The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-13
PRICE 3 CENTS.

iaVIII. Your iRtindtion that ma statistics
claim that Maine noao stands IN the front rank
q CRIME OF all the States in the Union is aroma
No such assertion was made or implied in any
STATISTICAL article of mine, nor was any compar-
lson attempted. l knew nothing about the
criminal records of other States-my business
mas mas Deen with my own. But if Rev. w. s.
Dixie, OF Royalton, VT, formerlya clergyman
OF Maine, is to be believed, a com parison be-
tween Maine and Massachusetts reveals a
shocking difference in the increase of crime.
whatever may be the actual amount of it in
the parent commonwealth. In his Mondav
lecture delivered in Boston, January "a. 1881.
he says, speaking of Massachusetts,
The report shows that, leaving out of ac-
count the liquor cases, fuctuating for obvious
reasons, all crime in the State for twenty years
fast as the population" 1 have proved that
during the past twenty-nine years crime has
increased in Maine about twenty and one-half
times as fast as our population, and murder
more than forty times.
Mr.. Dixie uses the term crime as Won do
loosely, including misdemeanors, for he writes
me that the increase of State prison conyicts
IN the twenty years was from 502 in 1859 to 1866
In 1879, gain of about 521 per cent. in twenty
years, while the population of Massachusetts
increased nearly 45 per cent. during that
period
So that while felony in Massachusetts, has
increased less than II per cent. beyond the in
crease OF population in twenty years, felony in
increased beyond the gain in population 1884
per cent.
In the words of Mr.. Dixie, "the statement is
not true See page 174 of report of Carroll
u. wright, Chief of Massachusetts, Bureau of
Statistics of Labor for $780, also DID. 1888, 1870
and 1893.
And why does it seem incredible to YOU that
murder, arson, rape and other felonies should
pe multiplying with such frightful rapidity in
State which you publicly proved to have
sunk lower in the social scale than any other
New England commonwealth? Is it strange
that our murderer's row, in spite of two
righteous executions in 1875 and a number of
ess righteous pardons since, has swelled from
Iour to twenty-one in the last twenty-nine
years, and rape has multiplied from ono case
to nine, when we recall how honeycombed
must Do the foundations of society in a State
which you demonstrated to a committee of the
recent Legislature divorced one man and
woman out OF 679 of its population in 1878,
condition of public morals which believe YOU
stated to be growing worse?
claim TO be as sincere in my desire to call
public attention to the astounding increase of
murder and other high crimes in Maine. as Won
doubtless are to keep the public awake to the
progress OF total abstinence and prohibition.
am not indifferent to the dangers of intem-
perance, or to what seem to me the far more
alarming ravages of licentiousness and the
growing desecration of the family relation;
but cannot believe that the true interests OF
temperance or purity demand suppression or
denial of the shocking truth which my statis-
tics reveal.
How can really righteous cause be dam
aged by an exposure of the facts, however NOR
Trying and discouraging it may be? When
you manfully made known to the Legislature
the degradation of our morals, comparing the
frequency OF our divorces with those of all the
rest of New England, you did good service to
the cause OF chastity and virtue.
When tried to arouse our editors and legis-
lators to a realization of the multiplication of
murder aud other high crime in Maine, with
out drawing any comparisons, I hope that l
was iaDorlng in the interests of humanity and
the public safety. Surely no sincere advocate
OF chastlty or temperance can justly call either
OF us enemies because we told them the truth
cannot allow either of those reforms to
oiind my eyes to the still more awful invasion
OF crimes OF violence, a relapse toward barbar-
Ism, which, In my Judgment, threatens the
fabric OF our civilization. A drunken popula-
tion is bad enough; licentious one is worse;
but community powerless or careless to pro-
tect its sober, chaste and law-abiding members
from the knife of the assassin, the torch of the
incendiary or the brutality of the ravisher, is
the most pitiable of all.
Till my statistics are disproved by facts, hu-
manity demands attention to their STARTLING
record.
Your article, in spite of its mistakes, is to me
a gratifying evidence that the public con-
science is beginning to awake. The more this
portentous problem is discussed by philanthro-
Pio'o, ono uottor, Whatever may De their
peculiar notions in reference to prohibition,
education or the treatment of criminals.
G. w. GODDARD.
sNoTE. 1 have no means of ascertaining the ex-
act number of State Prison convicts serving out
their terms in our jail workshops, as the Warden
and Inspectors Reports fail to give that informa-
ton. In 1878, Gov. Connor, in response to an in
quiry OF the House of Representatives, stated the
number to be 6S. have therefore assumed that
number as approximately correct. believe that
able. n w a