Outrages against law and justice depend to a certain extent on locality for their distinctive character. The desperate hand-to-hand encounters which have so long characterized a certain class of society in the border states, are as different in motive from that of the cool Connecticut poisoner, as the assassin of our aristocratic circles is dissimilar to the ruffian of the slums.
When we ascribe homicide to the criminal classes of America, we do not assume it to be a national sin, for though of late we have read of some cases in New England and the West, and know of many deliberate ones in this vicinity, we refer specially in our analysis to the remote Southern and Southwestern states, where the bowie-knife, the rifle, and the revolver are considered much more efficacious and prompt in the settlement of disputes than the slower and less exciting appeal to the courts. It may be said that this is the natural consequence of the war, the termination of which has thrown out of employment many desperate men habituated to the use of arms; but this is only partially true, for the same state of society existed in New Orleans, Arkansas, and along the banks of the Mississippi many years anterior to the late internecine contest. Lawless men of every grade, gamblers, horse-thieves, the idle, and the debauched, have for nearly two generations infested those and neighboring localities; deadly quarrels were constantly springing up, and were decided in a moment by the death of one if not of both disputants; and the public authorities, whenever they dared to interfere, were sure to be set at defiance, if not maltreated. The same state of affairs exists to this day, but in a modified form, and there seems to have been no way discovered to alter it.
Still, the American people as a whole are not responsible for what might be called a local disorganization of society, grown out of their rapidly-extending settlements, whence flock naturally many outcasts, vagabonds, and reckless men, anxious to escape the odium of public opinion and the chastisement that awaited them in the older and more thickly settled communities of the East. But our country, with a better show of reason, may be accused of condoning, if not of actually encouraging, a widespread system of political and commercial dishonesty, an offence which, though not by any means as bad as the taking of human life in its direct consequences, indirectly encourages and promotes the commission of the greater crime. A legislator or a judge who can be guilty of taking bribes, is sure, the one to make bad laws and the other to execute good ones corruptly. Criminals who have political or moneyed influence are allowed to escape with impunity, with a carte blanche to continue their nefarious business. Whoever has read the proceedings of the several investigating committees in Washington during the last session of Congress, and of our State Senate acting as a court of impeachment during the summer of 1872, will hardly doubt the truth of this assertion.
This spirit of bribery, false swearing and peculation we find prevailing, among some of the most prominent members of the national Congress, who, these investigations have shown, are not above the acceptance of paltry bribes for the use or abuse of their high delegated authority; we find it in many of our state legislatures, particularly when a United States senator is to be elected or the interest of a railroad company, a corporation, or a wealthy private individual is to be subserved by forcing or retarding legislation; and it is a matter of public notoriety that among the officers of municipal corporations, notably our own, where integrity, if in any place, should find a home, the most unblushing robbery, swindling, and false swearing have prevailed for years. Again, let us look at the history of our large banks and insurance companies. There is scarcely a week passes but we hear of defaulting officers and clerks who, after years of secret, continuous stealing and false entries, finally decamp, leaving it to be discovered that the aggregate amount of their individual abstractions reaches tens and hundreds of thousands. What makes this "respectable" species of larceny so heartless and reprehensible is, that the money so stolen does not actually belong to the institutions themselves, but to the public, and generally the poorer classes, who are depositors or policyholders. It is significant that in proportion to the number of counting-houses superintended by their owners to the number of banks and insurance companies the trust-funds of which are in keeping of paid officials, the number of defalcations in the former are as a mere nothing compared with those of the latter. Why? In one case, the merchant is liable to lose his own money by negligence; in the other, the president and directors lose only that of other people, and thus a criminal betrayal of trust is added to swindling.
Now, these blots on the national escutcheon are of comparatively recent date, and are the result mainly of two causes: the late war, which suddenly elevated an ignorant and ignoble class to enormous wealth, and the corruption of politics and politicians by the unguarded and unchecked abuse of universal suffrage. The shoddyites and the politicians, having no claim on the respect or esteem of honest men, commenced a career of extravagance and vulgar display, which, if it did not win the approbation of the judicious and refined, certainly was well calculated to dazzle the moral vision of the vain and unstable. Palaces, diamonds, and resplendent equipages became the order of the day, and their effect on the integrity of the staid men of business was marked and deleterious in the highest degree. Mrs. A., whose husband before the war was doing a thriving little business and was content with an occasional drive in a hired light-wagon, now enjoyed the luxury of a private carriage and liveried servants; consequently Mrs. B., whose husband was cashier in a bank at two or three thousand a year, must have one similar. Mr. C., who was a resident of the Sixth or Seventh Ward previous to his election to office, and occupied part of a comfortable house, now lived in a handsome mansion on Madison or Fifth avenues; hence Mr. D., who was confidential clerk in a large importing house, abandoned his cosy cottage in the suburbs and followed his old friend's example. Now, how are B. and D. to support this luxury? Clearly, not out of their salaries. Having control of the funds and enjoying the confidence of their employers, they abstract the money and rush into Wall or New Streets to gamble in gold or stocks. They are not common thieves—oh! no; they only borrowed from time to time large sums of cash from the true owners, intending to return it; but they never do so! For a short time they are lucky, and are able to keep place in a course of wild dissipation with A. and C., but sooner or later a crisis arrives, there is "a panic in the street," and they lose all. Then follow flight, detection, and public exposure—in any well-regulated community, we might add dishonor. But it is not so; for, you see, this is the age of progress and enlightenment. The public think very lightly of such matters, probably from their very frequency, and soon forget them; the "knowing ones" condemn the fugitives only for not having been "smart" enough; the bank or insurance authorities compromise the felony for a consideration, for it is only the public, not themselves personally, who have suffered; and, after a brief sojourn in Europe or Canada, the criminals return to the bosom of their families prepared to enter on some new field of peculation.
