The Sunday Oregonian., August 17, 1902, PART FOUR, Page 32, Image 32

32
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, AUGUST 17, 1902.
ETHICAL TALKS .By eLEKGU ANT) THE LAIT
LIARS AND THEIR EVIL ANALYZED
THERE Js In our time no historian,
no Judge, no teacher who Is not
continually hindered lu his -work
by the omnipresent lie.
For the historian it Is mado difficult to
separate the real facts from the mixture
of truth and lies which always consti
tute his' material. The task of the Judge
is almost superhuman, because there is
always the possibility that the accused
the witnesses or tho counsel on either or
both sides may tell things that are not
exactly true and very often barefaced
lies, and every teacher and educator
knows that truthfulness and sincerity aro
the very foundation of all morals, that
tho child who lice will very often do even
worse things, and that the person who
docs not hate the lie will not havo the
will-power to resist the temptations of all
kinds which offer themselves to all of us
during our life.
I shall try to explain the origin and na
ture of this vice of lying that we And
in all classes and all ages. I shall try to
analyse the complicated soul of tho per
son who lies.
First of all let us try to discover how
a child begins to lie, what motives drive
him to lying and what sophisms he use3
to Justify his lie, and then afterwards a
few words as to how to counteract the
lie. how to fight against it and, if possl--ble,
how to drive it out.
How does a child become a liar, how
does it discover how to lie, and how
does it get into the'habit of lying?
The child in its very first years neither
lies nor simulates; its thoughts, Its
ideas, its feelings are Immediately trans
formed into acts. This Is tho great nat
ural, primitive law: Every Idea, every
desire immediately becomes an act. The
act is only tho idea, left to Itself and
following Its natural course, and this Is
what we see in all impulsive or all hyp
notized persons whose personal will-power
is not strong enough to control.
In the child all thoughts are immediate
MYSTERIES OF THE HUMAN MIND
IR T. LAUDER BRUNTON, M. D.,
has courteously sent me the reprint
of the address he delivered before the
general meeting of the Mcdlco-Psycholog-lcal
Association, and to his courtesy I
have been indebted for an Instructive
hour or two spent over Its pages. The ad
dress attracted a large amount of notice,
even from the somewhat abridge reports
that followed its delivery. Sir T. L. Brun
ton deals with that most fascinating of
topics, "Hallucinations and Allied Men
tal Phenomena." It Is an all Important
subject withal, because not only is that
dim borderland between sanity and in
sanity included in its consideration, but
the ways of the world, as our lecturer
shows us, are singularly liable on occasion
to be affected by the hallucinations and
illusions of men and women.
Julius Caesar and tho first Napoleon, for
Example, were epileptics, but, says our
author, they were great men not because
of their epilepsy, hut In spite of It; and
It is undeniable, of course, that the epi
leptic constitution Is often associated with
a brain of singularly bright and apt Intel
ligence. It is when the illusions of men
an "illusion" being an appearance or sen
sation we know to be unreal pass Into
the stage of hallucinations, when what is
unreal is regarded as true, that the world
may be worse for the occurrence. If I
behold the Image of a dead friend, and
know that the specter Is simply a repro- t
ductlon passed on forwards from my brain
THE GREAT TASK OF
A BISHOP of the church is quoted as
saying that three-fourths of the
crime, poverty and depravity in
America is due to the woman. "Poverty,
depravity and crime" would be a better
order unless the bishop wishes to class
poverty as an evil no less degraded than
crime and Its forerunner, depravity.
But the bishop's remark may be true,
for the early influences of the child are
the strongest, and It may be that the
mothers of America have so failed in ex
erting the proper Influence that to their
negligence three-fourths of the evil of the
country may be attributed.
It is generally agreed nowadays that
crime and depravity (poverty will have to
be left out of tho discussion) spring from
abnormal conditions and that they are fa
cial diseases. Those who make a study of
them say that, first of all, health of body
and freedom for the expression of the in
stincts of play and workmanship are the
utcl uuuujuuiis ior me cniia in us lime j
of development, and then lhat the broader !
outlook coming through contact with the
trained minds of parents and teachers is
almost a guaranty of healthy morals in
any community.
Now, If the good bishop can prove that
the mothers of America aro responsible
for the conditions contrary to those which
MAN'S ENDLESS IMITATIONS
BY GABRIEL TARDE, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
A STONE drops into tho water, and
the first wave produced repeats
itself In increased sizo until tho
limits, of the basin, are reached.
