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Show CRIME AND ITS CAUSES. Regarding the statement made by the British official to the London Mirror that intellectual crimes, forgeries, difficult burglaries, swindles that require brains and nerve, are on the increase, the Argonaut asks: "What is to blame?" There is nothing to blame except the rage for wealth, which is epidemic in the country. Neither the schools nor the churches can check it., for the original human nature is not stamped out of a man by schooling and seldom by religion. The educated man who would raise a check, if uneducated un-educated ,would raise the roof of a chicken coop. Education helps a criminal as much as it does an honest man. As to religion, the professedly religious man who is a thief, a burglar or forger, only put on a religious cloak that he might better ply his chosen calling. What is the cure? That is diffierent There is no cure. Certainty of conviction con-viction is the best remedy, for rogues are good calculators. So long as they think if they can steal $10,000 they can be acquitted for $3,000 they will play at the game, but if they think they , will have to work it out for the state at the rate, of $500 a year they will hesitate. There will be neither cure nor abatement while rich criminals continue to evade punishment. As to education, no person should be admitted to High schools or Universities except upon a recommend from the managers of lower schools, and to admit a dishonest student should be a misdemeanor. Again as to the blame. We are all more or less criminal. We take by the hand daily men whom we know have acquired fortunes dishonestly. We ask them to our homes; we per- ' mit them to marry our daughters, we say good things about them when they die, and poor would-be rogues looking on say: "What's the use of being honest?" Frequently men in responsible re-sponsible positions are only paid half salaries which is a perpetual temptation to commit crime. Employees, infatuated after cards or women or something else begin to go slowly to the dogs. We look on and sound no alarm. Blame? Human nature is to blame, and we are all more or less culpable. |
