THE INCREASE OF CRIME by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 16, 1876

THE INCREASE OF CRIME.

By Editor

The following article from the Bridgeport (Conn.) Standard, appears under the heading, “The Increase of Crime.” It strikes us that it should have a more significant title than that, if one can be found. For when large bodies of people organize themselves into a society for crime, and carry on their nefarious business by system, under rules and regulations, it is more than simply an increase of crime; it is a defiance thrown into the face of lawful government and civilized society; it is an outburst of iniquity of such virulence that no fitting terms can be found to adequately describe it. And such, it seems, is beginning to be the moral aspect of our times. Let those who are consoling themselves with the idea that the world is growing better read and ponder. The Standard says:—

“It is becoming a serious question how long it will be before the forgers, swindlers, defaulters and other ‘irregular practitioners’ will come together and outvote the few men left with an honorable reputation. The majority rules, but when there is a majority of thieves and plunderers, what is the minority going to do about it? That seems to be the coming conundrum. How long we may have to wait before it comes upon us for immediate solution we can hardly say, but as an evidence of the progress being made in that direction we instance the following from the testimony of Gen. Chamberlain, warden of the Massachusetts State prison, before a committee of the legislature of that State, last week:—

“I know from my own knowledge that there exists in the city of Boston a regularly organized society of criminals, with a president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer. This society has a regular form of admitting members. The prison a member has graduated from, his offense, with information in regard to the prison, all are duly recorded. The society discuss the most approved plans for burglary, tools, equipments, etc.; they also keep a regular register of the best criminal lawyers in the country, and of the judges of the courts, and they know at once what the prospects are for a brother criminal. If his case comes before what they call a “hard judge” they raise the money to secure a postponement of the case. They also have a fund for mutual support and protection, and through this source they are often able to send delicacies to their brethren when sick in the prison hospital.’”

“It will hardly do to put aside this matter as a mere ‘curiosity of crime,’ since its meaning is more than that, and recent events ought to have taught us that there are influences at work, which, if not checked, may so utterly undermine the foundations of all stable things as to destroy much of that mutual trust upon which social and business affairs are largely based, if not to reverse the relations now existing between criminals and honest men. A few more Jacksons, Ponds, and Winslows in Massachusetts will give that State a bad pre-eminence which not even Dio Lewis or Charles Francis Adams, backed by the Springfield Republican, can entirely counterbalance.”