The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1877-10-20

,ear or two since an account went the
rounds of the press of u certain remarKaDie
family in one of the couties OF NortheTh Ne"
York the members OF which, for fully three
quarters of a century, had with very few ex,
rentions been criminals. The Official report
from which This account was summarized
has since been enlarged and elaborated Dy uhe
author, Dr. T. L. DuGDALE, ana Pupilsheu IL,
pampblet from under the title OF "lHEJUkEs
1t has, we are glad to notice, now paSseu 10
third edition. and the demand sill continues.
This pamphlet may be called study Of the
RELATIONS of heredity to the production OF dis
ease paupersm and crime; and 1t presents an
array of ndisputable facts and figures which
will astonsh those philanthropists and moral
reformers who imagine that their sphere OF
labor is entirely beyond the reach Of natural
law. The Jukcs"-a tictitic us 'name-were
the descendants of IN orphan girl,who became
mother without first becoming wife.
This girl, called MARGARET" was the OIL
spring OF vagrants,was herselfa pauper, and
bequeathed vagrancy and pauperiSm TO her
children. They transmitted the curse, burdened
with disease, and so has gone on down to the
present generation, who it is sufficient to say
are worthy of their wretched ancestry. Now
and then, as the carefully prepared tables show,
an honest luke" would arise but Invariably
his or her children swung back into the family
groove and furnished recruits Tor the poor
house, the jail or the penitentiary-sometlm
all three It seems as if the hereditary oias
was impossible to overcome; as II IL anu It's
dismal work with the "reminiscences OF mex
orable fate: as ifthe victims, struggle as they
might, could not escape from 1t; as Ii the seeds
ofsin and misery ian in the very blood ana
bore their appropriate irult as regularly ana
Systematically as the scattered grain o. the farm
er brings its appropriate harvest. lhere IS nc
reason TO believe that the result would have
been materially different if each and every
luke" had been thoroughly drilled to tho
Sunday-school and vigorously preached at intht
church They were pparently-wih the rare
exception alluded to, born without the mora
sense, and the deficiency could never be sup
piled The men were thieves and the womef
strumpets bccause--to all human appearance
they could not be anything else, and had NJ
desire to be anything else
1t NAV be said that the Jukesn are al
exceptional case. We wish we could think so
They happen to be the only case that has thus
far been hit upon an intelligent man, and con
scientiously worked up. We believe that il
avery large community which has eXiStet
comparatively undisturbed for hundred
vears-like the New York county in the pre-
sent instance-a similar examination Of Grim
inal statistics, if they can be had, would revea
similar facts not quite so wildly, perhaps
but still with sufficient clearneSs to indicate be
yond the possibility Of reasonable doubt th'
important, if not the controlling, part which
heredity plays in making ZIP the dark sid'
of society. That education and association
may do something toward tempering the here
ditary bias, is, of course, undeniable; but W.
question whether the best education and TIN
best associations can ever wholly conquer ii
At any rate those systems OF philanthropy,
and moral reform which leave heredity out O
sight altogether are as utterly useless as wonl'
be that system of medicine which ignored tn
same principle in the treatment OF physlca
disease.-.St, L0uis Republican,.