Year: 1874

Maine is to begin the new year with the gal
lows unless there is some legislative interfer-
ence. New York on the first of January begins
its great experiment of compulsory education.
The gallows is an old remedy for crime which,
we believe, New York has never abandoned.
The preventive measure of universal compul-
sorry education is comparatively new reme-
dy. The latter seems most philosophical in
theory, at least, aud it its results are such as
are anticipated it will soon wholly supplant
the older and ruder means of making crime
seem undesirable. For the most enthusiastic
supporter of capital punishment must con-
cede that it is more desirable, on both moral
and economic grounds to prevent the growth
of murderous impulses and thus destroy
homicide by destroying the seeds of it, than
10 let the murderer grow up and kill his man
and then to stake it out of him" on the gal
lows. By the educational system there is
good ground for hoping that the state may
save the lives of both murderer and victim,
while the most claimed for the punitory sys-
tenn is that it constitutes the fag end of the
le1 talionis and pays for one life with anoth-
er.


It is not, however, our present purpose to
discuss the capital punishment question, but
to ask why, since we are about to import the
New York gallows, we may not properly take
with it, as sort of moral counterpoise, the
New York educational law also? Such of our
readers as are interested in educational mat.
tiers will not fail to remember the able report
of Dexter Hawkins, ESQ.,, of New York city,
on compulsory education, issued last winter,
an abstract of which was published in these
columns. The extraordinary correlation
shown by that report to exist between ignor-
anee and crime was presumably the means
of inducing the last New York legislature to
pass the law which goes into effect on the
first of January. 1t is to hoped that our
own lawmakers will examine this act care
fully in their intervals Of leisure, when not
engaged in the more arduous ald important
duty of listening to counsel for railroad cor
porations, extending wharves into tide water
or incorporating cheese factories which might
organize under the general statute. All chill
dren between the ages of eight and fourteen
must have at least fourteen weeks schooling
during each year, eight of which must be
consecutive. The responsibility Of carrying
the law into effect rests primarily on parents
and guardians, who are required to send the
children under their charge to school for the
required term under penalty of one dollar
for the first offence, and five dollars for each
weeks neglect afterwards. As supplement
tary provision of great importance, the local
truant laws are infused with new life and
efficiency, and are to be enforced by the po-
lice of cities and the constables of towns.
Moreover, children within the ages mention
ed are not to be employed in manufactures or
in any business whatever, unless they have
had the prescribed amount of schooling dur
ing the preceding year, and the employer
must receive certificate of such schooling
from each child before he is set to work. The
school officers are clothed with visitoral pow
er, and they will, during the month of Feb
ruary make their first visit of inspection to
the various manufacturing establishments
with view to determining whether the law
is obeyed.


The rapid increase of manufacturing in
Maine, and the consequent influx of for
eign, uneducated population, renders it doubly
important that some decisive step should be
taken to make certain that the next genera
tion is not more profigatc than the present.
The increase Of manufacturing has doubtless
had much more to do with the criminal sta
tistics of the last few years than the changes
in the laws, which arc triumphantIy quoted
by both the supporters and opponents of cap
ital punishment as accounting for the increase
or decrease of crime.