The daily Minnesota pioneer. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1855, 1854-11-17
Crime I'm High Places.

Crime appears lately to have almost forsak.
en- the lower ranks of life, and struck for tall
timber. we are accustomed to associate wick
! edness ana depravity with poverty and want
| to ascrlbe 1t to the want of more training, and
the absence OF virtuous incentives. Bnt ini-
guilty has of late selected as instruments for the
accomplishment of its purposes, those who
move in high places, who are not driven by the
fiend of want to the commission of crimes. and
who have experienced no lack of religious en-.
lightenment. the murder of Butler by Ward.
OF Loring BY Graham, and of his wife by Green
in Chicago, are cases in point. The criminals
here were wealthy, or at all events able to con-
troll the influence of wealth they enioyed the
privileges incidental to an elevated position in
society, and may be supposed to have been in
1uenccd by oil their surroundings to the cult
walton OF those moral virtues which elicit the
respect of men. But in an evil hour, passion
or base selfshness nerved their arms to take
that life which they could never restore, and to
commit deed which makes them no longer
men, but murderers.
In another department of crime the act of
Schuyler stands conspicuous as one of the most
stupendOus rascalities ever committed. The
intensity Of popular execration which followed
his fight, and pursued him into his remorseful
exile, was commensurate with the enormity of
his wickednees, and if the swinder can feel at
all, would be an adequate punishment for his
deeds. Yet. Notwithstanding the prompt YER
dict and Judgment so vociferously rendered at
the bar of public opinion in the case of Schuy-
Ter, his crime was contagious, and his example
not without imitators. Crane followed, rival
Ing IN his gigantic swindles, the magnitude of
his predecessors wickedness, and covering his
name with an everlasting infamy. In the wake
OF these two great examples, and apparently
called forth by them, appeared series of bank
swlndles, mercantile frauds and swindling ope-
rations in New York, which have recently &C.
cupIed the eastern papers with their details,
and which serve to bring disgrace on the coun-
try.
More recently the business and banking COM
munity has been stunned by the account of the
fallnre and flight of Manchester in Cincinnati,
and development of the dishonest transac-
lions by which he has defrauded unsuspecting
deposltors out of their hard earnings He and
his crime are of a part with the respectable
rascalities of New-YOrk and Philadelphia. =
Manchesters silver plate was valued at $4,000,
and his seat in the Second Presbyterian Church,
in Cincinnati, $3OO-facts which vouch abun.
dainty for the responsibility Of himself and his
doings.
These instances prove that wealth, position,
influence, and even moral training offer no Ger
tain safeguard against the promptings of sell
fshness or the suggestions of passion. All
these are forgotten in the blind madness of re-
venge, or the morbid thirst for gold. Religion,
pure and undefled, is alone able to guard the
heart of man from such influences, and keep
him from vice, by holding before him the ulti-
mate reward of virtue.