Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-01-01
[For the RECORD. UNIoN.l
CRIME AND CRIMINALS.

Until q century ago, or to speak more
precisely, until the year 1775, when John
Howard published his book entitled estate
"of the Prisons in England and Wales"
there had been no attempt made anywhere to
diminish crime by reforming criminals, or
to take any precautions against its increas
through the free association of criminals in
prison. The jails of Europe, and for that
matter of all the world, had up to that time
been on a par with the civilization of So
ciety. Sensibility to the sufferings of others
is far more modern phenomenon than most
people believe. 1t is not many generations
since our ancestors held that manliness and
what we call brutality were convertible
terms; when the aim of respectable ambi-
ton was to excel in rude physical exercises,
to obtain proficiency in various modes OF
fighting, and to be able to get blind drunk
seven nights in the week. To those who
reflect it will appear evident that the virtues
of our forefathers were in fact no other than
the virtues of the cid Morse pirates from
whom they proudly claim descent. To
fight to slaughter their fellows, to
gorge beef and swill large draughts Of
mead and metheglin, constituted the
ideal of those savage progenitors, both on the
earth and in Valhalla. And the period of
barbarism to which they belonged has but re-
Gently passed away, and that only in part
AS civilization advances the first evidence of
it is the diminution of violence. Manners be-
come softened men cease to swagger about
with ready weapons on their thighs, itching
for brawls the law takes its tone from soci-
ETY., and the punishments of crime are made
less cruel. Torture is abolished; such penal
ties as quartering, burning at the stake, mu-
tilation, the pillory, are one by one discarded.
Capital penalties cease to be awarded for mis-
demeanors. 1t is no longer permissible to
hang man for stealing a stake out of a
hedge, or turnip from field. Cropping of
ears, branding with hot irons are abandoned.
And presently it is slowly borne in upon the
more advanced thinkers of the day that the
condition Of those who trespass against the
law ought to be inquired into, and that some
endeavor should be made to reform them, and
SO to resard the growth of crime.
When John Howard made it clear that all
the prisons of Europe were hot-beds of vice
and disease, infamous in their conduct and
disastrous in their products, penal reform was
born into a bewildered world. The time was
ripe for a change. for the public had adj
vanced beyond the stage Of savage indiffer-
eRce to human suffering. But as yet the ca
pacity to devise practical reforms was want
ing, and from that day to this Europe and
America have been experimenting In pencil
ogy, learning slowly. abandoning many cner-
ished conceptions after trial, gradually at
tanning to clearer perception OF what Is re-
CURED, and as gradually perceiving the very
great complexity and difficulty OF the prob
lem. Indeed the unassisted researches OF
penolopists would have probably produced
very little result had they not been supple
mented by the studies of the biologist and the
psychologist. The scienceof Sociology, though
in its infancy. has in fact already served to
show that most of the earlier efforts to solve
the criminal problem were as blind and IN
philosophical as the barbarous conditions
which preceded them, and it is oaly now, at
ter century OF experiment, that the data