Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1874-02-12
IGNORANCE AND CRIME.

connected. The tie that BINDS them togetnel
is so strong, that the only possible way by
which a dissolution can be effected is by a
total destruction of one of the things which
it connects. Ignorance and crime may be
mentioned as thus connected Never did a
shadow follow substance with more certain.
ty than crime follows in the wake of igno'
rance. Before ignorance, the fair prospects Of
individual and national wealth fall, as the
ripe grain falls before the scythe of the reaper
or the trees of the forest fall before the AK of
the woodman. In the van of ignorance
there may be fields waving with luxuriant
harvests and homes happy in the enjoyment
of peace and plenty in its rear there is moth
ing but fields overgrown with thorns and
thistles, and dilapidated homes inhabited by
tenants gaunt with hunger.
Ignorance is both crime and the origina-
tor of crimes innumerable. The ignorant are,
by an irreversible law of nature, doomed to
suffering, to ignominy and to shame. These
things fall to them as portion, by the fixed
law that punishment follows crime, as the ef-
feet follows the cause.
The crimes which are originated by ignor-
ance are innumerable in multitude, and hid
eous in shape and degree They embrace all
those crimes which initiate against the indi-
vidual and general good Of every community.
In the black catalogue of crimes, which have
their origin in ignorance, is included every spe-
cies of iniquity, from the robbing of a hen
roost to cutting a mans throat in the dark
watches of the night, and then plunderlng
and carrying off his valuables. Ignorance is
an expensive thing. 1t is not simply cancer
that kills the patient, but it is worse. 1t is
not simply mildew and blight which causes
bright prospects to wilt and die; but it is like
Pharaoh's lean cattle-it devours and con-
sumes everything good within its reach, and,
like the horse-leech, it cries, "give, give" 1t
consumes the rich productions Of the earth and
still its gauntness increases Like an untamed
and undomesticated wild beast, it breaks over
the enclosures of law and order, and destroys,
without mercy, the rarest trophies of art and
science. Like a whirlwind, it never ceases to
destroy until its powers have been wholly ex-
hausted. What arithmetic can enumerate the
expense which ignorance annually infiicts
upon the world? Behold those massive struc-
lures of brick and stone, whose doors and win
dows are barred with iron rails! These are
some of the necessary expenses of ignorance.
To protect the innocent, to secure justice and
right to the weak, against the ignorant intru-
sions of the strong, cost, in dollars and cents,
a sum equal to all the other expenses of civil
ization. The court expenses of the United
States amount to sum sufficient, annually, to
build harbor at every port, that would shell
ter every vessel in the world Every county
in South Carolina expends sufficient, annually,
in the administration of law and justice-in
furnishing and restraining the ignorant-to
build and MAINTAIN school in every neigh
borhood. The producing cause of all these
expenses is ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of law and
ignorance of right and justice.
The expense entailed upon the world by ig-
norance is not all the evils that flow from it.
What countless woes are unnecessarily inflict-
ed upon the human family by ignorance! 1t
causes the tears of the orphan and widow to
run down like rivers. 1t makes the heart,
once happy, to be sad. 1t robs the world of
all its sweets, and sows broadcast and with an
uusparing hand, evils innumerable. 1t has
tens to the gallows and then to the grave. 1t
pulls down the home that protects from the
storms of winter and wards off the burning
suns of ofsummer, and exposes US to the inclem,
ency of the weather and the mercless pity OF
an alienated world.