I light a match and the first undu
lation which I cause in the ether propa
gates Itscjf In an instant Into vast space.
It suffices to transport a couple of
tcrmitos tc a new continent In order to
have, it ravaged in a few years.
In the same way a local dialect, the
usage of a few families, llttleby little
becomes a national idiom.
In tho development of societies the art
of striking the. flint, of domesticating the
dog, of making bread, of working on
bronze, of mining-iron hive each de
veloped by contagious imitation, every
morsel of bread, every bronze carving
being at the same time both copy and
model.
Thus in our own day diffusion of every
kind operates, with this difference, that
the increasing density of population and
trio progress accomplished -jrodlglously
accelerates this extension, just Hko tho
raaidity of a sound is increased by tb
BY PROFESSOR CAMILLE MELINAUD
ly expressed in movements, in cries or
later In words. Its body is the perfect
and constant expression of Its Inner self.
How Is It then possible that, a child may
take up the habit of lying?
In the passing from the primitive sin
cerity to mendacity we aro able to dis
cover a certain number of moments.
First, the child discovers the He, then
it notices that lying Is practiced all
around it,then that lying Is useful or even
necessary, and finally It starts to He itself.
The child first ditcovers tho He by play
ing. To play is to Hvo in a world of
dreams, of unreality, of Illusion. To play
is to transform tho monotonous reality
into an alluring fiction which Is- more in
accord with the desires of the soul of the
child. A little girl, for Instance, plays
with her doll and tells that she has a
baby, that it will soon grow, that It has
taken cold, thnt it begins to talk, and so
on.
From this to lyingthe step is very
short, and what proves this is that we
are often deceived ourselves.
A child will come to us crying, saying
that another child has struck It, or has
broken Its toys, and we believe In it, until
.suddenly the child will burst out laughing
and tell us that it was all said for fun.
Of course, from a moral point of view,
there is a world of difference between
playing and lying; but from the psycho
logical point of view the difference is
almost Imperceptible, because both are
in contrast to thctruth.
It is very natural that tho child should
discover the lie through playing It is suf
ficient that it sees that grown people
are taken in once or twice, that It discov
ers that it can fool us. It amuses Itself
over our credulity, and then It will soot?
know how to He.
The second moment Is the teaching of
lying by example, the revelation that the
lie Is not only possible but real, that it
Is practiced by the persons that curround
It, and. worst of all, by Its own parents.
BY DR. ANDREW WILSON
cells to the background of my eye, I suf
fer from an "illusion" of sight. But If I
regard the appearance as a real thing and
as a ghostly visitation originating out
side my own personality altogether, I suf
fer from a "hallucination." This Is the
general and, I fancy, sensible distinction
we are bound to make between the vis
ions that may affect or Inflict us, but no
body knows better than I do that- the
definition will not please everybody. Mr.
Andrew Lang, for example, will not hold
it to be accurate, neither will certain
members of the Society for Psychical Re
search, who believe In what one may term
the materialization of spirits and In the
existence of ghosts as entities appealing
to our senses as things objective.
But the distinction will still remain a
safe one If we take into account that we
must assuredly distinguish between the
unbiased observation of a sane man
and his experience and the ravings
of a lunatic. One curious point is
that Illusions are much more fre
quently represented in our ordinary life
than many are apt to believe. Of this
fact I can give one familiar example.
There is a well-known experience which
happens to most of us on occasion, where
in, coming to a place, a room, a fhurch,
or. Indeed, seeing any scene to which we
are absolute strangers, we are impressed
with a strange sense of familiarity with
what wc behold. The feeling may be so
strong as to give a kind of eerie sensa-
BY CHARLOTTE TELLER
tend toward social welfare, then they
stand accused, and rightly.
To be healthy, children must havo
healthy parents; they must have plenty
of good food, warm clothing, sanitary
homes and plenty of exercise. Girls who
work In factories, or stand behind coun
ters, have lost much of their vitality; men
who began the struggle for money too
early and without preparation have lost
theirs; those two classes, at least, do not
mnke good parenta Are the women of
America responsible for factory condi
tions and for the demand lor child labor?
Havo they the right to make the laws?
When good food, comfortable clothing
and shelter are wanting because father
hood is so low In the public estimation
that corporations may underpay their
men without public protest Is it tho
women of this country who have organ
ized industry and reared the stupendous
structure of commercialism? Or Is it the
woman who can determine how much of
the taxc.i shall go to the malntalnance ol
the public schools and playgrounds?
