Show OUIDA ON CRIME in the literary digest of the ouida adlida has baa au article entitled poor abel which is remarkable for the monner manner in which indirectness of itne thod can accomplish directress of purpose the article is written lu in what aba appears at a au superficial glance to be an iconoclastic vein but a closer inspection reveals the f fot set that it is one of the choicest and most incisive pieces e c e 8 0 of sarcasm with which the reading ing public has lately been presented the e object ab is to cast discredit upon the big grea greatly abused practice in and out of court of attributing wilfully criminal aoto acts to insanity ina lue anity aUlty and t dispel come what the sympathy which too many feel or affect to feel fr f r convicted criminals what auld c auld be more delicately f i than this alas poor abel I 1 remember in my childhood c crying ing over a drawing of him lying on I 1 the turf with his long h hair air soaked in blood whilst the lambs bleated bleared by the altar dark cain slunk away in the background between the trunks of the trees ashamed afraid and already weighed down with remorse but cain now is never asham ashamed ed or afraid as for remorse lombroso and the physiologists will prove that not have done other than he did given his cranial formation and who ah ah who will weep in the nursery or out of it for abel referring to the wonder often expressed at the continuance and increase of violent vi plent and boutil misdeeds disfiguring what by itself ii called the age of civilization says sayat these beBe crimes crimea are a natural par donable and logical result of our changed attitude toward poor abel cain being the favorite actor on our stage it is of course reasonable that his bis is the career most moat eagerly desired we still sometimes bang h him m ahe ashe garrote him imprison son him or otherwise set our brand upon him but we do it at all times reluctantly suit and the time to is not dot distant when we shall cease to do it at all P sympathy with the aggrieved is declared to have riven given place to sympathy for the aggressor here Is anther another an ther pungent paragraph la Is this an innate revolt against the artificial bonds of modern life which renders modem society so inclined to take cain to its bosom and fling flin quicklime contemptuously on the slain in body of abel or is it due to the tendency so BO gravely marked in modern times to side with the strongest to disregard the law Is it not perhaps beyond all inspired by the essentially modern feeling that the man who has failed is imbecile beyond pity and abel whatever form he takes to is of course courie an utter failure in the modern view of human existence he is a person who did not succeed in making his virtues pay of what use were a blameless career a sympathetic character a tender heart he stood in the path of a stronger man A divine judge and a primitive people might avenge him a and weep for him but the modern world kicks him into a neglected grave whilst it buys photographs gra of jain and sends him bouquets bouquet an bottled of brandy it is ia needless to wonder why cain is constantly reappearing in modern modem times he hb is the popular character he cannot appear in any costume or any drama without obtaining more or less a large following and however hideous his crime he will never be without his partisans and supporters the defense ot of insanity as ae it is ie commonly practiced od to IB strongly A availed the gifted writer thinks that the only time to alcare a criminal uon ulon that plea is when he to is the victim of long incontestable utterly diN distraught mad ness the signs of which those who run can road read here we are compelled to differ somewhat this thie F deeming to be rather the other extreme of the case than the safi medium ground on which we endeavor to stan atan I 1 in dealing with crime but she is ia per sistena on this point and will not relax a jot or tittle of her vehemence in denouncing the practice that in sanity more or less lees proven by specialists she ays should save such a brute as the youth who killed his mother cr the who shot the young girls at chislehurst is a great injury to the world at large arthe it he wire drawing of specialists and ana the he jargon of be permitted to come into court every assassin wll will escape to allow the plea of irre spon elbi sivility lity la Is practically to inform cain that the more atio clous fantastic and horrible be his crime tho the more certain will physicians and physiologists come to his rescue and keep him clear of the scaffold that is what might properly be conceded at a rather clever statement of the case came from that side of it perhaps however it ought to be elevated to the dignity of an argumenti meni ment the he saving clause called to io french c mes in for a blow sud aud then the writer pays her re to the french scandal soa odal la I 1 a which the wealthy embezzler em bezzer is sympathized i wibb and the plundered peasant tr nr gotten and concludes with a reference to ulster ireland it all shows that baida Oa idaisa to a logician and a mt mistress stress of that intellectual wand which richelieu declared was more potent than the sword |