The Increase of Crime in Maine
As is readily seen from the above, the number of prisoners held for crime in 1880 is 180 more than in 1851, or an actual increase of 207 per cent. Place by the side of this, the fact that during the same number of years (twenty-nine) Maine's increase of population has been but 61,265, or only 14 per cent, and we are startled to learn that felonious crimes have increased 183 per cent faster than the population. And what is more appalling, is the fact that 62 per cent of these prisoners in 1880 were natives of Maine, 64 per cent of them were convicted before reaching the age of thirty, and 18 per cent, before they were twenty-one. In referring to these facts the Chronicle makes the following forcible remarks: "The causes of this alarming increase of crime in a State which has never rated above the average in that respect till now, are inexplicable. They cannot be traced to rum, for Maine has long had a prohibitory liquor law in force; nor to natural heat of temper, influenced, as in Southern latitudes, by a very hot climate, since Maine's climate is more frigid than torrid; nor to ignorance, because the State is well provided with public schools; nor to the presence of large masses of foreigners, because that class stands lowest on the prison record; nor to the baleful influences of large cosmopolitan cities, for the most populous city in Maine, Portland, contains less than 34,000 inhabitants." "Can it be that crime in all the other States has increased in even proportion with Maine? If so, why? Is there anything or many things in the structure of society in America so changed since thirty years ago that leads our youth into criminal habits? If so, what? Can it be the decline of trades and apprenticeship, and the consequent unfitness of the rising generation to earn an honest living? Is it the loosening of religious ties from a too general and superficial study of what we call 'science?' Is it the result of loose divorce laws, which weaken family influences on the young? Or is it the dominating, all-prevading vice of avarice, that subordinates everything to the hunger and thirst for sudden riches at any cost of conscience and reputation? Or is it all these things combined? The subject is one that demands the profound attention of the best minds of the age. The exhibit is astounding, and worst of all, it is to be feared that Maine's showing is as good as the average of the country." Coming from the source it does, these remarks should be thoughtfully considered. Can it be possible that the editor of a secular daily like the Chronicle, who is supposed to simply record the news of the day without moralizing, sees these matters in the light of increasing depravity of heart? How strange then that those who read the Bible cannot see them in the same light and recognize the time of which the apostle speaks in 2 Tim. 3:1-5. How true that evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, and that the world is ripening up for the time when the decree will go forth: "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great." Joel 3:13.