"Ah, yes," the bishop may say, "but
you forget the Influence of the woman in
the home; it is there that her power may
bo felt, and she may work through man
and thus change the laws, or so bring up
her children to work for tho change."
density of Its medium. Every invention,
every discovery, tends to extend Itself in
tho social medium, a medium which ls
sclf tends to expand since it is essent
ially composed of equal things, each am
bitious for the infinite.
As examples of the progression of imi
tations, I could cite the statistics rela
tive to the consumption of coffee, of to
bacco and the like, from the time of
their first importation to the period when
the market has commenced to bo inun
dated with them, or again those relative
to the number of lopomotlves constructed
since the first.
I will quote a discovery which appears
less favorable to my theme, the discovery
of America. It has been imitated in
this sense, that the first voyago from
Europe to America, Imagined and exe
cuted by Columbus, has been repeated in
an ever-Increasing number of times by
other sailors, with variations, of which
has been tho little discovery grafted upon
that of the great Genoese, and has had in
its turn its imitators.
Another sTamnla, Tha Pnmgn empire
Wo all He before our children; we all
tell any number of fibs that we consider
excusable; we let the servants tell that
wc are out, when we are at home; we
compliment people to their face and criti
cise them behind their back; we say that
we are delighted to see a person, whom
we do not care to see at all. These toler
ated lies are sufficient, the example is set,
but still worse Is It when a child Is made
an accomplice in a He, as when a mother
will say to her child: "Now, you must not
tell papa anything about this." To treat
a child this way, to teach it that things
may be done, but not told, is to show it
the straight read to moral ruin.
The third moment comes when the child
faces Its first conflict with society. It
already knows that lying Is possible; that
It is practiced by almost everybody, and It
now discovers that lying is, so to speak,
necessary.
Every child makes Its start In life with
perfect candor and sincerity; It says
everything that It thinks and feels; it
immediately transforms Its Impressions
Into words and acts; It wears absolutely
no mask. But very, very soon it discov
ers that this will not do. Sooner or later
it suffers for Its frankness.
In the first place Its own parents will
show their dissatisfaction, will tell It that
It must not repeat everything that It
hears or say everything that It feels.
They do not directly teach it to He, but
they do teach It that to be sincere In
everything Is to make yourself ridiculous,
to say the least.
Very fon the child learns not only 'to
conceal Its real feelings, but also to pre
tend feelings that It docs not possess;
It soon learns that confidence Is abused;
that promises are given only to be
broken; that the whole social life Is one
rotten, hollow, empty shell.
Thus the child learns that absolute sin
cerity, absolute straightforwardness Is an
utter Impossibility; that there are many
reai?ons why it muFt be impossible; that
j tlon. The poets have noted the occur
rence of this familiar feeling. Dickens
speaks of It in "David Coppcrfleld.''
Thomas Hardy remarks It. as Words
worth, Scott, Rossettl and Tennyson have
duly noted it. I have even met people
who alleged they beheld In It a proof of
the doctrine of metempsychosis, and that
the feeling was due to the reproduced
memory of "a former state of existence."
Excluding cases In which a sense of fa
miliarity with an unknown scene may
be traced to, say, the previous view of a
photograph, wc may find in science a sim
ple explanation of the Incident. It Is
know that each half of our cerebrum, or
big brain, possesses a certain Independence
of the other half. In ordinary life we
may take It that both halves act in unison
so far, the left half appearing as the domi
nant factor In our brain work. Now, If
we may suppose that occasionally this
unison is interrupted, and that one-half
of thi brain is temporarily switched off
It may be only for a moment from its
neighbor, we may find In such an Idea
an explanation of the sensation of "hav
ing been there before." The left half,
let us imagine, takes In the scene, its
percipient cells acting In advance of those
of the right lobe. A second later the right
half perceives the scene, but already there
Is the Implied consciousness of the left.
It Is this consciousness, acting or produced
i out of time and unison, that conveys the
' Impression we have seen the place before.
MOTHERS
Work through man. Is there anything
more dangerous than the subtle deceit of
obtaining what Is wished through influen
cing those who have power? In the
political world that is known as currup
ticn; In the name it is considered the
beautiful exercise of woman's Influence.
The exercising of Influence upon the
children that Is still left to woman as a
means of helping the next generation.
When she feels a love of the race which
prompts her to work for the future, then
Indeed has she become a power for good.
