English,
needlework, etc. There are also recreation rooms, baths, a library, and
rooms where school children can prepare their lessons. Men and women are
assisted in obtaining employment and receive medical and legal aid.
There is also a species of tribunal for settling petty disputes in cases
where the parties interested object to applying to the ordinary courts.
It was crowded when I saw it, and I was not surprised to learn that it
is of great service to the emigrants. For public holidays, the Alliance
organises concerts, excursions, and lectures, and during the summer
vacations it opens a number of boarding-houses in the country.

All these benevolent institutions, schools, rescue homes, orphanages,
and shelters, organised with so much care for the prevention of crime
and adopted in America by all communities of whatever religion,
regardless of cost, have given excellent results. Bosco and Rice (_Les
Homicides aux Etats-Unis_) and my father (_Crimes, Ancient and Modern_)
have demonstrated statistically that in States like Massachusetts, where
there is no great influx of immigration nor a large coloured population,
the diminution in the number of crimes has been very rapid, the
percentage of homicides being about equal to those of England, that is,
lower than the majority of European States.

It must be confessed in honour to the people of the United States, that
they are very ready to admit their own short-comings and constantly
regret the large proportion of crimes in their country. But when they
reflect that the constant stream of immigration contains many lawless
elements, that the different laws in force in the different States make
evasions of justice in many cases easy, that the construction of houses
with the fire-escape communicating directly with the public thoroughfare
provides an easy means of ingress and egress, and that an enormous
proportion of the dense population of their cities is composed of people
from all parts of the world, accustomed to varying moral codes, they
may realise with pride that the percentage of crime in the United States
is certainly lower than it would be in any Continental State under
similar conditions.

CHAPTER III

_METHODS FOR THE CURE AND REPRESSION OF CRIME_

Preventive methods, the careful training of children, and assistance
rendered to adults in critical moments of their lives, may diminish
crime, but cannot suppress it entirely. Such methods should be
supp