The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-01-18

Is Familiarity with Crime Leading to a
Moral Middle?


We suppose most men competent to give up
an opinion, and especially men familiar
with social history, would reply that it was,
and they would have much 10 say for them
selves. Private war has entirely ceased ;oru-
tai murders-especially murders on the
roads, which were once frightfully common
have grown much fewer, aud murders by
order OF Kings and persons In authority
have entirely ceased. Napoleon could have
q man killed quietly. but the Emperor Will
lam could not The laws in all Western
countries have become infinitely less cruel,
patches OF executions for petty oifenses
would no longer be tolerated, and the pun
ishment of death is inflicted with extreme
reluctance. Not only does King like Hum
bert OF Italy sanction a capital sentence with
sort OF personal pain. bat grave and ex-
perienced magistrate like NJ. Grevy, on most
points the irmest of men, can scarcely bring
himself to sign death warrant, and only
last week committed the capital sentence on
a soldier who had outraged 3 little girl aud
then dashed out her brains. a catastrophe
involving great loss of life in most countries
rouses kind of horror, and this even when
the casualty has not resulted from human
carelessness, while an increasing attention,
sympathetic attention, is paid to the death
of individuals. The whole tone of the Euro
pean community has become perceptibly
softer, and q massacre calls up emo
tons which in the beginning of the century
would have been thought either weak or
sentimental. Finally. in sll countries, indi-
vidusl life Is safer; and though that proceeds
in part from better police organization, 1t
must also be due, in part at eli events, to
decline in general feroci:y. The very Grim
inals are displaying new aversion to kill.
These are undenisble facts. and they would
| seem conclusive but that there are also facts
upon the other side, which lead either to an
| opposite impression, or at all events to
| doubt whether the improved chance OF liv-
~ ~ he M tod IN .~fr
| than increased belief in the sacredness of
| human life. There is increased softness; but
| do we owe it to decrease IN ferocity or to a
| decrease in fortitude, or have both diminu-
! tions gone on together? We do not find,
either on the Continent or England, that
| the horror of the duel st increases. The cas-
| tom of dueling is dead here, il is true, beaten
down by variety OF causes; but il RACES in
| cIeasiDgly upon the Continet, spreading
| downward We are told, to lower aud lower
strata, while even here few men w0uid OBJ
| Ject to associate with the duelist who had
| killed his man, while many would reject the
acquaintance OF the man who, when called
| On abroad to XIII. has steadily refused. We
| doubs II the dislike of war has not declined
| II pity bee net turned rather to the wounded
than the killed, and are certain that the
killing in ~ of black, brown or yellow per-
sons is less thought OF than it was State
| ments are made every week in France ABOUT
| occurren ces in Tonquin which would have
crazed the old humanitarians, but are now
| received in silence. Every where. we fear,
the horror of political assassination
has, declined, until respectable men
archists now going ON in Leipsic, with feel
ing that 1t is q political trial, and almost
| forget that an Emperor is man aud a
brother, and that killing him is as much
| murder as il he were a street sweeper.
| There is plenty of horror of the anarchist
i lint 70 hor ho OBJ H.
because he sheds human blood. We all
know how hind of worship of dynamite, as
| an effe ctige instrument for killing the iuuo-
| cent, has spread in limited class, and We
do not see in its old fullness the hatred of
such criminals merely as authors of slaugh-
ter. In Italy all men tell us that revengeful
murder excites certain sympathy, which
again has been shown, with direct and prov.
| able injury to the tone of Partisan charac.
ter, toward Nine. Clovis-Hugues. Journals
in Paris are justifying the killing OF NORM,
as If a criminals life were exactly like a
tigers. Even in England we have this week
seen men convicted of murder and cannibaS
ism on evidence SO clear that it was undis-
puted, not only reprieyed from the gallo US,
but allowed by the Home Secretary to satisfy
justice by simple detention for six months,
and the majority of the public approve q
decision which is morally equivalent to par
don. In other words, the public are not at
all Mortified by the killing of weak lad in
order that he might be eaten.
There is, we suspect, very powerful cause
at work which tends to diminish sympathy
for victims provided they are dead, and to
develop sympathy for their essassins. OF the
general growth OF sympathy no one doubts
it is the new and potent force which Is shsk-
ing institutions and raising the dim multi
tudes below; but few notice the inequality
with which 1t works. The sympathy of the
many, to be strongly excited, requires con-
| vi hoir Ia
watched, and whose emotions can in q more
or less perfect way be shared. The law by
itself is, except to the few, too abstract a
thing to call up sympathy; and though
reason may, even among the multitude,
consent to the punishment of the law
breaker. sympathy is not reused against his
act. Torture is abhorred; but then TO feel
| torture the man must be alive. It was no.
| tioed shortly after Nine. Hughes had shot
NORM that there was a lullin the chorus of eu
logy upon her and her act, and that the eulo
| gists seemed troubled and ashamed; and
the reason sssiged was that Morin's agonies
in hospital from the wound his head were
SO very terrible. They had nothing 20 dc
with the matter, being entirely outside the
| intention of the shooter and not q necessary
consequence of her act; but the onlookerI
could realize Them could sympathlza witt
them, and could, therefore, feel for the slf
ferer the sympathy at first confined 10 the
slayer. If NORM had died at once his side
of the question would have been simply
overloob ed. 1t was not till NORM was dead
that feeling again took its instruction, anC
groupes of ladies promised gigantic bou
Duets to Nine. Hughes. The irrational aud
wicked sympathy shown by 30 many among
ourselves with the guilty men of the Mig
nonette proceeds from exactly the same
cause. The spectators, filed as so many o
them are, with tales of the horrors of the
sea, realize with painful acuteness the sui
feriDgs Of the men in the boat, the gnawing;
ings of hunger, the tortures of thirst, the
ever-deepeDing hope,essness. and fail to re-
alize that the unhappy boy who persisted
bore all these sufferings like his comrades,
and violent death besides. He escapes by
his death from the field of popular vision
and the abstract idea of law, which is so so l.
emn to o few that Sir w. Harcourts decision
transported them with kind of sacred fury
was for the multitude never fully within it.
They see it, we suppose, little, or society
would go to pieces. but it is by an effort aud
strain which 1t is difficult to keep up. The
ordinary murderer. again, is an interesting
figure. Men realize him and his danger and
his fear and the terrible nature of his sen,
tence, and feel for him the pity which is IN,
seen, because buried, victim fails fully to
excite. That one is dead and past this
| oua il l;viuo and hare. and tho nuhIir II vas