The Hancock Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Ohio) 1857-1870, 1864-01-01
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Sources Of Crime.

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i Sources Of Crime.
Mr.. Gould relates the story of n
fallen woman, whom he encountered
in one Of our penitentiary hospitals,
which casts terrific light upon the
tendency Of licentiousness to produce
crime. Being betrayed, she resolved
upon revenge, and the plan for its ac-
complishment flashed upon her mind
with the suddenness and rapdity of
lightning. She betrayed no emotion.
She uttered no reproaches. She treat
cd what had happened as harmless
jest, and blandly invited continuance
of the intimacy.
The young man cXulted in the ease
and completeness Of his victory; but
from that moment she became the evil
genius of his life. Protesting the ten
derest and most unselish affection,
she drew money from him continual.
ly, with which she hired sharpcrs to
furnish him with provocativcs to drink
ing, gambling, and all the forms of
vice and debauchery. AT every rally
Of his better nature, by skillful alter
nation Of persuasion, banter and men
ace, she checked the rising impulse of
virtue, chained him TO the car OF dis
sipntion, and confirmed him in his ca
reer of vice.
Full well did she know whittier all
this would lead him; nor was she dis
appoincd in her malignant cXpecta-
tions. Drunkenness clouded his un-
derstanding; dcbauchcry ruined his
health; and gambling reduced him to
poverty. Not until this point, the
goal Of all her prayers and efforts,
had been reached, when poverty and
disease had done their work, and he
was unable to procure n wrctched bed
or a scanty meal. except under her
charity, did she wrcak upon him the
full measure Of her vengeance. Then
it was her daily delight to visit him
to load him with reproaches, and to
reveal to him, in bitter eXultation, the
whole scheme, so cunningly devised
and so steadily pursued, by which she
had wrought his ruin. And when the
his bedside, and mingled her eXecra-
tions with the shricks cXtortcd by his
dying agonies.
Nor was her vengeance even yet
satisfied. Her warfare was against
the whole sex, whom she regarded as
accursed; and her insatiatc revenge
cried out for still other victims
Whenever she could fasten her fangs
on a young man Of gentcel family,
whose unclouded prospects fore token
ed n brilliant career she never relaxed
her hold. She studied with keen
ness sharpened by experience, every
point in his chan lacter--his tastes, his
hopes, his fears, whatever attracted
and whatever rcpelled him; and then
with an almost unerring sagacity,
adapting the means to the end, she
seldom failed in her demoniac pur-
pose. She claimed in this manner tC
have hunted down thirty young men
involving them in disgrace, crime and
ruin. Some of them had ended their
DAYS in prison, and others, hopelcssly
fallen. were on the road to the drunk.
ards and the felon's grave.
When asked whether all her sisters
in infamy felt the same hatred to man
kind, she replied that she thought the
feeling TO be general, if not universal
among them; adding that, when wo'
/, man had once fallen she desired TO re-
venge herself, not only on her seducer
but on all his sex; that no game was
followed with greater relish than thai
Of involving all who came within theil
tolls in crime and its consequent pun
: lishment; that most of them could mum
Der at least two or three victims whom
they had ruined, and that many o
these victims went to the length o
actual commission of crime. Now
l when we remember that there are, il
the City Of New York alone, ovor %,
, 900 prostitutes, and proportional
number in the other cities of the State
\ we may arrive Mt proXimate idea o
, the amount of crime which is directl.
caused by the vice oil RIGHTEOUSNESS.
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