The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1886-04-24

them, but they are never permitted to touch
them. All these great masses OF destitute,
miserable and criminal persons believe that
for ages the rich have had all the good things
Of life, while to them have been left the evil
things. Capital to them is the tyrant. Let
but law lift its hand from them for season,
or let the civiiiziag influence Of American life
fail to reach them, and, il the opportunity Of
fered, we should see an explosion from this
class which might leave this city in ashes and
blood.
OF the number of the distinctlvely home
less and vagrant youth in New York, it is
difficult to speak with precision. should be
inclined to estimate it, after long observation,
as huctuating each year between $1,000 and
IS, 600. Bat to these, as they mature, must
be ADDED, in composition Of the dangerous
classes, all those who are professionally
criminal, and who have homes and lodging
places. Adj again to these, portions Of that
vast and ignorant multitude, who, III pros
porous times, just keep their heads above
water, who are pressed down by poverty or
misfortune, and who look with envy and
greed at the signs of wealth and luxury all
around them, while they themselves have
nothing but hardship, penury and unceasing
drudgery:
! A most powerful and continual source of
crime with the young is inheritance-the
transmitted tendencies and qualities Of their
, parents, or of several generations of ances-
| tors. 1t is we'll known to those familiar with
the criminal classes that certain appetites or
habits, il indulged abnormaliy and exces-
sively through two or more generations como
| to have an almost irresistible force, and no
doubt modify tbs brain so as to constitute an
almost insane condition. This is especially
true Of the appetite for liquor and of the
animal passions and sometimes Of the peculiar
weakness dependence and laziness which
make confirmed paupers.
AN ENCOURAGING STATE OF THINGS
/ have watched great numbers OF de-
graded families in Naw York, and exceed
ingly few Of them have transmitted new
generations OF rauDers, criminals or vac
rants. The causes of this encouraging state
of things are rot obscure Taa action OF
the great law of natural selection in re-
gard to the human raee, is always toward
Temperance a.ii yirtus. That is, vice and
extreme Indulgence weaken the physical
po7Te.a and undermine the constitution; they
impair tha faculties By which man struggles
with adverse conditions and gets beyond the
reach Of poverty and want. The vicious and
sensual and drunken die earlier, or they have
fewer children, Or their children are carried off
by disease more frequently, or they themselves
are unable to resist or prevent poverty and
suffering. As a consequence, in the lowest
class, the more self-controlled and virtuors
tend constantly to survive and to prevail in
sthe struggles for existence" over the vicious
and ungoverned, and to transmit their pro-
geny. The natural drift among the poor Is
towards virtue. Probably no vicious organi-
zation with very extreme and abnormal
tendencies is transmitted beyond the fourth
generation: it ends in insanity or cretinism or
the widest crime.
The result il then, with the worstendowed
families, that the "gemmules,n or latent
forces of hundreds of virtuous, or at least,
not vicious generations, lie hid in their con-
stituoions. The immediate influences Of
parents or grandparents are, of course, tha
strongest in inheritance; but these may b,
overcome, and the latent tendencies to good,
aroused and developed.
Thus is explained the extraordinary i'm
provement of the children Of crime and pow
erty in our industrial schools; and the reforms
and happy changes seen in the boys and girls
of orr dangerous classes when placed i, kind
western homes Tho change OF circumstances,
the improved food, the daily moral and mental
influences, tho effects OF regular laber and
discipline, u111, above all, TIE tie power ef re-
igion, awaken these hidden tendencies to
good, both those coming from many genera
tons of comparative virtue and those in
herert III the SOUL while they control and
weaken AMI cause to be forgotten those DIS
easets as,Detites or extreme passions which
these unfortunate creatures inherit directly,
and substitute higher moral sense for the
low moral instincts which they obtain from
their parents-Jos Howard in Boston GIohe.