New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-09-01
CRIME AND ITS CAUSE.

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been committed here, bat all over tn
country human life has been sacrificed b
fiends in human shape, with as little con
sideration as they would crush the meanes
worm that crawls beneath their feet. I
would seem that with the coming of warn
weather the minds as well as the skie
had suddenly become tropical, thus tt
produce such a startling catalogue o
atrocious crimes as have been chroniclet
throughout the land during the presen
season.
Whether the magnetic power of the
sun is so great that the brains of men are
affected by it to induce them to the com
mission of acts of violence and brutality
without consciousness. is one of those
questions which physicists must discuss
and determine at their leisure.
Revenge and retribution for real or fan.
cied wrongs by the use Of the knife, pis-
toll or bludgeon, has become fearfully
prevalent, and unless it is checked by
the salutary enforcement of law and the
certain punishment of offenders, the effect
upon society must be paralyzing and dan
gerous
The majority of offenders who commit
these heinous crimes, when called upon
to answer for what they have done, set up
insanity or intoxication as the plea under
which they hope to escape the extreme
penalty Of the law.
In cases of real insanity, where it is
proved clearly and conclusively, and to
have been hereditary a party acquit-
ted upon such a defense should
be placed where he will be powerless for
harm. As to the plea of intoxication in
bar of punishment for offenses commit
ted while in such condition, it ought
not to be tolerated. That man COM
mits murder is crime punishable with
death by hanging. That he commits it
under the influence of liquor is an aggra-
walton, not mitigation, of the original
ofense. Such a decision is not unknown
to the courts; it is, at any rate, plain
dictate of common sense, public morality
and public safety. The man who brings
himself into an irrational condition is
morally, and ought to be legally respon-
sible for the crimes he may then commit
1t is an open license to drunkards to COM
NIT crime with IMMUNITY, if such plea is
permitted to avail, and the dangers of
life in great cities are doubled besides
it would be encouraging drunkenness,
and make a mockery of justice
The value of human life is sadly at a
discount in this Southern country if we
may judge from the fearful record of
crime that is to be found in the journals
of the day
Juries, too, often are found to SYM
pathize with the criminal and allow them
selves to be affected by the imaginary
appeals of counsel, rather than to be
guided by the evidence in the case. Such
would have been the result in the Foster
case in New York had it not been for the
powerful public opinion which demanded
that justice should be meted out to an
murderer. 1t is said that
since the terrible punishment inflicted on
the rioters Of the twelfth of July, there |
has been peace, quiet and good order III
the most notorious criminal quarters of |
that city. The wholesome application of
the law in the enforcement Of its penalty
upon the wrong-doer, whether in the
swift and summary application Of mill
tary force or by certain execution or in
carceration, if positively known to fol-
low the violation of law, will 90 very far
to deter men from the commission of
crime.
ldleness is the mother of crime, and for
parents to bring up their children with the.
idea that they are to be gentlemen and
ladies', with idle habits, instead of working
men and working women, is to prepare
them for career of crime ending in de-
structi5n.
Ignorance is another prominent cause
If crime, for where the people are with
out education there the brutal passions
have the ascendancy, and vice and crime
The statistical record of
ignorance, in many 81 the Southern States,
shows that where there is lack of educa-
lon, there do the criminal organizations
known as the Ku-Klux mostly flourish,
md commit their terrible deeds of murder
Upon innocent and unoffending victims.
N North Carolina, for instance, where
he census of 1860 shows the illiterate
population to be 25.43 per cent of the
whole, there lawlessness and disorder are
7ery formidable Such also is the fact in
tennessee, Arkansas, and some portions !
II kentucky. With these facts. one of !
he great instruments of reform with such j
'eople will be education, and if the State |
authorities will not perform their duty in {
his regard, then the federal government |
ught to establish system of education, {