SENTIMENTAL CRIMINALS by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 14, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 15.

SENTIMENTAL CRIMINALS.

By Editor

DURING the last few weeks an incident has occurred that should teach a lesson to every father and mother of daughters, as well as to every woman. We have had a young girl, spoken of as educated, refined, and attractive, determined to marry a man imprisoned and under penalty of death for crime, proved to have been guilty of murder, and of holding and teaching doctrines that would uproot and destroy all government. This young girl visited the man in prison, and talked with him. Finally, to the horror and amazement of all her friends, her engagement to this criminal was announced. Her mother, an invalid, was, of course, the greatest sufferer because of the foolish actions of her daughter. Every inducement was offered to the girl to sever her relations, but she would listen to no one. Never having been controlled in the lesser affairs of her life, why should she listen, or allow herself to be controlled, in this most important affair? So we have had columns of detail furnished us by the daily papers of this foolish, unreasonable, and disgusting entanglement. The girl was finally forbidden by the authorities to visit the prisoner—a step that should have been taken when the prisoner was first incarcerated.

The sentimentality, the morbidness, that induces women to seek in jails, objects for the display of their generosity or moral teachings and support, is an evidence of mental weakness and want of balance. The world has claims enough on the truly benevolent and philanthropic impulses of every woman who desires to lift fallen humanity up, without her waiting until humanity has been imprisoned. If it is necessary for her to look at humanity through prison bars before she feels called upon to stretch out her hand to uplift, she may decide that her impulses are at root unhealthy, and sunk in that lowest stratum of the human heart, a love of notoriety. If she has not the strength of mind to resist her impulses, and leave the criminal to the care of those who have made crime a study, who are best fitted to help the criminal, she would better petition to be cared for as an irresponsible person. The women who have time to devote to notorious criminals, providing them with luxuries and flowers, developing in them a feeling of martyrdom instead of repentance, are the women who bring a blush of shame to the cheek of every woman who has the best good of her sex at heart.

We can forgive the sinner, but we are not given the authority to canonize him. We should be well assured of the sinner's sorrow and repentance before we take his hand as a brother. To weep, lament, pet, and coddle a man that law and his fellow-citizens declare guilty of crime punishable by law, does not show a kind heart, but a weak head. Probably the young woman who has brought this unpleasant notoriety on herself and family never knew any law but her own will. Her reading, no doubt, has been of the most sensational character, for no girl or woman truly of refined instincts, gentle nature, would be placed in such a predicament. If she had been in head and heart strong enough to give a helping hand to a criminal, she would never have allowed relations of sentiment to enter into the intercourse. Certain it is that there are persons enough on whom a young girl may exercise her philanthropic impulses without their finding vent on those on the wrong side of prison bars. A bad man is always dangerous, but when he poses as a martyr he is doubly dangerous, and should be left entirely to those who understand his ilk. Sentimental women and flowers are decidedly out of place among convicted criminals. The higher the crime committed, the less public sympathy need be displayed.