The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-01-09
A Mother of Criminals.

The New York Times says that at a meet
ing of the State Charities Aid Association, DR..
Harris brought forward some of the most re-
markable statistics which have ever been OBJ
taned in the science of criminal reform.
While reading of the efforts of the Prison As
sociation the attention of the doctor was called
to a county on the Upper Hudson, where there
was remarkable proportion of crime and pow
erty to the whole population. The county con-
tanned but one town, and only small villages,
with population of some forty thousand; yet
the number of poupers in its alms-house was
four hundred and eighty, or about one in ten,
not reckoning considerable number assisted
by outdoor relief. This proportion is probably
greater than that of London or Paris; but of
this we cannot be certain, owing to the 6efec-
tive method everywhere adopted in the stats.
tics OF pauperlsm of enumerating names as per-
sons. 1t is certain, however, that the proper
ton of paupers and criminals in the county
was alarmingly great. The attention of the
doctor was attracted to certain names which
everywhere appeared in the criminal and poor
house records of the county, and he was led to
follow up the traces of certain families These
duced to search still further the genealoges of
these families. The results will remain as per-
manent and most startling facts in the history
of crime and its consequences
1t should be understood by our readers that
ordinarily it is extremely difficult to trace the
descent of q criminal family. In cities, such
families become broken up, and their members
are scattered everywhere. In villages, though
their lines of descent may be followed, yet the
retributive laws of Providence usually carry
the effects of crime only "to the third or fourth
generation" and then the race comes to an
end through physical and moral degeneration,
the final members being commonly idiots, i'm
beetles, lunatics, and in some countries,
cretipS.
1t happened, however, in this county, that
the physical vgor of the particular family
traced, preserved some of its members for
their evil destiny and enabled the investigator, ),
to trace them during six generations of wicked
ness and misery. Some seventy years ago a
young girl named Margaret was left adrift
in one of these villages-it does not appear.
whether through the crime or misfortune of
others. There was no alms-house in the
place; but she was subject of outdoor relief,
clothing from the officials, but never educated,
and never kindly sheltered in home She
became the mother of 81 long race of GRIM
inals, and panpers, aud her progeny has
cursed the county ever SINCE The cobnty rec
cords show t,oo hundred of her descendants who
have been criminals. In one single genera
tion of her unhappy line there were twenty
children; OF these, three died in infancy, and
seventeen survived to maturity. OF the seven
teen, nine served in the State Prisons for high
crimes and aggregate term of fifty years. while
the Others were frequent inmates of jails and
penitentiaries and alm-houses!
OF the 900 descendants, through six genera
tions, from this unhappy girl who was left ON
the village streets and abandoned in her child
hood, great number have been idiots, imbe-
Giles, drunkards, lunatics, paupeTs, and prostl-
tutes; but 200 of the more vigorous are on rec
ord as criminals. This neglected little child
has thus cost the county authorities, in the eff
fects she has transmitted, hundreds of thou
sands of dollars in the expense aud care of
criminals and paupers, besides the untold dam
age she has inflicted on property and public
morals When we think of the multitude of
wretched beings she has left upon the earth; of
the suffering degradation, ignorance, and
crime that one child has thus transmitted; of
the evil she has caused to thousands of inno-
cent families, and the loss to the community,
we can all feebly appreciate the Importance to |
the public of the care and education of a sim |
gle pauper child.