The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Criminal & the Community, by James Devon

THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY

THE CRIMINAL &
THE COMMUNITY

BY JAMES DEVON
MEDICAL OFFICER OF H.M.
PRISON AT GLASGOW WITH
AN INTRODUCTION BY
PROF. A. F. MURISON, LL.D.

“GREAT MEN ARE NOT ALWAYS WISE:
NEITHER DO THE AGED UNDERSTAND
JUDGMENT.
THEREFORE I SAID, HEARKEN UNTO ME;
I ALSO WILL SHEW MINE OPINION.”
Job XXXII. 10, 11.

TORONTO: BELL AND COCKBURN
LONDON: JOHN LANE MCMXII

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS
PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND

TO
MATTHEW G. KELSO
AND
SAMUEL GIBSON
FRIENDS INDEED

INTRODUCTION

The importance of the subjects handled in this volume requires no demonstration. Already, and for long, the treatment of them has naturally engaged the sympathetic study of philanthropists, and more recently it has attracted the earnest attention of scientific inquirers. Hitherto, however, the results have been far from satisfactory; and there is ample room for further discussion, especially from the standpoint of a thoroughly practical man with large experience both of criminals and of the social conditions that breed them.

Nowadays there is a growing sense of social interdependence; there is a more general and a more definitely realized aim to elevate the condition of the less fortunate of our fellow-citizens; there are express efforts of scientific investigators to discover a firm basis for practical reforms; and practical reforms are urgent. Such tendencies of thought and feeling may be expected to go far to ensure a warm welcome to this volume.

Dr. Devon’s book is executed on a breadth of scale never before attempted. It has three distinct parts: The Criminal; Common Factors in the Causation of Crime; The Treatment of the Criminal. His exposition is perfectly clear; he sees precisely, and he states directly, simply, and definitely what he sees and what he thinks about it, very frequently driving home a point with epigrammatic force. If he throws overboard unceremoniously what he regards as mere lumber accumulated by the industry of speculation divorced from experience; if he betrays some impatience with existing theories and systems; if he advances his own views with confidence—the handling is at any rate piquant, and brings the matter promptly to a head.

We are supposed to have travelled far from the mediæval brutality of prison life, but have the changes not been superficial rather than deep? Setting aside the catalogue of minor regulations and regarding the broad spirit of prison life, one cannot but recognize that the conditions still prevailing have much in common with the past. If we look for the really essential changes during a hundred years, we find just these: (1) a surface cleanliness of apparent perfection; (2) conversation, prison visits, and arrangements tending towards a decent sociability between prisoners and prisoners and between prisoners and the public reduced and rendered difficult by multitudinous bye-laws. On the one hand, a cleanliness obtainable only by irritating industry disproportionate to its proper value; on the other hand, a reduction of such facilities as are most likely to prevent a prisoner from degenerating to a social alien, an automatic machine, or a lunatic.

The after-effects of a long sojourn in prison are not readily realizable: it would require a very lively imagination to picture the life and its inherent possibilities. The fact that some prisoners do manage to get through their existence without falling into despair may be taken rather as a tribute to the chances of exception confounding rule than as a proof of conversion to virtue through punishment. It is too much to expect that an ordinary man that has been incarcerated for a period of seven, or five, or even three years, can become, on his liberation, once more a “respectable” member of society. His spirit has been cowed; his self-respect has been annihilated; he has been disqualified for reabsorption in the community; he has been prepared to gravitate once more towards crime and prison.

Another unfortunate aspect is the position of the prison warder. Apart from the care of those under him, he is subject to so much personal discipline—is so much the slave of “Rules”—that his life often becomes little superior to that of his charges. In point of social origin or of intellectual attainments he is not inferior to the ordinary policeman; but, while the policeman is taught by society, the warder spends most of his time in an atmosphere of degradation, fatal both to character and to intellect.

We are pretty well agreed that consideration and sympathy should be extended to the first offender, except in case of sheer brutality—and, as Dr. Devon points out, even a man that commits an act of brutality is not necessarily a brute—for the first offender is usually the victim of “accidental misconduct.” In the case of the habitual offender, who returns to prison time after time for various transgressions, it would seem judicious to keep him permanently from actual freedom, but to treat him more as a diseased and positively dangerous man than as a noxious animal. At any rate, first offenders should not be herded together with case-hardened criminals.

Dr. Devon argues stoutly for the liberation of prisoners when responsible citizens come forward to undertake for necessary periods the guardianship and care of them. On this point it is important to note his precise position: it is not for a moment to be thought that he advocates any reckless liberation of scoundrels upon society. Let us see his actual words: “Unconditional liberation has ended in disaster to all concerned. Conditional liberation can only be expected to produce good results if the conditions are reasonable.... A prison ought merely to be a place of detention in which offenders are placed till some proper provision is made for their supervision and means of livelihood in the community.... The prison in which they would be placed would not be a reformatory institution where all sorts of futile experiments would be made, but simply a place of detention in which they would be required each to attend on himself until he had made up his mind to accept the greater degree of liberty implied in life outside. The door of his cell would be opened to let him out when he had reached this conclusion; but it would not be opened to let him out, as at present, to play a game of hare and hounds with the police.” The argument hinges on the conditions.

Side by side with this, the State might well note the advantage of pursuing the scheme of letting first offenders out on probation; giving them guidance and help in welldoing, and impressing upon them the inevitable consequence of restraint in case of violation of the law. In this way the transgressor—unless he be of the stuff of which arrant evildoers are made—seems more likely to feel repentance instead of remorse. He is shown clearly the power and the certainty of the law; and at the same time he avoids the stain a prison life must inevitably have left, even though the imprisonment had been of a comparatively short duration.

Dr. Devon expounds, with irresistible logic, an argument in favour of a proper training of the class most in need of it. It must not be forgotten that ignorance cannot be expected to reason, and that poverty is heavily handicapped. Many offenders do evil simply because they have never known good. To punish these with blind and brutish vehemence is only a little less callous than ill-treatment of mental derelicts and little children. The principal aims of a prison system are presumably to punish offenders and to induce them not to offend again. In neither case can the present system be regarded as successful: it provides neither a proper punishment nor an effective deterrent. That the influence is brutalising cannot be ignored: the savage become bestial, the refined become tragically shamed outcasts.

It is not to be anticipated that Dr. Devon will at all points and at once conciliate agreement. Probably he is the last man to expect it. Perhaps it is even undesirable that his views should be accepted without keen discussion. But Dr. Devon is a seasoned warrior, well accustomed to fight his own battles; and no man is readier to acknowledge frankly a sound criticism.

Dr. Devon begins and ends on the same note: absolute necessity for the “recognition of social conditions as they exist.” Yes, “as they exist”; and not otherwise. His official position as medical officer of a large prison for more than half a generation, and a long experience as one of the examiners for the Crown for criminal cases in the West of Scotland, give him a right to a hearing on the medical and official aspects of the subject. There have been other writers that could claim official knowledge of the subject but Dr. Devon’s qualifications on the social side are exceptional. He was helping to earn his own living before he was eleven, and his knowledge of the conditions of life among the working class has not been acquired from the outside. He had a practical acquaintanceship with the work of the unskilled labourer and of the artisan before he began the study of medicine; and his professional life, spent mainly in the poorhouse and the prison, has given him opportunities for outside observation of conditions with which he had had an earlier and more intimate acquaintance. He has been emphatically a man of the people, going in and out among his fellow-citizens of all classes for many years—lecturing, sharing confidences, advising and counselling every day, and, in a word, familiarising himself with every aspect of the diversified social life around him; an incalculable advantage when utilized by a keen intellect and a sympathetic heart.

It will be found, then, that he has brought together the two factors of the problem—the Criminal and Society—with a solvent power beyond any previous effort. I believe that his book is the most illuminating and the wisest that has ever been written on the subject.

CONTENTS

PART I
THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL

THE CRIMINAL & THE COMMUNITY

CHAPTER I

THE CRIMINAL AND THE CRIMINOLOGISTS

Classification of criminals—The treatment of the criminal not a medical but a social question—Technical differences between crimes and offences—Changes in the law—Vice and crime—The beginner in crime—Common characters of the “criminal class”—Atrocious crimes exceptional—So-called scientific studies of the criminal—How figures mislead—Composite photographs and averages—Estimate of character from physical examination—Causal relationship to crime of these characters.

People were never more anxious to reform their neighbours than they are in our day. Everyone admits the widespread existence of misery, degradation, and destitution; and many seem to think that the presence of these evils is a modern phenomenon. Any man who has reached middle age and who has lived and worked among the masses of the people knows better. The evils are not new, but their widespread recognition is.

For ages the few have been the governors of the many, and the governed have neither had the means nor the ability to communicate with their rulers and with one another. In our day the ends of the earth have been brought together by the invention of the engineer, and the schoolmaster has been abroad among the people. The writer reaches a larger contemporary audience, and the message of the speaker is carried over a greater area than was ever before possible. Whether this has been wholly an advantage may be questioned; but there can be no doubt that things that were hidden have been made manifest, and one result has been that laws and institutions which our fathers accepted have been placed on their trial.

Our system of dealing with criminals has not escaped criticism and has not borne it well. Like all systems, it is based largely on the assumption that men are, or ought to be, of one pattern. It is charged with failing to reform those who come under its sway; but there is nothing to show that it was designed for their reformation.

Men are brought under it as a punishment; and their acts, not their personality, are the cause of their imprisonment.

Experience has shown that the military man who applies impartially a set of rules to those who come under him has not been a success when placed in charge of an institution for dealing with offenders. It is not that he is less human than others, but that he is more rigid. Differences among those placed in his charge have always been recognised; for instance, they could not all be treated as though they were the same height, nor could it be assumed that it was possible to secure uniformity amongst them in this respect; but only the most obvious differences were regarded. Even elementary classifications could not be left to the man whose duty it was to administer rules, and so the doctor’s aid was obtained in order to sort out those who were physically unfit to do any but light work; those to whom the diet was unsuited; and those who required to have special privileges granted them lest the system killed them. It is sometimes much easier to call in the doctor than to get rid of him; and largely on account of his work it has been shown that all classifications hitherto made have been inadequate. In the name of science he demands still further classifications.

Men can only be placed in classes because of certain qualities they have in common. Every classification must neglect individual differences; and as it is these that mark men off one from another, any system or method of dealing with men will fail in so far as they are left out of account. The treatment of the criminal is not a medical question. It is a social question.

A medical training is of more use to a man who is to study the subject than a military training would be. It is important to be able to form a rational opinion on the physical and mental capacity of a man; to know whether he suffers from any disease which impairs his faculties and to be able to direct treatment to the cure of that disease; but a considerable degree of knowledge regarding these things may coexist with an amazing amount of ignorance regarding the social conditions under which the person examined has been brought up and formed. Give the medical man head and, so far as he is merely a medical man, he will be a more expensive nuisance than the military administrator.

A great deal has been written about the study of the criminal, but any such study is defective and can only be misleading in so far as it is not a study of offenders in relation to their circumstances. “Criminal” is as loose a term as “tradesman.” It may mean anything, but so far as any real study is concerned it usually means nothing of any importance except to the printing and allied trades. When the character of the prisoner is estimated by men whose writings show no knowledge of his outside life, and is confined mainly to an enumeration of the selected physical, and imagined mental, characters of men while in prison, no study of the subject has been made that is worth any consideration, save for the purpose of formulating a theory without taking the trouble of ascertaining the important facts.

The study of the criminal has mainly been based on observation and examination of persons in prison; but in prison the criminal is not himself. He whose obedience the law could not command, who kicked against restraint, is now compelled to direct all his acts under authority. His life has been arranged for him, and he might as well run his head against the wall as refuse to obey. Everything is done with regularity and quietness, and the monotony of it all oppresses him. His inclinations are not consulted; his anger not regarded, except it transgress the rules. Outside he may have a reputation for wit and sociability; in prison he has no encouragement to show these qualities. Very likely he will talk freely to any official person who is of an enquiring turn of mind; he may be glad to have the chance; but he is on his guard, and will not communicate any information that may get his friends into trouble and himself into bad repute among them, unless he is going to gain a good deal by it; and not always even then. He learns to take advantage of every opening that offers any chance of increased comfort to himself, and he may readily make a general confession of sin and promise of amendment if thereby he can gain sympathy and obtain privileges. It is not surprising that he should behave in this manner—the principle of making friends with the mammon of unrighteousness is not unknown outside prison—but it is strange that people who might be supposed to know the conditions in which he is placed should talk as though the criminal were usually a stupid kind of person.

Any person who offends against the penal laws of the community in which he lives may be sent to prison; whether he be called an offender or a criminal will depend on consideration of points that are technical. Generally speaking, persons convicted of offences against the person or against property are classed as criminals, while those who have transgressed against public order—as in breaches of the peace, etc.—are classed as offenders. “An Act for the more effectual Prevention of Crime” (34 & 35 Victoria, cap. 112, sec. 20) defines the word “Crime” to mean “in Scotland any of the Pleas of the Crown, any theft, which in respect of any aggravation, or of the amount in value of the money, goods, or things stolen may be punished with penal servitude, any forgery, and any uttering base coin, or the possession of such coin with intent to utter the same.” The Pleas of the Crown are murder, robbery, rape, and wilful fire-raising. Those who have been convicted of crime as defined by the section quoted would properly be called criminals, but it is obvious that the name is applied and is applicable to many who do not fall under the definition. In practice the treatment of prisoners who have been convicted of offences is the same as that of those who have been convicted of crimes, when the sentence is one of imprisonment. The distinction between them is a technical one. If he is to be judged by the act of which he has been found guilty, the same person may at one time be called a criminal and at another time an offender.

As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to draw the line between crimes and offences; and it is not uncommon to find that a man who has committed a heinous crime is not so wicked a character as another who has never been guilty of more than a petty offence.

The largest number of persons in prison have been convicted of minor transgressions and have been dealt with in the police courts. Many of these offences do not differ in character from those which engage the attention of the higher courts. Their gravity is estimated either by the result of the act, or the bad record of the person committing it, or both factors together. Thus if in the course of a quarrel one person should strike another and bleed his face, the police magistrate will assess the damage done to society; but if the blow break the injured person’s nose, the case will pass to the sheriff. If a man in a drunken “spree” lift a pair of boots from a shop-door, the bailie will probably deal with him; but if, drunk or sober, he has been in the habit of taking other people’s property, he may be sent to a higher court.

The law differs in the same country at different times. It is the minimum standard of conduct to which all members of the community are required to conform, and, as public opinion changes, it undergoes alteration. Men who in one generation have been executed as criminals have been honoured as martyrs in the next, while acts which at one time have been regarded as meritorious have at another time been severely punished. At no time will an honourable man do all that the law permits him to do, for his standard of conduct is higher than, and in advance of, the law. But a man may live a thoroughly vicious life; he may lie, act dishonestly, be cruel and vindictive—in short, break any or all of the ten commandments—and yet keep within the law.

The law differs in different parts of the same country at the same time, and a man may find himself brought under its operation in one district for doing something which is permissible in another. This is a result of the special powers given to corporations, or is due to the adoption by one local authority of permissive legislation which a neighbouring authority has not adopted. It may be very puzzling to a stranger, but the principle of allowing the more enlightened districts freedom to improve their administration is at the back of it; whether they could not find a better way of carrying out their purposes than by sending to prison those who offend against them is another question altogether.

Even under similar laws the administration may be different. The more laws there are and the more rigid their administration, the greater will be the number of offenders.

All kinds of people break the law. In some social positions there is less opportunity for doing so than in others, but the conditions in which many are placed make it easier for them to offend against certain regulations than to conform to them.

All who are brought to prison for the first time are not first offenders. In some cases they have had a long and successful career before being apprehended, but even in these cases the physical and mental characteristics that would mark them off from others among whom they have been living are not apparent. A man’s character and his characteristics are the result of interaction between outside influences and inherent faculties. He acquires habits of body and of mind, and they leave their mark on him.

Vice and crime are not the same thing, nor have they any necessary relationship. Though generally the result of a vicious impulse or intention, there is hardly a crime in the calendar that might not be committed by a person acting from a higher moral standard than that set by the law. On the other hand, a vicious person may indulge in almost any vice and yet keep clear of the law; it all depends on how he does it. A dishonest person, if he puts his hand in the pocket of another and abstracts the contents, may be sent to prison; but if by appealing to the cupidity of his neighbours he can get them to put their hands in their own pockets and hand him over the proceeds in order that they may share in the El Dorado he has invented, he robs them just as effectively and is not sent to prison. He may become a pillar of society and a legislator.

When people are sent to prison for the first time all that has been determined is the fact that they have been guilty of breaking the law. There is no justification for assuming that their characters are, on the whole, worse than those of others. Some of them may have committed very wicked crimes; but, except in a few cases, a thorough investigation of all the attendant circumstances might modify any impressions derived from the trial. Even the commission of a fiendish act is not incompatible with a disposition that is usually and mainly good. We do not in practice assume that a man is a bad man because he has done a bad thing, any more than we credit him with being a good man because he has done a good thing. When the evil he has done has taken a criminal form we are as little entitled to judge the man by the act we condemn.

The fact that a person is in prison hinders any attempt to study him. The investigator begins with a prejudice against him because of the crime he has committed. Yet it is the most common thing to hear people who have known a prisoner intimately for years say that they could not have believed he would do the thing he has done. These people are quite as fit to judge character as those who are called scientific investigators, and they have better opportunities for doing so. They have not seen the weakness of their friends in the form it has taken. The investigator usually sees nothing else.

If those who come to prison for the first time were made the subject of examination, it would be found that they are principally remarkable for the absence of what the books call criminal characteristics.

Prisoners differ as much from one another as people who are law-abiding. No two are alike even among those who have committed similar offences; and those who enter prison for the first time are not distinguishable in appearance from members of the same social class who have not transgressed the law. That they may develop certain common characteristics as a result of their way of living is true; and there is a criminal class in the same sense as there is a professional class or an artisan class. The criminal is born and made just as the policeman is born and made. See him early in his career and it is impossible to tell what he is, but when he has undergone his training it may be expected to leave its mark on him which those who know may read with more or less success.

These common characters in the criminal have been laboriously sought for and recorded; measurements have been made and tables compiled; ratios have been calculated to decimals, and an appearance of scientific precision has been given to the study of the criminal which has led many to the assumption that the writers must know more about the offender than they themselves do. Yet there are few men or women of mature years who have not known with some degree of intimacy at least one person who has sunk into the mire of vice and it may be of crime; and one such case thoroughly known is a better basis for study of the subject than any amount of tables.

It may be of importance to compare the peculiarities of habitual offenders, but it is of greater use to learn how they acquired them. As for the habitual himself, he is not really the problem. His life is seldom a long one, and even if nothing other than is at present were done to, or for, him, he would die out in a generation. I do not say that the question of what we should do with our habituals is not important, but of much more importance is the devising of means for preventing the wrongdoer from acquiring the habit and joining their ranks. A study of confirmed criminals may be interesting pathology, but it is the study of the beginner in crime that will prevent the formation of the criminal class, in so far as it affords means for enabling us to deal sanely with them.

When an atrocious crime is perpetrated there is intense public interest shown in the criminal. He is examined in a distorted mirror and his parts are magnified. The more extraordinary he is, the more monstrous he appears, the greater the sensation. Yet the ordinary men and the ordinary offences are at once the more common and the more important. Here and there a person may be born with such a crooked disposition that it is difficult to see how he could go straight; just as occasionally one of great wisdom enters the world, or a child with more than the usual number of heads or limbs; but the occurrence is quite exceptional, and it is never profitable to generalise from it.

We have been reproached in this country with failure to make a scientific study of the criminal; and the works of foreign writers have been translated for our example and emulation. They contain a certain amount of information, but its value is not apparent. The importance of a book is not to be measured by the difficulty of understanding it. Big and strange words may as easily mask an absence of useful knowledge as convey a fruitful idea, and the man who has anything of importance to say regarding his neighbour—even though that neighbour is a criminal—does not require a pseudo-scientific jargon in which to say it. The criminal is a man or a woman like the rest of us, and information about his head or his heels, while it may have a special value in relation to his case, should not be confounded with knowledge of himself. He is something more than a brain or a stomach.

Either the so-called criminal characters are the cause of the man’s wrongdoing, the result of it, or have nothing to do with the matter. If they are the cause of the criminal act, how is it that they are admittedly present in others who are not criminals? It would certainly simplify the work of the police if they knew that they could with any degree of safety look for the perpetrator of certain kinds of crime among men with heads of a given shape; but anyone who glances at the illustrated papers will see for himself as many villainous-looking faces among notable people, even among able people, as he will find in a prison. Our forefathers had a rule that when two persons were charged with the same crime and there was a doubt which of them was guilty, the uglier should be condemned. It is not stated whether the officials and governing classes were at that time chosen for their good looks. Fortunately the practice has long since lapsed.

Unless a peculiarity is shown to have a causal relationship to crime its mere existence proves nothing except the fact that it is there. That in some cases physical defects do cause those who suffer from them to make war on society, is undoubtedly the case; but it is very far indeed from being the rule.

There are many people who are prepared to regard a book as learned if it is sufficiently scrappy and contains figures arranged in a tabular form. Yet figures when they deal with other than very simple things are almost invariably misleading; and the more so as they have such an appearance of exactness. It is easy for any two people to count the number of men in a room and to agree as to the result; but ask them to say how many tall men, how many with black hair, how many blue-eyed, how many straight-nosed—and you will get a different result each time. The figures will be exact—they cannot be otherwise—but your knowledge will be the reverse. If this is apparent in such a simple matter as the recording of physical characters, how much more apparent it is when an attempt is made to classify and generalise on men. Most books admit that there are not sufficient data on which to base conclusions, and then proceed to suggest conclusions. The whole science of criminology is illustrated by the composite photographs published gravely as contributions; for a composite is a photograph of nobody at all. It is obtained by the superposition of photographs of different persons, and is itself different from any of them. It may represent them all as they ought to be, but it does not represent any of them as he is. It is the criminal in the abstract—who does not exist. It conveys in itself a warning against averages, for it is a pictorial presentment of an average.

An average is the mean of different numbers. In dealing with masses of people—feeding them, for instance—by providing a certain average supply for each, all may be satisfied; but whenever the average is applied to individuals it is misapplied, and one finds he has too much, another that he has too little. Measure two men; one is 5 ft. 8 in., the other 5 ft. 4 in.; the average height of both is 5 ft. 6 in., which is the height of neither. So when we have averages of height, weight, etc., given in the case of criminals, we know that we have been told nothing about any of them. The other physical characters of criminals in prison have been noted without any attempt having been made to ascertain whether, and if so when and how, they were acquired, and we are invited to contemplate a number of twisted and bloated faces, many of which could easily be matched among the non-criminals. See these men and women before debauchery has left its mark on them and they are no uglier than some of us who are set over them.

As for the assessment of the mental characters of prisoners, the value of it will largely depend on the ability of the examiner to place himself in touch with them. Few people believe nowadays that by feeling the knobs on the outside of a man’s head you can tell the faculties within, far less whether these faculties will be used for good or ill; and we are not likely to advance the study of the criminal by founding conclusions on the measurements of his head, facial angle, etc. The new phrenology differs from the old in respect that it changes its terms and insists on more exactness of measurement. Like the old, it may be fairly successful in judging men after they have shown their qualities.

No one has yet discovered a reliable means of estimating the nature, quality, and amount of a man’s mental powers from his appearance. We may learn what he says or does, but we can never be sure what he thinks. In practice we are all continually forming estimates of those we meet. Some judge by the clothes, some by the expression, most of us not knowing how. So far as our impressions are concerned, however we think they have been arrived at, we all make mistakes and have all to revise our opinions. The man who prides himself on his ability to read character is usually the man who makes the most mistakes; his confidence misleads his judgment. Even the shrewdest are occasionally deceived after many and varied opportunities of arriving at a correct estimate of their friends or enemies, yet for his own purposes each man’s judgment may be, in the main, satisfactory and no one troubles about his neighbour’s methods; but when they are erected into a science it is time to protest.

The size and shape of the head, its malformations and asymmetry, may be measured with a fair amount of success. This and more has been done with a view to the future identification of individuals; but the theory underlying the practice of taking such measurements is that no two criminals are alike. The theory the criminologists seek to establish is that they are all very much alike. It is stated that so many men who have committed crimes have heads of a certain conformation, have peculiarities in the character of their skulls. If these physical deviations have a causal relation to their conduct, since the heads cannot be altered the criminals are therefore outwith reform. The Church-people, on the other hand, hold that all wrongdoing springs from “the heart”—not meaning thereby the physical organ so called. You cannot give a man a new head free from the objectionable shape; but men have developed a new spirit, and from being bad have become good citizens without undergoing any physical alteration; so that after all it would appear that “The heart aye’s, the part aye, That makes us right or wrong.”

CHAPTER II

HEREDITY AND CRIME

Does heredity account for one quality more than another?—Impossibility of forecasting the conduct of others—Do criminals breed criminals?—The fit and the unfit—Unequal endowments—Ability and position—Inherited faculties and social pressure—Crime the result of wrongly directed powers—Original sin and heredity—Heredity behind everything.

In the effort to assign a general cause for criminality an undue emphasis may easily be placed on any one factor. There are those who seem to think that heredity is the main cause, but they rarely attempt to define the content of the term. In a sense heredity is the cause of everything, but in that case it cannot be held to be the cause of one thing more than of another. Suppose a man becomes insane at the age of thirty and it is shown that a number of his relatives, direct and collateral, have also been insane. If heredity accounts for his insanity what will account for his sanity? Such a man under treatment may recover, but sane or insane his heredity is not altered. The fact is that we none of us know enough regarding the qualities of our ancestors to be justified in imputing our inheritance of any special tendency to any particular one of them, and every successive generation implies a mixing, if not a blending, of very complex and sometimes opposing qualities.

If a man knows anything about anybody in this world surely it is about himself. His knowledge is incomplete, but it is more full and varied than his knowledge of any other body. He may be expected to know something about the qualities and faculties of his wife. Yet all he knows of himself and her, added to all he knows of the laws of heredity, does not enable him to forecast with any degree of accuracy the faculties and tendencies of his infant child, or to trace these back when they have developed.

In the case of criminals born and brought up in hotbeds of vice it is even more hopeless to trace back family history, because there is often in their case a grave uncertainty as to the personality of the male parent. To say that as wolves breed wolves criminals breed criminals is nonsense and mischievous nonsense. As canaries breed canaries do poets breed poets?

Criminals are men and women who have gone wrong; not necessarily because of the possession of certain powers which they have inherited, but because these powers have been used in a wrong direction. They come from all classes; and there is nothing to show that if their children were taken from them early in life and brought up in favourable surroundings they would take to crime; but there is an abundance of evidence on the other side.

There is a good deal of discussion nowadays regarding the fit and the unfit among us, and a tendency to forget that a classification of our fellow-citizens under one head or the other can only be made if we regard the terms as relative to the conditions under which they live. That very many prove their fitness to survive the continuous strain of economic pressure, can as little be questioned as that others sink under the ordeal. No one will deny that there is a good deal of unfitness shown by persons in a comfortable position economically; and if some of the Apostles of Fitness had any sense of humour they would hold their tongues and hide themselves, for neither intellectually nor physically do they show much claim to present an ideal standard.

Nobody denies that men are unequally endowed. Some have a powerful physique; others have greater intellectual power. The usefulness of their endowment to themselves and to others will largely depend on the position in which they are placed. Put them to work unsuited for them, or place them in positions where their faculties are not allowed free play, and they may do very badly. The difficulty is to get the right man in the right place. When he is in the wrong place he may be a nuisance to himself and others; but it does not follow that placed in another position he would not be a useful member of society.

An attempt has been made to show that certain faculties are inherited and transmitted in certain families; but it is conveniently assumed that position is of no importance. Everybody knows that, in the professions chosen to illustrate the theory, promotion is not wholly dependent on ability. That a father and son have both been judges offers no presumption of special fitness on the part of the son. That high military rank has been held by several members of the same family need not prove any of them to be great soldiers; that the government of the State is now in the hands of one family and now in the hands of another does not show anything more than that these families have been in a position to secure the offices. It would be a new and startling doctrine to assert that the man who is best fitted for a position always obtained it. Everybody knows that the main consideration in determining an appointment is whether a man has influence enough to get it; and that influence need not depend on his personal ability, but on his position in relation to those in whose gift the appointment lies. Granted equal ability in two men, let one of them start with family or social influence and the other with none, and there can be no doubt as to what will happen. That an able man will obtain influence in time is highly probable, but by the time he has gained recognition he is likely to be too old to benefit much by it. The stupid man who has a clever father has a better chance than the clever man whose father has shown no special ability.

It is a very difficult thing for any man to learn the history of his family. In the case of the eminent you get no two biographies that are alike. An enquiry would show that this is equally true in the case of those who are not eminent. A man may have one reputation inside his family circle and quite a different reputation outside. We are all influenced in our conduct towards others by our opinions regarding them. A man who has pride in his ancestry will show it in his actions. There may be nothing to be proud about, but that will not prevent him playing his part. On the other hand, if he believes he has been disgraced by something that has been done by some member of the family, his conduct is likely to suffer from the belief. I have seen a woman whose brother was executed for murder sink under the disgrace into a condition of recklessness verging on insanity; and it is a matter of common observation that in some degree men have been broken in spirit by the shame brought upon them through the action of their relatives. It is impossible to discriminate between the part played by inherited tendencies and social pressure, in the production of certain acts.

Crime is not the result of inherited faculty, but of the direction in which that faculty is exercised. There are some families where the parents have been criminals and the sons have all done well; while the daughters have followed in the footsteps of their parents. In these cases it is probable that the determining factor has been the influence of the mother. Her criminal acts and methods were more susceptible of imitation on the part of the daughters than on the part of the sons, and the girls, even though they had been willing to leave the house, would have had to face life outside under greater difficulties than the boys.

The practice of singling out heredity as the cause of certain things to the exclusion of others has no sanction in experience. Our forefathers recognised that all men showed imperfections. They saw that one man was given to envy; another to lust; another to covetousness; another to wrath; and so on through all the deadly sins. They attributed these defects to our heritage of Original Sin. The theologian has been displaced by the scientific man, and if heredity is a newer name for our ignorance it does not fit the facts any better.

We inherit all the faculties and powers which we possess, but what they are only the event shows. Nothing can be taken out of a man but what is in him, but there may be a good deal in him which is never taken out. We may develop certain faculties, but not unless they are first present; and the stimulus that they obey at one period in our lives may fail at another. We may estimate the capabilities of a man who is dead from observation of what he has done, but we cannot say that he might not have done better or worse had his life been prolonged. In the case of great men this is recognised, and we have laments over their early death and speculations as to what they might have done, or regrets that they lived too long for their fair fame. It is the same in the case of small men as of great.

Heredity is behind everything; not merely behind some things. If it explains a man’s disease, in the same sense it must also explain his antecedent health. It cannot account for one part of his life more than another. Even those who attribute disease or misconduct to heredity seek to cure the diseased person and to correct his bad habits. Any success with which they meet is not obtained by altering his heredity, but by changing the conditions under which he has been living in such a way and to such an extent that he reacts favourably to the change. We are not warranted in saying of anybody that he is doomed by heredity to a life of vice or of crime. The conditions that suit one person may not be suitable to the healthy development of another, and the problem with regard to those who transgress our laws is to ascertain under what conditions they would behave best and place them there. Though their family history may be of the blackest; though their ancestors may have been vicious, it by no means follows that it is impossible for them to be otherwise. When a man has done wrong it does not help him to be informed that he cannot do better. He is often more than willing to transfer the blame to the shoulders of others. It is more profitable to teach and help him to do well than to encourage him to curse his grandfather.

There is only one way of finding out why people commit crimes and that is by making a patient enquiry in each case. The causes in many cases may be similar, but the part they play may be different.

CHAPTER III

INSANITY AND CRIME

Insanity and responsibility—Removal of the insane from prison—Crime resulting from insanity—Case of theft—Of embezzlement—Of fire-raising—Insanity and murder charges—The result of an act not a guide to the nature of the act—Observation of prisoners charged with certain offences—Insanity as a result of misconduct—Cases—The mentally defective—Cases.

There seems to be a widespread opinion that all criminals and offenders are more or less insane, but those who hold it have nothing to say in support of their view save that they cannot understand how certain crimes could be committed by any sane person. This is to beg the whole question, which is, how many persons who are charged with committing offences are found on examination to be unsound mentally?

Insanity has never been satisfactorily defined, but it is a term which in the legal sense connotes irresponsibility. Yet if all insane persons had no sense of responsibility it is difficult to imagine how they could be suffered to live. Even in lunatic asylums the great majority of the inmates can be induced to behave in such a way as to make it unnecessary to tie them up. They have a very large amount of liberty conceded to them without serious inconvenience to their neighbours and greatly to their own advantage. If they simply did what any stray notion impelled them to do this would not be possible. Their affliction frees them from responsibility to the law for their actions; but in practice they have to show by their conduct that they can and will obey the rules of the institution in which they are placed before it is safe or reasonable to let them go freely about in it. The physician does not demand from them better conduct than their mental condition warrants him in expecting; but they learn, in so far as they are capable of learning, that their own actions will determine the degree to which they will be free from interference, and that the necessary result of misconduct will be increased restraint. Only in so far as they show a sense of responsibility is it safe to allow them to be free from supervision. A person may suffer from such a degree of mental unsoundness as will free him from responsibility for his actions in the eyes of the law, and yet be able to conform to the rules laid down for the guidance of his life by an asylum superintendent.

A very small proportion of prisoners are persons of unsound mind, and in most cases the mental unsoundness is the result of their own misconduct. In Scotland there is no difficulty in freeing insane persons from prison. By section 6 of the Criminal and Dangerous Lunatics (Scotland) Amendment Act, 1871, it is provided that “When in relation to any person confined in a local prison in terms of the Prisons (Scotland) Administration Act, 1860, it is certified on soul and conscience by two medical persons that they have visited and examined such prisoner, and that in their opinion he is insane, it shall be lawful for the sheriff, on summary application at the instance of the administrators of such Prison, by a warrant under his hand, to order such prisoner to be removed to a lunatic asylum.” The matter practically rests with the prison surgeon, for the prison commissioners on his report never raise any objection to the transfer of a convicted prisoner who is found to be insane. Yet the same persons return again and yet again.

The warrant for detention in an asylum expires with the period of the sentence of imprisonment, and the asylum authorities must obtain new certificates before they can continue to keep the patient. When the degree and kind of mental unsoundness is very marked there is no difficulty in getting the necessary documents; but when the patient has been benefited to the extent of being able to behave and speak no worse than many of his fellow-criminals, it is different. He is sent for examination to a man who is not acquainted with him. The doctor has to state facts observed by himself as a ground for certification; quite properly he is not permitted to ensure the detention of anybody on evidence that is second-hand. The patient is quiet and on his guard, and his examiner can make nothing of him. Accordingly he goes back to his haunts and his vices, impatient of restraint, and is soon in the hands of the police again. Clearly there is need of some modification in the law or its administration to permit of such persons being dealt with.

Insane offenders may be divided into two classes: those whose wrongdoing is the result of their insanity; and those who have been sound enough to begin with, but who have become insane, just as they have contracted physical diseases, as a result of vicious indulgence and its treatment. Of the first-named class there may be one in about a thousand admissions. The crimes charged are of all kinds and degrees of gravity, as the following examples will show:—

X 1.—A man is brought to prison for the first time charged with a series of petty thefts committed while under the influence of drink. He shows signs of alcoholism, and is too dazed to give any account of himself. In a day or two the alcoholic symptoms have passed off and his general condition suggests enquiry. He has signs of mental disease which cannot now be confused with drink. It is found that, until a year before, he had been in business in an industrial town; that he had been a reputable citizen, quiet, peaceable, and abstemious in his habits; that he began to take to drink, and sold off his business, which realised several thousand pounds; and that he had since been lost to the knowledge of his friends. What happened in the interval I do not know. He was taken in charge by the police for stealing glasses from a public-house, weights from a shop-counter, and such-like things, which were certainly of no use to him and which he could not sell. The charge was dropped and he was sent to a lunatic asylum.

X 2.—A young man is imprisoned on a charge of fire-raising. He is brisk, talkative, and cheerful, and laughs at the charge as ridiculous. Beyond showing a high appreciation of his own qualities he does not do or say anything to attract attention, and as he is really “bright” his conceit only provokes a smile. He has no physical symptoms of brain disease, and it is not suggested on his behalf that he is mentally unsound. A decent workman who was interested in him called to say how well-behaved he had always been, and to ascertain what ought to be done by way of assisting his defence; and some things he said suggested the need for special enquiry. It was found that prisoner had always been energetic and bright at his work, and that he had good reason for boasting of his skill. His fellow-workers admitted that, though they disapproved of his bounce. He had been a teetotaler all his life and was a prominent member of a militant temperance society. He was very industrious and thrifty. He married a quiet, reputable girl who shared his opinions and ideals. He had saved some money and he suddenly made up his mind to start in business for himself. His wife did not approve of his doing so, as she did not like the risk and was quite content to go on in their accustomed ways. He persisted, and she yielded the point, but only when she saw her opposition was causing domestic strife. He rented a small workshop and furnished it. He got as much work as he could undertake—not a great amount—but before he had time to see how his venture would prosper, he conceived the idea of removing to a larger house. His wife was unable to see how he could safely do this, as she did not think he had money sufficient to justify such a course. Her opposition only made him more insistent, and on one occasion he lost his temper so completely that she became alarmed. He threatened to kill her, and looked as though he meant it. When she spoke to him about this afterwards, he apologised and laughed it off; and as he had always been a most affectionate and dutiful husband she dropped the subject. Things went on as before till one day there was a fire in his workshop. It was not got under till some damage was done, and it might have resulted in serious loss of life and property, as there were dwelling-houses adjoining. It was quite obviously the work of an incendiary, and he was arrested on a charge of fire-raising, as he could give no satisfactory account of his movements. On closer investigation it became quite apparent that he was a person of unsound mind. Little things that had passed as peculiarities, receiving only a passing comment, when dovetailed into the story as I have related it left no room for doubt. The charge was dropped, he was sent to an asylum, and there he died two years later from general paralysis of the insane.

In his case his fellow-workmen, seeing him from day to day, failed to observe more than a slight accentuation of the qualities they had been accustomed to see in him. He talked a lot about what he could do; he always did that. He offered to make certain articles for a man better than any other could; very likely he was able. He started business on an altogether inadequate capital; others have done the same thing. He wanted to set up in a higher style of living; he was always ambitious—and so on. Until he set fire to his workshop they had never known him do anything inconsistent with his character, and while they laughed at his boasting they did not doubt his sanity. It was the same with his wife. She distrusted his judgment but did not doubt his sanity. His sudden murderous threat she put down to his temper. His temper she attributed to his want of sleep; for she admitted that he got up at night, and worked or moved about. On one occasion, she confessed, he had proposed that he should cut her throat and his own. He was quite quiet at the time and she thought it an ugly kind of joke, as he woke her to make the proposal; but she explained it to herself on the ground of overwork and sleeplessness. Those who are coming most in contact with persons afflicted like this man are the last to see the significance of the changes taking place before them, because the transition is so gradual. This is true of people in all social classes.

X 3 was a professional man in a very good line of business. Late in life he was arrested on a charge of embezzling large sums of money. When I saw him first he had a paralysis of the muscles of one hand, which was withered in consequence; and he could not articulate owing to paralysis of the muscles of the mechanism of speech. He put or answered questions in writing. Enquiry showed that for many years he had been much respected and trusted. He had amassed a considerable fortune, and had been upright and honest in his dealings with others. He lived in the country and kept up a large establishment. His business was one which dealt in large sums of money. Some years before his arrest he married for the second time, and there was trouble between his second wife and his family by her predecessor. He had always been an open-handed man, but latterly his public gifts had excited comment by their number and character. His mental condition, however, was never suspected by his family. They assumed his ability to afford anything he chose to buy. His wife left him as a result of his conduct to her and in doubt as to his sanity, but these doubts were not shared by his family. She said he had become capricious and sometimes cruel to her, and quite different from his ordinary self. He would sometimes bring in parcels of costly jewellery for which there was no need. In the end she became frightened to stay with him; but though she feared he might injure her, as he seemed to have taken a dislike to her, she never suspected that he was frittering away his substance. When the crash came it was found that he had within a short period thrown away tens of thousands of his own, and as much belonging to others who had trusted him. He had bought and sold property in a reckless way and without any authority to do so, his reputation enabling him to do things which in another would have been questioned. He was sent to an asylum. In his case the paralysis from which he suffered, gradual as it was in its onset, had attracted attention to itself and had actually masked the mental condition which accompanied or followed it.

There are some crimes which in themselves shock us to such an extent that we find it difficult to believe that any sane man would commit them. In a book such as this I can only refer to certain sexual offences without discussing them, but even in these cases the crime need not infer insanity. We are no more justified in saying that a man is mad if he does a mad-like thing than in calling him wise if he does a wise-like thing. A man’s criminal acts are only to be judged in relation to his other conduct if we would form a rational opinion as to his mental condition; and that again has to be considered in relation to the social condition in which he is placed before anything approaching a fair opinion as to its adequacy can be formed.

If a man’s criminal act were to be taken as sufficient to infer his insanity there are certain crimes for which we should never have anybody tried. Every murderer would straightway be sent to a lunatic asylum on the plea that he must have been mad or he would not have done it; and yet that is precisely one of the most important points that have to be examined in the course of a trial for murder in Scotland.

Murder is practically the only crime for which the death sentence is passed. Scottish jurymen have shown a strong repugnance to be parties to the death of a criminal. They may favour capital punishment in theory, but, no matter how bad he may be, they shrink from handing a culprit over to the hangman; and they will seize any opportunity to escape from doing so if it is given them. They may be told they have nothing to do with results; that their duty is to find a verdict on the evidence; but they might as well be told to pull the bolt. They know what will happen. They do not seem to believe that they are not responsible for the necessary consequence of their acts, and in spite of the assurance of the law the verdict is a worry to them. Few homicides are hanged in Scotland, and there are few verdicts of murder, mainly for this reason. If the death penalty were abolished—if it were even made only a possible penalty—brutal murders would have a chance of being called by that name and not by “Culpable Homicide.”

For a time it was almost a matter of routine to set up a defence of insanity in murder cases where the facts could not be seriously contested. Now in most assaults there is an element of accident. The assailant is in a state of rage and hits out wildly. The blow that will kill one man may only stun another. Blows inflicted on one part of the body may cause little more than inconvenience, but if the same amount of violence be applied to another part death may result. I have known cases where as a result of assault the victim seemed to have sustained injuries sufficient to kill him, even though he had the nine lives sometimes attributed to a cat, and yet he recovered—maimed and permanently unfitted to support himself. That was not murder; in some respects it was worse; but there was no attempt to prove the assailant insane. If death had ended the suffering of the victim there would have been a plea of insanity set up. The determining factor in the plea was thus the physical condition of the assailed, not the mental condition of the assailant.

In Glasgow special care is taken in all cases of murder to enquire into the mental condition of the accused. From the time he is admitted to prison he is placed under observation with this purpose in view, and any evidence bearing on the subject is carefully examined. His conduct in prison may be perfectly sane, but if there is any reason to believe that, when at liberty, he showed signs of insanity, the medical officer personally makes an investigation and reports. The prisoner may be penniless, but he suffers no prejudice thereby, as the work is undertaken at the expense of the Crown; and at the trial the necessary witnesses are usually produced on his behalf if the reports show that he is insane. This is true in other than murder cases to this extent, that the procurator fiscal informs the prison authorities of any allegation as to the prisoner’s mental condition and asks for a report. He also puts before the judge any statement by the prison doctor as to the health of a prisoner mental or physical, even although the report may not have been asked for.

Insanity may be a result as well as a cause of misconduct. A life of alternate indulgence and repression tends to unsoundness of mind; and I have seen men and women, who when first they fell into criminal courses were free from any suspicion of insanity, gradually degenerate and become insane. When the kind of life they lead is considered the wonder is that so many of them do not become mad.

X 4 was a girl of the labouring class. She was handsome and of a fine figure. Good-tempered and of an easy disposition, she was rather indolent; and as she was not trained in any very strong regard for morality and had plenty of admirers, she soon gave up working and took to the less restricted life of the town. She got into the hands of the police and was sent to prison, where her behaviour was beyond reproach. She did the work required of her and was always even-tempered and orderly. She took to drinking rather heavily, and during one imprisonment had a bad attack of delirium tremens, from which she recovered only to fall into a condition of dementia which remains and, though it has become less marked, leaves her unfit to take care of herself. Her insanity is the direct result of her excesses.

X 5 got into bad company and was encouraged rather than corrected by her mother, who found her profit in her daughter’s misdeeds. She left her work but did not take heavily to drink, and by and by came to prison charged with theft. She contracted disease in the course of her misconduct and began to take fits. She gradually became worse, as she gave herself no chance of recovery and neglected treatment when at liberty. She was in prison for short periods during two years and finally became insane and died. When first I saw her she was free from any mental or physical infirmity. Her disease and death were the direct result of her way of living.

X 6 had always been a wild and uncontrollable lad. He entered the army and was soon found to be one of the bad bargains. He was ultimately discharged. He got into a lawless set in Glasgow and picked up a living, sometimes honestly, sometimes otherwise. He suffered imprisonment on several occasions and was always a troublesome man to deal with. Gradually he showed delusions of suspicion and had attacks of violence; and finally he had to be dealt with as a criminal lunatic. In his case there was from the beginning a condition of mental instability, which showed itself in his restlessness and impatience of restraint. It unfitted him for a soldier’s life, and the discipline incident thereto was much more likely to aggravate than to remedy his condition. Having no friends capable of directing him, he flew to excesses and was punished for the crimes in which he took part. Than life in prison there could be nothing imagined that would be worse for him; and the monotony of it and the quiet would tend to develop the delusions which afterwards dominated his mind, and influenced his conduct to such an extent that under their influence he committed assaults and proved himself to be a dangerous lunatic. His case is different from the last two in respect that the very means adopted to deal with his excesses were largely the cause of his final insanity.

Short of cases of certifiable insanity there are a number of prisoners who are mentally defective. The total is small, but the individuals command an amount of attention, and cause an amount of trouble to the public, out of all proportion to their numbers. In some cases the defect consists of delayed development; the body and the passions have grown at a greater rate than the mental powers, but time and training would be likely to establish an equilibrium.

In other cases there seems to be something wanting in their mental outfit—they “have a want,” as it is put colloquially and expressively. Many of them are capable of behaving themselves when under the guidance of well-disposed persons; and more may be found about religious meetings than in prison. They have come under the influence of the Churches and have benefited thereby, and it is largely because no such healthy influence has been obtained over those others that they are in prison. They are usually quite tractable and pay obedience to stronger-minded persons. When these are law-abiding they cause no trouble, but when the influence is evil it is otherwise.

Mental powers that may be sufficient to enable a man to work and live in conformity with the law in one social position may be quite inadequate to enable him to support himself in another. There are men holding positions and discharging the duties required of them to the satisfaction of their employers, who would sink to a very low level if cast adrift. Any fixed standard of mental capacity is irrational, since it leaves out of account the conditions under which the person examined has to live. The question is: Is the person by reason of mental defect unable to bear the stress of life under the social conditions in which he is placed? Is he fit to take care of himself and abstain from offending against the laws?

Whatever may be the view of lawyers on the matter, no business man expects the same conduct from a boy as from a man; nor will he trust a young man to the same extent as an old man. The younger man may possess more knowledge, but there is a difference between knowledge and experience, and a man may know right from wrong without having the experience of life that enables him to discount his passions and follow his knowledge. A person who is mentally defective, and who has the additional misfortune to be born into a family of poor people and brought up in a slum, if he transgress the law can only be dealt with as though he were as fully endowed as his neighbours. If he is not mentally unsound to such a degree as to justify his certification as insane, there is only the prison for him; with the prospect of hardships on liberation and imprisonment when he offends, till he is sufficiently mad, or his record and his condition combined are bad enough, to enable him to be placed under the treatment he ought to have received from the first.

This is not necessarily the fault of those who administer the laws. The police are not justified in permitting offences to be committed; and whether the person who offends is sane or mentally defective it is their duty to arrest him. The medical men who may see him can only certify if they find him insane from their examination of him. Even if he is sent to an asylum the medical superintendent cannot detain him if his condition improves so far that he behaves sanely there; and out he goes to the old struggle that he is quite unfit to face, with no one to help him or to exercise authority over him when he has a wayward turn.

X 7 is congenitally mentally defective, and he has been neglected. He has a stutter which makes it more difficult for him than for others equally weak-minded to get in touch with those around him and, asking questions, to learn. When he does make himself understood he has nothing of any great interest to say, and he is bound to find in the impatience of the ordinary man a barrier when he tries to speak. He cannot get work and there is not much he could do. He haunts outhouses at night for shelter and is arrested for trespassing in doing so. He is in a filthy condition and is a nuisance and an offence to those with whom he comes in contact. He is sent to prison for committing an offence which he cannot avoid committing and which is the direct result of the destitution incident on his mental defect and friendlessness.

X 8 is a quiet, peaceable, and rather attractive young woman. She was married to a respectable young man with a small wage. She behaved very well and seemed to be managing their home in a satisfactory manner, but to his surprise and horror she was one day arrested, and was afterwards convicted, for obtaining goods under false pretences. She had been unable to make her income serve for the support of the household, although she was not extravagant, and she had played up to her appearance and got certain articles by a story that was fraudulent. Had she appealed to his friends she would have been assisted, but she took the other course from sheer mental incapacity to deal with her situation. Her case was thoroughly investigated while she was in prison and arrangements were made for directing her on her liberation. She is quite tractable, has no vices, is anxious to do well, but is not fit to bear unaided the responsibilities of her position. The Church to which she belongs has constituted itself her guardian now that her condition has been shown; and she is not likely to transgress so long as interest in her is sustained, nor to cost much in money to those who are looking after her.

X 9 is a lad who has got out of parental control and seeks adventures. He answers questions intelligently, if somewhat insolently, and so far as a merely professional examination would show is not defective mentally. He is to all appearance simply a bad boy. Observation of his conduct in prison and enquiry outside, show the mental defect behind it. He has recurrent outbursts of temper without apparent cause, and while showing no sign of confused intelligence, he proceeds to smash things. He has been in prison for malicious mischief and for offences against decency as well as for theft. He is not given to drink, but is beginning to indulge when he can get a chance. He works intermittently, but cannot stay at anything for more than a short period. He was charged with housebreaking, but on a report from prison as to his mental condition he was certified as insane and was kept in an asylum for about a year. He had improved so much in conduct that he was discharged, but the medical superintendent expressed the opinion that left to himself he would probably break back; and he did; resuming his old practices within a short period of his liberation. He can do well enough under proper conditions, but is unfit to look after himself.

X 10 is a young woman who is strongly built and of a pleasant manner and appearance. She has been a domestic servant, but falling into bad company has given up work. At first she only appeared to be “soft” a little, but drink and excess have contributed to cause or to show—for in her case it is difficult to say which—mental deficiency. She is quiet and well-behaved in prison, and is of fair intelligence, but on liberation she resorts to the lowest haunts and indulges in such excesses that when brought back to prison she is in terror of death, she feels so ill. She was induced to place herself under control for a time, and she did well, working hard and cheerfully; but she returned to the city and resumed her old courses. All who know her recognise that she “has a want,” but the defect is so slight that there is no possibility of having her dealt with for it, as the laws at present only enable her to be punished for its results. Unless her excesses produce some marked degeneration—and, as she is reported to be having “fits” occasionally, that seems probable—all that can be done for her is to arrest and imprison her when she offends. When she is a wreck she will receive the kind of treatment and the guardianship that might save her were it possible to give it now.

Just as some prisoners become insane as a result of their criminal and vicious life, some undergo mental degeneration to a degree not certifiable. In the case of the older ones this is accompanied by such an amount of physical disability as compels them to seek refuge in the poorhouse, and they are only back to prison on the rare occasions that they leave its gates, induced thereto by a feeling of improvement and a renewed desire to visit their old haunts. Taking insane and mentally defective prisoners together, their number is small relative to that of those who suffer from no mental deficiency. Clearly then insanity will not account for crime in any except a very small number of cases. In fact the proportion of insane among prisoners generally is not greater than among the population outside, but in the case of females admitted for cruelty to children it is enormously in excess.

CHAPTER IV

PHYSICAL DEFECTS AND CRIME

Physical defects beget sympathy—Rarely induce crime—May cause mental degeneration—Case of jealousy and murder.

Just as some degree of mental deficiency is not incompatible with the ability to live a peaceable and useful life, physical defects do not necessarily unfit a man to discharge his duties as a citizen. In either case the sphere of his usefulness is limited, but that is all that can be said. Much will depend on his social position.

When a person who is physically defective falls into evil courses, it appears likely that he should find it more difficult to return to the right path than one who is healthy and complete in all his parts; but this expectation leaves out of account the fact that the more pitiable and abandoned a man is the more does his condition appeal to the charitable. His very helplessness attracts attention and begets for him a consideration not given to those who are stronger; and if he will but place himself in their hands, there are many willing to look after the lost sheep whose condition is so pitiable. In some respects, and as things are at present, there is less need for anyone who suffers from physical disability taking to crime than for an ordinary citizen; for the law provides for him and prevents him suffering from destitution in respect that he is disabled.[1]

Physical defects are in very few cases the cause of offences. They narrow the opportunities of employment, and they lessen the chances of work even though the defect may not be of such a nature as to unfit a man for it; but except in so far as they may result in destitution—which, if due to disability, must be relieved by the Parish on application—they rarely induce crimes. In some cases, however, serious crime can be traced to this cause.

X 11 was an energetic and industrious man. He was a teetotaler and took an active interest in local affairs. He was respected and trusted by his fellow-workmen and took a leading part in the trade and friendly societies to which he belonged. He also had an interest in books; read a good deal, considering his opportunities; and exercised his intelligence beyond most of his neighbours. He married a suitable partner and their family life was an evenly happy one. In the course of his employment he sustained an accident whereby he lost his arm. When he left the hospital his employers found a suitable place for him; and his income did not suffer appreciably, while his prospects were actually brighter in the new than they had been in the old situation. He began to brood over the loss of his limb, and by and by he became jealous of his wife. One day he made a murderous attack on her and was sent to prison. He was very penitent there, and quite reasonable. He explained that he had ceased to be the man he was when he married, and that since the loss of his arm his wife had regretted their union. She had never said so, but though she tried to hide her change of feeling he could see it. He detailed the causes of his jealousy; and when it was pointed out to him that, granting the facts, his inferences may have been all wrong, he admitted the force of the argument. At most he was unreasonably jealous, but not insane; and on going over certain incidents with him and supplying the explanations of them, he agreed that he had been too hasty in coming to the conclusions on which he had acted. He said that he could not blame his wife, even while he believed she had been unfaithful; that he could not bear to lose her and that was why he had attacked her; but that he was very sorry he had done her the wrong of suspecting her. He was convicted and sent to prison for a period and he behaved rationally and well. His wife was warned that his jealousy might reassert itself and that there was a probability that he would become certifiably insane if he continued to brood on his accident; and she was advised not to live alone with him. He behaved so well that the warning was forgotten. About a year after they had resumed housekeeping he nearly killed her and committed suicide.

In this case the crime was traceable to the accident which caused the loss of the man’s arm. The cause is exceptional only in respect to the seriousness of the crime, but it is not at all unusual for persons who have the misfortune to be lame or deformed to show a morbid sensitiveness on the subject. Their defect overshadows their lives and colours their view of things, sometimes causing them to become reckless in their behaviour and offenders against the law. On the other hand, many develop a strain of piety and tenderness for their fellows. The presence of the defect proves nothing beyond its own existence.

CHAPTER V

THE STUDY OF THE CRIMINAL

The reliability of prisoners’ statements—Deceit or misunderstanding?—Frankness and knowledge required on the part of the investigator—The prisoner’s statement should form the basis of enquiry—Information and help obtained from former friends—The diffusion of knowledge so obtained—The prevention of crime and the accumulation of knowledge.

Any study of the criminal based on observations made when he is in prison must of necessity be partial and misleading. It is like writing a Natural History from a study of caged birds. Parts will be right, but the whole will be wrong.

Advantage might be taken of his presence there to find out something of the antecedents of the prisoner. The opinions of experts may be of value with regard to him, but they are not nearly so useful as his own opinions on how he comes to be in prison, nor are they more reliable.

Prisoners are no more truthful than other people, but they are not generally purposeless liars. When a man is in trouble and is called on to give an account of himself he makes the best of his case; but people who have never been in prison have been known to make no disclaimer when praised for qualities they do not possess, preferring to let time correct any false impression that may be to their advantage. It is not reasonable to expect any higher standard of behaviour from a prisoner than we look for from others.

Much of what is harshly called lying on the part of prisoners is due to misapprehension on the part of their questioners. Most of them do not waste lies. If the truth will serve, it is easier to tell it, to put the matter at its lowest; but they are frequently worried with questions they do not understand, put by persons whom they distrust, with the result that they leave an impression of stupidity and untrustworthiness that is not deserved. I remember a gentleman who considered himself a very acute observer, informing me with regard to a certain prisoner whom he had been questioning, that the man was weak-minded. I had very good reason for holding another opinion, but wishing to find out how the visitor had arrived at this conclusion, I interviewed the prisoner, and after some talk approached the subject of his recent examination. A smile overspread his face as he explained that he had been asked all sorts of questions by the stranger and had not been allowed to answer in his own way, so he got tired and let the other have it as he wished. His opinion of his examiner I obtained as a personal favour, for as he put it, “It’s no for the like o’ me to say onything aboot the like o’ him—at least no here.” I cannot print his words, all of them. He said, “He’s a —— of a flat.” Each had a poor opinion of the other, and how far each was right others may judge. The incident suggests several reflections.

It is not reasonable to expect that a prisoner will take the trouble to understand and answer the questions of a stranger whose object in quizzing him he does not know. Few of us would care to unbosom ourselves to the first visitor who chose to interest himself in our affairs. He might count himself lucky if he did not find himself violently expelled. The prisoner cannot throw an unwelcome visitor out, but sometimes he would like to; and the attitude of some who seek to do good is at times provocative. When the enquirer is known it is a different story. Get the name of being “all right” and you will learn, but you must first deserve confidence. Frankness begets frankness, and for my own part I have found very few prisoners who wilfully sought to deceive me when they knew why I sought information from them. It was either freely given, or withheld with the plain statement that they could not fairly give it. The information given has not always been accurate, but there are not so many people who are accurate in their statements—not through want of desire to be truthful, but because their perception, their memory, or both, are blurred.

But more than frankness is required; there must be some ability to see things from the standpoint of those who are questioned, and a sufficient knowledge of their language to understand an answer when it is given. There are very many people who think they know the English language, and who do not seem to have realised the fact that a different significance is attached to words in different districts and among different classes. There are not merely slang words, but words used in a slang sense, and when these are taken literally the result is misunderstanding. Yet we are sometimes treated to the result of investigations by people who have had no training, and who in a marvellously short time can obtain voluminous and striking information; how much it is worth is another question. Try to get by question and answer a short record of the antecedents of any of your friends, and you will find that it cannot be done in a few minutes, that it will not be free from inaccuracies, and that it will require explanation before you understand it as they would like. To obtain such information from a stranger is a more difficult task.

In the case of the prisoner the advantages to be gained are worth the effort to overcome the difficulties. Having obtained his statement, it might form the basis of an enquiry into his case and an attempt to help him on his discharge. There are few men who have not some friends who are persons of goodwill. They may be relatives, or employers, or fellow-workmen; but their will may be greater than their power. Their patience may have been tried to the limit of endurance or their interest may have become languid; but if they will not or cannot help, they can at least tell what they have done and prevent a repetition of the treatment that has failed. There are very many people who would never dream of joining a society for aiding prisoners, but who will willingly assist in helping a person whom they have known in his better days. The societies have their use, but that is no reason why a man’s fellows should not be enlisted in his aid; though they have no interest in the general question, they may take an interest in the special case. In the attempt it will be found that, even though the efforts made to help a given prisoner should fail, a knowledge has been gained of the existence of conditions that favour ill-doing.

Every official knows that in a great city there are occasions of misconduct which the ordinary citizen does not suspect. Such knowledge, so long as it is confined to officials, is comparatively sterile. They may speak, but some other matter distracts public attention before it has been focussed long enough on the subject to do any good. At most they may get further powers to do for the citizens things which the citizens could far better do for themselves. Talk of slums to a man who is comfortable is often only talk, but set him to live in them and the effect is different. In the same way, if you can, through his personal interest in a man, get another to examine into the causes of his wrongdoing; to go over the ground for himself; to see the process and the means of his degradation; that man will note how many occasions of offence exist that might be removed, and if only for the safety of his own family will give assistance in removing them. Incidentally and in process of time a large mass of information regarding the history of criminals and offenders would be collected, and some generalisations of importance might be made. At present those who generalise do so without any such careful study of the persons whom they deal with as that I recommend. For sixteen years I have been looking for the offender of the books and I have not met him. The offender familiar to me is not a type, but a man or a woman; and we shall never know nor deserve to know him till we are content to study him, not as the naturalist studies a beetle, but as a man studies his neighbour.

PART II
COMMON FACTORS IN THE CAUSATION OF CRIME

CHAPTER I

DRINK AND CRIME

Drink commonly accredited with the production of crime—Minor offences usually committed under its influence—Drink a factor in the causation of most crimes against the person—Double personality caused by drink—Drunken cruelty—Drunken rage—Assaults on the drunken—Sexual offences—Child neglect—Mental defect behind the drunkenness of some offenders—Malicious mischief and theft—Drunken kleptomania—The professional criminal and drink—Thefts from the drunken—Amount of crime not in ratio to amount of drinking in a district—The vice existent apart from crime, in the country—And in the wealthier parts of the city—Drunkenness and statistics—Summary.

Though the differences among prisoners in antecedents and faculties must be taken into account if they are to be treated in a rational manner, there are factors which are common to the causation of crime in many cases. Their influence may vary in strength, but it cannot be disregarded.

Drink is denounced—and consumed—by all classes. There are many who attribute all evils to its use, and some of these take the logical course and advocate the prohibition of its manufacture and sale. Others make the theory an excuse for doing nothing to remedy social conditions; for “you never can stop men from drinking,” and if drink be the cause of social evils, and you cannot stop its use, why should they worry?

Any theory of the causation of evil will be fashionable if it offers a superficial explanation of the facts and affords an excuse for doing nothing more troublesome than giving good advice to the poorer classes. Drink has brought misery and degradation on many, through their own indulgence or that of those on whom they have been dependent; if it does not cause, it is often an aggravation of poverty; and it is with no wish to minimise its ill effects that I protest against exaggerating them. Our social troubles are not traceable to any one cause, and it is not profitable to single out a particular vice and place all evil to its account; nor is the practice more laudable when the vice is not one to which we are ourselves inclined. By all means let temperance be taught and drunkenness be discouraged; this too we shall do better when we search for the causes of intemperance.

One of the statements most frequently made is that the great majority of crimes are due to drink. It would be more accurate to say that most prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the breach of the law for which they have been convicted. The great majority are petty offenders. Strike them off and our prison population would at once be reduced by more than a half. They have been drunk and incapable of taking care of themselves, or they have committed a breach of the peace through drink. Their sentences are short and their number is large. Many of them are regular customers and return again and again in the course of the year. Whether we are dealing wisely with them will bear discussion. They do not seem to be any the better for it so far as their conduct shows. They are enabled, in consequence of the rest and regular living of the prison, to start on their next spree in a better condition physically than would be the case if they were not detained there for a time; but this is rather a personal than a public gain. At present they swell our prison statistics and are a burden on the exchequer. That they should be mixed up with criminals is no advantage either to us or to them. The cause of their conviction is drink; but it does not make for clearness of statement to add their numbers to those of criminals who have committed crimes against the person or against property.

Crimes against the person are generally committed by people under the influence of drink, or on persons who are intoxicated. A man takes liquor to get out of himself, and is then in a condition to do or say things from which he would refrain if sober. Some are not improved in temper as a result of their drinking, and are more prone to quarrel and less able to control their passion. It is commonly observed that a man can and does develop a double personality, showing one set of characteristics when sober and another when under the influence of drink. In both states he receives impressions, and his actions when sober show that the impulses which direct his acts are different from those which dominate him when he is intoxicated. Just as his sober self is forgotten when he is drunk, his drunken self is forgotten when he is sober—not wholly, it may be, but in part. He seems more readily to remember violence suffered than violence inflicted by him. Impressions received in one condition tend to be revived when the person is again in that condition. If when he gets quarrelsome and hits out he finds he has struck one who will strike back, he generally gets out of the way and avoids the danger from that kind of person on a subsequent occasion. Just as he learns to keep clear of lamp-posts and other resistant objects, he learns to stop short of striking one who is likely to hurt him.

The most serious assaults are not so much the outcome of drunken anger as of drunken cruelty; and, pent up in one direction, it finds vent in another. This passion seems to possess some men regularly, and it is indulged at the expense of those who offer least resistance to it, viz. the female members of their household. With them a habit is formed of assaulting their women-folk, and the habit grows in force and intensity. In most cases of brutal wife-murder that have come under my observation, the fatal assault has simply been the last of a series committed regularly when the culprit was under the influence of drink, and the woman’s death was the final incident in a long-drawn-out martyrdom.

In other cases men who are ordinarily peaceable find themselves in prison charged with assaults of which they have no distinct recollection, the result of sudden passion that has swept their minds when they were intoxicated. Others become so pugnacious when they take drink that they are not content till they are in a row and do not seem to mind whether they get hurt or not. In their case—which seems to be the most common—it is not the lust of cruelty but the delight in battle that stirs them, and though they may get fully as much as they give, it does not deter them from repeating their conduct.

Another class of assaults is that committed on persons who are under the influence of drink, and who by their misconduct have provoked their assailant. They are relatively few, and the assault is rarely so brutal in character or so serious in result; though occasionally it may end tragically. X 12 was a young man who married a girl of respectable character. They were both sober and industrious. She had been engaged in a factory before her marriage and had very little practical experience of housekeeping. She was not accustomed to household routine, and as her husband did not get home for his meals she had a lot of time on her hands. Her house was in a different part of the city from that of her parents, and she had to make friends for herself. Unfortunately she got into the company of some who gossiped together and moistened the talk with drink. At first she abstained, but by and by she began to do like the rest; and unlike them she could not control herself. She showed a tendency to excess which they tried to discourage for their own sakes as well as hers. Her husband discovered her misconduct, and in order to break her of it removed to another district. For a time she did well, and her relatives helped her. But again she drifted in her search for company into that of those who took the “social glass.” It is wonderful how a woman when she has once taken to drink finds a difficulty in making friendships with other women who have not done so, unless she becomes a militant teetotaler. In the present instance the young wife had relapse after relapse over a series of years, and her husband seems to have done all in his power to save her. She had two children, and when sober she attended to them adequately; but her fits of drinking began to occur more frequently, and in them she became more reckless. After one, in which she had sold out the household furniture and disappeared, she returned penitent and he set up house again with her. She kept sober for some weeks, they were getting things together, and he was trusting her with some money. One Monday evening he went home from his work to find the house partially stripped, the children neglected, dirty, and in tears, and his wife in a dazed condition waiting to receive him with maudlin apologies. In his anger he pushed her from him. Her body struck the corner of the table, and shortly after she fell and died. She had sustained rupture of an internal organ and she bled to death in a few minutes. The result was altogether disproportionate to the amount of violence used and was in a sense accidental, but her death could as truly be attributed to drink as many of those which result from the assaults of drunken persons.

Drink plays an important part in the commission of sexual offences, but it is not more generally a factor in such cases than in those of simple assaults. In the great majority of these charges against men under middle age it is found that the assailant was at the time under its influence, however; and in the most atrocious and unspeakable cases it is rarely absent unless when there is insanity present.

Of late years there has been an increasing desire on the part of the legislature to secure proper care for children, and to punish those who by negligence or cruelty allow their offspring to suffer. Cases have been reported that reveal a shocking state of affairs, and parents have been prosecuted and sent to prison for their callousness and cruelty. Of all prisoners these are usually the most hopeless and useless; the most entirely selfish in their outlook; the most inclined to grumble and shirk work; the persons with the keenest sense of their rights and the lowest sense of their responsibilities—this from a merely superficial observation of them. The care of the children falls naturally to the women; the provision for them to the men. The men have excuses to offer for the condition of the children, and these excuses are sometimes valid; for a man cannot be at the same time working outside to support his family and looking after them in the house. If the woman is given the money to defray the necessary expenses, and neglects their care, it is difficult for her to stand excused. In practically all the cases drink enters into the question, and its presence explains but does not excuse the neglect.

It is a good thing for the children that they should be removed from the care of parents who are cruel to them either by neglecting or by maltreating them, and it is well that those who are inclined to carelessness should know that their conduct may form the subject of complaint; but a person may be physically fit to have children and mentally incapable of taking care of them. A large proportion of those women who have been convicted of cruelty to children are in this sad case. The evidence has been of the clearest that they have squandered their substance, indulged their appetites, and shamefully ill-used their offspring, but only after they have been placed out of the reach of drink is it possible to say whether at their best they are capable of undertaking the obligations they have incurred by becoming mothers. In some cases their mental condition has been so bad as to justify their removal to lunatic asylums; in other cases the mental defect is quite perceptible and is obviously such as to unfit them for their duties, but is not sufficiently marked to enable them to be cared for by the lunacy authority. Drink has been held accountable for their conduct and it has had a share in its causation, but it has masked the permanent flaw behind it, whether that defect has existed before the subject gave way to drink or has resulted from drink. In the case of these women it is a serious matter to allow them to return to duties they are unfit to discharge, especially as there is a probability that the condition of the family may be aggravated by its increase. Among women convicted of cruelty to children there are very few who are not mentally defective as far as my experience goes.

Just as drink causes some people to become savage, it incites others to mischief. If a man lift things that do not belong to him and carry them off, that is theft and punishable as such. If the culprit could state the case to the magistrate as a lawyer would, it would be classed as malicious mischief; but if he had the necessary training, or could afford to pay a lawyer, he might not be in court at all. It is not yet an uncommon thing for young bloods to destroy or take away the property of others, but they are not charged with theft as a result of their exuberance. They are not usually charged at all if they compensate the owners. Students of medicine have been known to return from a symposium with a miscellaneous collection of articles which they had conveyed without authority from shop-doors, in addition to an occasional door-bell handle or knocker. If any of them had been convicted of theft in consequence of this conduct, he would as a result have been struck off the register and been prevented from entering the profession for which he was training. A conviction for malicious mischief would have no such grave result. The consequence is quite as serious in the case of a labouring man. It is not merely that the sentence is heavier; that is the least of it; it is the reputation of being a thief that is attached to him on his discharge which he will find difficult to overcome. It is bad enough for his prospects of honest employment that he should have been in prison, but if the cause was not dishonesty he may be regarded as merely foolish. If his offence has been theft it is another story. Explanations are not wanted—nor thieves; and the dog with the bad name may set about in despair to deserve it, becoming a recruit to the ranks of the professional criminals. In such cases the man’s downfall may be attributed to drink; but he might reasonably attach some of the blame to our stupidity in dealing with him.

Apart from those who are led into sportive acts when they are in liquor, there are some who take to theft pure and simple. X 13 was a most respectable man about thirty years of age. He was honest and industrious, and except that he occasionally gave way to intemperance he appeared to have no faults or follies. He was not very fond of company, and after his work was done he spent most of his time at home in his lodgings, where he had the reputation of being a quiet, peaceable, and somewhat studious man. He was arrested one night when under the influence of drink, in possession of property which had been stolen by him. On his room being searched the proceeds of several thefts were found, and the remains of articles which had been stolen and partially destroyed. It became apparent that he had been responsible for quite a number of thefts from public places during the two preceding years. His story was that he had no recollection of stealing; and on the Sunday morning after his first theft he was horrified to find a bag containing articles of clothing in his room. He ascertained from his landlady that he had brought it home the night before, and he told her some story to explain his questions. He made no attempt to sell the property, but destroyed it in detail. He kept off drink for a time, but falling in with some old friends one night, he took too much and again he stole. It preyed on his mind to such an extent that he went on a spree, with the same result. He could tell nobody of his trouble, and he got into despairing and reckless moods in which he flew to drink, nearly always returning with something. He was remonstrated with on account of his growing intemperance, but with very little result; and it was a relief to him when he was found out. How many thefts he had committed was never known, but he had never made a penny by them. He was not a kleptomaniac when sober, and his case is an uncommon one in respect more to the freedom he enjoyed from arrest than to the nature of the impulse which he obeyed; for there are a good many occasional thieves who are quite honest when sober.

Others have fallen from a position as law-abiding citizens, and have lost their self-respect, as well as their position, through habitual intemperance. Their one passion is drink, and they will do anything to get it. They cannot get work and could not keep it if they did, because of their unsteadiness; so they live off others by begging or by stealing.

The most troublesome criminal to those whose duty it is to protect the public, and the most dangerous to the property of his fellow-citizens, is the professional; and no more than other professional persons does he go to business the worse of drink, for that would be taking an unnecessary risk. There are few occupations in which sobriety is not required to ensure and maintain success, and this is true whether the business be an honest or a dishonest one. Not that the thief need be a teetotaler; in his hours of relaxation he may be found proving the contrary; but he cannot afford to drink during business hours. In prison he may say that he is there on account of the drink, but the statement, though it may be true, is misleading. It is a convenient formula, and serves to prevent further enquiry. He knows that those who question him have their prejudices, and he is aware that it is the fashion to trace all crimes to drink—and no further. Let him frankly confess his failing for liquor and he will obtain some sympathy which may materialise on his liberation. It is literally true in many cases, the statement: “If it hadna been the drink I wadna been here.” But it is also true that he has not been honest when sober. For every time he has been caught there are many thefts he has committed and escaped capture. Continue the enquiry and it is found that what he means is that if he had not obscured his judgment with drink he would not have attempted the job he undertook; or he would have kept a better look-out before he did take it in hand. He is not a thief because of the drink, but a thief who is caught because he has been intemperate. The drink in this case has not proved an ally to crime, but an auxiliary of the police; it has not caused the theft, but has enabled the thief to be caught.

In many cases, however, it assists the professional criminal; for the intoxicated man is an easier prey to him than the sober citizen. He can be assisted home by willing hands that will go through his pockets with skill on the road. He can be lured into dens that when sober he would avoid, and there be robbed at leisure and with little risk. He may even be relieved of his property without any pretence of friendliness, with small chance of his offering effective resistance or causing a hot pursuit. In all these ways he affords opportunity to the thief, and to the extent that the drink places him in this condition it is a cause of crime.

It appears then: (1) that the great mass of prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the offence for which they have been convicted; (2) that of these the “crime” of the majority is drunkenness, or some petty offence resulting therefrom; (3) that nearly all the crimes against the person are committed by, or upon, people who were intoxicated at the time; (4) that many offences against property are partly the result of drink; (5) that the majority of crimes against property are not due to drunkenness on the part of the criminal.

But the amount of crime in Scotland is not in proportion to the amount of drinking in any district. The consumption of drink is not confined to our cities and towns, and excessive indulgence sometimes takes place on the part of people who live in the country, yet no considerable proportion of our prison population comes from the courts of country districts or of small towns. The vice may be present without issuing in crime, though the drink itself has the same effect on the drinker whether he be living in the town or in the country.

In the country and in small towns, where the population is stable and where people are not packed together, they have opportunities each of knowing his neighbour, and they take some interest in one another. Indeed, one often hears complaints of villagers taking too much interest in their neighbours’ affairs. If a man drink more than he can carry, there is usually someone about who will see him home; or at worst he finds rest until he recovers, without the necessity of interference of an official kind. In the town, although a man may have friends who would be willing to look after him, he is separated from them, not by green fields, but by rows of tenements and multitudes of passers-by who have no personal interest in or knowledge of him; and if he lie down he obstructs the traffic and has to be taken in charge. He need not be any more drunk than the man in the country, but he is a greater public nuisance.

In the country if a man have his evil passions stirred or inflamed by drink and seek to indulge them, friendly hands restrain him from doing the injury he might otherwise do, and the crime which has been conceived may never be executed; but in the city a man may, and sometimes does, brutally assault and even slay another person, while people are living above, below, and on each side of him; and no one troubles to look in and ascertain what is going on. Men do not know their neighbours and do not care to interfere in the affairs of strangers. They have learnt to attend to their own business and to leave other things to their paid officials. The officials likewise attend to their business; and the prison cells are filled with men and women who have taken liquor to excess and have had no friendly hand to assist them or to keep them out of mischief. In the absence of this restraint and help, crime is just as likely to result from excessive drinking in the country as in the town.

There is another difference in favour of the country toper that is worth noting. The man who sells him the drink is usually a member of the community in which he lives, and he cannot afford persistently to outrage the sentiments of those among whom his lot is cast. He will not find it to his comfort to obtain the bad opinion of his neighbours; and if he get the name of filling his customers full he may run the risk of losing his license. It is not to his interest to disregard the welfare of his patrons even were he so inclined. Each district has its own standard of what is fair and allowable, and no publican can safely continue to fall below it. In the large towns the licenses are not usually held by men who live in the district. Many of them are in few hands. The licensee is represented by barmen who have a most harassing and exacting time; who work long hours for wages that are seldom what could be called high; who are engaged selling drink to men the majority of whom they do not know; and who are expected while keeping within the law to sell as much liquor as possible. Public opinion in the district can only touch the publican on his financial side; and then only by a campaign directed to ensure regulations that are sometimes as futile as they are vexatious, and that attack indiscriminately the man who is really trying to conduct his business in a reasonable way and him whose only care is to get as much out of it as he can.

But not only is there drinking in the country as well as in the town. There is no district of the town that has a monopoly of temperance. There are fewer public-houses in the wealthier than in the poorer districts, but there are more private cellars. There is no bigger proportion of teetotalers among men who have money than among men with none; and business men are as much given to drinking as artisans or labourers. There is a difference in their methods of consumption, the one judiciously mixing his potations with solids, the other taking his amount in a shorter period of time and running a bigger risk of getting drunk. Even when he does get beyond the stage of being quite clear in the head, the wealthier man has the means of getting home quietly, and there may be no scandal and no arrest. Though there may be as much drinking in the district in which he lives as in some of the congested parts of a city, there is less crime in proportion to the number of inhabitants; so that there are other factors than drink necessary to the commission of crime, even when drink is present.

In Glasgow we are accustomed periodically to learn from the testimony of English visitors that we are the most drunken city in the kingdom; and tourists write to the newspapers and tell their experiences and impressions of sights seen in our streets, quoting statistics of the arrests for drunkenness. This alternates with panegyrics of the city as the most progressive in the world—“the model municipality.” We are neither so bad nor so good as we are sometimes said to be. That the streets of Glasgow—or rather some of them—are at times disgraced by the drunkenness of some who use them, is quite true; but the fact that some travellers at some times see more drunk people in a given area than may be seen in any English city does not justify the inference that the inhabitants of Glasgow are more drunken than those of other cities. In no English city is there so large a population on so small an area. If there are more drunk in a given space there are also more sober people; but only the drunks are observed. In Glasgow, moreover, the ordinary drink is whisky, which rapidly makes a man reel. It excites more markedly than the beer consumed so generally in England, which makes a man not so much drunk as sodden. If it were worth the retort, one might point out that even if it be true that in Scotland you may see more people drunk, in England you see fewer people sober.

As for the statistics of arrests they are absolutely useless for purposes of comparison, if only because of the different practices that prevail in different parts of the country in dealing with drunks. It is also well known that a comparatively small number of persons is responsible for a very large number of arrests.

The facts show (1) that drink puts a man into a condition in which he is more liable to commit an offence or crime than he is when sober; (2) that while drinking is common in all parts of the country, police offences and crimes occur mainly in closely populated districts; (3) that the amount of crime and police offences in Scotland is not dependent on the amount of drinking alone, but is mainly dependent on indulgence in drink under certain conditions of city life; (4) that the major portion, and the most serious kind, of crimes against property, are not attributable to drink.

CHAPTER II

POVERTY, DESTITUTION, OVERCROWDING, AND CRIME

The majority of persons in prison there because of their poverty—Poverty and drink—Poverty and petty offences—Poverty and thrift—Poverty and destitution—Case of theft from destitution—Poverty and vagrancy—Unemployment and beggary—Formation of professional offenders—The case of the old—The degradation of the unemployed to unemployability—No ratio between the amount of poverty alone and the amount of crime—A definite ratio between density of population and crime—Slum life—Overcrowding—Cases of destitution and overcrowding—Overcrowding and decency—Poverty and overcrowding in relation to offences against the person—The poor and officials—The absence of opportunity for rational recreation—The migratory character of the population—The multiplication of laws and of penalties—Transgressions due to ignorance and to inability to conform—Contrast between city and country administration—Case of petty offender—Treatment induces further offences—The city the hiding-place of the professional criminal—Crime largely a by-product of city life.

While the majority of prisoners were under the influence of drink at the time they committed the offences for which they are convicted, it is equally true that they are in prison because of their poverty. They are there because they are unable to pay the fines imposed on them. Their offences may be attributable to drink, but their imprisonment is due to want of money. There are many who are most estimable citizens, though poor; poverty alone does not lead them to prison. On the other hand, there are many people who drink to excess and do not transgress the law; their drunkenness alone does not lead them to jail; but while a man may be poor and virtuous, his poverty will compel him to live under conditions in which any vices he has may easily develop into crimes or offences.

It is sometimes said that poverty, and especially the poverty of the masses, is the result of drink, but no statement was ever more grotesquely untrue. That drink aggravates poverty is obvious; but no one can shut his eyes to the fact that all poor people do not drink, and that all teetotalers are not rich. Drink is often a cause of poverty; but to attribute poverty mainly to drink is wantonly to libel thousands of our poorer fellow-citizens who live far cleaner lives than many of their critics. On the other hand, it is equally unsafe to attribute drinking mainly to poverty, for many who indulge freely are possessed of considerable means, and the practice is not peculiar to any social condition. That some are driven to drink as a refuge from the monotony of their lives is undeniable; but if poverty makes some men drunkards it makes others teetotalers. They see that their chances of “getting on” are less if they take drink than they would be if they kept strictly sober, and they abstain till they have attained their object; though they may make up for their abstinence afterwards.

