Salt Lake Tribune | 1904-07-02 | Page 4 | A Dark Mystery

A DARK MYSTERY. What propensity Is It In the human mind that makes for mere wanton, aimless, dastardly destruction, for destruction's de-struction's sake only, and for no possible possi-ble advantage In any way to the destroyer, de-stroyer, but to his Imminent personal peril? Take the two recent and prominent prom-inent cases, at St. Louis, for example. Some one slit the Inflation bag of San-ton-Dumont's flying machine, rendering It useless, and making a delay of six weeks to twq months In hla exhibition: why? Surely It must have been mere vl-ciousness, vl-ciousness, the lust to destroy. Again, the secondary bellows of the largest organ or-gan In the world, at Festival Hall, St. Lou 1b, was slashed and destroyed by some one, to no possible purpose. What Is It that makes men do this sort of thing? It Is not a survival of brute Instinct, In-stinct, for brutes only destroy for their own propensities, because they want to eat, or to pass through. If It is not a survival of heredity or evolution, Is it a new quality growing in the human race, to be developed In a general mania ma-nia to destroy? ThlB hardly seems possible, pos-sible, olnco the general tendency of human hu-man training and advancement Is toward to-ward the lines of conservation and utility. But whatever It 1b, It Is certainly moat deplorable, vicious, and wretched. If either of the criminals In the above cases (or tho criminal, if ho did both) can be caught, a heart-to-heart statement state-ment from them or him as to the motive mo-tive or incentive to this destruction would be of far greater interest to tho public than his mere conviction. " Such a statement, made earnestly and as a fact, might throw an Important light on Home psychological' problems that need to be cleared up. It Is to be hoped that the guilty may bo captured and compelled to give up the scecret of this dark and unaccountable perversity.