Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-07-18
COST OF CRIMINAL CLASS
DR.. BUSHNELL'S LECTURE ON
PROGRESS CITY"
National Expenditure in Detection
and Punishment of Crime Stated
to Be 5000, 100000.

rs the public in this country bankrupt"
This Is the question raised last night by
D.. Charles ]. Bushnell of Heidelberg Uni
verstty In a lecture on Progress City on
the roof garden of the Young Mems Chris
tan Association building. Dr. Bushnell and
his wife are conducting the model public
playground at the corner OF 10th and E
streets northwest. They have made a study
of what they call the social Illness of this
country and the lecturer presented a ia BILE
of figures, some OF which were startling
This )country," said DR.. Bushnell,
spends Sc 030, 100000 annually on the crimi-
nal, pauper and vicious classes. and the
annual increase of wealth is only 5000
O0oVD. Does that not look as if the pub
lie were bankrupt? Is it not a question
worthy of consideration. and one to make
thinking citizens stop and take notice."
He endeavored to show particularly the
need of work to offset the growing evils
OF social conditions in the large cities In
1870, he said, only 3 per cent of our popu-
lation lived in cities Of 5000 or more in
hab!tants. while today over one-thrd live
In cities OF this class and in the east and
northeast the percentage is much higher
even than that.
Il believe" he said that mora and more
people will move to our large cities and that
there will be no end to the increase in
population in proportion to the number of
the availability of factory products and the
smaller need OF men on the farms. where
work is being done more and more by ma
chinery.
Immense Expenditure.
why, the $Go0,000OOO that this nation
spends every year on its criminaF Cases
equals the amount stent on all churches
public libraries, the Young Mems Chris
tian Associations. the Salvation Army, pub
lie hospitals, asylums for the insane and
all benevolent institutions Prostitution con-
sumes more of the publ:c's money than
Is paid our public school teachers-fully
four times as much. The average factory
hand earns $40 a year, while it is esti-
mated that the average criminal costs the
public at least 200 year
Diseases as result of vicious habits Is
on the Increase: suicides are increasing six
times as fast as the population, and muir
ders three times as fast insanity Is also
increasing faster than the population We
are manning and killing in accidents result
ing from our industrial enterprises as many
persons as were killed in an average year
Of the civil war, the Philippine war and
the Japanese Russian war combined. In
other words, we are practically carrying
on these three wars all the time And
these deaths by accidents. due to our fast
commercial spirit are from two to nine
times as numerous as similar deaths in Eu-
rope, where experts have shown that three
quarters of such accidents preventable.
We are living entirely too fast.
eve have 40O000o paupers in this coun-
try. and 10,0oo.00O persons are on the rag
ged edge of pauperism."
The function of the public playground in
the city, where children are given outings
In the open air and useful occupations, in
obviating to some extent these conditions
was pointed out by DR.. Bushnell While the
facts he presented, he said. might lead one
to take very pessimistic view of the
words future, he nevertheless favored the
utmost effort to turn the tide in the other
direction, and said he believed it can be
done by herculean efforts.