Upbuilders

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1909 Excerpt: ... BEN LINDSEY, THE JUST JUDGE i. the Kids' Court IN the County Court of Denver, one night, a boy was arraigned for larceny. The hour was late; the calendar was long, and the Judge was sitting overtime. Weary of the weary work, everybody was forcing the machinery of the law to grind through at top speed the dull routine of justice. All sorts of causes went to this court, grand and petty, civil and criminal, complicated and simple. The petty larceny case was plain; it could be disposed of in no time. A theft had been committed; no doubt of that. Had the prisoner at the bar done it? The sleepy policeman had his witness on hand, and they swore out a case. There was no doubt about it; hardly any denial. The Law prescribed precisely what was to be done to such cases, and the bored Judge ordered that that thing be done. That was all. In the same breath with which he pronounced sentence, the Court called for the next case and the shift was under way, when something happened, something out of the ordinary. A cry, an old woman's shriek, rang out from the rear of the room. There was nothing so very extraordinary about that. Our courts are held in public; and every now and then somebody makes a disturbance such as this old woman made when she rose now with that cry on her lips, and, tearing her hair and rending her garments, began to beat her head against the wall. It was the duty of the bailiff to put the person out, and that officer in this court moved to do his duty. But the man on the bench was Ben B. Lindsey, the celebrated Judge of the Juvenile Court of Denver. He wasn't celebrated then; he had no Juvenile Court. He was only a young lawyer and politician who, for political services (some aver, falsely, for delivering a vote for a United States Senatorship) h...