The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-09-23

luton fof l7S0 have worked upon the minds
of the more ignorant part Of the industrial
urban population as alcohol works upon
feeble brain. The ancient respect for au-
thorfty has been turned into blind hatred
OF authority Political liberty, widely ex-
tended in most countries Of Europe. has
not bsttered the condition of the industrial
class as IL was expected TO do. Power still
remains largely in the hands OF the rich.
The luxury OF the new rich. which Is much
in evidence, excites more envy than did the
luxury of the titled grandees of last cen
tnry. Thus there is. IN large sections Of the
Industrial urban population of continental
Europe (for the conditions OF Britain are
uufte differently a sullen sense of wrong
and an angry longing for change, which,
IN the more exeitable or criminal mind.
rises into a sort of Wild fury against all
existing institutions. and especially against
governments as the repressive powers
which are deemed to hold the people down.
CAUSE AND REMEDY.
Add TO these facts the now almost uni
versal habit among the urban population OF
reading and the excitement maintained by
the constant diffusion of news and the
removal by the press OF the veil OF stately
obscurity which used to conceal the per-
sonality OF rulers from the eyes Of subjects,
add all these things together. and 1t will
be seen that the spread OF what we called
anarchistic principles might well have been
predicted for the criminal manifestations
associated. whether rightly or wrongly.
with those principles, the number Of per-
sons with more or less disordered brains
hat xr,i,o
ever there is widely diffused excitement
one must expect it TO break out, in fierce
or vicious natures, into savage crime.
Such natures do not ask themselves. "o9
what use is the crime, and how will it
bring any nearer the overturn of estab-
lshed institutions which we desire?" Ar
gument Is lost on them, as the fear Of pun
sshment has proved to be.
For the last ten years or more the gov
ernments OF continental Europe have been
busying themselves with schemes for deal
ing with the evil, but they seem TO get no
further. Six or seven years ago, after the
dynamite outrages at Barcelona, the Brit
fish government was invited to join in some
severely repressive measures, but in Brit
ain, as in the United States. the settled
maxims and rules of law and administra-
tion make il impossible to take the kind
of arbitrary action which is permitted in
most continental countries. Nor do those
wider police powers which continental gov
ernments command seem to succeed, for
the evil gees on. 1t is even possible that
greater severity might aggravate. Never
theless, one cannot but regret that capital
punishment has been abolished in Italy,
and cannot but stand astonished at what
has happened in Belgium, where Sipido
has been allowed, through the weakness,
first of the jury and then of the admin
istration, to escape scot-free. Perhaps
there is nothing to be done but see that
every assassin receives punishment and
wait patiently till the epidemic dies out
of itself, as other epidemics of crime and
folly have done before. New conditions
have engendered it, have at least ag-
gravated the tendencies TO it. When those
conditions have themselves become modi-
fed, it, too, may decline and disappear.
But IL is one of the most depressing fea-
lures OF the closing century; one of the
most painful proofs that the hopes Of rapid
human progress which were so rife in the
world forty years ago were too sanguine.
London. ENGLAND. Sept L.