Leon Reporter, Leon, Iowa
Thursday, February l9, l903

Last Friday Judge Clements gave hearing in the case of the little FARMER girl, who was sent up by Mayor Carr as a candidate for the reform school, and sentenced her to that institution, but, we think, very wisely sent her home on parole in charge of her parents. It will be remembered that this girl and another about the same age, a step-daughter of T.M. STREW, left their homes and went to Oskaloosa, presumably with boys who had enticed them away, and was subsequently arrested in Albia by Constable Nicholson and returned to this city. Mere children, they have started early on the road to hell, and pitched at a gate to arrive there without much delay. Now that they are home again we hope the parents will give them such attention as their cases demand.

Keep such kids off the streets after night and away from the dirty he urchins of similar age. If it can't be done any other way get a supply of shingles and apply them with such vigor and at the proper anatomical point that it will be necessary for them to line up at the mantle for a week or two to eat their dinners, and sleep with their tattered bustles turned toward the sky. It is all nonsense for parents to say they can't govern their children. If they can't they have no business to bring them into the world, and have them to tread the scarlet paths of sin. The disgrace that attaches to such escapades as these reflect most upon their parents. There is something radically wrong in homes where children are allowed to tramp the streets at night and with companions that seek their destruction.

This is plain talk, and it may cut some hearts to the quick, but if it will save some wayward boy or girl, our object will be attained. There are times and cases where it don't pay to mince words, and there are those in our midst who need to learn that their children must be kept off the streets or the gateway of hell is open to them, and for these children God will hold their fathers and mothers responsible. Proceed to cultivate an iron will for the protection of your daughters, lay in a bundle of shingles, and if you can't keep the dirty he brats away from them in any other way, get a shotgun.

--NEW SHARON STAR.

Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert