The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-05-17
THE DEFECTIVE CLASSES.
Extracts From a Very Interesting
Paper Read Before the Char
ity Conference.
Proportion of Men and Women
Among Pauper and Crimi-
nal Glasses.
Does Education Increase Insanity and De.
crease Crime?-In Large Cities and
the Country.


beetles, made an extended report. A. o.
Wright read paper on 1.-The Defective
Classes" In the evening was heard the re-
| port of the committee on corporation of
women in the management of charitable,
penal and correctional institutions, with
Miss Clara Barton as chairman. Mrs. V.
I. Priest, Of Connecticut, read the report
and it was followed by interesting discus
sion. In the course of his remarks on the
defective Glasses Mr.. Wright said
The defective classes form a series of
small, but very troublesome tumors upon
the body politic. For various reasons,
ranging all the way from the imperative
need OF protection to society up to those
humane influences for which our country is
distinguished, these classes have fallen un-
of government in all civilized countries
Private effort is also doing much to paliate
or to prevent the evils which the defective
classes bring on themselves and upon soci-
ETY. at large.
Men and women are about equally af-
fiicted with insanity. Either the causes are
the same in men and women which produce
insanity or they are equivalent. Heredity.
worry, overwork, underfeeding, sickness, and
the weaknesses of old age affect men ard
wemen equally, and the perls of childbirth
and of loneliness for solitary farmers wives
are about equal to the dangers from acci-
dent and the vices to which men are ex-
posed. But crime and pauperism are liza
bilities of men much more than of women.
There are generally about forty times as
disproportion is not quite so great in some
states, and is still less in European coun-
tries. In Europe there is no sentimental
pity for a woman on account of her sex
But even in Europe the proportion is per-
haps ten to one. Women do not commit
crime as readily as men do; it may be
from principle; it may be from cow
ardice; it may be from lack Of temptation.
And women do not become paupers as
readily as mon. In getting out door relief,
1t is true, women are little ahead of men,
but that is because it is easier for a woman
to get poor relief than for man. And in
fact, where out door relief is laxly admin
istered, though it is usually the women who
usually apply for it, there are often lazy
men behind them, sendiug them for it or
else drinking up all their earnings in the
comfortable consciousness that the public
will support their families. So that even in
out door relief it is probable that the men
in the poor houses there are about twice as
many men as women.
About an equal number of each sex are |
born idiots. and remain 80 all their lives; SO |
that the question of age in idiocity need |
not be taken into account, except that idi- |
OTIS are not long-lived. But insanity is a |
defect of mature years. Going through an !
insane asylum, you are struck with the gen.
eral age of the patients in contrast with the |
youth of the attendants. This, of course, |
is partly caused by the fact that insanity is
not very durable. Only about one-fourth |
of the insane recover, a few die, and the
rest end their days as chronic insane. But |
it is also caused by the fact that most of |
the insane are middle-aged or elderly be-
fore they become insane.
Crime is rarely committed by little chill
dren, and when committed is frequently |
excused by the law or by the judges and |
jury But every visitor to jail or states
prison must notice the comparative youth
fulness of the prisoners. The average age
of the convicts in state prison is twenty
seven. Or, to put it in an other way, the
majority OF convicts in sta5e prison arc
under twenty-five. The difference between
twenty-seven and twenty-five is accounted
and majority. The direct opposite Of
this is the case with pauperism.
The majority of paurers are over fifty
years old. Criminals are mostly young
men. Paupers are mostly old men and old |
women. Youth is the age of passion, and
perverted passions lead to crime. The au-
thor of the. ''suke's Family says that
among the descendants of Margaret the
"mother of criminals" it is very noticeable
that in youth they were prostitutes and |
criminals and in age beggars and paupers.
The same perverted instincts which led |
them to prey upon the community took the
direction of crime in the time of strength |
and of pauperism in the time of weakness.
The question of education is often
stated as If education favored insanity and |
opposed crime and pauperism. AS II fact,
do not think that education has go great
an influence either way as many seem to
think. We were told half century ago
it was cheaper to build school-houses than
jails and poor-houses. We have dotted the
country over with school houses and we
find that jails and school-houses are Just
as necessary as ever. But some one may
say that this is SO because there is no etfeo-
tive compulsory education, and because we
ignorant foreigners coming to our
shores. But this is sufficiently
by looking at Germany
with its homogeneous population and COM
onlsory education, and compulsory religious,
ss we'll RS secular education at that. An in
which l made few years ago
oy personal inquiries from poor-house to
)oor-house in Wisconsin satisfied me that
.bout one-third of the paupers al Q mnde SO
~ idleness one-third by liquor, and one
bird by all other causes combined. In my
Judgment the idleness which makes truants
rom school and therefore poor scholars,
eads to crime or pauperism in many cases,
md in those ca1es 1t is not ignorance which
8 the cause of crime, but idieness, which is
he cause of both ignorance and crime.
The advantages and disadvantages of
ity life have often been talked Of MANY
'eople suppose that the excitement and
train of cities conduces to insanity. ,
others say that the loneliness of country
ife has the same effect. An English phsi- {
ian has taken the pains to tabulnte the
tatistios of insanity for tho city of London 1
or forty years and for several purely agri ,
ultuyal counties in tho south of England /,
With about tho same population for the
anne period, and finds that there ia no diff
ercnce between city and country in the |
mount of insanity. But for crime. all sta
istics show clearly thnt crime is concen-
rated in the cities, which are tho refuge of {
he criminal classes and the nurseries of /
'oung criminals in the neglected street |
hildren. Paupersm is greater in tho city |
in hC ntru -, l.,