Known to the Police

by Thomas Holmes

Crime, too, has changed in some respects. There are fewer crimes of violence; there is less brutality, less debauchery, less drinking; but—and I would like to write it very large—there is more dishonesty, which is a more insidious evil.

Here again I am tempted to philosophic inquiry, or to engage in some attempt to answer the question—Are we as a nation becoming more dishonest? I answer at once, We are.

For twenty-five years I have watched the trend of crime, for the past ten years I have closely studied our criminal statistics, and I can say that personal experience and a close study of our annual criminal statistics confirm me in this matter.

Some explanation of the growth of dishonesty may be found in the social changes that have been going on. As education advanced the number of men and women employed as clerks, salesmen, and business assistants multiplied, and it follows that the temptations to, and opportunities for, dishonesty multiplied also. For years a large transference of boys and young men from the labouring and artisan life to the clerk's desk or to the shop-counter has been going on. The growth in the number of persons employed as distributors of the necessaries of life, who day after day receive, on behalf of their employers, payments for bread, milk, meat, coal, etc., multiplies enormously the facilities for dishonest actions.

Most of those engaged in this class of work come from the homes of the poor, and in too many cases receive insufficient payment for arduous and responsible services. Still, I am sure that we must not look for the reason of this growing dishonesty in the multiplication of the opportunities, or to sudden temptations caused by the stress of poverty.

To what, then, shall it be attributed? I do not hesitate to answer this question, by replying at once: To that lack of moral backbone and grit to which I have alluded; to the absence of direct principles; to the desire of enjoying pleasures that cannot be afforded, and of spending money not honestly acquired. Some people to whom I have spoken on this subject have said to me: "But these are the faults of the rich; surely they are not the sins of the poor." And I have said: "Well, you know more of the rich than I do, so maybe they are characteristic of both." Though I do not believe them to be national characteristics, sorrowfully I say the trend is in that direction. I know perfectly well that some people will say that this is the croaking of one who is growing old, and that old men always did, and always will, believe in the decadence of the present age.

But this is not so. I am a born optimist. I believe in the ultimate triumph of good. I believe that humanity has within itself a sufficiency of good qualities to effect its social salvation. Nevertheless, I am afraid of this growing dishonesty, for I have seen something of its consequences. Sneaking peculations, small acts of dishonesty, miserable embezzlements, falsified accounts, and contemptible frauds, have damned the lives of thousands, and the strands of life are covered by human wrecks, whose anchorage has been so weak that the veriest puff of wind has driven them to destruction.

I know something of the evils of drink; I have seen much of the blighting influence of gambling; but dishonesty is more certain and deadly in its effects among educated and ignorant alike: for it begins in secrecy, it is continued in duplicity, it destroys the moral fibre, and it ends with death.

I have said that the police-court processions are not so interesting as in years gone by: probably that is a superficial view, for humanity is, and must be always, equally interesting. It may not be as picturesque, but that is a surface view only, and we really want to know what is beneath. But the underneath takes some discovering, and when we get there it is only to find that there is still something lower still.