The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1875-01-08
REMARKABLE CRIMINAL STATS
TICS.

Ia the meeting held yesterday OF the
State Charities Aid Association, DR. HaT-
ris brought forward some of the most
remarkable statistics which have ever
been Obtained in the science of criminal
reform. While reading of the efforts of
the Prison Association the attention of
the doctor was called to a county on the
Upper Hudson, where there was a re-
markable proportion of crime and pow
erty to the whole population. The
county contained but one town and on
ly small villages. with population of
some 40, 900; yet the number of its pau
pers IN its almshouse was 1OS, or about
one IL eighty, not reckoning a consider
able 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 defec-
tive method everywhere adopted in the
statistics of pauperism of enumerating
names as persons. 1t is certain, how
ever, that the proportion of paupers
and criminals in the county is alarming
ly great. The attention of the doctor
WAS attracted to certain names which
everywhere appeared in the criminal
and Poor House records of the county.
certain families. These again seemed
to be connected, and he was induced to
search sill further the genealogies of
these families. The results will remain
as permanent and most startling facts
in the history OF crime and its conse-
quenees.
1t should be understood by our read
ers that ordinarily it is extremely diff
cult to trace the descent of a criminal
family In cities such families become
broken up and their members are scat
tered 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 the race comes to an end
through physical and moral degenera-
ton, the final members being compara-
lively idiOrs, imbeeiles, lunatics and in
some countries cTetiElS.
1t happened, however, in this county,
that the physical vigOr of the particu-
lar family traced preserved some of
its members for their evil destiny, and
enabled the investigator to trace them
during six generations of wiekedness
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 misfortunes of others. There
was no alnShOuse in the place; but she
was "a subject of outdoor relief, proba-
bly, receiving occasionally food and
clothing from the officials, but never
educated, and never kindly sheltered IN
a home. She became the mother of a
long race of criminals and paupers, and
her progeny has cursed the county ever
since. The county records show 200 of
her descendants who have been crimi-
mails. In one single generation of her
unhappy line there were twenty chill
dren; of these, three died in infancy,
and seventeen survived to maturity.
OF the seventeen nine served in State
Prison for high crimes an aggregate
term of fifty years, while the others
were frequent inmates of jails, peniten-
tiaries and almshOuses.
of the 800 descendants, through six
generations, from this unhappy girl, who
was left on the village streets and aban-
dOned in her childhood, great number
have been idiots, imbeciles, drunkards,
lunatics, paupers and Outcasts; but 200
of the more vigorous are on record as
criminals. This neglected little child
has thus cost the county authorities, in
the effects she has transmitted, humid
reds of thousands Sf 5oiiars II, TIE eX-
poaSe and care of criminals and pau
pers, beside the untold damage she has
inflicted on property and public morals.
When we think of the multitude of
wretched beings she has left upon the
Garth. Of the Suffariner deOrre1 tiOO TO-
norance and crime that one child has
thus transmitted; of the evil she has
caused to thousands of innocent fani
lies, and the loss to the community, we
can all feeOly appreciate the importance
TO the public of tile care and education
Of a single pauper child.--N Y. Times.