But think of the mother who comes under
the 5500-a-year limit in Incomes. She
his a dally struggle in crowded rooms. If
she has no ambitions for the children be
yond a comfortable animal existence,
even then her life Is so full of work and
worry that she cannot bo a friend to tho
little ones.
The woman who has to work all day
cooking, washing, sewing, who sees the
needs Increasing from year to year, but
nt the means of satisfying them, who is.
cs far as her own training will allow,
ambitious for the children's schooling and
future that is the woman who may ex
ert tho highest Influence If she still has
strength. And the woman who has rooro
of the world's goods, but lives in uncer
tainty, not knowing what may coma to
has fallen, but it has been excellently
saldthat the Roman conquest lives al
ways and ever prolongs Itself. By
Charlemagne it was extended to the
Germans, who in being- Christianized
were Romanized; by William the Con
queror to the Anglo-Saxohs; by Colum
bus to America; by tho Russians and
English to Asia, to Australia, soon
throughout the entire ocean. Japan has
already been Invaded. China alono ap
pears to offer any serious resistance. But
wo suppose thatshe, too, will be assim
ilated In her turn some day.
So we can say that Athens and Rome,
that is to say, tho type of civilization
formed by the union of their initiatives
and by their Ideas of genius, co-ordinated
and combined, have conquered the whole
world. All races, all nationalities, havo
concurred in this limitless imitative con
taglonf Graeco-Roman civilization.
It would not have como with tho same
ccntalnty If Darius or Xerxes" had con
quered and reduced Greece to a Persian
province, or if Islamlsm had triumphed
over Charles Mattel and Invaded Europe,
politeness forbids us to be truthful, that
modesty and policy are continually fight
ing sincerity, and the child becomes a
conventional liar as everybody around It
la.
After this comes the critical point Will
the child stop here, will It not slide fur
ther down, will It understand not to go
beyond the line of these necessary con
ventional lies?
Until now the child Is still relatlvely
slncere, it has seen that lying Is possible,
that its own parents are guilty of lying
almost every day. It has even seen that
lying is necessary. But how prevent It
fr"om becoming what society calls a liar?
" Education has much to do" with this.
It Is very important that the educators
understand when to punish and when not.
The child that gets into the habit of
lying Is very often the child who Is too
often and too severely punished by its
parents or Its teachers.
The child who Is always afraid of pun
ishment, the child who Is beaten for the
smallest offense, will very soon find out
that If it confesses having done some
thing wrong It is stjre to be punished.
The first and second time he offends he
may have the courage to admit frankly
that he has done wrong, but very soon he
will begin to conceal, partly because he is
afraid of the humiliation, and partly be
cause he docs not want to shock his par
ents, or his friends, or to cause them
any unnecessary sorrow, and lying be
comes easier every time it Is practiced,
and at last a person will He at the very
smallest temptation nr.d even without any
temptation at all, hardly realizing himself
that he is not telHng the truth, and
when it comes to this point it is only a
very strong character that will be able to
redeem a person.
These are the different reasons that
make a sincere child or person become a
liar, and the mcst prominent of them Is
the desire to appear to be living a re
spectable life, when you know you are
not. The He is a mask that we wear
when we do not want people to .vco us as
we are; we get into the habit of lying
when there are too many things In our
life that we are ashamed of and that we
dare not admit.
(Copyright. 1D02. by W. TL. Hearst.)
So we have In. a sense namely, that a
first Impression preceded the second, when
both should have In point of time been
concurrent. The ordinary way of seeing
things Is conducted on the stereoscopic
j plan, where both Images are focused into
I one. If we disturb the brain's stereo-
sc'opy we get a double consciousness In
place of a single.
That for which Sir T. L. Bruntqn's lec
ture will be most serviceable Is the clear
exposition of the dependence of so-called
mysterious brain states on physical causes,
many of which medicine Is able to trace
out satisfactorily enough. Illusions or
hallucinations are referable often to dis
ease of the eye, and physcians know that
In certain special cases the existence of
hallucinations may be safely predicted I
am well aware the medical or scientific
phase of the explanation will not cover
the whole field. There are many Inci
dents of which doubtless science is unable
l to offer an adequate view In respect of
j their causation, but I would remind the
person who sits In tho chair of the scorner
that it is needless to taunt science with
an Inability to offer a clew to every mys
tery of mind when the alternative is de
clared to be a belief in ghosts and specters
as veritable outside entities. It Is a dan
gerous practice to fly off Into the region
of the unknown and to people It with
phantasies because science may not be
able to place her finger,, yet awhile, on the
exact cause of alleged miracles and super
normal wonders. The scientist, however,
has learned the lesson of patience as well
as that of hope; and more than ever in the
region of the brain, and its ways has
he cause to reflect "that the superstitions
of toduy assuredly tend to become the
commonplaces of tomorrow.
hex children If the father dies or she
leaves them, Is no less to be marveled at
If she has the courage to talk of beauti
ful motherhood to her girls, for whose
highest welfare she can do little, because
money must be saved agalnBt the future
of possible old age or Illness.
