A Check on Marriage.
Something new happened in New York. This is not an unusual occurrence, however. The particular new thing that interested me was an order issued by Judge Foster of the Court of General Sessions in the case of a young man twenty years old who had been arrested several times for stealing. For the last offense, committed three years before, the judge had suspended sentence, but the criminal's parole had been broken, and the judge was about to pronounce sentence when a young girl interceded for the prisoner.
She declared that she was engaged to be married to him.
That put a different aspect upon the case, and the judge at once suspended sentence again on the grand larceny charge, adding the quite novel order: "This is on condition that you do not marry. If I hear of your marrying without first obtaining my consent, I will send you to jail for a long term. I have no intention of permitting a marriage which will result in a race, of criminals."
Now, why is not that sensible? And why does it not furnish a wise hint for other judges in whose courts unmarried men are convicted of crime? If it seems best to put them on parole, let the judge protect the community and preserve the future by making the condition of no marriage before a decided and manifest reformation judge Foster may be the discoverer of a powerful new method for the reclamation of wrongdoers.