The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-06-13
CONGREGATIONAL CLUB.
REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING OF
THE SOCIETY.
some Causes of the Increase of Crime

The regular meeting Of the Congregational
Club was held at Grand Army Hall last even
ing, and there was a large attendance. After
supper, which was served at 6.45 o'clock, Mr..
T. f. Perry of Cumberland read poem which
was followed by very able paper by Hon
Geo. 4. Talbot on "Some Causes of the Ia
crease of Crime Of which the following is an
abstract:
In hearing in 1874 before the Judiciary
committee of the Legislature it was disclosed
that there had been for the year previous seven
teen homicides In Maine. It was urged BY OPP
ponents to the death penalty, that this marked
increase Of crime was due to the influence OF
our civil war The essayist combatted this
opinion.
Criminals of all grades went to the war and
were there the terror of camp and prison, and
the shirks who gave way at the pinch of
battle. Such men were bad at home The
war calling upon men to make sacrifice, to
| the martyrdom of death for patriotism, was, on
the whole, a moral discipline, and made even
bad men better,
| That its effecs was not 10 make soldiers
| or iminals is evident from the fact that GRIM
inals are not chiefly recruited from among the
soldiers; and the problem is not an increase of
crime in Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri,
| fought over BY the contending armies, but in
Maine, that never heard the enemy's cannon.
The crimes too are crimes not of hot blood, and
prompted by avarice and cunning, alien to the
temper of soldiers.
Mr. Talbot thought there were two causes of
the increase of crime; one might ba called
material. the other moral cause. Inc
mat III oa,1 an
living, the new intensity of the struggle Tor
life, the unfeelkg osteBtation of those who had
suddenly grown rich, as it affected the rude
envy of the poor. He depicted the Old New
England manners
.fWhen the richest was poor and the poorest
lived il abundance"
This condition of things was changed by
commercial developments, the speculations OF
1886, the disturbance of values resulting from
excessive issues of paper money during the
war which had lessened the numbers of small
proprietors and farmers, increased the laborlng
and artisan classes and made universal thirst
for traffic and money Though brief aud
especially early hardships tended TO form
habits of self-denial and prudence, the essaylst
thought, on the whole, the state OF poverty was
less congenial to virtue than the condinon OF
pecuniary independence.
The moral cause of the increase OF CRIME MT.
Talbot believed TO be a marked relaxatlon IN
the sanctions of the old religious faith. Laws
are made only for the lswloss. Laws against
murder only against persons capable OF com
hitting murder, Notwithstanding good John
Bunyan exclaimed on seeing convict on MS
way to the gall0ws, There, but Tor the grace
of God, Jes John Bunyan;" the essaylst
thought it was extravaganza to suppose that
more than 1909 persons among the 65O,OOO OF
the people of Maine were capable OF commit
ting murder under any circumstances VI
those capable OF committing the crime IN only
one case out Of ton would the occasion and
provocaton to murder concur, so that the
crime would actually happen. This would
give 400 actual murderers, or ten q year for q
generation, which is about the proportion. Ii
would not necessarily folio W that al law alb
horred to the sensibilites of so 1916 per cent.
OF the people of Maine might not be the very
best to operate upon the abnorpal characters
OF the other 1-16 of one per cent.
Both lunar and moral influences must DO
adapted to the evils to bs relnedled, TO the
class to be influenced. He quoted from j. s.
Mill, a remarkable confession, that he mad
lived to see many remarkable reforms in his
day effected without improving the intelectu-
al and moral state of mankind; land he thought
all thinking and writing which does not tend
to produce renovation in the religious faith
of the people was nearly useless.
Ignorance and intemperance are admitted
factors in the product of crime; but in fifty
years we have neither grown more lntemperate
nor more ignorant. Aside from the change5in
external conditions alluded to- what changes
in the fundamental beliefs of the people had
occurred within fifty years?
Fifty years ago there was an everywhere
prevalent belief N lasting punishment OF bad
men after death. The effect Of this motive
must not be overstated. He'll, though terri
Bile, is contingent and remote evil, and it il
the nature Of those rude minds capable OF har-
boring purposes of CRIME to be less affected by
fears of severe fortunes to happen III thirty
years, and after death, than by present incon-
veniences. But as men, becoming civilized,
began to be more, forecasting the horrors which
poetry added to hell to compensate for its re-
notensss, became indispensable to sensitive
minds, and school of religious teachers un-
dertook TO eliminate the doctrine of hell from
the cresd of Christendom. Had these teachers
a basis of reason for their denial? Here the
essayist traced the genesis OF the idea OF our
civil condition after death. he found 1t Tea
ture Of nearly all the religions that preceded
Christianity. He found its basis in the in
stiuetive dread of death as vague and indeh'
mite evil, supplemented By the promptings Of
an awakened moral sense. He instructs, now
ever, exaggerate; a. because the conscience
of man apprebends, in another life, panish-
ment for his sins, it does not follow that there
is a hell in the mind or purpose OF God. An
omniscient God can not be offended or Surpris-
ed at the sins OF bis creatures. None but an
inconsidersss or unskilful workman would be
disappointed or incensed that the materials
upon which he wrought did not represent his
ideal.
In the suffering and pain that evidently
pfSC6ueQ man B dQN6Db " lilo BOitut III tnO
suffering and pain, that it was not irrational
to believe pervaded other worlds than ours,
sud that had evidently ministered to the well
fare and ultimate happiness of men, the essay
list thought he saw q permanent method of the
divine operation; and so that pain and suffer-
ing might be hereafter an agency of good. The
reason which eorrects the prompting of the In
stinets come in to assert that all tho bells must
have not vengeful but mercifnl end, and
that whatever cannot be bettered by such de-
seription must be destroyed and 30 put beyond
suffering.
Another suggestion of hell is the repugnance
of good men to al evil, and it is in the light of
that repugnance that all the vivid dclineations
of your scriptures and Of all scriptures, is to De
interpreted.
Ga the whole the essngist surmised that it
would have been better to have left the vague
language of the Bible about future punish
ment as it stood, to have had such influence
upon coarse and brutal minds as it could, aud
that ali mon of any depth of spiritual expert
ence would have soon come TO interpret his
language il its evidently jsst SENSE. as de-
lineation, not Of any astronomical locality in
the universe, but-a moral condition cores
ponding to certain possible and avoidable
states OF the soul. AT any rate when moral re-
straints imposed by a theological writer have
been greatly abused or destroyed, he thought -
an inopportune time to lessen the human legal
penalties for crime.