Sunday Washington globe., 1902-03-02


ment of a trust or the theft Of q pocketbook.
The morality of both is bad. aud the motives
Of the piekpocket and specuiator or gam
/ bier are identical-theY aim 70 secure their
neighbors substance without offering an
equivalent
In Christianity alone can we anchor this
immutable truth, that to eovet our neigh
boris goods and endeavor to obtain them
without honest equivalent is as immoral in
the business man, speculator aud corpora
tion as it is in the pickpocket or highway
robber, though the law reaches the latter
alone and exacts atonemeut
The Church, as the repository Of the
Christian doctrine, must emphasize these
truths aud take both the legal and the IL
legal perpetrator in hand-the former for
admonition and the latter for reformation.
Without the Church the criminal is lost In
it is embodied hope and help and mercy for
the erring. Without the assistance of the
Church the fallen cannot rise, constituted as
society is on its material side. The dis.
charged prisoner has no other refuge than
the Church Ia teach him strength and to
soften the prejudices which exist against
the convicted criminal The Son Of Man
made It one Of The tests of Christianity to be
weighed in the scales on judgment day.
Il was sick and in prison and ye visited me-
The Church, over and above all other
human agencies ought 10 be interested In
prison reform for where can the discharged
prisoner look for hope, eucourageme ad.
vice and strength If not to the Church.
which the Founder of Christianity estab-
lished to typify and represent His Divine
Person and sublime doctrines2
There is one question in this criminal
problem we do not, | think, sufficiently
weigh. We are too apt to hastily classify
all prisoners or men convicted of crime as
criminals, with ali that the term imolies
Criminals, or rather convicts serving sen.
teuce, can be divided into two distinct
classes-the accidental and the professional
OF the former it is hardly necessary to state
that society, having punished them for
their one crime, absorbs them again. and
they are for all time eliminated from the
ranks of the criminal class.
The per cent. In this country of this acci-
dental criminal class Is larger in proportion
to the professional criminal class than in
any other country in the world, not even
excepting Russia with its political offenders.
Safely estimated from forty to fifty per
cent of the criminals in the United States
belong to the accidental, or single termer'
class. From this fact we can draw much
encouragement, inasmuch as the coufue-
ment Of such offenders has had a noticeable
tendency to elevate the morale of the pro-
fessional criminal class undergoing sentence
side by side with them Owing to our po-
litical form Of government, the vicissitudes
of fortune in a developing and almost un-
limited territory and the opportunities used
and misused of an enterprisiug and restless
~
other or European countries, we have in
the United States a class of criminals which
we term accidental, such as ex-bankers,
ex.public officials, violators Of postal and
internal revenue laws, lawyers, physicians.
writer's and men Of brains refinement and
education, whose one sin brought them to
the penitentiary
The relatives, friends and business ac-
quaintances Of this class are emphaticaily
society. So that it can be trathfully af-
6rmed so far as this country is concerned
we have in our penal institutions undergo
ing imprisonment bona 6de section OF -g-~
ciety. The section is small compared to
the great body of society, but neither small,
Insignificant nor unimportsnt in compari-
son with the professional criminals under
going similar imprisonment
This accidental criminal class, of which
all our penal institutions have their proper
ton in this country, leaven the whole mass
in the concrete, and, as the accidental Grim
inal will not permit himself to be degraded
or reduced to the level Of the man making
crime his profession or occupation on the
outside, he forces the professional criminal
to come up as near his superior mental and
moral standard as he possibly can, that he
may associate with him on terms approach.
ing equality.
The professional criminal gradually and
steadily initiates his more respectable and
superiority mentally equipped fellow of the
accidental class. So that it is no unusual
sight in prison to find men, who knew no
other life on the outside than the career Of
a criminal associating with and imbibing
ideas of an elevated character, or at least,
of a more refining and civilized existence,
from ex.bankers, BUSINESS and public men,
lawyers doctors, writer's and in not a few
cases ministers of the gospel Such an
association was impossible to them on the
outside, and it is hardly necessary to point
out or state its beneficial character.
Individual reform is of no consequence
to society and it is always an uncertain
quantity. Mankind loves fellowship, that
is to say we crave light, motion, life and
sympathy. Inc cOngregate system caters
to these human desires. Isolation begets
moroseuess. and broodiug begets insanity
The congregation system prevents that self
communing of affected or diseased intel.
lects, the fruits of which are SO terrible aud
degrading physically and morally In one
large room, properly secured, in the Ohio
Penitentiary; sleep one hundred convicts on
single cots, eighteen inches to two feet
apart single guard has been found sufi-
cient for these one hundred men.
The congregate plan has advantages which
are apparent. The men are on their good
behavior the slightest infraction of the
rules cousigning them to a cell and the
separate or solitary condition whence they
were taken. Habits Of personal cleanliness
are imperceptibly acquired, as there are al
ways a number of better class or "acci-
dentalV convicts in the number, who are
naturally clean Of habit and Of speech, by
whom the professional or degraded crimi-
nal IS influenced and whom he initiates
/ This gradually accustoming men of low in
I stincts aud vile habits 10 associate and sleep
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