The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 17, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 6, 1898 Page: 16 of 16
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16
THE SOUTHERN MERCURY.
CAUSES OF CRIME.
A recent press dispatch from New
York regarding the causes of pauper-
ism gives a careful analysis of five
hundred cases made, and says:
A report that is probably the only
one of the kind made in this country
was completed to-day by the committee
on statistics of the charity organiza-
tion society. The committee is com-
posed of Richmond Smith, professor of
political eoconmy and social science at
Columblt University; Franklin H. Gid-
dings, professor of siciology at Colum-
bia University, and Frederick W. Halls.
The report consists of a careful anal-
ysis of the records of 500 familes from
the time they applied for aid in 1890
until September 1, of this year.
In refering to the petition of appli-
cations for relief the report says:
"There is a disclosure of chronic pau-
perism. This pauperism exists to a
large degree because of the large in-
capacity of men and women to support
themselves. Their condition is due, in-
vestigation shows, to a lack of mental
and moral development.'
Of the persons who applied for aid
the largest number were married men
and women. Widows with children
came next. Of the 500 applicants
170 were Irish and 132 were natives
of the United States. Many of the lat-
ter were persons who had lived in this
city less than a year.
The list includes 122 men of good
character and 231 women of good char-
acter. The remainder were profession-
al beggars, criminals and chronic pau-
per: .
Assuming that this report is made
in good faith, and not for the purpose
of providing a preconceived theory,sev-
eral questions seem naturally to sug-
gest themselves.
1. Why should the largest number
of applicants for charity be married
men and women? Is it not the popu-
lar view that marriage is the normal
condition of adult human beings and
therefore productive of thrift, comfort
and financial independence?
2. How comes it that the greater
number of applicants for aid are men
and women of "good character" (122
men and 231 women, or 353 out of the
500 cases reported) ? Is it not the com-
mon belief that bad character—vicious
habits— is productive of poverty, while
good character—virtuous habits—leads
to thrift and to competence? Does not
this statement indicate that, in order to
avoid helples and hopeless poverty
men and women must not be over
scrupulous in business matters, or in
their methods of getting money?
3. Only 147 "professional beggars,
criminals and chronic paupers" in a
total of 500 "applicants for aid," is cer-
tainly a good showing for the moral
character—including willingness to
work for their living—of the poor of
New York City, but what kind of a
showing is it for the industrial and
financial system of the great metropo-
lis? In a country of limitless natural
resources, with a chronic overproduc-
tion of all the necessaries, and even
luxuries of life, how comes it that only
a small minority of those asking char-
ity belong to the classes called "pro-
fessional beggars, criminals and chron-
ic paupers?"
An atempt to account for this state
of things seems to be found In the
statement that "their condition on due
Investigation shows, to a lack of men-
tal and moral development," but this
solution suggests still other questions,
sucht as:
"Development" includes, presumably,
natural development—hereditary pow-
ers, capabilities and tendencies—and
also early training. The unanswered
questions, the underlying questions
are:
Why should these people lack normal
hereditary powers and capabilties, and
who is responsible for their lack of
proper training?
As to the first of these—hereditary—
it requires little investigation to show
that the conditions usually attending
and preceding the birth of the great
masses of people—in cities, in manu-
facturing and mining towns, and also
in agricultural districts—are anything
but favorable to good natal endow-
ment. Mothers are overburdened with
work, and with the care of children for
whose advent no proper provision has
been made. Most of these children are
undesigned, undesired—mere chance
begotten, born of parents who have lit-
tle or nothing to make life desirable,
and who look upon each new addition
to the family as a calamity, a curse in-
stead of a blessing.
Then, when to these adverse condi-
tions is added that other factor so very
comon, viz., the lack of love between
the parents, and the presence of indif-
ference, of aversion, of disgust and
hatred, how can we expect, under such
conditions, that the child can be born
well endowed with the powers, facul-
ties and tendencies that would fit it
for success in the competitive struggle
for existence?
Then, as to the after training: The
asoeiations of home life and of the
streets, are not such as to inspire lofty
aspirations, noble ambitions or pure
lives. Compelled to work for a beg-
garly pittance, when work of any kind
can be had, instead of being instructed
in kindergarten and manual training
schools, how can we expect good "men-
tal and moral development?"
Speaking of "Crime's Reign in Chi-
cago," Rev. Frank Dewitt Talmage, in
his sermon on Sunday, November 28,
has this to say—as reported in the
daily Chronicle of that city:
"There are two causes for this: First
because Chicago is the dumping of
many of the moral sewers of the Uni-
ted States, and all the thugs, and the
thieves and the loafers, and the ras-
cals, and the anarchists, and the
cranks, and the general deadbeats at
large make this camp their winter
quarters, and what they cannot beg
they try to steal and I, for one, stand
here to say that it is about time these
outrnges stopped.
If ten or twelve of these scoundrels
were shot down in cold blood it would
bring the rest of these murderers to
their senses, and I call upon our
courts and legislature to raise the pen-
alty of crime higher and higher, even
until the price, if necesary, be the gal-
lows, so that an honest man can walk
along the boulevards of this great city
without carrying a pistol in his own
pocket to save his own life. For I
stand here to assert one of these two
awful facts; either our police are in
league with the robbers and they them-
selves are crimnals, or else tlia law
is too lax to grapple with the infamy.
Has this man Talmange looked be-
neath the surface of things? Has he
searched for bedrock causes of vice and
crime? Is his proposed remedy a ra-
tional one? Has not shooting men in
cold blood, and has not the gallows,
the rack and the dungeon been tried
for thousands of years, and with the
result that crime is steadily increasing
—increasing much more rapidly than
population?
Mr. Talmage is the child of affluence
—one of the pets of our social system.
With like heredity and like environ-
ment would his record to-day be any
better than that of the "thugs, thieves,
loafers," etc., whom he would like to
see shot down in cold blood or strang-
led by the hangman's rope? He is
paid a high salary to preach the re-
ligion of love, of forgiveness, of peace
and good will; do utterances such as
these show that he is earning his
money?
It is pertinent here to ask, who are
the thieves, the loafers, the deadbeats
and the anarchists (in the popular but
false meaning of that word). Can we,
should we, in the name of justice, pun-
ish the petty thief who takes that
which he or his family needs, and at
the same time condone the theft of
millions when stolen by a man who
does not need them? Is it worse to
steal a few dollars without the sanc-
tion of law than it is to steal hun-
dreds of millions after securing
through fraud the enactment of laws
whereby the theft is made lawful and
honorable?
Let us look for causes—the root
causes—of poverty, vice and crime,
and having found them, let us lay the
ax of reason and common sense to the
root of the tree.—Facts.
ary Line.
When a young
irl steps from
girlhood into wo-
manhood, she en-
s a new and strange
country. A land of
promise and hope, yet
full of hidden dangers. Whether she will
find happiness or misery depends largely
upon the health and condition of the deli-
cate, special organism which is the source
and centre of her womanhood.
The lives of young women are often
wrecked because of a mistaken sense of
modesty, which leads them to neglect the
earlier symptoms of feminine weakness.
These troubles unless corrected, develop
into serious chronic difficulties which be-
come a dragging burden, ruining life's best
opportunities and blighting all possibility
of happy wifehood and motherhood.
Any woman suffering from these delicate
complaints needs the health-giving power
of Dr Pierce's Favorite Prescription. It
heals and strengthens the womanly organs;
stops weakening drains; gives vitality to
the nerve-centres, and restores perfect or-
ganic soundness and constitutional energy.
It is the only medicine devised for this pur-
pose by a skilled and experienced specialist
in diseases of the feminine organism.
Mrs. W. B. Duncan, of Arlington, Mo., writes:
" I have used vour ' Favorite Prescription ' and
am never tired of sounding its praise. When my
lady friends complain, I say ' Why don't you take
Dr. picrce's Favorite Prescription?' I told an
anxious mother, whose daughter (18 years old)
had not been right for five mouths, "about the
medicine, and after the young lady had taken
two-thirds of a boftie of 'Favorite Prescription'
she was all right. She had been treated by two
oí our best doctors."
Dr. Pierce's great thousand-page illus-
trated book, " The People's Common Sense
Medical Adviser" sent paper-bound on
receipt of 21 one-cent stamps to pay the
cost of mailing only. Or, a handsome
cloth-bound copy for 31 stamps. Address,
Dr. R. V. Pierce, Buffalo, N. Y.
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Park, Milton. The Southern Mercury. (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 17, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 6, 1898, newspaper, January 6, 1898; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth185738/m1/16/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .