The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1858-04-02
CRIME CONTAGIOUS

OhlhE SO1s AVlOO1
The Philadelphia Evening Argus says II
has long been Of the opinion that those news
papers which labor the most earnestly to give
the earliest and fullest details Of crime, are
really the worst foes Of morality and good
order that We have in the community. They
foster crime, by furnishing the meat it feeds
on. They minister to minds already diseas-
ed; they stir up latent feelings and emotions
which, if left to sleep in inactivity, would
never plunge their victims into abysses Of ir-
retrievable ruin.
Multitudes have been led into crime by
reading the details Of our police gazettes.
and other sickening receptaeles of abomina-
tion, who, but for this mental contamination,
would have lived and died honored, respect
ed, and beloved. ~
Crime is as contagious as the small pox.-
There are periods when the moral atmos.
phere becomes thick with pestilential mias
ma. Woe to the man who inhales it; woe to
the individual who becomes contaminated
with its poisonous exhalations; woe to him
who studies the literature of our criminal
courts, and makes police reports q portion Of
his daily mental food. Evil communica-
tions corrupt good manners"
The tendency of the constant comment by
the press upon crimes and criminals is to ia
miliarize the mind with error. Newspapers
throughout the United States TEEN with po-
lice records, and that journal is an exception
to the rule that does not have one-third Of it's
reading space occupied by such matters. 1t
has become an evil; an evil not only to the
virtuous member of society, but upon the
principle that like begets like. it has grown
to be an evil to society IN general. But worse
than all, is the attribute of heroism given by
such notice to great criminals. If the press
be the reflex of popular opinion, then were
Huntington the forger, and Palmer the poi
soner, the heroes of the hour.
Is not crime propagated in the same way,
and is it good policy to excite the imagina.
ton and present vvidly before it the very
minutie of crimei Do we not excite the pas
sious, the curiosity, the latent wickedness
that lies quietly slumbering in our bosoms,
by such minute and. IN most instances, such
disgusting detailsi Who ever saw a minute
report Of cunning fraud, an accomplished act
of villany, forgery, theft, embezzlement, that
was not Immediately followed by a multi.
tude of similar cases. excited by reading the
description in our public Journalist
SO with suicide. BY being detailed in the
papers, it becomes an epidemic. A species Of
insanity seizes upon certain minds in certain
states Of susceptibility to external impres.
sions, and the impulse cannot be resisted to
initiate the act, with the details Of which
they have become familiar This avidity for
the recital Of the monstrous and the horrible
in crime, should be checked by wholesome
restriction by public opinion upon the press
and not fostered, nourished, and maddened
by such printed histories of horrors. Let the
conductors Of our public journals abstain al
far as possible from publishing these horrible
details. Drop veil over the records of the
unfortunate victims of society. Dwell more
upon the bright side of men and things
Present as seldom as possible to the public
gaze the sickening accounts Of the morbidly
insane, the abandoned and the corrupt, and
the mania of crime will be diminished &C
cordingly.