Of prisoners convicted for committing petty offences—the largest number—many have been driven to offend by the squalor of their surroundings. Poverty tends to limit a man’s choice in work and in recreation. He is on the verge of destitution, having nothing in the way of reserve, and he is forced to take work that may and often does result in an income that is much less than the expenditure of energy necessary to obtain it. If he is a member of a family or has friends in the district where he is living, he can usually obtain assistance in the time of his distress; and he is himself counted on to render help when required. That such help is commonly given by the poor to the poor is a commonplace, but its importance in preventing destitution in places where poverty is always present is not sufficiently recognised.

The majority of working-class families live almost from hand to mouth. The utmost to be expected from them in the way of thrift is provision for pay in time of sickness from a friendly society; and even that is not possible for all the members of a household. Provision may also be made for aliment from a trade union in time of unemployment; and in some cases for some period there may be something saved and set aside in the bank. They are accustomed to hear of their improvidence from people who have never known what it is to suffer from ill-health and consequent loss of income, and who would find their place in a lunatic asylum if they tried to live for a year under the circumstances of those whom they criticise and direct. Their lamentations and advice are sometimes echoed by the man who has risen from the ranks to comparative opulence, and who forgets that if his neighbours had been like him he would never have been where he is. The only capital they have is their health, and anything may happen to set aside the principal member of the family and throw the others into a struggle that may lame them.

The life of the individual worker is nearly always one of interdependence. In his early years he is dependent on his parents and his elder brothers and sisters. When he is able to work his wages go into the common stock, and by the time he can earn enough to support himself he may have to contribute to the support of his parents. Thrift in the case of any family cannot be estimated by the money saved, and in many of the model thrifty families it may be found that the cash saving has been made at the expense of starving the bodies and minds of the children. Time and again, well-doing families have become destitute after a severe and prolonged struggle, or after a short period in which they have suffered blow after blow, as a result of sickness or loss of work; and as there is no public provision made for helping such people until they are quite destitute, and then only the minimum of relief is given them and they are set adrift to recover under conditions that render recovery almost impossible, it is wonderful that so many manage to survive.

Those who sink are not therefore to be condemned on that account as worse citizens than those who survive; the time at which they have been struck by calamity may account for all the difference between them. We are all liable to sickness and death, but if either comes at one time rather than another it may make a very considerable difference to our families. When a man who is in a steady situation with a fair wage dies leaving no provision for his wife and family he is condemned. It is in vain to point out that he used his pay towards their comfort and in such a way as to ensure their fitness; he ought to have been more careful; and the very people who preach faith are the first to blame him because he took no thought of tomorrow, but did the best he could in the day that was his. The fact is that every man who thinks, among those that are dependent on the wages they earn—usually under a precarious tenure of their situations—sees that his choice lies between securing the best conditions in his power for his family in order that they may be the more fit to do their work in the world, and doing something less in order to lay by some money for them; between starving them in essentials during his lifetime to secure them from starvation should he die, and giving what he has while he is there to give, in the hope that he may live to see them develop healthily.

From poverty to destitution is in many cases but a short step, and it may be taken by those who have done nothing to deserve it. Sickness, loss of employment, absence of friends who can assist, may drive a man to extremity; and then it is a hard task indeed for him to keep within the law and live. His sickness may enable him to qualify for parochial relief, but as soon as he is recovered so far as to be able to go about he may be cast adrift without means of support.

If a man does not live by working he can only support himself by the work of others; being destitute he must beg or steal. X 14 was a man of thirty-five years of age who was charged with theft. He was somewhat “soft,” and had managed to support himself during the lifetime of his relations by casual labour. He was physically in good health and mentally not bad enough to obtain care from any public body. On the death of those who had looked after him he drifted to the common lodging-houses, but he had not enough devil in him to be attracted by any of the vicious or to indulge in any vices. He began to find difficulty in obtaining employment. Under the stress of his condition his mental defect became accentuated, and, though not prominent enough to call for official recognition, it hindered him in his efforts to obtain work. Asked why he had stolen, he gave a reply that in its reasonableness was striking. He said, “What was I to do? I tried the parish, but they could do nothing for me, for I’m quite weel. I tried beggin’, but I didna get much, an’ I was catched. You’re no sae often catched when you steal.” He did not want to steal, but it was the easiest thing to do. In begging he took a risk of apprehension for everybody he approached, and from most he would get nothing in the way of help. He took the same risk when he lifted something, but at any rate he drew no blanks. He had some very orthodox views on punishment; for he believed that the proper thing to do with a man who stole—when you caught him—was to send him to prison for so many days, the time to depend on the value of the property stolen; but he thought that the man who had suffered imprisonment for theft, and so paid the penalty, ought to be allowed to enjoy the proceeds of his theft; and he complained that though he had served so many days for the theft of a pair of boots, he had not been given back the boots on his liberation. I cite his case here, in spite of the fact that he was mentally defective, because he really stated correctly the dilemma into which a person is driven when destitute; and because he appeared to be one who, had it not been for his poverty and destitution, would not have required attention either as a mentally defective or a criminal. His social condition gave no opportunity for the proper development of his mental powers, but stunted their growth. As for their quality, it is in no wise different from that of many who, thanks to better chances, are able to get themselves accepted as public leaders on the strength of an absence of showy vices, and the exposition of a logical and narrow view of things; solid men and safe, free from levity and serious-minded.

Poverty is no crime, but it is something very like a police offence if the poor person is destitute. Everybody needs food, clothing, and shelter, and they cannot be had without money or its equivalent. A man may starve and go in rags rather than beg or steal, but he must sleep somewhere. He cannot pay for a lodging, and to sleep out is to qualify for sleeping in a cell. If the police were not better than the law in this respect our prisons would always be full. There are many men out of work who are far from anxious to get it; indeed, and for that matter, most people are quite content to do no more than they need; and in spite of all that has been said of the blessedness of labour, there are few of the most earnest preachers against the idleness of others who would prefer to work longer hours for less pay rather than shorter hours for more.

We must discriminate; the objection to the man who will not work is that he is not content to want. When he gets like that he is so far from being an unemployed person that he has adopted the occupation of deliberately living off others; that is his profession, and I am not at all sure that it is quite as easy as it is assumed to be by those who have not tried it. Certainly the amateur beggar makes but a poor show with the professional. His is, at any rate, a dishonourable and an illegal profession; but while in some cases he has been brought up to it, in many he has drifted into it through destitution. We ought to have no professional beggars and no professional thieves; but as they are in some way made, it does not help to an understanding of the question to label them “habitual,” condemn them, and neglect to ask, if they “growed,” how it was they began their career. Many of these full-blown specimens have been offered work at remunerative rates and have scorned it, which shows—that they did so; that is all. It does not show that if in the beginning they had been taken in hand they would have refused to do their share of labour. All experiments of that kind only prove that the sturdy beggar finds it easier and pleasanter to beg than to do the kind of work offered to him; they teach nothing as to the causes which led him to begging; and poverty and destitution are the most common causes.

In our large cities there are numbers of children who are destitute because of their parents being unable to provide for them, or failing to do so. They are cast on their own resources from a very early age, and have sometimes to assist in the maintenance of others. When they can, some of them leave the homes which have been far from sweet and take to living in common lodging-houses—in Glasgow we call them “Models,” with a fine sense of humour, for they offer the best of opportunities for the formation of citizens who will not be models. If the boy grows up as he can, and in the process develops anti-social qualities, it is not he who is most to blame; and when we condemn his conduct, as we must, we might at least admit that his course has largely been shaped by the destitution which it would have paid us better to prevent than to punish, when as its result we have allowed him to develop into a pest.

At the other end of the ladder there are men who are refused work because they are or seem old, and who are driven down through destitution to become petty offenders. I remember when I was employed in the poorhouse a man was brought to be certified insane. He had attempted to sever a vessel in his arm in order that he might bleed to death, but his ignorance of anatomy—he was a pre-school-board man—had caused him to make an ugly gash at the wrong place. He was talkative, and his story was clearly told. He was about fifty years of age and was unable to follow the only trade he knew. He was an iron-worker and had done hard work in his day. He had never been a teetotaler, but he had always attended to his work. At times he made good wages, but he had suffered from periods of depression. Sometimes he had been able to save money, but it had always melted. He could get work when work was to be had, but for some year or two now he was physically unable to take a place. He had contracted a disease of the heart. His son had got married and had two children. He was a well-doing and industrious young man; sober, steady, and a good workman. He had been supported by this son, of whom he spoke in the highest terms. He also was an iron-worker. The son had never grudged him his keep, nor had his wife. Why then had he attempted to kill himself? His explanation was as clear as it was unexpected. He said, “Doctor, do I look unhappy?” He did not; indeed he was rather cheerful. “Well, I never had ony melancholy, if that’s the name for’t. My son’s a good lad. He slaves as I slaved, and at the end he’ll drap tae. I’m done. I’ve enjoyed my life on the whole, but I’m fit for naething but to be a burden on him. He disna object; but there’s the weans. Every bite that goes into my mooth comes oot o’ theirs. If they’re to be something better than their faither or me, they’ll need mair of the schule; and what wi’ broken time an’ low wages they’ll no get it. I want them to be kept frae work till they’re educated tae seek something better. He and I have had our share of hard work. I’ve had my sprees, but he’s a better man than I was—no a better tradesman; I’ll no say that—an’ I want his weans to hae a better chance than he had. No, I’m no a Socialist; I’m a Tory if I’m onything, but I never bothered wi’ political questions, though I’ve heard a heap o’ blethers on a’ sides. What? Hell? Noo, doctor, does ony sensible man believe in that nooadays? God’s no as bad as they make Him oot to be, an’ at onyrate I believe that death ends a’.” There was no shaking him. All he wanted was some lessons in anatomy—which he did not get. He insisted that he was as sane as any of us, and asserted that he could not be certified; but he was wrong there. The law takes most elaborate precautions to prevent people killing themselves, aye even when it has sentenced them to death, but so far it has not made any provision for enabling them to work for their living.

We hear of the unemployable who could not work even if he were willing, but apart from those who labour under mental or physical disabilities—and many of them can and do work—I have not met many of this class. There are many on distress works who make a very poor show; they are not fit for that kind of work, but that is a different thing altogether from saying that there is nothing they can do that is useful. Certainly in the ordinary sense it cannot be said of the man who is too old to secure employment that he is unfit for work. He is shut out by competition, the employer quite naturally preferring what he believes to be the more efficient workman. Few of the older men who are thus thrown on the scrap-heap take things in such a way that they try the open door of death, but the fact that they are condemned to forsake their occupation does prey on the minds of many and embitter their lives; and the fear of dismissal increases in intensity as their hair turns white. When the blow falls, if they have no resources what is to become of them? There are all sorts of schemes proposed for dealing on the one hand with the young and keeping them longer at school, and on the other hand with the older men and providing them with work. To an outsider it would seem that if the number of men employed is sufficient to produce what is required, and there is a large surplus of unemployed labour, those who are working are working too long. A stranger might be excused for thinking that if one man is working eight hours and another not working at all it would be better for both that each should work four hours; but if he said so he would only show his simplicity. The man who is employed would quickly point out that this would reduce his wages. Yet when a man gets promotion, whether in the public service or in private business, his salary and his responsibilities are increased—the former certainly, the latter in such a way that it becomes less easy to get rid of him—but his hours are usually reduced; for more money would be of little use to him if he did not get time to spend it. This is merely an observation, not a doctrine; but it is difficult to see how employment is to be found for those who are willing and able to work unless we cease to improve machinery and produce less economically; or increase our production enormously; or divide the work and the proceeds more evenly. In any case, and while that matter is being settled, we might recognise the dilemma into which those are thrust who cannot find work and are destitute.

They must beg or steal, and if they get into the way of doing either they are liable to become less fitted and less inclined for other occupations. X 15 was an artisan earning a fair wage and enjoying good health. He was married to a woman who was a good housewife and manager. When he was about thirty-eight he was thrown out of work by a strike in an allied trade. A commercial crisis ensued and there was general distress. He managed for a time to keep his head above water, but his resources gradually were eaten away. His employers wound up their business, and when the local difficulty had passed he found that he had to look out for another place. While idle he had formed the acquaintance of others in like case. He had been a steady, stay-at-home man, but in their company he took to amusements which were harmless in themselves and new to him. He also imbibed a taste for beer, but he did not get drunk. The company was not bad company, but it was different from any he had been accustomed to, and it was not good for him. For a time he looked for work, but he did not find it. Others got settled, but the luck was against him, and he became discouraged and despairing. By and by he looked about in a half-hearted way, and gave more time to loafing than to seeking rebuffs. He was not destitute, as his family was able to keep the wolf from the door. In two years he was only interested in getting drink from anybody who would treat him, and in discussing public affairs with others who had fallen like himself. He had given up the idea of work and had degenerated from a good citizen to a loafer and, later, to a drunkard. He was never convicted, but he had to be warned because of his conduct towards his wife; and he died as a result of exposure when drunk—to the relief of his family, who were in danger of being dragged into the mire by him. In this case his family saved him from destitution, but the loss of his work drove him almost imperceptibly into the ranks of the derelicts, in spite of the counter-influences of home. In many cases there is no family to do what his did for him, and the process is more certain and easy.

Poverty compels men to live under conditions in which their vices may easily develop into crimes or offences; and it makes those who have transgressed the law less able to recover from the effects of a conviction and more liable to become habitual offenders; but it cannot be said that the amount of convictions in Scotland is in relation to the poverty of any given district. In some parts of the highlands and islands, where poverty is pronounced, there is an entire absence of crime.

While no ratio can be traced between the amount of drinking or the degree of poverty and the number of crimes or offences in Scotland, there is a very definite relationship between the density of the population and the incidence of breaches of the law. Not only is there more crime in the city than in the country, but from the densely populated parts of the city there are more committals than from the less crowded districts. The sanitary reformer has shown us that our city slums are breeding-places for diseases that do not confine their operation to the people who dwell there, but may easily infect those who live under more wholesome conditions; and substituting vice and crime for disease and death the statement is equally true.

By letting in light and fresh air to the houses where so many dwell we are able to save lives which would otherwise be crippled or destroyed by the insanitary conditions in which they are placed; and just as surely we could break up the aggregations of people whose acquired way of living is fatal to the proper development of an enlightened civic spirit, if we were as eager to prevent as we are to punish wrongdoing. There they are; born into little boxes of houses which are packed together in rows and built in layers one above the other in the air. Their home life is passed in similar boxes; and when they die they are put in smaller boxes and placed in layers under the earth. The health officer would speedily interfere if we tried to house as many pigs to the acre as human beings; but we eat the pigs and cannot permit them to be raised under conditions that would be likely to result in their contracting disease. Also there are fewer people making a living by furnishing accommodation for pigs than for men; and it is easier to regulate an occupation when those who are engaged in it are not influential, than when they are; for we have a traditional dislike to interfering with the rights of property. It is therefore much easier to punish a slum-dweller for breaking our sanitary regulations than a slum landlord for living off rotten dwellings.

It is well known that the worse the building is, the bigger the rent charged in proportion to the accommodation supplied. If a man owns house property he expects to make a profit when he lets it, from the difference between what he has paid for it and the rent he receives from it. X 16 is an old woman who is past work and has no resources. She has been in the poorhouse, but will not stay there, though better housed and better fed and kept cleaner than when outside. She is too old to settle down to the ordered life of the institution, and when all its advantages are enumerated to her and all available eloquence has been expended on her with a view to persuading her that in her own interest she ought gratefully to accept its shelter, she sullenly and silently shows that her opinion of the place as a desirable residence does not coincide with that of those who are in no danger of being forced to live there. She rents a small house and takes in lodgers, intending to make her living from the difference between what she pays and what she receives in rent. Under the Glasgow sanitary regulations certain houses are “ticketed”; that is to say, their cubic content is measured, and a card is fixed on the door stating the number of cubic feet in the place and the number of persons who may be lodged therein. One adult is the allowance for every 600 cubic feet; and half that space is allowed for every person under twelve years. The sanitary inspector is entitled to demand admission at any hour in order to ascertain whether there is overcrowding. He calls one night and finds that the limit has been exceeded, and she is sent to prison, in default of paying a fine, for overcrowding. Of course there is a difference between her and her landlord, for she has broken the law. Precisely; but what kind of law is it that can reach only the poorer transgressor and allows the partner in profits to escape?

X 17 is a woman of forty-two who has never been in prison before, and is under sentence for overcrowding. On a midnight visit the sanitary officer found six adults in a room ticketed for three and a half—a bad case. The woman’s story was that her daughter had been married to a young man some twelve months previously. He was an iron-worker and seemed decent enough. He lost his situation through bad trade and was unable to get another. Meantime a child was born. The young people wrestled along for a time; but after exhausting all the channels of aid which were open to them, they were turned out of their house for failing to pay the rent. Their furniture had been disposed of. The girl’s mother took them in to shelter them. She admitted she had kept them in lodgings for some weeks before the “sanitary” came down on her, and I suspect she had been warned, but as she said, “What was I to do?” Asked if she had informed the magistrate of the facts, she said she had not. “I pleaded guilty, because if ye dae that ye get aff easier.” She could not even make the best of her case, but if she had been able to employ a lawyer she would not have required to transgress the law; and as for stating her own case, that is what few are able to do—till by experience they learn. Even when a person of education and means finds himself in conflict with the law, if he is prudent he gets an experienced lawyer to appear for him and present the truth in the way that will appeal most strongly to the judge.

Overcrowding not only breeds disease, but it tends to destroy the sense of decency, and affords opportunities for the commission of crime which ought not to exist. Now and again cases come before the courts that have to be heard with closed doors, and in every one of them this factor of overcrowding is present, affording the opportunity and inducing to the commission of the crime. The subject is so foul that it cannot be adequately treated here without grave occasion of offence. Unspeakable corruption is easy and possible, and it goes on because it is unspeakable.

It has often been said that poverty and destitution are not likely to lead to the commission of crimes against the person, but rather to crimes against property and a priori there is something to be said for the statement; but whatever the likelihood we need not concern ourselves with it when the facts are before us for examination. In the first place, the great majority of persons in prison for committing assaults of all descriptions are poor persons. It is a rare thing for one in a good position to be convicted of assault, and even the most cursory examination of those who are in prison for assaulting others will show that their social condition was a factor in the causation of the crime. I have pointed out the part that drink plays in the matter, and incidentally shown that it is mainly operative under the conditions which exist in closely populated districts; but many of the minor assaults are committed by persons who are not under the influence of drink. Next to drink, among the women, the most common cause assigned by them for their imprisonment is “bad neebors.” They do not lose their tempers and fight with each other because they are poor or destitute, but poverty makes strange bedfellows and forces people to rub against one another in such a way as to give occasion for trouble; and to leave the fact out of account is simply to attempt to study man apart from his surroundings and to ignore the effect they have on his conduct.

In some parts of Glasgow—much as it has been improved during the last generation—there is literally no room for the people to live. A place to sleep in, to afford shelter from the weather, to take food in? Yes. Room for recreation or for quiet rest? No. The forbearance, the good-humour, the willingness shown to stand aside and allow another member of the family to monopolise the scanty accommodation, are wonderful; and they are the rule. Now and then, here and there, a breakdown occurs; and if it result in a breach of the peace, we are not concerned to recognise the cause, but only to punish the wrongdoers. “What’s done we partly may compute, but know not what’s resisted,” and are not disposed to find out.

A stair-head quarrel is a stock subject for the humorist; but try to live for a week in such close and constant contact with anyone, earning your living the while with exhausting labour, and your wonder will be that the peace is so well kept. The fact is that those people put up with a great deal more than their censors would stand, and that is one reason why they are so badly off. If they were as impatient of our smug mismanagement as we are of their transgressions we should have learned how to regulate our cities long ago. There is a great effort made to evangelise the poorer classes, and it is well supported by earnest men who are better off; it would not be a bad thing if the slums returned the compliment and started a mission to the West End. The a priori reasoner would then perhaps learn that while he might expect that crimes against property would in part be the result of poverty and destitution, because such crimes would relieve the poverty, though in an illegal way; crimes against the person are also frequently a result of poverty, not that they are committed with a view to its relief, but because discomfort, irritability, impatience of restraint, and other mental conditions which lead to assaults, are as much an outcome of poverty as it exists in the slums of our great cities as are hunger and want.