As for the political rogues, no one seems to heed their depredations. Public opinion has become so vitiated that it is expected every man in office will steal; in fact, some persons go so far as to say they ought to steal, holding it a trivial affair to appropriate large amounts of the people's money, while they would hesitate long before advising any one to rob a till or strip a clothes-line. We recollect an official in this city who for a wonder was so honest that he was poorer when he resigned than when he accepted office. Upon being met on an occasion by a friend and congratulated on having been able to purchase one of the largest hotels in New York out of the "spoils," the gentleman indignantly resented the insult in no measured terms. His acquaintance laughed quietly, and walked away with an expression of mingled pity and contempt on his countenance.
Now this lust for gain, this inordinate love of display, which leads the inexperienced and weak-minded into so many unworthy actions, should be abated, if we hope to preserve anything like commercial honor and political purity. They are eating into the very vitals of society, infecting the very highest as well as the lowest class in the community; and though the consequences to which they lead may not appear so heinous as other crimes, they are so far-reaching and so general that they might well be classed with those to which the law attaches its severest penalties. There was a time, not very far distant, when the idea of attempting to bribe a senator, or what is called "buying up" a state legislature, would have been considered preposterous, and when the counting-house and the banker's desk were considered the temple and altar, as it were, of honesty and integrity. Why is it that so lamentable a change has taken place, and in so short a time? Clearly, because an insatiate longing for the acquisition of wealth, speedily and with as little labor as possible, has taken possession of the present generation, and in a headlong pursuit of fortune, honor, reputation, and conscience are too often cast aside and forgotten. This should not be so in a country like ours of unlimited resources, and where industry and ability need never look in vain for a competency.
But a more diabolical crime against all law, natural, human, and divine, is the system, so prevalent in some sections of this country, of mothers depriving their inchoate offspring of existence even on the very threshold of their entrance into the world. So unnatural is this offence that it is beyond the power of language to reprobate it adequately, and in charity we hope that the guilty votaries of ease and fashion, who perpetrate such horrible atrocities, do not realize the full turpitude of their acts. We had long refused to believe that such a violation, not only of God's law, but of the strongest and most beautiful instincts of our nature—the parent's love for her child—existed to any great extent, but we have been so often assured of it by physicians and other reputable persons conversant with such matters, that we have been forced to admit as true the existence among us of a crime that would disgrace the veriest savage. We are assured that in certain localities, which we shall not particularize, the evil is not only widespread but is growing into a custom, and this extraordinary fact is adduced as one of the reasons why the children of native-born parents are so few in proportion to those of foreigners. If we were to look for a primary cause for such barbaric criminality in merely human motives, we should fail to find one at all commensurate with the enormity of the guilt. The wish of married women to be freed from the care of young children, so that they, being unincumbered by household duties and cares, may participate in outdoor pleasures, attend the opera, the theatres, concerts, and ball-rooms, has been advanced with some force as one of the reasons; but this is not sufficient, for we find the heinous practice prevailing in remote towns and villages where no such attractions are presented. The laws of civil marriage and of divorce, as recognized in most of the states of the Union; that curse of what is called modern civilization; that fatal legacy handed down to us by the "Reformers," has much to answer for in this respect. Protestantism has reduced the holy sacramental bond of matrimony beneath the level of a limited co-partnership, degraded the nuptial contract below the most trivial commercial obligation, annihilated its responsibilities, destroyed its safeguards, and even wishes to go further—to ignore the very shadow of marriage, from which it has long since taken the substance. The purchase of a piece of land or the delivery of a bale of goods is now attended with more ceremony than that sacred rite at which our Saviour himself attended in Galilee and at which he performed his first miracle! How deeply has humanity been made to suffer for the bestiality of Henry Tudor and the apostasy of the monk of Augsburg! Is it any wonder then that a link, so thoughtlessly accepted and so lightly worn, should be as unceremoniously sundered, and that the woman, who does not know but on the morrow she may be either plaintiff or defendant in a divorce suit, should be adverse to bringing into the world children which either parent may claim or disown?
But the grand motive cause is to be found still deeper. If the truth must be told, the masses of the people of this noble country are fast sinking into intellectual paganism, beside which that of imperial Rome was harmless and innocuous. Protestantism, as has often been predicted, has nearly reached its logical conclusion—infidelity. Read the sermons of the prominent sensational preachers, their newspapers and periodicals, and what do you find in them? No stern lessons of Christian morality; no appeals to the moral conscience or exposition of the beauties of the cardinal virtues; no dogma, as befits heaven-appointed guides; no doctrine such as only the ordained of God can preach and teach; but, instead, stale tirades against Catholicity, rehashed lyceum lectures, and fragments of stump-speeches delivered before the last election and interlarded with pious ejaculations to suit the occasion, apologies for being Christians at all, and occasional efforts to explain away Christianity itself—all covered over with a thin veil of cant and mock philanthropy.
Do we find these so-called ministers telling their congregations that marriage is an indissoluble tie, which no man can burst asunder; that the object of it is to enable husband and wife to live together happily and to bring up their children in the love and fear of God; that to take the life of an infant ante-natal is a dark, deadly, mortal sin; that no living human being who has not received baptism can ever see the face of God; and that whoever wilfully deprives her helpless babe of that ineffable delight will have to account for that lost soul to its Maker? Oh! no; that might shock the sensibilities of their audiences, and might lead to their own expulsion from their livings. Is it surprising, then, that a vice so much in harmony with the working of human passions, as apparently devoid of all moral responsibility as it is free from civil punishment, should be so frequently and so freely indulged in by those whose base inclinations are unchecked and unregulated by anything like true Christian teaching?