The whole race of mothers can do little
In the face of the present conditions un
less they are free from the ormcntlng
cares that come with the question of sup
porting the families. They are struggling
In a swift current and If they do not
speak word3 of encouragement to the
children, who cling for a while and then
strike out In the hope of more freedom,
they are not to be blamed.
Let the good bishop take the place of a
mother In a growing family for a short
time; let him be confronted with the nat
ural obligations of that place. Thero are
some who, having more imagination than
he, can picture the surroundings and
mental attitude which destroy the possi
bility of a mother's lnfluenco; and these
cry out, not against the women, but for
greater economic freedom, for the equal
opportunities which would make children
hopeful of a future and for those changes
which can be brought about only by the
use of tho ballot.
The bishop must go baok of the present
generation of mothers to the foundation
laying of the modern home, and he will
find It built unsteadily on a system creat
ed by man, who has had for centuries the
industrial and political power, while
woman was still acknowledged as his
property.
or If China for 3000 years had been as
warUke as she is industrious, and had
turned her spirit of Invention to arms,
or if at the moment of the discovery of
America Europeans had not Invented
gunpowder and the art of printing, and
had been found in a state of military In
feriority to the Aztecs and Peruvians. .
But chance ordained that of all types
Of clvIHzatlon. of all sheave rrMv.
j been spontaneously tossed Into divers
parts of the globe, tho type to which we
belong shpuld triumph. If It had not
prevailed another would have triumphed
in the end, for it Is certain and inevitable
that one among them all would have be
come universal, for they all seek univer
sality; that Is to say, they all tend to
propagato themselves lmltatlvely follow
ing a geometrical progression, like a wave
of light or sound, or Uke every kind of
animal and vegetable.
Ths imitation, far from choking the
proper originality of Individuals, favors
and nourishes it. The thing that Is con
trary to personal accentuation Is tho imi
tation of a single man upon whom one
models everything. But when Instead of
depending upon a certain one or a cer
tain few the imitation Is diffused to 100.
or to 1000, orO.000 people, each considered
under a particular aspect, the choice of
copies to Imitate in itself accentuates
our original personality.
ABSURDITIES OF THE PENAL SYSTEM
Dr. Charlton T. Lewis, the writer of this ar
ticle. Is one of the hlshest and best-known
authorities In the country "on all questions re
lating to crime and criminals. He has been
the president of the New York State Prison
Association for many years, and is ateo presi
dent of the Charities Aid Association of New
Jersey and chairman of the commission to re
vise the penal laws of that state. He Is also
known in the literary world as the author of
a "History of Germany."
ORGANIZED society everywhere must
deal with crime, seeking to keep It
In check and to eradicate It. The
degree of Its success has been small, no
apparent progress being made towards the
extinction of the criminal class and the
complete and undisturbed ascendancy of
cIvU order and security of private rights.
The detection and so-called punishment of
offenses against the law are as large a
part of the office of government as they
were a century ago, and there Is no evi
dence that under the systems which now
prevail there Is a material diminution
from year to year In the number of those
who live by preying upon others or in the
number of those whose lives are an habit
ual protest and revolt against social duty.
Something is wrong In the traditional
methods of dealing with crime, or else
the claim that civilization Is progressive
la subject to large qualifications.
But the history of penal law and Its ad
ministration shows that they are founded
upon no system, no reasoned body of
thought, no. principles of social science.
Almost all offenses against law are visited
with terms of imprisonment assigned as
penalties In proportion to the degree of
guilt which the lawmakers attach to the
acts defined as crimes. But this custom,
which Is embodied In the penal code of
every civilized state, has grown up by the
gradual modification of older and more
vindictive customs. It is not many gen
erations since the prison was regarded
merely as a place of detention, and the
penalties for crimes were" death, mutila
tion, whipping, or other forma of torture.