There is no slum district in Glasgow that does not contain a larger number of well-disposed than of evil-disposed persons; but a tenement may get a bad name through the misconduct of one or two of its inhabitants, and a street may be regarded as wild although there is only a minority of rowdy people living in it. We take no account of those who do not annoy us, and when the noisy people anywhere assert themselves we forget all about the others. When we interfere officially it is to find that, good and bad, they stand by one another. In this respect they are like gentlemen; they do not give one another away to outsiders; and it is an interesting sidelight on their view of the law that they do not look on its representatives as their friends. So often its interference results in making their condition worse that they distrust it; and it is often a greater terror to those who do well than to the evil-doer. It is no uncommon thing to see a woman who has been assaulted by her husband plead with the court to let him go, and make all sorts of excuses or tell the most incredible story to account for her injuries. Then we hear exclamations and reflections on the power of human love and the forgiving spirit of even a degraded woman. Human love is wonderful, but it is no more marvellous than human stupidity; and in these cases the woman is moved not so much by love of the man as by knowledge of the results to her and hers of our way of dealing with him. On the whole, she prefers to run the risk of ill-usage from him when he is at liberty, being assured of his protection against the ill-usage of others, to having to wrestle on in his absence and suffer from the disapproval of others who are as badly off, because of her disloyalty. See that her condition is really improved by his conviction and she will be less likely to perjure herself in the attempt to save him from the penalty of his brutality.

In every slum district there are some living who could afford to go elsewhere, but who remain where they are because it has never occurred to them that they should remove. They have gone to the district in its better days, and the change in its character has been so gradual that they have not taken much notice of it. They stay on just as men stay on at business after the need has passed, because they cannot think of doing anything else and are loth to seek fresh fields. It is not good for them that they should do so, but it is not bad for the slum; for old inhabitants of this kind exercise a good influence on many of the others.

Most slum-dwellers are not there because they prefer slum life, but because they are unable to pay for better accommodation. The smallness of their dwellings makes healthy home-life difficult and in some cases impossible. Having no room in the house for the recreation required after work, the man goes out to seek change. The opportunities offered to him are few, except those provided by private enterprise. There are the parks, and great advantage is taken of them; but in Glasgow they are nearly all at considerable distances from the most crowded districts. The public bowling-greens are used to the utmost in the evenings, but are only available for a part of the year. The libraries attract comparatively few of those whose labour has entailed much physical strain on them; and picture-galleries and museums appeal to only a very limited number of our fellow-citizens, working-class or otherwise.

It was once the idea of those who pleaded for the public provision of means of recreation that these should be of such a character as would “improve” the working classes. The intention was excellent, but the people themselves were left out of consideration, as is usual when efforts are made to recreate men instead of providing opportunity for them to amuse themselves. Perhaps they do not believe that it would be an improvement to conform to our ideals; at any rate, the great majority have not shown any eagerness to take advantage of the means for studying science and art which we have placed within their reach; and they remain as regardless of the worship of these deities as the great mass of the richer people who quite honestly have sought to elevate them. The private caterer has found a way to interest them, for if he failed to do so he would lose his means of livelihood, and that fact may have helped to sharpen his powers of perception. He has to amuse men as they are, not as he thinks they ought to be; and our regulations quite properly debar him from doing so in an objectionable way. The entertainments provided may not be of a very high order, but the purpose of recreating thousands is served. If we regret that they do not seek something better, let us remember the monotony of their lives, the numbing effect of the conditions to which they are subject, and be thankful they do not seek worse.

The small house of one or two rooms in a tenement is what the majority have for a home, and when there is a family it is insufficient to enable them to evolve a complete and healthy home-life in it. Social intercourse is of necessity restricted, for there is no room for the gathering of friends; and though public entertainments, while valuable adjuncts, are poor substitutes for social intercourse, they are better than nothing. The public-house is almost the only place where the mass of town-dwellers can meet in a social way with their friends, and the perils attendant on such meetings are evident to all men. The effort to provide some substitute for it has taxed the ingenuity and baffled the attempts of many temperance advocates and social reformers. Much as they have been criticised, the music-halls and such places have been a powerful counter-attraction, but any means of public entertainment cannot in the end supply the need for social intercourse between kindred spirits. Some day the fact will have to be faced that the only real substitute for the public-house is the private house; and when that is fully realised the slums will go.

Many have to migrate from one district to another because of the nature of their work. They have not “steady jobs,” and though they may not suffer from unemployment, they may be engaged now in one part of the city and now in another. The result is that they have no abiding dwelling-place, and as a rule have only the barest acquaintance with their neighbours; for when people are moving about in this way they have neither the same opportunity nor the same desire to form friendships with those around them. Improvement in the means of locomotion has contributed to send employers and well-to-do people out of the crowded areas of the city and away from the parts wherein their employees reside. They see less of their workmen than did a former generation, and their wives and families know nothing about the men whose co-operation is required to secure their comfort. There is less of personal contact than there was and more chance of mutual misunderstanding. The bond between employer and employed becomes more and more a mere money bond; each seeks to get as much as he can out of the other; and with it all there arises a general feeling of instability and insecurity, the necessary result of the absence of a spirit of fellowship such as can only spring from the existence of a personal as distinct from a pecuniary interest between man and man.

Where people are crowded together regulations are required for their health and comfort, and the liberty of each has to be restricted in the interest of the community. The more closely they are packed the more interference is required. Practices which in the country might be harmless or even laudable would be intolerable if permitted in the town. To make our rules operative we enact penalties against offenders—and sometimes enforce them. There are so many now that it is questionable if there is anybody in Glasgow who has not at one time or another been a transgressor. The man from whose chimney black smoke has issued, or who has obstructed the footpath by leaving goods outside his shop-door, does not worry over, because he is not seriously worried by, such laws. He may swear a little when summoned, and say evil things about the officiousness of the authorities, but it is a small matter to him even though he is fined. The man who finds himself in court for using strange oaths in public or for spitting in or upon a tramcar has more worry over the business. Even a small fine makes a serious inroad in his day’s earnings, and the loss of time attending the court docks him of the pay by which he might discharge the fine. However much it may be required, every extension of the police regulations for the government of a city implies an increase in the number of offences and offenders dealt with; and while it is necessary that transgressors should be made to cease to do the things the law condemns, it does not follow that the wisest means are always taken to secure this object.

A crusade against consumption will meet with hearty approval everywhere; but if the crusaders allow their zeal to direct their energies wrongly their good intentions cannot be held as an excuse for the harm they do. In a city that is ordinarily covered with a haze, and sometimes with a cloud, of smoke; where the inhabitants for the most part live in tenement houses that by no stretch of fancy could be called spacious; where the workers are in many cases subjected to severe physical strain by the nature of their work; and where the weather is variable and trying; it is not surprising that many should suffer from “colds.” They are under the necessity of spitting, and they spit not out of joy of spitting, but because they have to. The practice is filthy—it is all the evil things that can be said of it; and it should be discouraged. The best way would be to alter the conditions that occasion it; the worst way is to make the spitter a comrade of the criminal before the bar of a police court.

As with this so with many other offences; they are manufactured without due regard to the injury that may be caused by their enforcement. It is an easy thing to place burdens on the backs of others, but in fairness to them it should first be ascertained whether they can bear them. Many of our laws are transgressed because of ignorance or helplessness; and neither is an excuse. We are all supposed to know the law, and surely no greater irony could there be than such a hypothesis. If everybody knew the laws there would be no need for lawyers; and if the lawyers were agreed as to what is the law at any time there would be little need for judges. So well is it recognised that even the judges differ, that one set is employed to correct another; and a final decision is only arrived at because there is not another set yet provided to differ from them. If a layman does not know the law he may be punished for his ignorance; but if a judge does not know it the person in whose favour he has given a decision may be punished by payment of the costs of appeal. Let us not be too hard then on the ignorance of the man who has transgressed one of our numerous commandments.

In the country, and where people are not crowded together, there are offenders against good government; but there each one knows the other, and when a man commits a petty offence, though the local constable sees it, he may be judiciously blind if in his judgment that is the best course to take. He knows the inhabitants—they are his friends—and he reacts to the opinion of the district. If he makes an arrest the matter is discussed, and when the offender comes before the court, magistrate and prisoner meet as persons who know one another. Judgment is given on a knowledge not only of the offence, but of the offender, and all parties in the case are tried by the public. In the city it is not possible for the policeman to know the people who live in his district, nor for them to know him. This is a great disadvantage to begin with, for he is not able to distinguish between those who may be corrected and restrained by their friends without the need for their being charged and those who cannot be so dealt with. He arrests a person whom he does not know for committing an offence. The prisoner is brought before a judge who knows neither of them, save officially, and judgment is given according to scale. As for informed public opinion directed on the proceedings, there is none. In the city as in the country, however, if an offender is known as being ordinarily a well-behaved man he may not be prosecuted. If he is overcome by drink someone may see him home or send him there. It is not so much a question of his being well-to-do; it is a question of his being known. If not known, no matter what his means he cannot be sent home in a cab; but he may be taken to the police station in a wheelbarrow.

What else can the police do? We take men of good physique and character, many of them country-bred and unacquainted with the complexities of city life. They are paid the wages of a labourer, and with a uniform invested with powers and duties of the most varied kind. They must be able to keep people from offending, or to arrest them if they do offend; they must know the law; they must be prepared to act as doctors on emergency—what must they not be able to do? We multiply our complaints, and cast on their shoulders duties we ought to perform ourselves; blaming them not only for any blunders they may commit, but also for our own. We compel them to make arrests and then lament the result. X 18 is sent to prison in default of paying a fine, on conviction for using obscene language. She is seventeen years of age, but does not look more than fifteen. In years she is a young woman, but in body and in character she is a big girl. She is the eldest of a family, the father of which is a casual labourer. The mother does occasional charing. Both take drink, but neither has ever been convicted or charged. The girl is employed in a factory and earns about enough to support herself. At night she wants some fun after her day’s work, and she does not want to assist all the time in the household. She plays with other and younger girls and is probably their leader. There is no playground for them but the street corner, except they take the “back close,” which is not lit and which might be a source of greater evil than the street. A complaint is made to the police of the bad language used by the girls. It is certainly lurid; but where have they learned it? The decorative expressions complained of are part of the current vocabulary of many in the district, but are used with more restraint by the elders. We have all our pet adjectives, which differ in different localities and are of the nature of slang. In the West End a thing may be “awfully nice,” though nothing can be at once awful and nice; in the East End the adjective may be quite as inappropriate, but everybody knows its signification; and so with other parts of speech. True, their language is filthy, but it does not shock those who use it; and that is perhaps the saddest thing about it. The girls are warned, but they persist in speaking their own language, and in bravado ornament it profusely and shout opprobrious words at the policeman. One is caught. She has not necessarily been worse than the others in her behaviour, but she has either run in the wrong direction or not fast enough to escape. She is taken to the police station and warned. The complaints persist. Again she is arrested. She is the bad one; she was taken before.

On her liberation from prison she had lost her work. She was shunned by the other girls, whose mothers forbade them to associate with one who had been in prison, lest they should be taken in charge also. It is an offence to associate with some classes of offenders and criminals, and the cautious among the dwellers in these districts do not care to take risks, so they try to keep clear of anyone who has been in the hands of the police. The law may be right enough, but you will not get them to believe that the innocent person is safe; not if he is poor. “Keep awa’ frae Jeannie. She’s been in the nick; an’ if they see you wi’ her they’ll maybe think you’re as bad, and land ye there tae.” They would help her if they could, but they fear that association with her would only hurt themselves and do her no good. Those who have been in prison themselves will go with her, and those who are reckless; to their company she is confined, for she will not take to religion and the help of its professors. She is soon back again; as cheerful and as tractable as any girl could be.

In essence it is a common story. The police could have done nothing else in the circumstances, and she had no grudge against them, but admitted that they had treated her fairly; can as much be said for those who by persistent nagging force the hands of their officials, and who are more bent on punishing offenders than on mending their bad manners? We have lost the personal interest we ought to have in our neighbours; we have gone out from among them; we have cast on officials duties we ought to undertake ourselves as citizens, and the result is an increase in the number of offences. In themselves these offences are small matters, but the offenders in many cases find themselves in prison for the first time as a result; and it is the first time that counts. Every time a man is sent to prison for a small offence committed he has been given a push towards the life of a habitual offender; and the poorer and more destitute he is the greater difficulty will he have in overcoming the effect of that conviction. His first appearance may be on account of a small transgression, but there is a common saying that is often taken to heart—“As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.”

The absence of personal interest in their neighbours on the part of men in crowded districts not only permits atrocious assaults and homicides to take place in the very heart of a densely populated district, but it allows thieves to exercise their profession unmolested because unknown. It also enables them to escape observation when they are being sought for. The city is their hunting-ground and their refuge.

Crime is largely a by-product of city life. It might be mitigated if we were more public-spirited; but it will always be an evil crying out against us, so long as we permit conditions to exist which shut men into dens under circumstances that make decent communion and fellowship between them difficult if not impossible, and compel them to remain there till they can pay a ransom to the man who holds up the land for his profit or his pleasure.

CHAPTER III

IMMIGRATION AND CRIME

The stranger most likely to offend—The reaction to new surroundings—The difficulty of recovery—The attraction of the city—The Churches and the immigrant—Benevolent associations—The alien immigrants—Their tendency to hold themselves apart—Deportation—A language test required—The alien criminal—His dangerous character—The need for powers to deal with him.

A majority of the prisoners dealt with in Glasgow police courts are not Glasgow-born; and this holds true of outlying towns. It is the stranger who is the “bad one.”

The town-bred man more readily accommodates himself to the conditions of life there. He grows up among them and his life is rooted in them. While he is yet young his steps are directed for him, and he learns to avoid dangers into which the stranger may fall. There can be no association of a man with his neighbour anywhere without some degree of conformity to a common standard of conduct. No one can outrage the social customs of his companions with impunity; and everybody is more or less influenced by the opinion of those for whom he has a regard; so he conforms to the standard of behaviour set by the circle in which he moves and is steadied thereby. If, as is generally the case, his companions are not ill-disposed, he is likely to be a law-abiding citizen; if otherwise, he will get an impetus towards crime. In any case he is of the soil, and his growth can the more easily be watched and directed.

The man from the country finds himself living under new conditions that may rapidly make or mar him. He is away from the friends to whom he looked for guidance; he is cast on his own resources and must exercise an independent judgment; a temptation is not checked by the consideration of what the family would think; and having nothing but his own inclinations to consult, he is more likely to run loose than he would be when at home. He is not necessarily more vicious or more foolish than his town-bred brother; but he is not accustomed to the same kind of temptations, and can neither resist them as well nor yield to them as gracefully. He is therefore more likely to succumb, and more likely to suffer severely from the consequences if he is found out; for just as he is handicapped by the want of guidance, being a stranger he is not so likely to get proper assistance if he falls into trouble.

Men are attracted to the city by the hope of increase in pay and pleasure; and though in some respects the life seems unattractive enough, they still come. The only people who are certain not to come, and perforce to stay, are those who have a home in the country and fixity of tenure there. Their sons may and do invade the towns, but when they do not succeed there they return to the land. Workmen in the country are as liable to lose their situations as townsmen; their work is hard and their hours of labour are long; they think their pleasures are few and dull compared to those men may have in the city, and they gravitate to it. They are drawn in by its glitter, and driven in by the drabness of country life; sometimes also by the clearance of men to make way for the huge pleasure-grounds that disgrace Scotland, and have resulted in the replacement of men who drew their subsistence from the soil (living a hardy life and rearing a healthy race) by deer and their keepers. When the landless man comes to town and fails to find steady work, he cannot go back to the country unless the family of which he is a member have some hold on the land. The children of crofters do go back in times of depression, returning to their father’s holding and working there; but the others swell the ranks of the unemployed and are in peril of degeneration into the loafer or criminal.

The Churches play an important part in helping those young people from the country who are recommended to them; but many never connect themselves with Churches when they come to town at first. Some make a beginning, but drop off, not so much because they dislike religion, but because they like occasionally to talk and think about something else; and in comparatively few of the Churches is the need for providing social intercourse recognised. A man filled with the missionary spirit can find numerous outlets for his energies, for there are evangelistic meetings held in all districts and on all nights, and they welcome new-comers; there are also temperance societies engaged in the propagation of their ideas; but the majority of people who migrate to our towns are not prepared to engage in that kind of occupation in their leisure hours, and they have just to drift for the most part.

There are Benevolent Associations of the natives of one county and another which have a powerful influence for good in aiding those who come under their care, but that they do not cover the whole ground is evident from the fact that many of their compatriots are never heard of by them. That they stand by one another in an admirable way is undeniable, and their influence is so strong that for certain kinds of public appointments in Glasgow the Glasgow man has a poor chance—there being no Society of the Natives of Glasgow in that place yet.

The absence of family counsel and constraint which may lead to the degradation of the man who takes the wrong turn, may be a powerful aid to his rise if he gets on the right track. He has to think and act for himself; and his freedom from ties enables him to attend more exclusively to his business. The immigrant to the city from the country is largely represented in prison; but he is also largely represented in the town council—and the one place may be held to be as typical of the reward of the ill-doers as the other is of the well-doers.

There is another immigrant whose conduct usually receives more attention from the public, viz. the alien. In the West of Scotland foreigners are present in large numbers, having this in common, that they tend to form little colonies wherever they settle, retaining many of the habits they have brought with them, and remaining aliens in the sense that they are not absorbed in the community as they ought to be. In the collieries in various parts of the West of Scotland large numbers of aliens are employed. Their names, which in many cases are difficult either to pronounce or to spell, have been set aside by somebody or other and local names substituted; so that it is not uncommon to find a man with a familiar name who is quite unable to speak the language of the country. They keep themselves apart, and do not usually interfere with others, but some of them get into trouble through fighting among themselves. Ordinarily peaceable and tractable, they contribute a fair quota to the number of serious assaults committed, though the person assailed is usually another alien. Their ignorance of the language also makes them a source of danger to others.

When they have done some wild or criminal thing the culprits are deported, after they have served their term of imprisonment; but their isolation from the life of the district has in many cases contributed to the offences committed, since it has prevented them from acquiring the point of view of natives of this country and has caused them to follow the customs of their own land. Any proposal to prevent their settling here would come with a very bad grace from us, whose relatives are scattered all over the globe and who pride ourselves on the fact. They are healthy; and are neither wild nor intractable, but are generally industrious and steady. In their interests and our own it is surely not advisable to permit them to continue as colonies apart, separated from us by the bar of language.

It would be no act of tyranny or hardship to insist that every alien settling here should, within twelve months of his arrival, satisfy the local authority of his fitness to speak the language sufficiently well to enable him to understand others and be understood by them. At present it is no uncommon thing to find men who have been in the country for years and are yet unable to engage in the simplest conversation in English—or Scotch if you like. In one homicide case the accused had been in the district for sixteen years, could only speak a broken dialect, and required to have the simplest statements interpreted to him. In the city this condition of things is less marked, but as a general rule aliens—apart from the professionals—who are committed to prison do not speak the language intelligibly, even though they have been some time in the country, and that for the same reason—they get on all right without it. The Italians and others who are largely engaged in trading, pick up enough to enable them to understand and be understood; their occupation makes this a necessity; but even among them the interpreter is far too often required. People are generally given to save themselves trouble; and to learn a language is troublesome. If they can escape the necessity they will do so, and there is no need to blame them for it. But their ignorance is a trouble and a possible danger to us, and it does not seem to be unreasonable to ask that it should cease.

There are other immigrant aliens who do speak the language and who are present in the large cities. These are the professional criminals who import their vices, and work their business, in a very systematic way. They are more remarkable for their knowledge of the law than for their ignorance of the language; and they are a very dangerous although not a very large element in the population. They have an organised system of correspondence and go from one part of the country to another, where they have connections. They employ skilled lawyers for their defence when they get into trouble, and within certain limits assist each other in the way of business. There are some of them capable of any atrocity, and they are all quite different from the ordinary criminal of the professional class familiar to us here. They have a certain amount of polish, and an aptitude for appreciating the standpoint of others sufficiently well to get on their blind side. As for moral sense as we understand it, it does not seem to exist in them.

Crime is their business and they place business first. When they are convicted they are deported, but their resources and organisation enable them to escape conviction very often. They require to be dealt with in a much more drastic way than the law at present permits; for they are not only a danger because of their depredations, but their presence and conduct incite our own undesirables to do things they would not otherwise attempt. As the law stands the onus of proving their undesirability rests on the police, and it is very difficult to get positive evidence. If they were required, on the initiative of the police, to prove to the satisfaction of a court that they were earning an honest living, they would find it impossible to do so. It may be objected that this is like assuming a man to be guilty till he proves his innocence, which is contrary to practice and a bad principle on which to act. As a matter of fact, it is acted upon with our native thieves, once they have been convicted; they may be charged with being found in possession of property and required to account for having it or go to prison; and they can be summarily tried.

