Judge control of the whole children’s case. He proceeded gently to the enforcement of his power. He had written into the laws full authority to exercise his discretion, with adults as with children, and he did this because he meant to be human and charitable to men as he had been to children. It had worked with the children; he would try it on their elders. So he was firm but not unkind.
When the police brought in a boy for getting drunk, the Judge asked for the man who sold the boy the liquor, and the police had to fetch the man. Sometimes the Judge fined him; sometimes he imprisoned him; sometimes he suspended sentence. For he talked to the men as he did to the boys, and if he found that they hadn’t thought of the evil they did by carelessly serving boys and girls with tobacco and liquor, the Judge explained it to these saloon-keepers. And if he thought they were impressed, he put them also “on probation.” That gave him a hold on them, which prevented crime and vice. For the Judge knew what was going on. He had thousands of eyes. The boys and girls watched for him. When the Judge had got his legislation, he told the children that the new laws were their laws — enacted for them and by them; for Mickey and his “gang of jailbirds, who carried the day, represented the children of
