The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1893-06-02
THE INCREASE OF CRIME.
Facts from the Census-Causes and Com
parisOng.

parisons.
Men and women who are not living
merely for to-day must be deeply inter-
ested in the efforts which practical phi
lantropists are making to discover the
causes of crime and pauperism to rem
edy the mischievous conditions which
now prevail to such an alarming ex-
tent. Hidden away to considerable
degree in the great mass of figures
which came into being through the op-
erations of the eleventh census are facts
that should shock every good citizen.
With all the warmth of eulogy the
story of wonderful progress has been
told again and again, but only few
references have been made to the abb
normal growth of what may be termed
the criminal class.
Forty years ago there was but one
criminal to $500 good, or reasonably
good, citizens. In 1890 the proportion
was one in 1865; an increase of 445
per cent. in a period during which the
population increased but no per cent
Never in the nations history has edu-
cative work of all descriptions been
nearly so active as for ten years past,
yet in that time the increase in the
number of those who were confined in
penitentiaries and jails and reforma-
tory institutions was almost twice as
rapid as the speed of populative growth.
Comparisons with conditions in Great
Britain are far from encouraging, for
there the number of criminal convic-
tions has decreased, while the popula-
ton and the general prosperity have
increased. Henry NJ, Boles, in his
Prisoners and Paupers," shows that
criminal convictions in England have
fallen from Is, 033 in 1869 to 9, 34s in 1889,
in Scotland from 2,94O to 1,72S for the
same years, and in Ireland from a,OS4 in
1870 to 1, ,225 in 1889. That such improve
ment is due to the innate goodness of
the British character is an improbable
conclusion which some British statisti-
clans have hastily reached; much of the
betterment really resulted from whole
sale immigration of the least desirable
classes to British colonies and TO the
United States
And this deduction, supported by
facts that can not successfully be con-
verified, is an unanswerable argument
in favor of reasonable restriction of
immigration. Twenty per cent. Of this
eountry's population is practically for
eign, and that one-ffth of the whole
furnishes more than half the inmates
of our reformatories, over one-third of
our convicts, and nearly three-fifths of
all the paupers supported in almshouses.
Paupers of foreign birth or parentage
are numerically equal to all the native
there are Americans of prominence who
insist that every port shall be kept wide
open.
But the entire burden of blame must
not be laid upon the nations that have
maliciously taken advantage of our gen.
erosity, for some of the depreciating
causes are domestic. There has been
vastly increased intemperance> from
which most crime spripgss there is a
constant movement Of the population
toward and into the cities, and there is
unintelligent application of the laws
framed to prevent crime. 1t must be
evident, then, that whatever missionary
work is done should be done in the
cities To aemagnetize the centers of
population is not possible, so the prac-
tical mind at once turns to an investi-
cation of the methods by which city
conditions may be reformed.
As Mr.. Boles says: ''There is no
sound reason why people aggregated
into dense communities by natural In
stincts, and finding in such oommuni.
ties the mode of living there, superior
in physical, intellectual and moral ad-
vantages, should be debased by concen-
tration," but in spite of the absence of
the reason, the appalling fact is in full
view. The Star is not pessimistic-
this seems to be pleasant sort of
world, anyhow-but it can not help see
ing how thin is the partition dividing
the refinement of our urban civilization
and the Generalization and anarchy
toward which statistics indicate that
we are moving with tremendous speed.
Washington Star,