Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1872-12-13
The Chief Cause Of Crime.
From the Chicago Evening Post. /


held September 20, to report on the causes
Of crime, have completed their labors.
The result is embodied in report made
to the Committee of Fifteen, of which re-
port liberal extracts are subioined:
"a clear appreciation of those causes
that predispose to, or. favor the commits
sion of crimes, is of great Importance to
the welfare and prosperity of any commu-
nity. Reasonable security to life, health
and property, is essential alike to public
order and individual happiness. The fire.
ouency with which crimes have been
committed, and especially those involv-
ing personal violence, during the last few
years, has justly awakened the attention
of all classes Of the community. The real
causes of crime are divisible into two
classes, viz. those that predispose to, or
prepare the way, by inducing such men
tai development or condition as is capa-
BILE of being incited to criminal acts; and
those which, acting on such mental pre-
disposition, more directly induce the
commission of crime. The first may be
termed predisposing and the second ercttn9
causes. To the first belong neglect and
errors in the training or education OF
children; the reading of an obscene, i'm
moral and imaginative literature;
neglect to inculcate and enforce
obedience and respect for existing
laws, both in the family circle and
the community at large; and especially
| the tolerance of open and constant viola
tions of law by larger classes of the com
munity. To the second, or class of di-
rect exciting causes, belong all those So
cial customs by which numbers of indi-
viduals are brought together at late hours
of the night or on the Sabbath, without
any accompanying moral restraint, and
the use of such drinks as have the power
to influence human passions and diminish
the controlling influence of reason and
conscience OF all the customs of so.
cial character favoring the assembling of
men at unreasonable hours, and beyond
the restraining influences of either the
family circle or the church, which has
become almost universal, is that of keep
ing liquor saloons open large part OF
the night and all the Sabbath, thus afford
ing a convenient rendezvous alike for the
unwary laborer after his hours of toll, the
idle, the victims of vicious appetite, the
ignorant, and the designedly vicious. If
il were conceded that alcoholic drinks
are legitimate articles of trade and COM
merce, there can be no good reason why
those who traffic in them should not con.
form to the same customs as regulate all
other traffics, and close their places of
business at suitable hour in the even
ing, and keep them closed on the day
recognized as the Sabbath.
"A rigid and careful examination will
show that, if these places. were simply
closed at the times indicated, thereby de-
priving the bad elements of the commu-
nifty of convenient place of meeting, it
alone would diminish the number of
crimes in any given community nearly
| D,,t 0f tha av fcf-
ing causes of crime, alcoholic drinks, by
their power 70 excite the passions and
impair the control of reason and con-
science, stand out pre- eminent and all-im-
portant. This will appear more distinct
ly by the presentation of few well authen-
ticated statistical facts.
"More than twenty-five years since, a
gentleman of talent and reliable character,
visited all the prisons, jails, and poor
houses in the State of New York, and per-
sonally examined the inmates, and, as fai
as practicable, ascertained the causes o.
the crimes committed by the prisoners,
and of the causes which had led to the
poverty of the paupers. The results were
and paupers in each county in the State.
To allude to these figures in detail would
be unnecessarily tedious. 1t is
sufficient to say that they showed
four fifths of the criminals to have
been brought to the commission of their
criminal acts by the use of alcoholic
drinks; and that three fourths of the pau
pers were made such directly or indirect.
ly by the same agents. The results thus
obtained in New York quarter of cen
tury ago have been fully confirmed by
the examination of the jails and prisons,
as well as of the records of the Criminal
Courts, made since, either in this or other
civilized countries. Thus, within the
last three years, Dr. Elisha Harris, than
whom q more careful and reliable sb
server cannot be found, after an official
inspection of several of the prisons in
New York, stated that eighty per cent. OF
all the criminals he had found had beer
, made such by the use of intoxicating
drinks. If we pass from the jails and
prisons to the police stations, Bridewells
and Houses of Correction, we shall fin6
the results pointing in the same direc
tion."
The report proceeds to quote many par
ticular facts, showing that nine tenths OF
the crime committed in the world il
caused by drunkenness. A careful exam
nation of a list of about one hundred
,, murders and manslaughters committed
in this city and county during the last
seven years, shows that at least ninety
out of the one hundred resulted from the
influence of alcoholic liquors.
The report proceeds: $50 we might
multiply facts in relation to every species
, of crime drawn from the police and ju
: dicial records of every civilized country
, but the sameness of this recital would
, only weary the reader, without impartinl
additional force to the conclusions"
There is, however, another aspect in
4 this which statistical comparisons will
show results so fully corroborative of the
foregoing that we will briefly indicate it,
= By careful comparison of the amount o.
liquor consumed in different States o.
+, counties relative to the population al
shown by revenue and census returns
: with the number of police and crimina
! arrests in the same States, as shown by
= = the police and court records, it is founC
= that the latter hold remarkably close di
= rect ratio to the former, and that in som
: States and municipalities, where the con
:, sumption of alcoholic drinks varies, on
! year from another, the number and mag
: nitude of crime varies in the same ratio.
a This view is supported by abundan
q examples, among them the example o
s Vineland, New Jersey, where entire pre-
o hibition of the traffic in intoxicatin
q drinks has been enforced from the begiI
. q ming. The result is an almost absolut
. absence of pauperlsm and crime. TIL
. entire police force of the city consists c
one civil constable, and the expense I
Z the public only $75 year, or about s
. to every 1000 Inhabitants. In Chicag
v it costs 50, 900 a year to each 1000 inhal
y itants, and crime of all grades is constan
= even with this large expenditure.
n The report closes as follows; '1f yo
~ want local fact go and live in Evansto
month, and then inBridgeport, and 20
~ will soon discover the difference betwee
IS prohibition aud license in the matter {
e producing crime. The facts here produ,
ed, or those of similar nature, might b
,, extended almost indefnitely but enoug
n has been given to establish the axiom /
n this country, quoted with reference
~ England, that the crimes Of people al
< proportioned to the facilities of obtainin
) intoxicating beverages"