The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1856-01-17
What Causes the Difference 2

TO the condition--that it is all owing 10
circumstances s? No: but do say that,
In nine cases out oil ten, crime is no rroof
of special depravity apart from general
depraVity, and that the circumstances
have just so much weight as this--tbat
put you or me in those same circumstan-
ces, IN nine cases out Of ten, we should
be criminals too. In tie same crcum-
stances, my friends; and this involves a
great deal. 1t involves an hereditary
taint stamped in the very mold Of birth
it Involves physical misery it involves
intellectual and moral destituion; il in
wolves the worst kind Of social influence;
it involves the pressure Of all the natural
apPctiEcs, rioting in this need of the body
and this darkness of the soul. And itim.
plies no suspicion Of a mans moral stand
ard--it is no insult to his sclf-respec!-
to tell him that, under similar circum.
stances, tits extremely probable be would
have been a criminal too. Reasoning in
an armchair is very proper, and often
very accurate, but the logic of starvation
is too peremptOry for syllogisms. There
is a sort of compound made up of frost,
damp, dirt and rags, which works double
magic: it sometimes converts theifinto
a philosopher and sometimes philoso.
pher into a thief, l am not speaking,
however, of the mere impulse of animal
want, but of this condition where the
counteracting forces are dormant. And
for this reason you and | can draw no i'm
moral conclusion from the doctrine ofc
cumstances. We could not be like the
moral leper who infests the dark regions
Of the city-we could not be like the child
Of sin and shame who broods there
without losing our identity. In contem.
plating this matter, the feeling for our
selves should be simply one of humility
and thankfulness. We have grown up
in pure light and air, appeased with the
comforts, and braced by at least the cur
rent morality Of society. But. concern,
ing those degraded ones, what some call
charity is no more than Justice 1t
is no more than justice to say-alI the con-
dltionS being considered-that as to q
vast majority Of them, crime is no proof
of special deprayity. It is the genuine
humanity that is there-not base metal.
1t came from the common mint-some-
where you will find upon it a faint scar Of
the Divine Image-but The coin was pitch
ed into this bonfire of appetite and bias,
phemy, and it has come out a cinder.--
Thus, proud and happy mother, might
your boy have been defaced and dis
torted being, kicked, cuffed, knotted with
frost, blackened with bruises; a pick
pocket, a wharf.rat, a panel-thief; with
his intellect sharpened 10 an intense and
impish cunning-only knowing that it is
hard world, and he must get out of it
what he can. Thus, fond father, might
your daughter, whom the very winds
must salute with courtesy. have gone
through the streets at night--a painted
desolation, a reeling shame. Do you
think these were made of better texture
than those who blacken and tester yon.
der3 Do you think that when these last
came into the world there was no milk in
mothers breasts for them, no Divine So
llcilude about them, no tenderness in the
heart of Christ but that they were the
refuse, whirled into existence as the great
wheel of Life shaped the finer mold of the
respectable and the happy? | tell you that
God made them complete souls, and
stamped His Image upon them-but they
have fallen into the dark and dreary ways;
the fierce flames have hardened them /;
the foul air has tainted them f; and their
special depravity, over and above the
common deprayity, is the infection Of cir
cumstances. The young boy the young
girl, driven by necessity and sharpened
with cunning run into crime. They are
all educated; for circumstances mot
merely books--are education but this is
their seminary, and the alphabet is spon.
taneous, and the science Of quick growth.
And with the consequences of all this ex.
posure and temptation we are all mixed
up; and, if the calm of the child in its in
trnsic position does not move us, pruden,
tial considerations should--the consider
alton Of what society does suffer, and
must suffer, If these conditions are moi
nged.--Chupin.
~A drunken lawyer, on going into