A3 men became more refined and humane
these barbarities gave place to milder
treatment. An Immense experience proved
that the terrors of such cruelties had,
on the whole, no important deterring ef
fect upon criminals, and, as the most
convenient way to dispose of them with
out shocking the humane feelings, "Im
prisonment for graded terms was, little
by little, substituted for the gallows, the
stocks, the whipping-post and the ampu
tation of the cars or the splitting of the
nose. But still there has been retained,
as the avowed purpose In awarding1 legal
BABIES have always been a subject
of perennial Interest in the world,
but so completely have we been in
the way of regarding them from a sent
imental point of view that It has made
us overlook many of their most Import
ant characteristics. This is unjust.
Babies are not merely themes -for the
rhapsodist. The yare subjects for the
study of ( the philosopher as well.
No one, of course. Is going to say a
word against babies at this late day.
They are one of the things that we can
neither get along with nor without, and,
although they do not speak the language
of the country when they arrive and come
in with as little baggage as a pauper
immigrant, we all welcome them as most
desirable additions to our population. As
an Insplrer of poetry and a warning
against matrimony they have no equal; as
an ornament to a house they are the
most expensive bric-a-brac known, while
as constituents for future politicians they
are a ' necesity for which no substitute
can be provided. Still, for all that, there
are points about the baby that we have
failed to give their proper consideration.
Disassociated from the halo that hangs
around the cradle, one fact that stands
out most prominently Is that the baby
leads the list of the world's relentless ty
rants. It Is nothing less than absurd
that when we want a synonym for grind
ing despotism we speak of Nero or
Caligula when there is a baby around to
illustrate our remarks. There are times
when the hardest mature heart Is touched
with pity or remorse, but a baby is ad
amant. Did anybody ever know a baby to sym
pathize enough with its tortured family
to quit howling and let them go to sleep?
Never. Haven't we seen a compasslonless
HOW CAN
EMERSON says that America Is God's
great chaflty to the race, but true
religion working with the added
power which scienco gWe3 is greater than
America, and will purify, ennoble and
transform our life Into some likeness to
the divine ideals, which as yet we but
simply discern.
We have already learned that a man's
chief value does not Ho In his ability to
conquer with sword and shell, and we are
coming to understand that It lies just as
little In his ability to manipulate machin
ery or to get money.
Comte thinks that Christianity is the
consecration of egoism, and It Is a fact
that It regards primarily the Individual,
and assorts the supreme worth of person
ality. But It also insists that tho Individ
ual can rightly develop and find himself
only in devotlns: his thought and life to
the love and service of God and his fel
low man. It would found on earth a
kingdom of heaven in which obedience
to the will of God. which Is good will to
man, shall be an all-controlling constitu
tional principle and law, and beneficence
the universal means of personal and so
cial advancement.
We must be benefactors that wo may
become able to love our fellows, for If
we incline to hate those whom we wrong,
more surely are we drawn to love those
to whom we- do good. They who live with
whatsoever things are true, gracious,
pure and amiable, continue to grow In
mental and moral power, and the good
of life lies in the mental and moral dis
positions which a disinterested conduct
creates and fosters within us.
As matter is but life's setting, not Its
substance, solf wo would go to the suc
cor of those who fall In right living, we
must give them our interest, sympathy,
BY DR. CHARLTON T. LEWIS, PH. D.
penalties, the distribution of suffering In
proportion to the supposed demerit of the
offender. One who steals from a dwelling
at night Is supposed to deserve severer
punishment than one who pilfers by day
light, and must therefore be Imprisoned
for a longer term.
The penal law deals with offenses, while
penal administration ideals with offenders.
There- Is- no possibility of adjusting the
laws to the actual work to be done, upon
the theory of fitting the pepaltles to the .
offender's desert. The laws In general
regard criminals as a class, to be treated
without individual discrimination: but in
fact the persons who come before the
criminal courts differ as widely among
themselves as any other members of the
community. There are habitual or profes
sional criminals, made such, some by
heredity, some by Invincible habit, some
by gross defects amounting to moral
Idiocy. The Instinctive criminal will pre
fer vice to virtue and crime to. orderly
conduct. Others are simply persons of
strong passion who yield to temptation,
but whose desires and sympathies are
with good citizenship. Many are men of
more than ordinary sense of duty, who
have yielded to Influences sufficient to
overcome all but exalted virtue. Again,
there are among them those who, while
prone to excess of passion, would scorn
dishonesty or theft; while some are eager
to gain by fraud, and yet Incapable of vio
lence or cruelty. In short, a collection of
so-called criminals shows endless vari
eties In natural ability, learning, habit,
passion, and even conscience just as It
shows varieties In height, weight, color
of hair and of health, like any other com
munity. The law which Includes all these vari
ous classes In one category and trents
them alike can never be administered
with Justice, nor so as to meet the needs
of society. Any law which comprehends
under one class, to be treated by the
same method, the brigand or burglar,
who knows no other calling, and the be
wildered and despairing mother who pil
fers to save her child from starving, la
self-condemned. But If our laws are to
meet and solve the problem of crime,
they must provide for the treatment ot
all offenders, and this treatment must
be adapted to the nature of each.
