The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-04-13
THE JOURNALS REJoINDER.


We print elsewhere communication from
Judge Goddard In reply to brief Journal edi-
torial on Crime in Maine. The Judge as
sumes that our article was in reply to a COM
munication which he published some time
ago in Portland paper, whereas it was in re-
ply to newspaper comments on the statistics of
both the Judge and some unknown author.
The newspaper comment which we had before
us when we penned our editorial was as fol-
lows ...
prohibition, it seems multiplies crime instead of
restraining it, as the prohbitionists claim In Maine
crime is three times as prevalent now as it
when the Maine Law was enacted in 1851. Judge
Goddard proves this by statistics showing that
while the number of State Prison convcts was only
~ in 1851, they had increased to 267 in 1880. 1t
is also stated that during the time the inmates
OF jails have increased from so to 215, with hardly
stands at the head OF the States in crime.''
We did not republish the paragraph, or al
lude in any manner in our article to Judge
Goddard, because we thought it unfair to hold
him responsible for inferences which others
drew even from his statistics, to say nothing of
those of others. At the same time it was not
surprising that persons who did not know the
Judge should infer that his object was to dis
credit prohibition, when they observed that he
chose the odd year of 1S51-the very year in
which the original Maine law was enacted-as
the initial point of his statistics.
In the article alluded to, the Journal claimed
first that comparison of the number of in.
mates of either prisons or jails, or both, before
and since the war, cannot afford correct idea
OF the increase of crime (using crime not
in its technical but in its popular sense,)
for reasons which we partially explained.
Slpnnd ot
afford the only correct basis of compar-
ison, and these show that while crime did
largely increase between 1851, or any period
prior to the war and few years Immediately
after the war, yet since 1869 (setting aside the
three years of hard times beginning with 1876
1t has not increased, but on the contrary is on
the whole decreasing; and third that crime is
proportionally less freque ut in Maine than in
any other State.
Our object was not to controvert the fact that
crime rapidly increased Immediately after the
war and is increasing now less rapidly in most
OF the States, but to show that within the past
IL or IA years, during which prohibition has
been for the first time continuously enforced
in this State. crime in Maine had not increased
as fast and is not now so prevalent as in other
States, and therefore that the attempt of out
of-state newspapers to represent that of late,
under enforced prohibition, our catalogue of
crime is far ahead OF other States, was unjust
and unfounded. These conclusions of our brief
article, with various minor points, Judge God
dard controversial
We incidentally remarked that there were
some errors in the figures of prisoners as quot
ed by our exchanges, but did not specify them
because we regarded such statistics wrong
basis for ascertaining relative crime at periods
widely apart. We referred to the jail figures
OF 1880, quoted above, of which Judge God
dard was not the author, when we spoke of 50
marshaling them as to ignore the fact that
large number of persons are included who were
imprisoned for keeping dram shops, for we do
not need to be reminded that this is not State
prison offense. What we had particularly in
mind when we suggested that some of the fig
ures were incorrect, was the statement that
there were 267 estate Prison convicts'' in
Maine in December, 1880. AS there were but
191 convicts in the State Prison last December.
excluding United States convicts, these fig
ures would give rs State Prison convicts In
our jail workshops. We were confident then,
and are more confident now, that there were
not 10 or 6S (as the Judge now claims) such
prisoners in our jails last December whatever
may have been the number in 1871 The re-
ports, however, do not give the numbers
But we do not regard this as important, for
even granting the correctness of the Judges
figures, they only make more apparent the
error of assuming that tables of convicts for
periods widely separated, afford correct ba-
sis for comparison of crime, if (as we claimed)
the terms of sentences both to the State Pris-
on and the Jail workshops have been enlarged
bly, the Judges since the war, under the direc
tonary power given them by law,-thus in
creasing the number Of convicts without an in
crease of crime.
Judge Goddard emphatically denies this
claim. The grounds on which we made it are
these:-First, our knowledge of the fact that
the then Warden of the State Prison, seconded
by the Governor of the state, soon after the
close OF the war made an earnest request of the
justices OF the Supreme Court that they would
increase theirl one and two year sentences
to three years, where the law would allow it,
in order that convicts Knight have time to
learn trade secondly, statement to us by
one of our ablest and most experienced judges,
that this request and other causes resulted in
an increase of length of sentences; thirdly,
similar information that since the establish
ment of workshops in iails the length of SEN
tences in these has been in many cases enlarg-