is it because I am nobody’s child?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XV THE ROD AS A REFORMATIVE AGENT IN THE EDUCATION OF YOUTHFUL LAW BREAKERS