The only satisfactory principle with
which to set out in the study of the prob
lem Is this: It 13 the duty of society to
protect Itself, to secure civil order and
private rights, and to extirpate the crim
inal class. Crime must be controlled
where It exists, and every effort must bp
TYRANNY OF THE
BY DOROTHY DIX
infant make a poor, weak, suffering
mother walk It until she was nearly ready
to drop with fatigue? Haven't we seen
an aged grandparent forced to make a
Roman holiday for some barbarous little
fiend by getting down on his poor, rheu
matic old knees and playing horse? And
yet, instead of ruthlessly murdering the
Infant tyrant, these poor victims of nurs
ery oppression actually hug their chains
and glory in their slavery-
Another almost wierd thing about a
baby is its power of hypnotism. How
it does It Heaven alone knows, but every
baby alive has but to fix Its parents with
Its wandering gaze and make a few
passes at them with Its wobbly hand,
and they forthwith see beauty In a crea
ture with no more hair on Its head than
a billiard ball, a fishy eye with no eye
brows, a rudimentary nose and a loose
mouth, and perceive Intelligence in a
countenance that has no more expression
to It than a plate of cream cheese. Still
more remarkable, otherwise sane people
of Irreproachable taste not only do not
resent being thought to resemble such a
looking Individual, but actually glory
In It.
Another characteristic of babies that we
are In the way of ignoring Is their deceit
fulness. They look Innocent, but thoy
are ful of guile, and deep, very, very
deep. Take the mere matter of physical
strength, for Instance. The baby Is
entered In the featherweight class and
apparently Is no match for a grown per
son, yet In a single Sunday afternoon, on
tho nurse's day out, a little creature that
Is still so unsteady on his legs he falls
at every turn can wear an able-bodied
man out to a fragile and make him feel
that he has been engaged In a six days'
continuous walking match.
Tho moral effect of a baby In a house
WE ALL BENEFIT
BY BISHOP J. L. SPAULDING
confidence and affection more than our
money. j
The special vice of the thriftless and
delinquent is heedlessness and reckless
ness. We must train them to fore
thought, attention and consideration, and
personal interest, not almsgiving, is the
proper means whereby this may be ac
complished. If we would save them, we
must save them from themselves.
The purest charity consists in doing the
spiritual rather than In doing the corporal
works of mercy, since the essential sood
is the good of the soul. Let us have con
fidence in whatever Increases the power
of the soul, confidence ln-cnowledge, sci
ence, freedom and labor, persuaded that
riches are good only when they are the
possession of the wise and ,the just. It
Is easier to be generous than to be just.
The generous win approval, while the
just are often misunderstood and suspect
ed of lack of heart.
The poor love the poor, . because they
give their thoughts and time to one an
other. They do not love the rich, because
the rich give them only money.
Mere advice has little efficacy, for what
we all need In nearly all situations is
not so much a clearer view of right as a
more fervent desire, a more determined
will to do right, and this advice cannot
supply. No system of dogma or morals,
however much It be preached, can regen
erate the world. If reason alone con
trolled us, the world would be a waste.
If the universe of metaphysics and of
science were not an fTstractlon, it would
be a hell, where faith, hope and love
would become Impossible, for they are
nourished and kept alive, not by . specula
tion and research, but by unselfish serv
ice, generous deeds and heroic endeavor.
Among the ancients the unfortunate
made, first to prevent it. and then to de
stroy It. It Is no part of the business of
organized society to inflict punishment.
The conception of distributive justice
must be eliminated from criminal law,
before it can be made consistent and ef
fective. The attempt to treat men ac
cording to their merits Is hopeless; the
attempt to use offenders who are caught
In order to deter others from similar of
fenses, has always been unavailing', and
only confuses and impairs the laws in
which It Is embodied. The use of prisons
for the confinement of men has been
carried to an excessive and Injurious ex
tent, and should be reduced within as
narrow limits as practicable. In partic
ular, the county jails throughout the
country, and very many penal institu
tions ot the states, are schools of crime,
and do far more harm than good. In fact,
the criminal class Is largely the produce
of these prisons, the greater part of all
the professional enemies of society havinjr
received their education in these jails.
