The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-05-31

In 1850. there were fifteenthous-
and insane; in 1860, twenty-four
thousand; in 1870, thirty-seven thous-
and; in 1880, ninety-one thousand.
In thel light of these statistics we
are not succeeding in doing away with
crime. There were in 1880, fifty
eight thousand prisoners, and in the
same year fifty-seven thousand home
less children, and sixty-six thousand
paupers in almshouses.
Is it possible that we must go to
the same causes for these effects?
"
There is no reformation in de-
to say to all the world that he is a
criminal, and to render his reforma-
ton substantially impossible. Who
ever is degraded by society becomes
it's enemy. The seeds of malice are
sown in his heart and to the day of
his death he will hate the hand that
sowed the seeds.
There is also another side to this
question. A punishment that de-
grades the punished will degrade the
man who inflicts the punishment and
will degrade the government that
procures the infliction. The whipping
post pollutes, not only the whipped,
but the whipper, and not only the
whipper, but the community at large.
Wherever it's shadow falls it de-
grades.
| If, then, there is no reforming
power in degradation.-no deterrent
power-for the reason that the de-
graduation of the criminal degrades
the community, and in this way pro-
duces more criminals, then the next
question is, whether there is any re-
forming power in torture? The
trouble with this is that it hardens
and degrades to the last degree the
ministers of the law. Those who are
affected by the agonies of the bad will
in little time care nothing for the
sufferings of the good. There seems
to be little of the wild beast in men
"a something that is fascinated by
suffering, and that is fascinated by
suffering and that delights in inflict-
nain Whnn
lures, it is in the same state of mind
that the criminal was when he COM
mitted his crime. 1t requires as much
malice in those who execute the law,
to torture a criminal, as it did in the
criminal to torture and kill his vic
tim. The one was a crime by per-
son, the other by a nation.
There is something in injustice, in
crulty, that tends to defeat itself
There were never as many traitors
in England as when the traitor was
drawn and Guartered-when he was
tortured in every possible way
when his limbs, torn and bleeding,
were given to the fury Of mobs or
exhibited pierced by pixies or hung in
chains. These frightful punishments
produced intense hatred of the gov
eminent and traitors continued to in
crease unit, they became powerful
enough to decide what treason was
and who the traitors were and to in
| flict the same torments ON others.
Think for a moment of what man
has suffered in the cause of crime.
Think OF the millions that have been
| imprisoned, impoverished and de-
graded because they were thieves
and forgers, swindlers and cheats.
Think for moment of what they
have endured-of the difficulties I'M
der which they have pursued their
calling, and it will be exceedingly
hard to believe that they were sane
and natural people possessed of good
brains, of minds well-pOised, and that
they did what they did from a choice
unaffected by heredity and the count
less circumstances that tend to deter