The Portland daily press., 1869-01-13

FouW Tuye-Inere Is GARDEN In her
F,ce, an Old Poem-1606; An Arizona River;
A Substance Defying Analysis; Nasty in New
York; Monument to Robinson Crusoe.
Voice from Sparfa---by Disciple of
Malthus.
We congratulate Gov. Chamberlain ON the
zeal and ability of the gentleman who comes
to his support in communication published
on the first page, but not upon the manner in
which his advocate manages this particular
case. In the first place. it is a little shabby in
our correspondent-we say so with the utmost
deference-to put slanderous words concern
ing Gen. Chamberlain into our mouth that we
never uttered or dreamed of utterlng. We
did never sheer at that gallant soldier or ap-
ply any epithet to him, but such as We could
find in our poor vocabulary to characterize one
whom Maine boasts as a man uniting the val
or of Sidney with the purity of Bayard No
word that was even reproachful was ever spo-
ken of him until either the unconscious nflu-
ence of severe military codes or the growth Of
false philosophy in his mind led him to take
steps for The revival in Maine of an-an obso-
lete abomination which, for the the sake of
verbal accuracy, we choose to call strdngling.
But let that pass. To break lance with
our correspondent over his atrocious dogmas
suits our mood to a ct" There are two theo-
ries Of punishment-one in vogue some GEN.
iuries ago, and one accepted and imperfectly
adopted in modern times. ST" has gone back
through dark and bloody years and exhumed
the former. It is the vindictive theory. 1t is
the same doctrine applied to mental malforma-
lions that the Spartans applied in the treat
ment Of cases Of physical imbecility, when
they disposed of unhealthy or misshapen chill
dren by exposing them to become the prey of
wild beasts Indeed, our correspondent dis
closes q barbaric tendency to adopt in its plen-
itude the Spartan system, always excepting
the literary style which still bears the name
OF that remarkable people. If society can
make no use of any of its human raw materi-
al, he would have the imperfect specimens .e-
jected and made away with, while he mourns
with grim severity the democratic proclivities
of earthquakes, which, with impartial shakings,
topple down the palaces of royalty and the
huts of mendicants, swallowing up with un-
discriminating appetite the statesman and the
sneak-thief He has In mind an ideal epidem-
ic that would take off the rascal and spare the
diyiue-a sea that would engulf the lunatic
and give safe passage to the philosophers
temperature that would CONCEAL the blood of
the rogue and allow respectability and piety to
sit comfortably in their shirt sleeves. He
would have punishment administered solely
with reference to the convenience of the
rogues outside of prison walls, who are, by
convention, called good men, and without
thought of those inside of prison walls who are
have patience with him when he grudges the
bear-eyed, low-browed, untaught, unregener-
ate, unwashed miscreant, whom gods and men
alike have cut off from his patrimony in the
common estate, the very crust he gnaws in
the cell to which society has consigned him?
Why, think you this society that has condemn
ed him was not partaker in his crime? Ten
to one it was his sworn foe from the first mo-
ment of his existence. Ten to one it struck
him ten thousand blows before he was strong
enough to strike this one which is the pretext
of his Incarceration. Some Rothschld got his
money. Some rich mans son got his books
He knew no more of Sunday Schools than of
Christian diet. If chance put all his brains
at the base of his head, he got no consideration
on that account. None took it upon them to
may have possessed had fair chance to de-
velop. Gold only glds the Strengthened fore
head of the rich mans fool. He got his educa-
ton in the street, taking his language from
the curses of the Doors whose path he crossed,
and learning kindliness and compassion from
the scowls and jeers of the well-appareled
men and women who met him. God help the
unpitied ganain like poor 10 in the story he
was constantly told to "move on" So when
he grew strong enough, his animal instincts
which alone had been cultivated, led him to
seize the first piece of portable property he
could find that would be in any way promo
tive of his comfort and convenience; taking
out his knife, he "slashed" fellow being as an
other man would cut round of pork.
No one can deny that this accessory before
and after the fact, Society" must protect itself
against its victims, but the punishments it in
ficts are not the badges of its civilization, but
of its weakness and its failure to be in any
strict sense society. It can have no reference
to the iu-desert of its members in dealing with
them, but is warranted only in taking counsel
of its own necessities. 1t is bound to treat its
criminals with the utmost humanity consistent
with its own safety, and it is the standing dis.
grace of nineteenth century civilization that
all jals and prisons are not reform schools
that punishment is not reformatory instead Of
punitive and vindctive. 1t is q shame that
prison discipline does not leave those subject
ed to it cured or improved,- like lunatic asy-
lums, hospitals, asylums for the blind and deaf,
instead of leaving them in chronic moral sick.
ness. For, refine as you will, your criminal is
only sick man. Shall the science and hu.
manlty that open the eyes of the blind, make
the deaf b ar, straighten malformed limbs, re-
store reason to the lunatic, give up before these
graver infrmities that work an infinitely
greater amount of harm-and for which, we
have no hesitation in saying. the patients are
as little responsible? Yes, the criminal is not
only a sick man, but the sickest man. Physi-
cal deformity is deporable, but mental de-
formity, of the species of moral alteration, is
terrible; to be ''cross-eyed" is unfortunate, bat
mental strabismus is fatal.
Our correspondent has yet to learn-we say
it still with deierence-that the more humane
philosophy is the better, the safer and the on
ly remuuerative one. Because society has the
pol1er to crush out these abhorred unfortu-
mates, because it can rid itself of their disa-
greeable presence, it does not follow that it is
just or even expedient to do so. If you touch
the rights or immunites of one unjustly, that
outrage is sure to react upon all. This is the
lesson that all the years have been teaching
us. If you hang black barbarian, when you
might have reformed him, sometime, somehow,
avengers will spring from his blood The
criminals are Gods poorest poor-they are
Les Miserables over whom even the rationalis-
tic piety of skeptics has led them to mourn:
shall we, civilized men and women. church
members, moralists, Christians, bring them
once more to the gallows and the stake?
--
A SECOND ANONYMOUS PAPER, purporting to
be statement of the Morrill, men, appears in
the Kennebec Journal and the Bath Times. It