rvices of the business men of the district. These
were the two features which in my experience proved most effective in
reclaiming the offenders.

_Record of Success Ninety-two Per Cent_

During my thirteen months' term in the Maxwell Street Court, I tried
upwards of eight thousand cases and placed upon probation 1,231 persons.
The results were as gratifying as they were surprising, and won for the
plan the sincere support and cooperation of the police department in the
district, many of the officers assuring me that it had reduced crime
one-half. Eleven hundred and thirty-four of the paroled offenders, or
about ninety-two per cent., faithfully kept the terms of their parole,
and became sober, industrious citizens. Substantially all of those who
lapsed did so because they violated their pledge of total abstinence.
None, with one or two trivial exceptions, afterward committed any
offense against the law.

At one time a number of young men were brought in charged with
burglary, but after the evidence was heard the complaints were amended
to petit larceny, and the defendants were given their liberty upon
promising to go to work and obey the law. When I left the Maxwell Street
Court on January 11, 1908, to try civil cases, the suspended sentences
in all cases were set aside and the defendants discharged, and I felt
some apprehension lest these young men, as well as many others, should,
after all restraint was removed, return to their former ways. This fear
has proved groundless, the percentage of lapses since January 11 being
little, if any, greater than before. A report from the Police
Department, covering the young men above referred to, has just been
received by me. It reads as follows:

"Driving team, O. K., habits good"; "driving team, sister says
he is doing fine"; "driving express wagon for his father, doing
fine"; "driving team, stays home nights and brings his money
home"; "laboring for $2.00 per day. Mother says he is doing
better"; "laboring for $2.00 per day, doing fairly well";
"drives buggy for ---- Teaming Co., O. K."; "works for the ----
R. R., steady ever since paroled."

Because of the absence of express statutory authority, no person charged
with a misdemeanor was released on parole except with the approval of
the police and the State's attorney; but there were many cases where a
parole was not given, in which I felt satisfied that it would have
yielded good results. Th