In respect that a man is an alien he might reasonably be required to show that he is not living off the proceeds of crime, as a condition of his being allowed to remain in the country. He may be refused permission to land if his character is known; but these people know how to get past the immigration authority. Why they should then be free to transgress until they trip and are caught it is difficult to see. If an alien seeks citizenship here he must satisfy the authorities that he has lived for at least five years in the country and during that period has been a reputable citizen. The onus of proof is on him, and it is not assumed that because he has never been convicted he should be naturalised. The examination to which he voluntarily submits in order that he may become a British subject he need not undergo if all he wants is the protection of our laws while he is living by breaking them. I suggest that just as some aliens have to submit to examination before being allowed to land, those who have given the authorities occasion to suspect that they are living by illegal means should be cited to appear before and satisfy a court that their conduct is such as to justify their being permitted to remain in the country; and failing their appearance, or their being able to do so, that they should be arrested and deported.

CHAPTER IV

SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND CRIME

The millionaire and the pauper—Ill-feeling and misunderstanding—Social ambitions—Case of embezzlement—Preaching and practice—Gambling—The desire to “get on”—The need to deal with those who profit by the helplessness of others—Political action—Its difficulty—Legislation and administration—The official and the public—Personal aid—Fellowship.

Our social inequalities are the cause of much serious crime. That such inequalities always have existed is undeniable, and that they may continue to exist is at least likely; at any rate, there is no immediate prospect of their abolition; but the form and degree they take are variable. Within recent times the gulf between the wealthy and the poor has been widened. The pauper is an old inhabitant, but the millionaire is a new portent. The rich man of our grandfathers’ day was a local magnate who might be capricious, but who could be personally approached. His successor is cosmopolitan. The poor in those days were not so well informed as they are now that the ends of the earth have been brought together, and the mechanical inventions that have brought wealth to many have enabled the multitude to get a wider outlook on the world. A rich man may be courted for his riches, but they do not now gain him reverence from the poor.

If free education has not educated the masses any more than the expensive kind has educated many of the rich, it has enabled them to read. They know more than they did, and with the access of knowledge discontent with their condition has increased. For good or ill many of them have lost the fear of hell, but the fear of the poorhouse is still with them as with many who are better off. The desire to make money dominates all sorts of people, and in the effort men are marred. Each sees the greed of his neighbour, but fails to see that he shares the vices of those he condemns. The man who is “successful” is critical of the faults of those less fortunate; and they in turn are often too ready to attribute his position to his absence of scruple rather than to any ability he may possess. There is envy on the one side and distrust on the other; but out of, and in spite of, it all there is steadily growing an effort towards co-operation and mutual help.

In the welter of conflicting interests there is much done that every man would disapprove if he saw it done by his neighbour. Yet those whose conduct is most shady are often not conscious of the enormity of it, being too much engrossed in the end they seek to be particular as to the means; and that end is not always an ignoble one. They mean to do great things and kind when their ships come home; and they do not see that the question for each of us is not, What would we do if we had what we desire? but, What are we doing, being what we are and where we are?

In the thirst for wealth dishonest practices are condoned in business, and within the law robbery is allowed. There is a disposition to take more account of what a man has than of what he is; and this cannot fail to have a vicious effect. X 19 was a young man who held a position of trust and received a small salary. He had no showy vices and, so far as could be ascertained, not many others. He was strong in the negative virtues; being an abstainer from drink, tobacco, and such things as are affected by pleasure-seekers and cost money. His employers were quite satisfied that they had in him a model servant; but they found their mistake, and were as unreasonably indignant as they had been unreasonably pleased; for he had been conducting a very ingenious system of fraud upon them. With the money he had abstracted he had been speculating in shares, and he had been successful up to a point. If his last venture had turned out well he would have been able to resign his situation and live virtuously ever after, first paying back to them their money. This is what he calculated would take place, and if his expectations had been realised nobody would have known of his misfeasance; but he lost on his venture and there was a crash. He pleaded guilty to embezzlement and was sent to prison for a long period. He had disposed of a considerable sum of money, but the curious thing about it was that he claimed that he was simply doing what his employers lived by doing—using other people’s money without consulting them as to details; though he admitted that in their case they were in a position to meet claims, and their clients knew that their money was not lying in a safe. He took his sentence quite philosophically, with the remark that he had observed that people who had defrauded certain kinds of commercial corporations, such as banks, always got longer terms of imprisonment than those who merely robbed poor people; and as the firm that employed him was a big concern he would have to be made an example of. He was shrewd in his observations, however wrong-headed they were in some respects, and he is not the only young man who has taken the risk in the attempt to acquire riches and who has argued in the same way. The number of those who are tempted to do so will diminish when it is shown that the successfully dishonest person is as much condemned by the opinion of those whose society he seeks as the failure is condemned by the law.

Men young and old go wrong in the endeavour to make a show. They want position and are willing to pay for it even at the expense of others; indeed, there are many who spend as much effort and energy in intriguing to get a position they could not fill as, if properly applied, would enable them to qualify for it. Some want to be social leaders, and exceed the limits of their income in the attempt. So long as they merely get into debt their creditors are the losers, but there are limits to credit and their situation may offer them facilities for peculation. The intention is to repay the money; but the honourable intention may be out of their power to execute, and the criminal act brings them to disgrace and ruin. In all cases where the process has gone on for years without discovery, the offender is found to be firmly persuaded that he is rather an ill-used person, and that if he were only allowed time he would be quite able to show a balance on his side of the account. This suggests the reflection that his conduct must have been often under review by himself, and a wonder as to how long he has taken to twist his mind to a belief in his own integrity in face of the facts; yet it is only some such belief that has enabled him to continue his defalcations. It is sometimes matter for surprise to the public that men who have continued to embezzle funds for years should have appeared so respectable; but they are not acting a part; they have convinced themselves of their uprightness through it all, and that is a very important step towards convincing others.

Even the Churches are not free from the imputation of making the end justify the means; and with lectures against gambling they sometimes run lotteries to obtain funds. This does not show bigotry against gambling, but it can hardly help to drive home the objection to the vice. Example is worse than precept in these cases.

The Press, which reaches a wider audience than the pulpit, is becoming more a means of making money for its proprietors than a medium for the formation of reasoned opinion; and some papers have organised sweepstakes under the thinnest disguise. As for betting, there are numerous papers that depend on it for their profits. Workmen and women pore over the betting news and run into debt to back a horse. The misery that many entail on themselves and their dependents by this conduct is widespread, and efforts have been made to check it, but it does not seem to be diminishing. As a rule it is safe to assume that people do not bet with the intention of losing, but with the hope of winning. It is not harmless excitement they seek; it is money they want; and they argue that they are doing nothing different from what is done by wealthier people on the Stock Exchange. They know as little about horses as those who speculated in rubber knew about that substance; and they have no interest in improving the breed. They want to be rich without working, and they see that some men manage it. The losers are forgotten; and what do they matter anyway if we win?

This spirit of selfishness and greed is not confined to the gambler, though it shows itself nakedly in his pursuit; and before it can be exorcised a better conception of our duty to each other will require to be attained. Meanwhile it is a small thing to prosecute bookmakers and those who deal with them, if the higher forms of gambling are left untouched. The poor cannot afford to gamble and must be protected from themselves; but can anybody afford to gamble? Can the State afford to allow them to set such an example? The whole evil has been dealt with in a peddling spirit. The bookmakers stand to win, whoever may lose, but they are not the people who gain most. They are not an influential class, however. If the newspapers were prohibited from publishing betting news the machinery for the gamble would fall to pieces; but if this were attempted there would be a howl, for they are not without influence. So there are difficulties. There always are difficulties when influential people have to be dealt with; and it is much easier to hit a little man than a big one—but the profit is less. I do not say that there are not those who gamble for the sake of the excitement, but that these do not come to prison as a result. The man who does run grave risk of landing there is he who gambles for the money that he may win but that he usually does lose.

The desire to shine among others is at the root of much of the foolish and criminal conduct of many men and women. It is not necessarily an evil desire, but the methods adopted to secure admiration may result in evil. There is much talk of the dignity of labour, side by side with the worship of money. If people draw the conclusion that the dignity of labour means that one man should work that another may spend, they are likely to make an effort to escape the dignity. They hear of the blessings of poverty, but they see that among them are not comfort and social consequence; and in so far as they prefer these they will let anybody else have the blessings. To admit that some must be poor if others are rich is not to accept the poor man’s lot for oneself. So long as honest work is only given formal praise and poverty implies practical hardship, while the possession of money is allowed to create a presumption in favour of a man, there will be those who will seek to get it by any means in their power. If we paid the homage to poverty that is given to wealth we might reasonably expect to find these people content to be poor; but while there is no likelihood of that being done, we may as well face the fact that our social inequalities result in the commission of crimes against property among a proportion of those who have a chance of helping themselves thereby. The great mass of men and women—rich and poor—do keep free from grave offences, living their lives quietly and discharging their duties as citizens according to their light and their ability; but these false ideals stimulate many to the commission of crime. It is well, therefore, to remind ourselves and others that ultimately a man is judged not by what he has but by what he is, and to recognise that a man is foolish if he sacrifices his life and dwarfs his personal development for any social advantage whatever.

The conditions which engender crime may be greatly modified and in many cases may be destroyed by political action. Crime is largely a concomitant of city life, as we have it. To live properly people need room, and so long as the present congestion exists all our efforts can at best palliate the evils which infest and infect us. We may regulate the sale of drink in order to prevent drunkenness; we may classify our poor and attempt to relieve their poverty; but drink and poverty are factors which remain comparatively inactive in the causation of crime, except where men are packed together to the degree in which we see them. Let our cities continue to be hemmed in and built in the air instead of being spread over the earth, and we shall require additional sanitary regulations to combat disease and more police laws to cope with crime, while the numbers in our institutions will increase.

The city is the product of our industrial pursuits and the methods by which they are followed; but the city as it exists is no more necessary to the life of the community than the city before the day of Public Health Acts was a necessary part of our civilisation. Men could live conveniently near each other and work at the same occupation, at least as efficiently, if they had room, as is possible under the cramping conditions that exist at present. Man’s life ought to be something more than his work; and there will be more who work to live when there are not so many who merely live to work. Reform your cities; or rather see that men are not allowed for their private interests or pleasures to “do what they like with their own” in defiance of the public welfare, and the cities will reform themselves.

The tenants of the crowded districts are hustled by the law, which in some cases they offend from sheer inability to do otherwise. When those who make a profit by the existing conditions of affairs are as summarily dealt with there will be a possibility of improvement. There are some landlords who assume the supervision of their property and of their tenants, but others are merely rent collectors; and their carelessness provides opportunity for the criminal classes to hide themselves. So long as the law allows men to make a profit by denying others access to the land except on payment of whatever ransom they choose to exact, the cities will remain crowded and the country will become depopulated. When the landlord is made to pay if he will not let his land be put to its most profitable use, there will be less inducement for him to withhold it for a time in the hope of realising a famine price from the needs of the community. It is poor policy to punish people for the results of the strain to which they are subject while those who profit by the cause are left alone.

But political action is slow and political parties are—what they are. To most of us a change of Government means that Lord This is replaced by Mr. That; probably relatives, and almost invariably belonging to the same caste; none of them particularly hasty in applying the remedies in which they believe—for when it comes to doing things instead of talking about them a great deal more depends on sentimental impressions, the result of friendly contact, than on intellectual opinions and political theories. Politicians are like other people; their imagination can more readily picture the result of action as it affects their own friends than as it affects those of another social class. Those who have a vested interest in the present conditions of things may personally suffer by any remedial change; and though there are many who are magnanimous enough to place the public gain before all else, there are far more who honestly cannot see that any measure whereby they would suffer a private loss can possibly be a public gain. They are often very estimable persons, and knowledge of that fact paralyses the action of their friends who are politically opposed to them.

It would be so much more easy to remedy evils if those who profited by their existence were only ill-natured and grossly selfish people; but when they are kindly and courteous it is a pity to push them. Besides, they are often widows and orphans; for there is a remarkably high rate of mortality among the husbands and fathers of people who have money invested in land and in breweries. There are other widows and orphans, however, who have no intimate friends in Parliament, and whose condition cannot appeal so powerfully to the imagination of Ministers because they belong to another class. The trouble is that the measures that would aid one set of widows and orphans would hurt the other; and even when legislation is passed its action is delayed out of tenderness to existing interests.

There are many men in every Parliament who are anxious to remedy the bad conditions they see around them, and they are not confined to any side of the House; but there is no popularly elected body in the country where the private member has so little power. In a Town or County Council he has a vote in the election of the executive, and if he is not pleased with the conduct of those whom he helps to office he can let them know the fact pretty effectively. The Member of Parliament finds the Government formed without any consultation with him on the subject, and if he belongs to the same political party it is disloyalty for him to criticise Ministers unfavourably. He is, however, allowed to praise and defend them, and this usually keeps him tolerably busy. For the rest, he must never vote against them except on a subject that they count of little importance and on an occasion where they are quite sure of having a majority without him. He must keep his own side in, no matter how much he disapproves of their conduct of business; and he must recognise in practice that the men who lead are the party. The people who sent him there may replace him at the first opportunity, but he will have the consolatory reflection that if the other side has got in it is only to behave in the same way. Some other members of the families whose hereditary genius for governing the country has made us the great nation we are will fill the posts their relatives have vacated; and the electors will continue to have the shadow of representative government while the substance remains with their betters.

Whatever the laws may be, much will depend on their administration. The more the Parliament is occupied in discussing legislation the less attention can it pay to administration. The real executive power thus passes into the hands of the permanent officials; and the tendency is that they should direct, as well as carry out, policy. As the public departments extend their activities they are brought more closely into contact, and it may be into conflict, with the lives of the citizens; and it is all the more necessary that the powers given to them should be exercised in consonance with the views of the representatives of the public, or the public servant may become the master of those he serves. A man may be both able and zealous, but if his ability and zeal are employed in the wrong direction he is a greater danger than a stupid and lazy man would be; yet if he is not guided and directed in the path he ought to go he can hardly be blamed for following his own judgment.

The only security that public departments will act in accordance with public opinion lies in their intimate supervision by representatives of the public. At present it is notorious that only a nominal supervision exists, and this is bad for everybody concerned; bad for the Member of Parliament, for his constituents will not separate administration to which they may object from legislation which they may approve, nor his votes from the acts of the departments; bad for the officials, for the desire for power grows with its use, and the heads are in peril of confusing their will with the public interest and their prejudices with the good of the service, while their subordinates will be tempted to a servility that is fatal to faithful discharge of duty, if they get the idea that their comfort and their promotion depend without appeal on their chief; bad for the public, for it is a poor exchange to overthrow the tyranny of an arbitrary monarch and to live under the unchecked dominion of a Board. This condition of things may seem far off yet to many, but it has arrived already so far as some of the poor are concerned, for they are hurried and worried and prosecuted by zealous officials for doing things they cannot avoid doing; and for my part I do not believe that that is in accordance with public opinion, though I do not attribute blame to the officials concerned, who are only acting according to their light.

Where there are an enlightened public opinion and a real public interest in affairs it is better for all concerned; and though Parliament may fail to deal with those whose interests conflict with public needs, there are many things that private citizens can do to mitigate existing evils, even although there were no new legislation passed. Officials could be aided and encouraged to aim at the prevention of wrongdoing rather than at the punishment of the wrongdoer. We might set about to see that more opportunities of reasonable recreation are provided, and to find out wherein and why our present provision fails. Employers might take a greater interest in their workers, and if they sought to learn from them would be in a better position to teach them. The Churchman might easily come more closely into contact with some less fortunate member of the congregation and give kindly aid and counsel; or receive it, perhaps, where he would least expect it. All of us might see, if we looked a little less to our own business and pleasure, that there are many around whose struggle is a sore one, and whom a friendly interest would help far more than any gift. Many there are who, although neither able to pay nor to pray, could do much good and gain much by personal service. It would help as nothing else can to a better understanding between us and our neighbours, and a more acute apprehension of the evil surroundings in which so many are compelled to live.

Men go wrong and keep wrong for the lack of good fellowship; and the conditions which keep them struggling in a crowd hinder the fraternising of man with man. The man who is comfortably seated in a theatre has time and opportunity to look around him and to observe his neighbours if he choose. He will not be uncivil to them, even if he take no interest in them. Put him in a crush at the door, and in the effort to get into the place or out of the crowd, he will not have the chance, even if he had the will, to keep his elbow out of the ribs of his neighbour, though that neighbour were his dearest friend. How many are crowded together struggling to get out of the welter and too busy to take much interest in others! I do not forget that there are many good people who are interested in the poor and fallen; but it is those who are in danger of falling that get least attention. There are mothers who are struggling on to save their sons from the ruin to which they are tending, and children who are trying to redeem their wayward parents; in face of all failures striving with a patience as admirable as it seems futile; but there are few to help. Let a father turn his daughter out for her misconduct and shirk his duty as a parent; let her go headlong to the gutter; and when she is sufficiently stained there will be rescuers tripping over each other to aid her. The pity is that so often they should be more interested in trying to make people conform to their ideals than in helping men and women for their own sake. Most of us have not been so brilliantly successful in ordering our own lives that we are justified in directing the lives of others; but by interest in those who are having a harder struggle to live than has fallen to our lot we may not only encourage the individual to better effort, but we shall see more clearly what needs to be done by us as a community, not to make men, but to remove those conditions which tend to enslave them.

CHAPTER V

AGE AND CRIME

The inexperience of youth—The training of boys—Case of a truant—Another case—Intractability—The foolishness of parent and teacher—The absence of mutual understanding—Recreation—Malicious mischief and petty theft—The cause thereof—The need for instructing parents—Pernicious literature—The other kind—The modern Dick Turpin—The boy as he leaves school—Amusements—Repression—Blind-alley occupations—The Adolescent—Physical strain of many occupations—Unequal physical and mental development—The street trader—Hooliganism—Knowledge and experience—The perils of youth—Old age.

The great majority of those who enter prison for the first time are young persons, and in many cases they do not show any great degree of moral turpitude. “As the twig is bent the tree is inclined,” and what might have been merely a phase of recklessness or a passing mood of lawlessness is sometimes made a fixed habit as a result of the way it has been treated. The younger the person the narrower is his experience, other things being equal. In making the experiments which give experience we may hurt ourselves and others.

There are some who are content to accept the statements of others and to yield an easy obedience to those over them, but in early life the number is not great; and where the elders are too busy to pay much attention to the young there is a greater need for the boy to find out things for himself. Rules of life as they are presented to many boys consist of a series of prohibitions, and it is not always the worst boys who kick against them. Wild and intractable boys do not always grow up into bad citizens; but if they are taken in hand by the penal machinery of the State there is not much chance for them. They may imitate the showy vices of their elders not because they are vices, but because they are showy. They do not admire the wrong things more frequently than grown-up people, but they show their admiration in a way that is sometimes awkward both for them and for us. They are misunderstood and condemned when they persist in going their own way, although the cause of their vagaries may be simple enough if an attempt were made to find it. X 20 was a boy of ten, the son of a man in a comfortable position who had lost all control over him. The boy had run away from school, and had left his home more than once and gone wandering in the country. His father had coaxed and beaten him alternately without any beneficial result. His schoolmaster informed me that the boy was usually quiet and tractable, but did not take much interest in most of his work. He was not of defective intellect and he would not apply himself to some parts of the school course. He was fond of animals. I found him suspicious and reserved; but as he had been told that he was to be seen by the prison doctor, and as he evidently had expected to be confronted with an animated bogey-man, there was nothing surprising in that. He answered questions in monosyllables or not at all, but he promised that he would come himself to my house and see some things which I thought might interest him. I would not allow him to be brought to me, though he lived some three miles off, and he kept his promise and came. With the aid of some other juveniles he was made to feel at ease, and I found he could tell a good deal about animals, such as tadpoles and frogs, and that he had a real interest in such things. He came back several times, and in an indirect way he was advised of the danger of doing what his father had objected to; but it was perfectly evident that his conduct had been the result of the way in which he had been treated, and fear had caused him to commit at least some of the actions that had given cause for complaint. Those who had charge of him were more in need of direction than he was; for they had acted on the assumption that they understood what was best for him, whereas the fact was that they had not the faintest idea of the disposition of the boy, and were simply driving him to extremities in their efforts to keep him right. They were repressing instead of directing his tendencies, with disastrous consequences. His schoolmaster understood; and he was permitted to act on his knowledge with satisfactory results, the parents never having thought that he was as likely to be able to instruct them as to teach their boy. In this case the boy was fortunate beyond many others in respect that his parents were able to seek and obtain advice when they became alarmed because of his behaviour. They were in a position which enabled them to give him the necessary attention when they learned what was required.

