The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-06-05
Is a uindiCation
OF Human Mature
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
" HE Joy of her parents over the
recovery of the stolen baby was
shared by all the people of this
u country. There was no one in
any part of the American Union who
was not made happier by the news of
the restoration of the little girl to her
long-grieving mother. 1t was a uni
versal display of a common feeling of
humanity which shows that the
brotherhood of man." Of which we
hear so much talk, already exists, and
that we shall not have to wait for the
millennium to celebrate it's coming.
o
The tender sympathy aroused by the
stealing of the Clark baby is also ac-
companied by a sense of anxiety in
many thousands of homes concerning
the safety of children necessarily COM
mitted to the care of nurses; hut the
very circumstance that the incident
became at once the leading topic of
thought and discussion throughout the
Union, overshadowing in the minds Of
the people even the gravest questions
now agitating the civilized world, is
convincing evidence of the prevalence
or fidelity among servants. 1t was an
event which stirred the sympathes of
the whole community for the reason
that such perfidy is extraordinary.
Many thousands of little children are
daily intrusted to the care of nurses
whose opportunities or temptations to
bring anguish to parents are the same
as those to which the nurse of the
Clark baby yielded so criminally. If
domestic servants generally were just
ly liable to the suspicion the conduct
of this single reprobate has tended to
throw upon them. the peace and secur-
ity of society would be destroyed; the
whole social organization would be in
peril, for 1t rests necessarily on conf
dence in the integrity of the employed.
Relatively, the employers are few;
the great mass of society is made up
of those who render service, and their
fidelity in it must always be largely
dictated by their own consciences and
their own sense of moral responsible
ity. 1t must come from within, for
there is no outside power which can
compel 1t. Even the law itself is of
little avail to that end unless 1t is as
sisted by the instinct or impulse or
habit of right doing for the sake of
right doing in the individual. Where
there is perverse and morbid predi-
lection to criminality, usually indicated
by peculiar and typical physical and
physiological characteristics, it may,
perhaps, be frightened by legal penal
ties from gratifying itself, but it can
not be eradicated by them. So long as
the impulse exists in the victim he is
never safe in freedom. The compara-
tive rarity of the disease, however, is
proved by the successful organization
of society on the necessary principle of
confidence in humanity. The work of
the world cannot be done except by
taking risks in the honesty and fidel-
ity of men and women at the dictation
of their own sense of integrity and
self-respect.
The relation of employer and en-
ployed in the case of domestic servants
is peculiar, in that they are members
Of the same household. They must live
together and associate together, though
the separation between them caused by
the difference in their functions and
duties may be as broad as that between
the furthest extremes of the social
sphere, but even this exterior house.
hold community would be impossible if
the innate, instructive ard religious
hdelity of the servant was not so gen
eral that its existence could be as
sumed. No law, no severity Of disci-
pline could protect households from
prevalent dishonesty and perfidy among
servants, so many and so constant are
the opportunities for the qualification
Of criminal propensities in all families.
The moral sense of the servants them
selves must of necessity command con-
fidence. Many thousands of children,
for instance, are intrusted daily to the
care of nurses in New York, far away
from the observation OF their employ
ers. The most precious charge which
parent can commit to another is in
trusted to them without fear or the
suspicion OF fear. The incident of the
stealing of the Clark baby shows how
complete must be the confidence which
justifies the taking Of so tremendous
a risk. And it is a risk in the integ-
rlty OF human nature which expert
ence has proved to be so small prac-
tically that out of many thousands of
servants through many years, a fail
ure to discharge the duty and fulfil the
responsibility on the part of one only
was so extraordinary an event that il
startled the whole country.
O.
Human nature has been the object Of
much cynical attack. but there is in il
SO much to compel wondering adrnira-
ton that we forget its shortcomings In
contemplating the manifestation of its
splendid virtues.
ST PAIII,S ODE ON Z nnrn