New-York tribune., 1870-08-12
THE cOYTAGIOY or MURDER.

Chinese in return for our instruction IN shOe-
making. That eccentric people, who have
habit of opening to only their most learned
and capable men the chances of prefement as
iudges and rulers, have q mode equally unlike
our own of proceeding with criminals. a man
accused of a crime is examined, after his guilt
is established, with reference to his physical
health and temperament, to the facts and in
huences of his whole life, to the diseases ana
moral tendencies hereditary in the families OIL
his parents. From these data, this sclehtih-
cally barbarous people judge of his proper
guilt and punishment, and have derived GER
tain general rules and principles, from when
we nioneers in civilization, might be glad to
accent q hint. Crime, they believe, is subject
to law precisely as monsters or aDnornai ue-
velopments in Nature are simply interruptions
not antagOnisms, of order. We on the con-
trary receive each new murder as sort OF
miracle wrought by the Devil. The best we
can do with it is to stand agape with horror,
and then fling ourselves with blind fury on
the human tool used by ,his Satanic godShIp'
and thrust it off the face of the earth INTO the
darkness beyond, without the slightest regard
to the effect produced upon the world or the
new vice engendered by such action.
Nothing can be more certain than tue exist
ence and spread of criminal epidemics. d.
Elan, in the valuable work to which we nave
heretofore alluded, places this fact In the
clearest light. 1t is proved by the rapid in
foction in every century of unnatural forms OF
roIioious sunerstititiOns combined with hyster-
ical affections, and leading to excesses OF every
kind. which appear to be as contagious anu
morally fatal as certain pestilences are 10 the
body. Among the innumerable instances Oh
these the most curious are the Iailaucai up
risings of the Crusades, the mad selt-tortures
of the Flagellants in the Tenth Century, ana
the panic of hate which Overspread Europe
about the same time against the Jews, and ied
to their wholesale murder. In Mayence," says
Hecker, "120 600 Jews were slaughtered by the
"Flagellants. At Eslingen the whole jewish
community burned themselves III their burial
" groundD Or nearer our own time, the witch
burning in this country, and the spasmodc
dancing manias exhibited among the Meth
odists and nuns in Germany and Ireland.
There can be no doubt that the spongy mass
in the head of man is as susceptible
to the cOntagiOn of malignant ideas
as the blood in his veins is to material poi
sons. The blind fury of mob, half of whom
may have been moment before cool specta-
tors, proves this to us every day. But the
strongest proof, and the one which concerns
us just now most nearly, is tie fact that any
crime which rises from the dead level of Ordi-
nary vice by force of its popularity or horror
is sure to be followed by legion of others of
similar character. Suicide has frequently be-
come epidemic in certain towns. In Lyons,
DR.. Elan states, "the women drowned them
"selves during one year in such numbers, with
"Out cause, that the only mode of checking 1T
"was by public exposure of the person. In
"every case the evil has been promulgated by
"the publication of details.n Nothing is moro
natural A man with diseased brain, greedy
for unnatural food, is met by the foul particu-
lars of q mOnstrOus crime, SeiZes on 1t and
speedily initiates it.
1t is time that science and religion should
have devised some other method than ours of
dealing with crime. The decayed member of
society could surely, if there is no chance of
restoring it to health, be skillfully removed
from the body. We-hack and hew at it as
butcher at his meat. Not only the lower
classes, but educated men must have their
daily rations of murder OF adultery served
out to them; ordinary guilt pals stale upon
the palate. kInstead, therefore, of meeting crime
with the skill of the physician, or the healing
power of education or religion, we use 1t only
as foul meal for foul curiosity. The circum-
stances, the method, are dished up with every
rank tid-bit of gossip, and all the talent which
the daily press can afford; the public are pre-
sented with portraits of the victims, the
Judge, the counsel and the murderer (herO-
like) in the center Meanwhile, judge, counsel,
detectives, and reporters hit blindly about,
eliminating witnesses relatives, anybody
whose name has been dragged into the trial.
1t is fortunate, indeed, if they content them
selves with blind attacks The duty of
prisoners counsel, nowadays, is too often
held to be the elimination of the innocent to
save his client. After recent murder trial
in Philadelphia, which commanded attention
all over the country from its peculiar elements
of horror, and in which every effort was made
to throw the guilt upon ihe wife of the pris-
Oner, his counsel produced triumphantly the
iron bar stained with the blood of the victim
with which the murder had been accomplished,
and which be had had in possession during the
whole of the trial. John Chnaman, when he
has fully established the guilt of the criminal,
chops him, his son and grandson, into twenty
thousand pieces. We, with our more liberal
enlightenment content ourselves with mutt
lating the innocent people who surround him,
and elevating the murderer on the very apex OF
popularity, to become the envy and example OF
every half crazed, half vicious wretch. Ihe
consequences of our system, or no-system, are
apparent. Commonplace slaughter has fallen
=. 4, 10 fha