, 1875-05-19
SYMPATHY WITH CRIME.
(From The Herald.)

"Prison reform" is a phrase which runs
glibly from the lips Of q certain kind of
philanthropy. Heaven knows it is need
ed, even more in this country than in
Europe, but it should not be of that SEN
timental character which forgets the crime
in pity for the criminal. 1t isnot necessa-
ry to make a man a hero because he hap
pens to be a murderer, nor to weep the
salt water of sorrow over a pickpocket,
who was simply an object of disgust until
his treacherous fingers were found in the
wrong place. 1t is q tendency of the
times to overlook the eriminaIity of crime,
to offer ready excuses for it and to be af-
fected by a very weak feeling in the re-
gion of the heart when a villain kills some
one elSe's relations rather than ours. We
moralize in the most poetic fashion over
the temptations of the dangerous classes
And set our occasional sympathy to the
Music of a passing sigh. This is not the
product Of a true philanthropy, as we
tondIy dream it to be, but rather of abso-
lutte indifference to the public welfare.
When we are so becomingly stirred with
pity, it is that peculiar kind of pity which
lights another cigar, murmurs "Sad, very
sad, indeed" and then lets all r|ascality drift
out Of its thoughts. To be soft-hearted and
sOrroWful IS not the fuIness of u genuine
philanthropy. There is a pity which has
org ,nized its missionaries, gathered its
libraries, established its Sunday schools
and night schools and spent its best ener-
gies to make the dangerous classes less
dangerous and to lift the sub-celIar ponu-
lation of New York to the level Of the
sidewalk.
The various charities of the city, ilI-sup-
ported as they are, are doing Iusty service
tor the prevention of crime. Every dol
lar spent by them tells in a twofold direc-
ton; it saves the man who is ready for
misdeeds, and it saves society the tax and
the decentralization of a bad life. 1t has
always been our policy to urge the most
generous contributions toward this gene
raj work of tanning the embers of self-res-
pect in those WHO have only too much
reason to feel that every mans hand is
against them. One mission school is better
than a two-volume treaties on theology,
and a discussion of the best methods of
LddhlLS q pdIduISo ouG Vi Tue rive HOlntS
is more profitable than any tournament of
the knights of dogma that was ever held.
Still, a prison should be a prison and
not ahoteI. The actual and rigid punish
ment OF crime should be sufficiently en-
phasized to intimidate the burglar and the
telon. The s%trictest discipline should be
enforced and the hard labour should be a
fact and DOT a fancy. For ourselves, we
are apt to think that all sorts of sympathy
should be offered a man so long as that
sympathy is an incentive to an honest life ;
but when he voluntarily leads such a
course that society confines him in a dun
geon it should be understood all around
that the italicized experience of the next
few years is to be punishment. 1t is not
necessary for the warden to be brutal, nor
to forget that even a murderer is a human
being but it is necessary to the general
welfare that rosues should understand that
the way of the transgressor is rot macada-
mized, but an old fashioned corduroy
rod.
FIFTY years ago a very large proportion