The Portland daily press., 1873-02-10
ga New Crime."

Soma of the members of the Legislature,
and If is to be feared that they may prove a
majority of that body, shrink from enacting
law to MAKE education compulsory, because,
as they allege, it is necessary to constitute a
new crime in order to effect that purpose. In
other words, affixing penalty to an omission
which has direct and most pow erful tenden-
cy to produce all crime is represented to be
an act to which the wise and prudent ought
to be decidedly averse. Now.with all due re-
spect to Mr.. Knowlton, who was most promi-
nent in the exposition of this new doctrine,
it ought to be said that such reasoning is not
calculated to impress the people with an idea
of the sincerity o! those who oppose compul-
sorry attendance at schools.
In the first place the imposition of small
fine as penalty for neglecting to send chill
dren to school can be said to make new
'scrime" only by using that word in its broad
est legal sense-in the same sense in which it
is used when applied to the act
Of neglecting to clear off ones side walk.
Mr.. Knowlton and his sympathizers use it as
if it were synonymous with ''felony," when
it is hardly misdemeanor. In neither the
popular nor the strict legal sense is that a
crime which is punished by so slight pen
atty as that provided in the bill for compulso-
ry attendance now pending.
But take the worst view possible of it, and
call it making "new crime" to fine man
who does not send his children to school.
Those who live in cities know that the mere
consideration of the comfort and convenience
of limited number of people in small
locality has led to making scores Of
''crimes" as purely artificial as that which is
so much dreaded. The sanitary and police
regulations under the city ordinances of Port
land or Bangor make the citizens of those
places subject in numerous ways to penalties
more severe than those in the compulsory
attendance bill. Not to prevent snow slides
from ones roof, to drive ones horse too fast
and to drive hack without a license are all
'crimes" and punishable with greater or less
severity. Now there is nothing in the nature
Of things making it a crime to drive a fast
horse up to his full speed through the princi-
Pal ctlGCI VI d ClGys OuOW SllucS dIt uOb rep
rotated either in the Bible or forbidden in
the common law Of any nation. To say that
only men with license shall drive hack is
making new crime in the most arbitrary
manner. Yet has anyone complained on
that account? Has it not been thought
wise thing to secure the safety and conven-
fence of few people by such means? But
compulsory attendance on schools is necessa-
ry to secure the safety and happiness of all
the people of the State. 1t is that without
which the increase of pauperism, felony, cor
rupton in high places and the loss of purity
in the government cannot be prevented :.
The lawyers who raise this objection to
compulsory attendance ought to know that
the Legislature of this and other States has
not hesitated to create "new crimes" for pur-
poses that are microscopically small and trivial
compared with the education of the youth of
Maine. Whoever throws down or opens gates
or bars on land not his own may be punished
by years imprisonment. And to protect
the delicate sensibilities of some lover of the
picturesque the Legislature of 1866 passed
law, which is still part of our code, making
the exhibition of an advertisement on rock
or fence by the wayside crime of as deep a
dye as this which so excites the apprehen-
sion of conservative gentlemen in the Legis-
lature! You may, without reproach, fine a
man for selling bunch of fire crackers or
for leaving box on the sidewalk, but you
shall not in any way punish man who by
his neglect or refusal to educate his children
is in league with murder, is fast ally of rob-
berry and the chief promoter of fraud, perjury
burglary, forgery and every species of vio-
lence and crime. You may punish man for
offending the refined tastes of his neighbor,
butt not for endangering the peace and pros
perity of the State!
Such doctrine is so transparently absurd
that if its sponsors were men less eminent for
their ability and fairness it would be dignity
ing it to call it simply vulgar dodge to ex-
cite unreasoning prejudice against the meas
ure which is by all odds the most important,
and, in its design, the most philanthropic, of
those considered by the Legislature of 1873.
When the bill comes up again Tuesday, it is
to be hoped that its opponents will find more
forcible objections or permit it to pass un-
challenged.