Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1899-01-11
PRESENT-DAY THOUGHTS.
BY @. GRosvENoR DAVE.

the sick and the lunatic, shut them up I'M
til well or until death, ii never likely to re-
cover
People with inherited criminal tenden-
cies never understand their relation to So
ciety. They always have little bee buzzing
in their bonnets that confuses their ideas
and makes thSNh violent and burglarious
without the slightest intention of doing
evil. Their natures are so warped, in fact,
that good and evil are not understood in
their full meaning, good being rather in
terpreted as the doing without detection,
evil as a discovery of wrong after it has
been done
Such characters learn nothing from
being shut up, nor do they learn anything
from being free, and for them the TWEEN
tieth century will provide houses of de-
tention where as pleasantly as possible
and more protita bly, than if free, the days
and years shall pass, giving some measure
of physical happiness and comfort: and at
the same time protecting society from at
tacks that are mere impulse, and from the
deferred but insidous danger that comes
from permitting people Of decided GRIM
The moral imbecile of the future will
be considered filter subject for the YER
dict of committee Of skilled physicians,
than the verdict of twelve unskilIed jury
men, who are called on to decide merely
whether the deed of evil was committed
or not, and are not at all equal to UNDER
standing why the wretched human creature
hofp : bad ha
to il
The new century will see much more
discrimination in relation to wrong doing,
and the whole tendency will be to set
apart by themselves those who are filled
with accursed impulses from the womb.
They Will be regarded more as objects of
pity than subjects of punishmenta and
their proper treatment will, like every
good deed, react upon society in hun
dred ways, lessening the number of Grim
inals, reducing the constant legal cost of
looking after their descendants, and at the
same time throwing around these pitiable
creatures some of the comfort and regu
larty and self-tepresson that belong to
those who have no heritage of woe to
carry.
Some people fall under the ban of the
law and become criminals by happenings
that are almost accidents. \ pinch of the
pocket, crowding by obligations, a favor
able opportunity, and the hitherto re-
spectacle member of society is arraigned
and sentenced and confined. A little
quarrel harmless enough at the outset
and liable to occur with the best of us
fires uncomfortable passion and bodily
injury is done to the opponent. Then the
culprit. possibly less guilty or at any rate
less annoying than the one he knocks
down, is put where he can do no further
harm.
Or pc haps the complaining voices of
hungry children anu the wistful woe of
suffering wife make a man lend ear to the
tempter who urges him to take from those
who can we'll spare to give to those who
need; and society's organized protectors
descend upon the unhappy, needy, be-
wildered being, and he is put where the
immediate result is to reduce his family to
still eater need
Society of the century yet to come will
be found more willing to set free such as
these than to shut them up. The system
of suspendng sentence over first Of
fender, and enforcing it only after the
commission of second misdeed will be
found much more in vogue forty years
from now by those of us who survive so
long.
No prophecy can be surer, for such
action will only be along the line of COM
mon sense towards which the interpreta-
ton Of the law is beginning to tend more
and more. The wisdom of the act con-
sists in understat ding human nature, and
therefore knowing that to an unhardened
criminal the dread of sentence still in
suspense will be punishment and deter
rent enough. Society will have had all
needed protection, and the human creature
that society is dealing with will have been
given chance to show that his wrong
doing was not the result of evil tendency;
and the eyes of our grandchildren will be
saved from he shameful sight of remedial
institutions being filled with those who
are damaged in self respect by the asso-
citation to which mischance has subjected
them.
Some persons are made criminals by the
harshnesss and permaneney of their pun
ishment and for these society has to an
swer. Unfortunately prison walls cannot
speak, and society as whole has no time
to heed things or persons that are out of
sight; We're it otherwise our ears would
tingle at the maledictions upon us by
those who in the first instance wronged
society, but at the last were wronged
themselves and that for life.
Many well-intentioned lad, for a seri-
GUS offence, has been placed where those
long in the way of crime could influence
him, or here he himself was so lacking
in demands on his mind and his hands
that he brooded over evil until he lost
sight of his own misdeed, and saw only