p. 9 | INCREASE OF CRIME

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 44.

INCREASE OF CRIME.

THE city of New York, during the year 1899, raised in revenue, the sum of $90,000,000. Of this vast sum, $20,000,000 was spent as the result of crime—its detection and punishment. In a recent year, according to the figures of Mr. Eugene Smith, an expert statistician and penologist, there was spent in the United States the enormous sum of $200,000,000 for the same purpose for which New York City spent her $20,000,000. The records of the criminal courts show that more is being spent for that purpose now than in the years when these statistics were compiled. This record of the fearful increase of crime is a terribly emphatic contradiction of the theory that the world is growing better, and is fast forging on to a glorious temporal future. We are not laying bare these dark conditions because of a desire to make the world appear as bad as possible in order to support a theory; but the Lord has Himself declared that when these conditions should exist, His glorious coming would be near at hand. There will be those who will refuse to recognize these conditions, and will not be prepared to meet their Lord when He comes. It is to help men to see and be saved, that the record is kept before them as it is.

In the State of Indiana the number of divorces has doubled in less than ten years, in spite of the fact that some years ago Indiana’s divorce laws were remodeled and improved. The divorce record for Marion County, which includes Indianapolis, shows that during 1900 there was one divorce to less than four marriages. Taking the State as a whole, there was an average of one divorce for every six marriages.

WHILE a company of Anarchists were holding a meeting in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, on October 13, they were attacked by a mob, who handled the Anarchists very roughly, and completely demolished the interior of the house in which the meeting was being held. The leader of the mob and several of the Anarchists were placed under arrest. This is simply Anarchy against Anarchy, and nothing good can come out of such lawless affairs.