, 1888-12-04
THE CULTURE OF MURDER.
How Impulsive Organisms Are Prepared
to Do Dark Deeds.

How Impulsiye Organisms Are Prepared
to Do Dark Deeds.
No fact is more patent to science
than the direct effect of influences
exerted through the medium of the
senses upon the brain-that particular
part of the organism whose function
ing we call mind" Darwin, Ruskin
and all the great students of develop
ment have labored to bring this fact
within the cognizance of the general
thinking public. That they have
failed is only too painfully evidenced
by the persistence and surprising in
genuity of the practice of cultivating
homicidal propensities, and collater.
ally murder, by a refined use of the
art of mural decoration.
While we empower the police to put
down with a strong hand the exhibit
ton in shop windows, and the censor
of stage plays and spectacles to inter
dict the parade in theatres of pictures
and scene of an Immoral" character,
because it is recognized that these have
a tendency to corrupt the mind of
youth-and age too-nothing what
ever is done to restrain the daily in
creasing evil of pictorial placards dis
played on every boarding, and of
highly wrought scenes. produced at
nearly all the theatres, which not only
direct the thoughts, but actively stir
the passions of the people in such way
as to familiarize the average mind
with murder in all its forms, and to
break down that protective sense of
horror which nature has given us,
with the express purpose, doubtless, of
opposing an obstacle TO the evil influ-
ence of the exemplification of homi-
eide. 1t cannot be disguised that even
the most sensitive nature is to some
extent brutalized by the display of
these pictures.
We are mono of us as shocked at the
spectacle of q knife driven into the
chest of a young woman, and do not
recoil as violently from the idea of
this form of murder, as before the dis
play on all sides of an elaborate,
nearly life size picture of the deed.
Nor do two men graphing together
and stabbing each other, or one man
shooting another with a revolver,
strike us as presenting spectacles of
such hideous enormity as they would
have done had we not been familiar
lied with these scenes by impressive
placards staring us in the face at every
turn 1t does seem strange-passing
strange-that this murder culture by
the educationary use of the pictorial
art has not been checked by public
authority.
We have no wish to make wild
affirmations, but knowing what we do
as Observers Of development, we can
have no hesitation in saying that the
increasing frequency of horribly brutal
outrages is by no means unaccounta-
bic. The viciously inclined are, in a
sense, always weak minded-that is to
say, they are especially susceptible of
influences moving them in the direc-
ton their passions incline them to
take; and when the mind Tor brain)
is impressed through the senses, and
particularly the sense of sight, in such
manner as to produce mental pictures.
either in waking thought or dreams,
of homicide, the impulsive organism
is, as it were, prepared for the per-
Torrance Of the deeds which form the
subjects of the consciousness. Weare,
of course, writing technically, but the
facts are indisputable, and we trust
they will be sufficiently plain. 1t IL
high time that this ingenious and per
sistent murder culture should cease
Lancet.