San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-08-28
The CRIMINAL CLASSES.

To read the accounts of brutal MUIR
ders by outlawed men and by women OF
good social standing, by those who fire.
quent the slums and those who MIN
gle in all the respectable walks of life,
by those who are ignorant and by
those who are educated, by the young
and the old, by strangers and friends,
by husband of wife and by wife of
husband, by children of parents and
of parents by children - to read this
catalogue of dark and damnabIe
deeds which every day grows into
heightened columns in the pages of
the daily press, would lead one to
fully believe that hell had
broken loose for a season. Every
conceivable and inconceivable
motive seems to actuate the
destroyers of human life and no
pains nor penalties that the law can
inflict are sufficient deterrent to pre-
vent this increase of crime. One thing
is apparent, the terrors of the law
have now but little terrors for evil
doors, and the correction of human
viciousness by some remedial meas
ures has become necessity. Fear
is demonstrated as utterly insufficient
as a motive to restrain from crime of
the most revolving character, and
some other agency must be employed.
The inhumanity of punishment seems
to have wrought inhumanity in the
very fibre and network Of human be-
ings, and its Outcropping in crime is
something horrible to contemplate. |
The fear of hell ceases to restrain, for
assurance of fOrgivness quenches the |
flames of purgatorial and bOttomless
pit fires, and the crime committed |
the criminal on the gallows looks
for the mercy extended |
the thief OH the cross. AS it grows
more and more evident that no fears
of present or prospective punishment
move to prevent crime the churches,
schools of philanthropy, societies
for the suppression of vice and kim
dred institutions must devise some
new remedies or crime will swallow
up the earth. The effort has hither-
to almost entirely been in the direc-
ton of suppressing the criminal
classes, and gallows, hard labor
in camps and shops under the most
and REFRESHING conditions,
with all possible distinctions to bring
)dium upon the criminal has been
The remedy. Suppose an effort was
made to suppress crime, by suppress
ng the conditions under which crime
and pauperism and moral ignorance
exist and bringing in a new order.
To this work the state should devote
its energies. To this end should leg
slation tend and the efforts of rhi-
IanthrOpy be enlisted. To destroy
ignorance, which is the mother of
is an easy thing for the
state. Make education compulsory
Oh all children. Treat them as wards
Of the state and take them away from
parental influence when such intiu-
9nce is demOralizing. 1t is easier to
leach and feed them as children than
to chase and fight them as wild
beasts when they re grown.
See that every child is instructed
n some handicraft or profession that
will insure it a means of honest liv-
ng. Discourage by every possible
means marriage among the criminal
classes and the morally and physi-
callY lmbecile. A nation that can
stamp out Texas fever and cholera
md quarantine against yellow fever
IAN surely quarantine against vice by
making the mental and moral sani-
AIRY conditions such as to destroy all
vice germs and develop the seeds of
virtue. The nation and the state
must learn that its duty to the citizen
begins wherever influence begins
with the birth, before the birth and
after the birth of the citi-
zen. It is idle to expect to
take a citizen fresh from the school of
vice and ignorance in which vicious
paren tage has instructed him and
make of him a law-abidIng member
Of society He should be taken from
such influences as soon as they are de-
tected, as soon as they are seen to
exist, and instructed and brought to
manhood under such conditions as
will foster and cherish and develop
whatever germs of good may survive
in him. This must be done or these
schools of vice will continue to turn
out their thousands and millions to
the subversiOn of all law and good
THE Globe Democrat makes a good
general in the field for the figb ting
forces of the republican party. 1t
never sees chance for democratic vic
tory, no matter how unequally match
ed the assailants, and itnever acknowl-
edges republican defeat until the
party is hunted into its hole and the