p. 16 | Increase of Crime by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 33.

Increase of Crime.

By Editor

A daily paper prints a cartoon by a noted present day artist, depicting "The Crime of the World." Between two pillars is a large bulletin board covered with sheets inscribed with the word, "Crime." Old Father Time sits in a big armchair disconsolate, his head on his hand, his ragged-edged scythe leaning against his knee, and his sandaled feet resting on a pavement of the skulls of the victims of crime. A little in advance of Time, upon the ghastly pavement, with a sheet in his hand labeled "Crime," sits the child "20th Century," looking out over a long stretch of skulls to the dawning future, seeing naught but violence and its results, while above him towers a brutal figure with rawhide shield and drawn javelin over the prostrate form of a slain fellow. It is a gruesome picture; but many know that it is true to life. The editor of the paper takes issue. He admits the "shocking" "frequency" of crime, but tells us that "we often mistake widespread news of crime for increase in crime itself." It is true that the crime of the world comes before us daily as never before; but this is no just criticism of comparison between criminality of the past and present. This is better judged locally. Take almost any city, town, locality, in the best sections of the United States, where the blessings of Christianity and education have existed for two hundred years. Fifty years ago, thirty years ago, a great crime was indeed rare. Few thought of locking their houses nights. A murder trial in county or city was indeed infrequent, and became a topic of conversation for years. This was not because many crimes were unheard of; for each community knew all local news of importance. In those days there was almost no crime of importance. Now crime is plentiful everywhere, and that populous county is hard to find which does not have its murder trial every year, if not oftener, and lesser crimes galore. It is true that many of the brutal barbarities of heathenism are in the past, but how are lands progressing where Christianity has had room so long? The exposing of infants and infanticide are not permitted, but according to physicians the destruction of unborn offspring is constantly augmenting. This daily tells us that we do not have the old methods of torture to compel testimony, but we do have what another issue of this same paper calls the infamous "Third Degree," fruit of the Dark Ages, practised in police circles, and also not a few defending the practises of the Spanish and Papal Inquisitions with scarce a voice of protest. In it all we see the fulfilment of the prophetic word, "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." In Noah's day "the earth was filled with violence." Jesus tells us that "as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." The sad thing is that many will not believe the abounding evidence of increasing wickedness, hence will see no need of the only remedy, the "everlasting Gospel."