The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-12-01
CRIMES OF THE PRESENT DAY.
Pessimistic Conclusions of an ItaI-
ian Investigator About His Nation.


ian Investigator About His Nation.
From the New York Sun.
Italian studies in criminology have de-
veloped a degree of pessimism that seems
startling to the hopeful American mind.
Prof. Lombroso's Archivio de Psichatria
contains, in a recent number, an article
by Scipio Sighele, which is the introduce
ton to a study of class criminality in
Italian society, and seems to touch the
extreme peSsimism as to present social
conditions in Italy.
Signor Sighele quotes, with something
like approval, a declaration made at a
recent meeting OF anthropologists that
man in his latest development seems n
degenerate descendant of the ancestral
ape. He sees in the comparative sOftness
of modern manners and orderliness Of
modern society not an evidence of moral
Improvement, but a phenomenon neces-
sar1ly accompanying change in the type
of criminality. The type in unciVilized
and medieval societies was to crimes or
violence; the type of modern civilized So
cieties is fraud Muscle has given place
to mind in criminality. The brigand VINO
demanded and obtained in return for
sparing the life of a landed proprietor
that fell into his hands, an annual triD-
ute has his counterpart in the modern
blackmailer, who steals discriminating let
ters from a public man and EFFORTS trib-
ute by threats Of giving them to the world.
The Villainies of corrupt politicians and
inscriptions stock gamblers are the mod
fiourished in earlier civilizations and still
persists in remote districts Modern bri-
gandage which takes thousands and mil
lions without breaking locks or doors is
natural criminal evolution of modern
society.
Education is no guarantee against mod
ern or evolutionary crime, though it COM
monty does not accompany atavic crime,
the violence characteristic of uncivilized
societies.
AS there are mad men that reason well
there are cultivated men that fall into the
modern crime of the intellect Indeed,
keenness and culture of intellect may per-
haps predispose men to such crimes. The
absolute prince of times past worked his
will by whatever violence seemed neces-
sary. Modern parliamentary practice has
abandoned blood for gold, torture for cor
ruption. 1t has been disappointment for
those that saw in constitutional govern
ment the hope of society, and Signor Sig
hele intimates that modern democracy is
equally disappointing. Perhaps he reaches
the extreme depth of his pessimsm when
he sees in Italy among the lower orders
violence rampant among the upper fraud
of every sort, commercial and political
more daring and subtle than ever before
He declares with apparent sobriety that
only men of adamantine virtue escape the
faint of rascality.
Finally Signor Sighele states what he
believes to be hitherto unsuggested pro-
position, that modern society has not only
the crimes of individuals, but crimes pc
culiar to social classes as we'll The higher
classes or Italy alone are modern, while
the lower classes represent in thought
and sentiment a relatively distant past
So the characteristic crime of the upper
classes is of the modern, evolutionary type
the crime OF fraud, while the crime Of the
Italian lower classes is the atavic crime
of violence. 1t is enough to compare the
suave, elegant upperclass Italian with the
rude mechanic or the uncouth peasant
The characteristic criminalty of the up
per classes shows pa thOlogic phenome-
non which indicates vicious organization
points to the approaching end of bourgeois
supremacy.