Morning journal and courier., 1882-10-04
Poverty, Wealth and Morals.
Other Causes Than Economic That Pro-
 dmc

Other Causes Than Economic That Pro-
 ducs Crime.
 From an Article in the London Spectator.l
 It is well that country should be pros porous, because prosperity alleviates the ex ternal misery of the mass, which is an evil though not the greatest of evils but to sup pose, as Mir. Leane Levi apparently supposes, that it has much effect in reducing crime, is we are convinced, as great an error to suppose, as his opponents do, that it posi- lively increases criminality. Economic causes produce economic results, not moral results. It seems at first sight almost tru- ism to say that, if the masses are comforta- ble, crimes against property will grow fewer but that the people will become more drum ken, but it is very doubtful if either of those propositions IS at all certain. The absence of crimes against property in Lancashire during the cotton famine was remarked by all observers, while 1t is nearly certain that though the apprehension of food famine may cause rioting or other violent expression of discomfort and fear, the presence of famine is accompanied by Hull in the work of the criminal courts The heart for crime is out of the sufferers. While the western Irish were so distressed three years ago they were distinctly cleaner of crime, apart from agra rian outrage, than they are now.
 There are savages who do not steal, be- cause they want nothing. You may sleep with unlocked doors in district full of pau per peasants, but if visitors come, and mon, ey and knowledge with them, the keys be- come at once indispensable to the safety of portable property. Indeed, paradoxical as it may appear, it is true that the abhorrence of pilfering varies almost in proportion to the poverty the permanent poverty, we mean, of the community, till it is hated and avoid | ed in Montenegro and Uri with earnest 1 ness to which in England, which is rich. we have no parallel Crime does not always follow temptation. No class in the world 1 can be tempted to thieve as English domestic 1 servants are tempted and working class l in the world is 50 free from the offense oi | theft. The incessant presence of temptation l has developed instea of destroying resisting power, by making common honesty" " the | honesty which does not pocket spoons or | brooches, seem at once high virtue and a | necessary one. The relation of domestic 1 service could not endure if the servants stole. Even the vice of drunkenness, which ir England is always assumed to depend on eco homie causes, one school alleging that the 1 poor, when poor, drink to drown misery 1 while another declares that high wages near an increase of drunkenness, is probably lnde i pendent, or nearly so, of economic condl i tions. A century ago the English we'll to dc drank to madness; now, they are one of the | temperate classes of the world. The poor l Irish and the ''prosperous'' Scotch drink about equally hard, while the 'bloated arls tocracy'' of Europe hardly drinks at all. IT the United States prosperous workmen rare l ly drink, while in Australia prosperous work men, though retaining a singular power o1 self restraint while at work, are apt to waste | their whole earnings In bouts of intermittent drinking There is literally no clear evidence l in existence which would enable an experi | enced man to decide whether, if every fami | ly in Galway inherited next week hundred | a year. drunkenness would be rampant, al temperance would suddenly prevail Th' entire classes of the prosperous-Americar | ladies, for example-never drink while en
 tire peoples among the poor-the Tusoans
 for example-with every opportunity, know nothing of drunkenness. Moral causes, re ligious causes caste causes, even the preva lence of special ideas, like the Montenegro
 one that theft is specially shameful-the re
 suit of @ particular punishment continued
 for ages-affect crime far more powerful,
 than any economic conditions whatever
 The economists do but weaken their own cas-
 when they refuse to be contented with tn
 result of the great but limited truths the,
 teach upon human happiness and misery
 Their business is to make men content, no
 to make them good. though, of course, the
 must avoid 8 content productive of mora
 deterioration.
 Even the moralists sometimes fall into thi
 same error of exaggeration, and claim fo
 their sound principles results which do no
 belong to them. They are, we believe, i
 the right in their protest of ages against luz
 ury-we do not mean vice, but luxury, tn exaggeration of the idea of comfort-for he , bitual luxury can only be secured by vast
 of time, of mental energy and of means
 which must decrease the general stock of il tellectual and moral force. You are spend ing energy, when you unfold all the crun pied rose leaves. The Sybarite, even whe