| Show INCREASE OF CRIME taz chicago advance a religious journal has baa a long article entitled increase of crime PP in very earnest language it deplores the fact that notwithstanding all our education religion and other appliances of an advanced civilization crime to la on the increase it then proceeds to give the causes the tint first and chief cause is the liquor traffic according to the census and internal revenue reports there are only five states in the union where the number of liquor dealers is not more than one to one thousand of population in massachusetts there is one to evera every inhabitants in pennsylvania one to in ohio one to in illinois one to in new york one to in california Califor aia one to 91 in montana ope one to 60 these figures are really startling it to is almost universally admitted that liquor has in every age and in every climate been a source of crime unfortunately in our day and in our country its evils are more manifest As a law defying crime agent the saloon is notorious it will be seen that the history of all great crimes crimea of all political crookedness and social rottenness can primarily be traced to the saloon and that where lawen law en forcing authorities are corrupt the saloonkeeper is identified with the corruption gambling is the next great cause of crime this vice has assumed gi gantle forms outside of even the old stereotyped phases of the roulette table and faro lay out the chief of police of chicago recently said eaid that it was sapping the very foundations of society it was no longer confined to the upper chambers of saloons but it hold held sway in the parlors of the wealthy and refined f he pointed to the crowds rushing to racecourses race courses for no other purpose than gambling as a sorry indication of the spirit of the times he alluded to the gambling in commercial transactions as also a factor in the destruction of legitimate industry and contented trading tra dieg A third cause to is found in poorly restricted stricter ed immigration A large number of persons who in their own lands land are criminals seek these shores where they turn liberty into license and many of them gravitate to the prison but among the great causes which the advance assigns as an agent in the produCt production IOD of crime is the newspaper thie may sound strange but the charge nevertheless is not entirely groundless the average editor ridicules the temperance movement and religious reform moie than he does the saloon he hurls burls his coarse jokes at the advocates of morality the advance says saye that newspaper editors who are helping the devil must change sides preachers who are decrying religion must uphold it and literary people who are sowing the world with unbelief and pollution should quit their wickedness and plant it U with faith and righteousness |
