Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-01-07
INCREASE OF CRIME.

1t appears, from the criminal statistics
which were presented to the Legislature
Thursday, the abstracts of which we have al
ready published, that crime has increased three
fold within the State during the last thirteen
years. Rev. E. E. Hale awaited himself of this
melancholy fact in his excellent Election Ser.
mon, to illustrate the large share which the
Legislature must have in the range of Chris
tian and philanthropic duties. In the building
of jails and prisons; in the establishment OF
general rules for their management; in the
framing of laws for the purposes of punishment
or reform, there is no body of men on whom
the alarming increase of crime imposes more
serious and responsible duties.
Those easy souls, whose philanthropy lives
upon rose leaves and myrtle, will find excuses
enough for the fruitfulness ofcrime, outside of
the circle of their responsibilities They arc
theiazy, ingenious Caleb Balderstones of soc-
ETY., who prefer to sit STILL and attribute effects
TO false causes, rather than to remove them.
'In some sort, /" said the lying old steward, "a
good excuse is better than the things them
selves; for they maun crack, and wear out,
and be consumed by time; whereas good ex-
cuse, prudently and crcditably handled, may
serve a nobleman and his family, the Lord
kens how long," But the explanations COM
monty given for the increase of crime, are
pride. While this duplication of crime
has been going on, the population has
increased less than one-half. 1t is not safe to
attempt paation of the negligence of socie-
ty by saying that crime only keeps pace with
population. The blunt logic of figures proves
that it runs ahead of it. Another fashionable
explanation, that foreign immigration is the
cause of crime is refuted by the reports which
establish the important fact that native crime
increases faster than foreign, taking the popu-
lation into account, The practice is not so
common as it was recently, of attributing all
the vices of our social system to our immi.
grant Celts and Teutons. That singular
madness, which swept over the land like an
epidemic, has happily abated, and we greatly
mistake the intelligence of our native and
much-loved State, if such developments as
these do not give the finishing blow to that
unreasonable spirit of prescription, which es-
innate civil and moral qualities by the stars
under which they were developed and ma
tured.
1t would be difficult to find an explanation
! that would be satisfactory to all. 1t may be
thatthe one we shall suggest will be the least
satisfactory of any. But we cannot resist the
belief that the source and provocation of much
of the crime that is among us, is in that socie-
ty which complacently clothes itself in velvet
and lawn, and lazily laments the demon
alization which is growing in its midst
There are classes in every community,
commonly called dangerous classes, who
might have been among the worlds benefac-
tors if their rights had been always respect
ed. The plea of highwaymen, "The world
owes me living is, in ITSELF just ONE
There is not an insect so little and mean, whose
being has been lighted with one spark of ami
nation, that has not a claim upon that wealth
of life which the good God has poured album
dainty around us all To be sure, it does not
follow that robbery is an innocent means of
maintaining ones rights. Under the most in
tcAloc VI pIOfOCatlOIS, IL Is SIlll q wicked ana
terrible retaliation for wrongs unconsciously
inflicted, under the popular idea that one
criminal delinquency, is sufficient cause for
alienating the guilty one from the companion
ship of his more honest fellows forever How
few there are in this proud and fastidious civil
zation of ours, who would dare to take dis
charged convict by the hand, and sustain his
wayward feet lest he should fall The thief
the drunkard, the fallen Magdalen, over the
darkness of whose lives, occasional longings
for reform flash like the light of the morning
sun, walk into the streets among their naughty
betters who muffie themselves in their conceits,
and pass coldly on the other side. What alterna-
tive do we give them, but to return to their
old haunts, away from which, with faint hope
and distrustful hearts, they may have tried to
escapes We roughly drive them to crime,
and then we punish them.
Hereafter, when we are forced to contem-
plate the growth of crime, and to cast about
for its cure, let us not lazily shirk the respon-
sibility to the increase of population, or the
depravity Of foreigners, but rather reform the
defects in our own treatment of the unfortu-
nate people, whom, in one way or another,
either in prison or out of it, the world is bound
to support