Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1875-04-08
THE INFLUENCE or ORTHOGRA
PLY UPON CRIME.

THE INFLUENCE OF ORTHOGRA-
PLY UPON CRIME.
The Importance of education as a
means of preventing crime is uni
versally admitted, and for that reason
the present popularity of spelling bees
is likely to have a marked effect on
criminal statistics. Such is the hope
full view taken by the Nel0 York Her
aid, and We need not 60 far for grounds
on which to base II. The reason so
many persons write badly is that they
cannot SPELL He who cannot spell
correctly dare not write plainly, but
must use an affected carelessness to
hide a real ignorance. This is why
the majority of people always
write Mississippi with a capital NJ
and a tail of little assesses and iseses,
like a comet why nobody writes
Cincinnati or Massachusetts or Ten
nessee as plainly as we print them, and
why no one can tell In manuscript
whether Mediterranean is written with
one or two rs. The ignorant speller
is wrecked upon the multitudinous
sees, and bad writing is used to make
the green one seem well read. Thus
bad spelling leads. directly to chirO-
graphical delitescence, one of the
worst offences known to the moral
code. Hypocrisy is thus made an ele-
ment of penmanship; but the evil does
not stop here. 1t passes from the
writer to the reader of the scrawl. Bad
writing is productive of cursing,
and who can tell how much
Horace Greeley, Rufus Choate and Col.
Forney, public men with extensive cor
respondence, have done to make swear
ing a national vice? Every letter these
great statesmen wrote went forth as a
missionary to promote profanity. Col
Onel Forney, on the occasion of one of
MIR. Choate's great speeches, wrote him
a complimentary ietteTS in which he
said, IN his poetical way, You sum
an heather heaven in yourself,
and top high crowned Olympus" Mr..
Choate read the sentence thus
you seem an heather in heaven, you
wretch, at top a fly blown bumpus,"
and in a fit of anger wrote a most
abusive reply, which Colonel Forney
still keeps in his album as a cordial IL
vitation to dinner. Now, is it not an
inevitable conclusion that all Of these
great statesmen purposely wrote a bad
hand because they were a little shaky
in their spelling? We attribute to the
enormous amount of their literary
Iabors and correspondence the notori-
Gus prevalence Of blasphemy among
compos;tors, the roral ruin of many a
prOof-reader and the habitual cursing
of which Americans are accused.
If the bad results of bad spelling
ended in the hypocrisy of bad writing
and swearing we should be reioiced;
but, alas it does not. Cursing al
ways leads to anger, and many a fierce
quarrel has been provoked by abusive
language. An oath is generally an.
swered by a blow, and thus assault and
battery becomes the next step in crime.
You receive a letter which you cannot
read, written by a man who cannot
spell. Your passions are aroused, and
to give vent TO your anger you swear
at your unoffending wife. That high
spirited woman responds with
the shovel, and you rejoin with
the tongs. The next thing is
that you are hung. After that It is
unnecessary 10 continue the story.
Thus does one vice create another. 1t
IS a subject Tor mathematical demon
stration-e g., as tobacco smoking is to
rum drinking so is bad spelling to bad
writing; as intoxication is to burglary,
so is bad penmansbip to profanity; as
burglary is to arson so is profanity to
strife; as arson is to cruelty to animals
so is stlife to bloodshed; and, finally,
as cruelty 90 animals is to Bergh so Is
bloodshed to murder.
The philosophical mind thus tracing
the causes of crime from their effects
feels a profound relief in the efforts
now being made to purify the fountain
head of society. The spelling match
at the Cooper Institute last night is
a part Of the great reform which viii
be one of the glories of our time.
The school boys and proof-readers who
spelled the longest words so well will
be good members Of society. LET me
spell the words of a people" said
Montesquies-or was It De TocqueYille |
-"and 1 care not who pays their
taxes" These golden words from one
who Is acknowledged to be the pro-
foundest Of modern thinkers should be |
cherished by all, and particularly by !
those who harden themselves in crime |
by the daily murder Of the English |
language. Brothers, we have had |
enough Of war and strife, now let us
resolve to have a long spell of peace.
ELECTION IN Connecticut to-day. |
The probabilities are that the Prohi- |
l. - go. -.