The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-17
GRIMES AGAINST WOMEN,

Ior slinlIar ouellSe, very iorcloly urlVe the
general mind upon a contemplation of this
special form Of crime. We think few atten-
tive readers of current news have failed to
notice the frequent, almost incessant, repeti-
ton of reports Of rapes and attempts, on ali
ages and classes Of womankind, from little
children of six years to gray-haired grand
mothers of sixty. Hardly day passes that
the story docs not turn up in some dispatch
or city report of one place or more in the
land. 1t is noticeable, too, that large pro-
portion of the alleged offenders are said to be
colored men. In the South there would seem
to be hardly any other offenders of this, or
any other class, and of these probably five out
of six are hung by mobs, with little
care or certainty as to their guilt.
Sometimes, as in the case Of Wallace, at
Marion, there has been no legal offense at all
not even an attempt-nothing but such con-
duct as might very naturally precede or suggest
such an act But we are not concerned just
now with the popular tendency to mob trials
and lynch justice. We have dealt with that
often and plainly heretofore. What we wish
to direct public reflection upon is the question
whether there is not a positive increase of
Mall Gazette's revelations indicate there is
of a different method-in England. The
strength and general vigilance of the law re-
strains open crime in England, and forces it
to such methods as have recently been so
widely blown, while in this country less GER
tainty in the operation of the laws and minis
tiers of justice encourages more open acts of
violence There is more rape here, and more
seduction by purchase or fraud there. And
ten years than previously. The Pail
Mall Gazettes revelations would have
ONE ten years sooner if there had existed
the same conditions. They are not to-day
the fleet of any phenomenal astuteness or
activity in one man. but of a growing
condition that was making itself constantly
more and more nearly a matter of common
scandal. An outbreak Of some kind was in
evitable sooner or later. Mr.. Stead and his
paper only anticipated the end, as many an
other shrewd man has anticipated general
movements and led the way to them. In this
country, concealment having been less neces-
sary and less used, we have had no unex-
pected explosions of volcanic nastiness to
Smell to heaven or the other way. Not
tn at we have not had and have yet, more
tn an enough "high-t toned infamy in secret
operation, but we have not enough to make
a national camphor bottle a necessity Of the
national moral sense. We have, however, in
creased in the prevalence of sexual crimes
Of violence. Probably they are only the ex-
tern al indication of an increase of
general tendency to sexual indul-
gence and sin. If there were not
springs Of feulness would not break out and
spread over broader level above the surface.
We take it that the source of this growing
tendency is in the lack of active and whole
some occupation. Among the rich, who pro-
coed by secret methods, there is no need of
occupation. and it is as true now as it ever
was that "Satan fl nds some mischief still for
idle hands to do" There is the secret of the
London abuses. At the other end of society
are those who either can't have OF won't have
an occupation when they can't live honestly
without it. There are more of these in the
country than there were ten years ago. They
increase with the general population. and in
crease with greater volume in the special con-
ditions that stop industries and make tramps
and beggars
Nine-tenths Of all the acts or attempts of
sexual violence, in the last ten years, have been
the work of tramps and loafers, white or
black-rarely of men steadily at work. In
creasing population, largely drawn from the
lowest classes Of European countries, and the
tendency of all Of this grade Of humanity to
herd together and to draw unto itself the
native class of the same general quality to
work together when they work at all, and to
idle in droves when they won't work or can't
create the conditions that foster vicious feel
ing and impel criminal attempts And they
are the more active as the subjects are, by
original situation and association, less capable
of approaching the enormity of such conduct.
Now, as this class increases, sexual crimes Of
violence increase As the rich idlers increase
the class of purchasers Of the service of
secret panders and pimps increase. So sexual
sin is growing, and the same agency makes it
grow at the opposite ends of society, while it
is held in the usual restraint in the middle