The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1898-01-13

with mercy. The attitude of society
toward these institutions and their
unfortunate occupants, has depended
and now depends (when they are kept
out of polltics) on the stage OF advance
ment in civilization of the states or
countries maintaining them.
10 properly consider the subject we
must bear in mind that man is dual in
his nature; that is, he consists, first, of
the purely physical or animal man,
without mind or conscience; that
which at death disintegrates and ceases
to be, but possessed of desires, vices,
passions, emotions and disabilities per-
tanning to the animal, and which, with
out the restraining and controlling in
f1uence of its spiritual counterpart, is
more dangerous than the animal we
call the brute. l contend that this
physical man is responsible for most
of the crimes committed. When we
contemplate our criminally inclined
fellOwman with his frailtjes and dis
abilities, we should ask ourselves: how
much of his vices, faults and imper-
fections should be attributed to the
vicious or defective physical man
which he is unable to control although
his efforts toward right living may be
more earnest than our own? Second,
the other member of the duality going
to make up the entirety is the real, the
actual man, as considered separate
from his physical organism. 1t is the
thinker, who always has been and who
never will cease to be, commonly
known as the soul. Between these two
in the case of the average man, con.
tinual strife for the mastery is waged
until one or the other prevails.
No law has ever been placed upon
the statute books to punish the family
of the criminal, they being entirely in.
nocent of any connection with crime.
Such law could not be passed by the
aw-making power of any nation. The
suggestion would do very great vlo-
lence to our modern ideas of civilian
tion; still, so-called society makes unto
itself an unwritten law that Furnishes
the family more severely than the stat
ute Furnishes the criminal, who, passing
ont from among us, is hidden from the
gaze of the curious and to some extent
enjoys the comforts of our silence and
forgetfulness. If he brings up at a
prison like our own at Saltwater his
lot is not a hard one unless he sees fit
to make it so. The requirements as to
his labor and conduct are by no means
irksome except that he lives in prison
atmosphere and is denied the right
which all men prize of going when and
where they please. The family, on the
other hand, is obliged to struggle on
without the assistance and support of
the absent one, not mere ciphers in the
community but objects of scorn and
derision. They are not permitted even
the charity of our silence. No matter
how exemplary persons they may be,
they are pointed out on the street as
the wife or daughter of so and so who
is in state prison and we even feel
sometimes that it is pity they should
even be permitted to buy groceries at
the same store where we do our trad.
ing. The child of the convict is pointed
out at school in the same scornful
manner. Verify he is child of sorrow.
He is started along in life under a
cloud and with a conviction forced
upon him that he is not and cannot be
anybody in this world but a convict
and that it is his destiny to become a
bad man. His ambition is crushed be-
fore it has an opportunity to bud and
blossom. Thus we are above and be-
yond the law; we can punish and tor
ture the innocent and helpless one and
congratulate ourselves that we have
been able to so distribute our own bad
conduct over such periods or exhibit
it in forms sufficiently mild, though
continuously expressed, as not to rem
der us amenable to the law. In other
words, we hug ourselves with the
thought that we are very judicious,
altogether smarter and somewhat bet-