applying this remedy in part from the apprehension that it might
be considered as reinstating the methods of slavery. No such
criticism could fairly be made. Confinement in jail is
involuntary servitude, and involuntary servitude is slavery.
Whipping is a substitute for it: it saves from slavery.

In several of the Southern States, instead of imprisonment,
ordinary offenders are set at work in the open air, either on
convict farms, or in chain gangs on the highway, or in the
construction of railroads or similar works. This plan prevails
in Georgia and Arkansas to such an extent that very few are
confined in the penitentiary. The convicts in these States are
mainly negroes. When, as has been at times permitted, they have
been turned over to private employers to work in this manner for
wages paid to the State, many of the abuses of slavery have
reappeared, and public sentiment is becoming decidedly adverse to
the allowance of such contracts for convict labor. Similar
objections do not lie in their employment on State farms, and in
North Carolina and Texas this has been tried with considerable
success.[Footnote: See "Bulletin de la Commission Penetentiaire
Internationale," 5th series, II, 179.]

Special courts have been organized, or special sessions of
existing courts directed, for the disposition of prosecutions
against children in several of the States and in the District of
Columbia during the past few years. The judge holding such a
"Juvenile Court" or "Children's Court" is expected to deal with
those brought before him rather in a paternal fashion. An
officer is generally provided, known as a Probation Officer, to
whom the custody of the accused is largely committed both before