The young man who is sent to one of
them for a trifling offense Is not only
degraded before the comunlty. so that It
Is hard for him to lift his head again, but
is commonly corrupted by the associations
there found, so that he is morally ruined.
But to justify imprisonment thero
should be satisfactory evidence of a crim
inal disposition. The mere outward act
named and defined in the law Is not such
evidence. I have no doubt that by far
the majority ot those who are sentenced
to Imprisonment ought never to have been
confined. The most Important step In tho
reform of penal laws which has ever yet
been taken Is In the probation laws which
have recently been adopted In many
states. These authorize the court. In tha
case of a person who has violated for tho
first time the penal laws. If there is noth
ing In the circumstances or In his charac
ter to make his freedom dangerous to so
ciety, to place the offender under tha
guardianship of a probation officer ap
pointed by the court. He may then, dur
ing the term of his probation, follow hl3
accustomed pursuits under the influences
of home and friends, with ther added guid
ance and supervision of the probation
officer. Already this experiment has been
productive "of most encouraging results In
diminishing the number of the pupils of
crime in our prisons.- When It Is univer
sally practiced It will be found, beyond
doubt, the most effective means of re
venting the recruiting of the criminal'
class. The reformatory, the indeterminate
sentence and the probation law are tha
most potent meanji which have ever yet
been found for dealing with the problem
of crime.
INFANT
hold can only be compared to the deluge
that washes away all the familiar land
marks by which you knew the place.
Before the advent of the baby your
friends may have been people of the most
exquisite tact, the nicest regard for tho
rights of others, and a wide and catholla
interest in the doings of the world. The
baby changes all that. The world nar
rows down to a single topic of interest
and that Is baby. Common decency of
civilty flics before a perambulator, and
'you are welcome or unwelcome according
to the amount of enthusiasm you can
muster up about the baby.
So far as your own pleasure Is con
cerned, nobody In a house where there la
a baby makes a pretense of considering
It. Your brightest witticism falls Hat
and stale before a gurgle of infant vola
puk; the most startling piece of n'ewa
does not create one-millionth part of tha
sensation that does the Intelligence that
the baby has cut a tooth. Try to tell
a good story and just at the critical mo
ment the Imbecile pnrent Interrupts you
to call your attention to the cute way
In which the baby is looking at you
through the chair, and you succumb to
the Inevitable and talk sterilized baby
talk until It is time to go home. Conver
sation with young parents has to be as
carefully adapted as a French farce for
a debutante.
But for all that the- baby has plenty
of virtues of his own. He is more re
liable than an alarm clock for getting
people up In the morning. He ha3 tho
advantage of a settled purpose in llfo
from the start, for he knows what ha
wants and howls for It until he gets It,
while as a scapegoat for the family a
standing excuse for the things they can't
do because of the baby and the things
they do do because of the baby he is
simply an invaluable and unapproachable
blessing.
MANKIND?
were held to be accursed, hateful to tha
divinities, and consequently without title
to the pity of men.
In no things has Christianity wrought
a more radical change than in the world's
attitude toward the weak and heavy
laden. Christianity withstood the super
stition and mercllessness to which cen
turies had given a kind of reiigious sanc
tion, and taught by .word and deed that
the more sinful, the more ignorant, tho
more abandoned our fellows are. the
greater their claims on our attention and
service.
If we were true Christians, we should
be able to labor for our fellows with such
confidence that nor baseness, nor Ingrati
tude, nor faithlessless of however many
of those whom we seek to help would
have power to cool our ardor or diminish
our zeal. Though the world abut us
should appear to crave for nothing but
money and sensation, we would none tha
less dedicate whatsoever of ability Gcd
has give us to redeem our brothers from
themselves, and if in the end we should
have accomplished nothing we should at
least have escaped an ignoble life.
The purest .pleasure Is to give pleasure,
and the highest glory belongs to theso
who labor earnestly, both by thinking
and by doing, to make truth, justice and
love prevail.
The universe was made for eiyh ono
of us, and for each one the world will bo
fair and pleasant In the degree In which
he strives to make it so for others.
It is not possible to respect one's self
and to make no sacrifice for one's fellow
men. In coming closer to one another to
help those who need help, we shall make
ourselves more capable of seeing and con
fessing the Ufo the work and words of
Christ reveal.
t