Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1896-01-08
For the Herald and Tribune.
REPRESSION OF CRIME.
BY LADY COOK, nee TENNESSEE cLAFLIN.

BY LADY COOK, nee TENNESSEE CLAFLIN
The criminal classes who ender every
form of society hideous in MANY of it,
aspects, would soon die out and be ex
tlnguished were it not that thev are
permitted to breed new swarms of bu
man pests, without the slightest re-
strlction. No sooner have we incarce.
rated the sires in vice, after, it NAV be,
their long and successful career. than
we find the sons continuing the wal
upon our persons and property. The
cost of our prisons and police forms
only part of the insurance we have
to provide on account of the savages
in our midst, whose hands are again st
every man. Those who deyiate from
honesty are few indeed compared to
those who make fraud and theft life
profession; the former may be reclaim
ed, the latter never, because their ma
ture to war upon society, Often they
are the victims of heredity, and philo-
sophloally considered, have then, per.
haps, as little responsibility for their
actions as the dog that bites. A wolf
is always wolf; an hereditary crini
nal will always commit crime if he
can.
Thefts, frauds and outrages up to
murder, are not the only evils they in
tiict on us. They infect the whole
community with an immoral taint. 1t
IS impossible for our young to peruse
In the daily papers the records of
their wickedncss without being worse
for it, to say nothing of any stronger
influence they may exercise. Tales of
layishing, robbery, murder, are not
editying literature for youthful minds.
AT the best, these are likely to absorb
some portion of the immortality thus
inhltrated through them.
Efectual means, however, are at
hand to prevent our annual crops of
criminals, could we only be persuaded
to adopt them. The most potent, but
least palatable, would be to render
them incapable of propagating. An.
other is to make human breeding a sci.
ence, and education another. At pres
ent they both proceed haphazard,
whereas they require profound study
and strict method.
We English are unsurpassed in breed
ing the inferior animals-from salmon
to shorthorn, from a pigeon to a
racehorse. The method ia no secret.
All understand it. Healthy animals
only, with the best points, and free from
hereditary taint, are selected. They
are mated carefully, and the strains
are preserved pure from all deteriora-
ting blood and damaging conditions.
But in the rearing of the highest ami.
mails these salutarY maxims are ig-
nored, and many men of natural af-
feotion and intelligence bestow more
pains on the mating of their dogs than
ON that of their daughters. Our work.
houses, prisons, refugees, penitentiaries
and lunatic asylums bear sad witness
10 these inequitable laws and customs.
Into them are crowded hosts of un-
happy women-thousands of them
mere girls-victims without redress of
mans brutality and heartlessness; and
they wear out their pitiful and cheer.
less days to the end too many of them.
alas, having been lowered with the
fatal gift of beauty. Usually it is the
ardent girl of generous disposition, the
least calculating, and the most artless
who is lured to her destruction. Ma
ture Is strong in her, and affection
dominates. Her embraces 90 with her
heart. If society and the law could be
compassionate to any, they should be
tender to her. But both are implacable.
She is appalled, by their unrelenting
severity, and in her mad terror is often
impelled to destroy the witness of her
wrong doing. But even should she
spare her innocent offspring, the law
still pursues him. He can not inherit,
except by will, and if he dies intestate.
the crown seizes all his property.
Owing to their exclusion from the
higher grades of employment, women
of the better classes are given over to
useless and frivolous pursuits. Dress
and fashion, amusements and flirta-
tions, mainly make up the trivial round
OF their occupations, and act as bars to
all solid intellectual work. Yet who
can blame these gilded butterflies of
society for being what their fathers
and husbands have made them? A
leading London paper assures us that
Every year witnesses vast increases in
the working population of England
coupled with growing decrease in the
amount of labor to be disposed of. !"
Thus the ranks of the proletariat are
constantly being swollen, and among
them their women have to endure and
to suffer most. Their maternal in
stincts are frequently crushed out of
them by their vicious and squalid sur
roundings. Thousands of infants are
annually overlaid, smothered by the
mothers who bore them; and one child
out of every ten dies before the end of
its first year
The evils enumerated are monstrous
in an age and country like ours, and
| call for i'm a1 inf rad.a,a