X 21 was a boy who had developed the habit of playing truant from school and had come under the observation of the attendance officer. He was in danger of becoming an associate of city undesirables. His mother was a decent widow who had to support him and herself by casual labour. She was obliged to go out in the mornings to clean offices and he was left to himself. She was loth to have him sent to an Industrial School, but she preferred that that should be done to running the risk of having him get into the hands of vicious persons. There was no question as to her rectitude, and as little of her ability to look after him when she had the power; but she could not be out working and at the same time be discharging her maternal duties in guiding him. So he had to be sent to the institution. In a case like this—and they are not uncommon—it would be far better to free the woman from the need of leaving her child and see that she looked after him. She has a greater personal interest in him than any official person can have and it need cost no more; while the gain in character cannot be measured in terms of cash. The mother’s burden is greater than she can bear, and that is a reason for relieving it; but it is no reason for breaking up the family and loosening the tie between parent and child, and the practice cannot even be justified on the score of expense.

Boys get the name of being bad when they are intractable, but bad boys are fewer than bad men. There are too many people who are driven to assume that they know what is best for the boy—or the man—and that without making any attempt to understand those for whom they prescribe. When a boy rebels against the line of action laid down for him it is taken as evidence of his wickedness, though it may only show his good sense. He may be doing the wrong thing with a purpose more reasonable than that of his mentor, but he is likely to find that his intention will meet with no sympathetic consideration even if he reveals it, and his action will meet with punishment if he owns it. He is encouraged to lie in the hope of pleasing his master, and when he is found out his iniquity is magnified.

Boys are far more given to the attempt to find the point of view of those who are in authority over them than grown-up people are to find the standpoint of the boy; and children will often show a deeper knowledge of their parents than the parents have of them. If instead of assuming knowledge and showing ignorance parents would try to understand, there would be less disposition to rule the young by general prohibitions and a freer hand given to them in the choice of their pursuits. Left alone, the child will show its bent; it is not for the parent to thwart its aptitudes, but to direct them into useful channels. Many are made miserable by being set to books, and others are made equally wretched by physical drill. Every year brings forth its own fad. The adult may keep free from its tyranny to some extent, but let it find a place in some code or other and every juvenile runs a grave risk of being subjected to it, because someone in authority who knows nothing about him or his needs has so ordered it.

The boy is kept at school for nearly as many hours in the week as many men work, and when he is set free from its restraint he runs wild—if he is not too tired, or if he has not been set tasks which cause him to work overtime at home. He gets into mischief, and is denounced for his misdeeds and the trouble and annoyance he causes; but boys are not more mischievous than they were. There are few adults who have not been a great nuisance to others in their own early days, but too many of them seem to have forgotten all about that. By all means let the boy who has played some mischievous prank be restrained and corrected, but in choosing the method it might not be a bad plan to remember the exploits of a boy who was no better in his day than the culprit is, if no worse. When we show that we recognise a clear distinction between cramming juveniles with knowledge and educating them, they will learn at the school how to amuse themselves without annoying others. At present they are in this respect left mainly to their own devices, and in very few cases is there any serious ground of complaint against them. Considering their imitative tendencies and the incitements many of them have towards wrongdoing, it is wonderful how few go far astray.

When a boy is sent to a reformatory he has opportunities given him for play, and the importance of providing different forms of recreation for him is not ignored. This is by some called “putting a premium on wrongdoing,” and yet in spite of the reward there are few boys who deliberately adopt a course of law-breaking in order to have the advantages of life in that institution. Either they are too stupid or there is not such a bias on their part towards evil as some would have us suppose. The recreation which forms part of the means adopted to reform the boy who has transgressed might conceivably prevent transgressions if it were placed within the reach of others, especially as the association of boys whose common interest is that they have all been before the courts is not likely to make for their improvement.

Whatever its defects as an educational institution, the school has this to its credit, that a better standard of conduct is maintained than could be acquired by many of the scholars if they were left to grow up under the conditions that obtain in their homes. Now and then someone does a particularly shocking thing, and until quite lately when this occurred the offender was liable to be brought to the police court. Now there is a special court for dealing with children, but as there is no change in the judge or in the officials before whom the child appears, all that has been gained is his separation from older offenders. This is something to be thankful for, but it is a minor mercy compared with what ought to be done. He is more a subject for treatment by those whose experience enables them to understand children than a “case” to be tried by a magistrate whose traditions are those of the criminal courts.

Most of the charges are acts of malicious mischief or petty thefts. The offenders have got out of parental control or have eluded the supervision of their parents. In some cases the parents are culpably careless or negligent, taking little interest in their children and making their home worse than it need be. They spoil the child without sparing the rod, for the boy is often hammered without mercy when he annoys them. He keeps out of their way and may fall into bad company and bad habits. Most of these boys show evidences of neglect in their appearance; but they are not, though they may become, desperadoes. Others go astray not so much from the culpable neglect of their parents as because, with the best will in the world to guide the boy, the parent is either incompetent to do so from sheer stupidity, or, more frequently, from being too busily engaged in trying to make a livelihood to have the necessary time to give to his care. A smaller number are the children of parents who are quite competent to look after them, but who have failed to keep themselves in sufficiently close touch with them—which is a more difficult thing to do than it seems.

At school the boy may be under good guardianship, but he is away from his mother during the greater part of the day, and he may pick up companions who will not exercise the most favourable effect on him. They need not be bad, but they may be bad for him. Out of school hours he seeks for recreation, and in the effort to obtain amusement of a special kind he may take what does not belong to him, and be found out and complained of; or not be found out and continue the practice. It is all very simple and not at all uncommon—except in the result. Honesty has to be learned, and some people never learn it; though they never commit crimes. There is a difference between being honest and being dishonest within the law. There are few women or men who have not at some time or other “dishonestly appropriated property,” though they did not express it that way when they abstracted sweets well knowing the penalty if caught. Some boys do not steal sweets, but they steal money to buy sweets; and in the same way others steal money to pay the price of admission to a place of entertainment. Sometimes they break into shops to steal, and they are then young criminals; but this rarely happens when the necessary money can be picked up at home.

In a young person the desire for pleasure is naturally too strong to be at first repressed by a sense of the rights of property. He does not need to be taught that sweets please the palate or shows delight the eye; but he requires to learn that in the long run honesty is the best policy. Children are not likely to steal if they can get what they want without stealing, but they may help themselves when they can if they are subjected to unreasonable prohibitions. Even men and women have been driven far out of the right path through attempts to repress their desires for harmless amusement and to make them take life solemnly.

The dishonesty of children arises not so much from a perverted nature as from an inability to appreciate the importance of honesty. It is a phase that passes as their experience of the world grows. They can be trained out of it, but attempts to knock it out of them are as likely to knock it into them.

There ought to be provision made whereby parents could be advised, admonished, and assisted in dealing with children whom they have been unable to control. Our Children Courts are not designed with this end in view, and I doubt whether it makes much difference to the child who is sent to one of our institutions that he was sent from one room in the courthouse rather than from another. Our money would be better spent in assisting parents who have the will to do well by their children, but who have not the power, than in taking the children away from them. As for those who are careless of their children, they should be dealt with for their carelessness. In many cases the apathy they show is a consequence of our methods. If, instead of taking the children away from those who neglect them, we trained and assisted them, we should have better parents and better children. If carelessness and callousness were then shown by the parents we could proceed with justice to deal with them for culpable misconduct. At present we are not in a position to do so, since we are not prepared to help them to discharge their responsibilities. We make it easier for them to neglect than to care for their offspring, and if they lose control of them to a sufficient extent we free them from the burden altogether.

The spirit of enquiry and experiment leads many boys into mischief, and some of their malicious acts are the result of it. Men too readily forget that the boy sees things in a quite different light and relationship from them. Some of the housebreaking adventures that look so bad on a charge-sheet appear quite different when the story is told from the boy’s standpoint, and they do not always show such depravity as one would expect. Some boys are always seeking adventures and becoming absorbed in them; others are content to read about deeds of daring, and the works they favour are often crude enough. Occasionally one is taken with a mask and pistol in his possession attempting to rob in the highway, and then we have homilies on the evils of pernicious literature of the “Dick Turpin” sort, which might be more convincing if the homilists were themselves free from connection with stuff that is worse.

The adventurous boys are not those who read much of any kind of book; they are too busy living. The “Blood” is devoured more by the boy who dreams rather than acts; but of the thousands of men who as boys read prohibited books and enjoyed them, few are likely to spend much time on the equally sensational publications that circulate in millions among adults. On the whole, the boy will not get a more distorted view of life from the highly coloured papers he reads than he would obtain from some of the newspapers; and when he is being condemned for his preference for “Bloods,” it would not be amiss to remember that these productions have never set themselves to foment in his mind feelings of ill-will against people of other lands. It is not the boys but the adults who are raised by the papers they read into hysterical outbursts of senseless rage or equally senseless fear now of one and now of another continental power; and if “literature” is to be judged by its apparent effect, then these papers are more pernicious than the “Bloods,” which the boy prefers to the books which are designed for his moral instruction. There is no comparison between his highwayman—a boy’s highwayman who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, to the inversion of all social order—and the industrious apprentice who married his master’s daughter, poor girl. The hero is a hero to him because he dares all risks, is true to his friend, is gallant and generous, and faces death with a brave heart. If he does the wrong thing he does it in the right way, and it is not the thief but the man who gains the boy’s admiration. As for the industrious one, even a boy knows that there are not enough masters’ daughters to go round; and if he revolts at the selfishness of the gospel of getting on, he is right in rejecting such a false basis of morals. We know that the boy’s Robin Hood or Dick Turpin never existed in fact; but if they exist in his fancy?

To those who denounce them these papers are only a glorification of theft of a particular kind, but there is no likelihood of its ever coming into vogue again. Dick Turpin is now a company-promoter and his cheques are in demand by Churches and political parties. He does not risk his life now, and we are very glad to be taken into his confidence; but the boy has not found that out yet. His books may be ill-chosen, but wholesale condemnation will not mend the matter; and in books, as in other things, it is impossible to tell what is good for the boy till something more is known about him than that he is a boy. When he reads it is safe to assume that he does so because he feels some need is supplied thereby. When its nature is discovered a step will be made towards its better supply, but not before. To take the boy away from the book he likes to a standard author on the ground that it is better for him, is to run the risk of creating in him a permanent dislike for the books chosen.

In the city most of the boys leave school when they are fourteen years of age, and entering on new pursuits are subject to fresh temptations. The employment they obtain is largely a matter of chance, but whatever it may be, they are less likely to go wrong when engaged at it than when free from it. Their playground is the street, and there is no adequate provision made for their recreation. On payment of a small sum they may obtain admission to the music-halls or the picture-shows, and these latter are largely patronised by boys. That they serve a useful purpose is undeniable, and if the entertainment they offer may not be all that is desirable, it is practically all that is to be had by many. Since it cannot be had freely there are temptations to find the means, and the boy amongst his neighbours who is worst off in respect of money is hardest pressed. It is deplorable that some should yield to the temptation to obtain money dishonestly, but it is idle to ignore the condition of things and neglect to provide reasonable opportunities for the recreation which is required after work done. There are private organisations taking the matter in hand, but their appeal, though wide, is, and must be, sectional. Boys’ Brigades in connection with the Churches can only reach a minority of the juvenile population, and the same statement applies to Boy Scouts. There are those who object on principle to both organisations on the ground that they foster the military spirit, but the militarists themselves do not appear to share this view. Boys like to play soldiers, but when they get sense they drop that; and meantime they play, greatly to their advantage. As for the Scouts, they seem to represent an improved edition of “follow my leader,” and their uniform prevents their being interfered with while they play. It does none of them any harm to believe that they are saving their country so long as they are really saving themselves, and no greater number of them develop a taste for a soldier’s career later in life than enlist from among those who have never belonged to one or other of the organisations. It may be that the intention of some of the promoters is to feed the army, but that is to leave out of account the boys themselves and the development of their minds. Whatever the intention, the result is good in so far as the interest of the game keeps the boys in healthy exercise.

The most popular of all the forms of public recreation is the football match. Week after week the grounds are filled by tens of thousands of spectators who find in the game they witness not only amusement for the time, but matter of conversation and interest which outlasts the day. Young and old they are mostly partisans, and though their conduct may leave much to be desired, that should not distract the observer’s attention from the main fact, which is that they are enabled to find a real interest in something which is at least harmless. There are those who lament the fact that the spectators are not players, and who condemn them for being merely vicarious partakers in the game. As a matter of fact, a good many of them have played, and some of them have got into trouble for playing. A very little acquaintance with the facts would make the Jeremiahs aware that there is no public provision made for allowing very many to play; that a great many who enjoy seeing others play have no time when free from labour to practise much themselves, even if a field were near; and that if any large number began to play football in the only spaces open to them—the streets—there would be no room to get about. It is not a bad plan to consider men’s limitations before condemning their pursuits, but it is too little practised.

The football match is a strong counter-attraction to the public-house or the aimless wander through the streets, and the football field would be an admirable playground for many of the young, as they would readily admit; but those who want them to play rather than to look on are never very prominent when an attempt is made to find them the means. Some of them use the public streets for a practice ground, greatly to the annoyance of the passengers and sometimes to their danger. The nuisance has to be stopped and the usual method is adopted; the universal panacea for all evils is applied, and the culprits are taken in charge by the police. A small fine is inflicted, with the alternative of imprisonment if the lads are over sixteen. I have seen a batch of them brought to jail because their fines had not been paid. All that had been done was to ensure that these boys would not play football in the streets for several days; yet the cost of their escort and board during that time, if expended on the hire of ground, would have provided them and others with opportunities of play for six months; and they do not play in the streets for choice—at least it has not been demonstrated that they do.

Alike in work and in play the boy’s pursuits are largely matter of chance. He has to seek employment and is generally ready to take anything that presents itself. Some of the situations that offer most attractions to him are of such a character as to prevent him from applying himself to work at which in his manhood he could earn a living. In the beginning he may earn more money at these occupations than he would if apprenticed to some skilled handicraft, but before many years he is cast off by his employers, unsettled by his work, and less fit and less inclined to spend time in qualifying either for a trade or a profession. There are far too many blind-alley occupations open to boys, and they should be closed to those entering on industrial life. There are many men who by advancing years are shut out from the work they have been accustomed to do; they are leaving the ranks of the skilled workers, and they could do the work at present done by lads with advantage to the community, since there would not then be numbers of young persons spending the most receptive years of their life in occupations by which they cannot hope to earn their living when they reach manhood.

As the boy grows to adolescence he tends to get further from the control of his parents. His growth implies change in him, and he may develop new needs and new desires without the power necessary to control them. It is well recognised that in adolescence there is a special liability to physical or mental breakdown, and short of this it is no uncommon thing for young people to show a degree of instability that alarms their friends for their safety. Yet in youth there are very many employed at occupations that are in a marked degree physically exhausting. They are permitted to take far too much out of their body, and though they may thereby develop their muscles, they are almost certain to hinder the healthy development of their minds. The State has interfered with some trades and prohibited certain processes of manufacture on the ground that the chemicals employed affect the health of the workers in an injurious way; and it has laid down regulations for the proper sanitation of workshops. It will yet have to consider the advisability of limiting the amount of physical energy that a man may be allowed regularly to expend in work, and the sooner it begins with lads the better for everybody. At present we hear of the large wage earned by workmen in certain trades and their notorious improvidence. To anyone with eyes to see their improvidence is not more evident in the way they spend their wages than in the way they earn them; for their lives, industrially, are short, and they are too often physical wrecks in middle life, partly from the undue fatigue to which they have been subjected and partly from vices they have contracted in the attempt to stimulate themselves when fatigued. We only hear of the vices, but their industry is equally foolish if it implies excessive expenditure of vitality; and no income in money would justify the cost at which it is obtained.

Time and again there come before the courts young men who are neither insane nor weak-minded, but whose mental powers have been stunted and twisted by the conditions to which they have been subjected. They are not there for committing offences against property, but for startling the district by some atrocious assault; and there is this point of similarity about them all, that they have been engaged at work which was too heavy for them, and when set free from it have used the strength of a man incited by a man’s passions to do things that only a boy would conceive.

Equal mental and physical development is rare in youth, and in practice everybody recognises the fact. There are some big lads who are young for their years and little ones who are preternaturally old-fashioned; but time mends the matter, and a balance is established if something does not occur to mar the youth meanwhile. Placed under conditions that favour the development of muscle and prevent the development of the mental powers, young men cannot be wholly blamed if now and then they shock us by showing the natural result of such a course of training.

About the streets of the city there are lads who take care not to work too hard. Many of them are the children of parents who have never exercised much care over them, and in some cases they have been sent out with a few coppers to purchase papers and sell them; or to beg. They have learnt to like the life and have deliberately adopted it themselves in preference to other employment. They come to prison sooner or later if they escape the reformatory; and sometimes after they have been there. There is only one opinion possible among those who know the facts about the street-trading they carry on—that it should be abolished; and the only real difficulty is that its abolition ought in justice to be accompanied by some provision for the employment of those young persons who have been engaged in it. The newsboy is a great convenience to the public and the newspaper owners. He sometimes is an important aid to his family, for in a proportion of cases the parent is as respectable and as anxious to take care of the boy as anyone could wish. It is her poverty that compels her to use his services. But the risks to the boys outweigh all advantages. The poverty that compels a mother to subject her child to such risks ought to be relieved; the public and the newspaper proprietors would find other means of obtaining and delivering the news if they realised the cost of the present condition of things; and a nursery of criminals would be removed.

In most cases the parents require more attention than the boys, and especially the female parent. The children are her peculiar care, and if she takes to drink the results to them are serious. Whatever differences of opinion there may be as to the hereditary transmission of intemperance, there is no room for doubt as to its effect in causing the mother who is subject to it to become an inefficient guardian of her child. Her family suffers from neglect, and they are driven f on the street to pick up a living as best they may. When they can they may take lodgings in a “Model,” and in any case they learn from others how they may live with most license. They are nearly all gamblers, and honesty is not a virtue that they find profitable.

The fact is that there could be no worse school for a boy than the street and no worse companions than those who live there, not because they are gifted with any additional dose of original sin; they are no worse mentally, morally, or physically than many others; but because a tradition has grown up among them that is anti-social in its character, and like the rest of folks they conform to the conditions in which they find themselves. When they loaf or steal they do it because they believe that it is easier and more profitable than working in a regular way. Show them that they are wrong and they will modify their opinion and their action; but that is precisely what is not done. They have heard all you can tell them, and they adhere to their own standpoint not because they are more stupid than their teachers, but because they see another side to the story. When they are imprisoned they are not generally intractable, and they do what they are told because it pays better to obey than to rebel; but outside, though they recognise the inconvenience and risk of being caught, they have a not unjustifiable belief in their power to dodge those who are watching them, and at the worst they prefer to serve a term of imprisonment once in a while rather than exchange their way of living for another. It is just as well to recognise the fact that they do not follow their objectionable courses because it is difficult to do so. When they are dishonest it is usually because they believe it is easier for them to pick up a livelihood that way than by any honest occupation within their reach or experience. Their opinion may be right or wrong, but it is formed on a knowledge of a different set of facts from that within the ken of those who judge them; and it does not help to a better understanding of them that we should assume that they are greater fools than we are, though we do not share their follies.

Now and then there are outbreaks of savage violence on the part of young lads in the streets; acts which, apparently purposeless and certainly cruel, shock the citizens and anger them. Then there is a cry for vengeance; never an attempt to seek the causes of the trouble; and the matter is forgotten when a few of the offenders have been given “exemplary punishments.” Exemplary punishments always repay examination, and sometimes the hapless individual who is made the whipping-boy for others has been rather cruelly treated; not that that seems to matter if the offence complained of ceases, for it is taken as proof that the authorities have done the right thing in making an example of him. The assumption is one that never bore examination at any time, but it seldom is examined.

When a crop of offences of a similar kind startles a district there may be a common cause found if it is sought for; and when the offences cease their cessation may be found to have some relation to that cause; but the arrest and imprisonment of one here and there as examples have as little relationship to the cessation of offences as prayer had in the stopping of an epidemic of cholera. In the one case you have to break up the association of offenders and destroy their spirit; in the other you have to attend to your drains and your sanitation. The punishment and the prayer in either case may assist in so far as they direct attention to the need for right action. How then do these outbreaks originate, and what causes them to cease? In the first place, they are not the work of professional thieves, though these take advantage of them. They begin in horseplay among the lads at the street corner. None of them may be abnormally mischievous or wicked, but a crowd has a spirit of its own which is different from that of its members. Everybody has seen dignified citizens under the excitement of, say, an election, when they got the news that the country had been saved in the way they desired, behaving in a sufficiently ridiculous manner and inciting others to a like behaviour. If they had received the news when at home it would at most have caused a smile, but in a crowd one has stirred the other to do and say things that neither would ordinarily do or say.

An orator may sway a crowd and utterly fail to move the members of it if he spoke to them individually. The lads at the corner will do things when they are together that none of them would think of doing if he were alone. Not only does each incite the other, but all incite each one to action. The horseplay is extended and indulged in by them at the expense of passers-by, and to their annoyance. If it stops there no noise is heard about “Hooliganism”; but if the lads, letting themselves loose, go further and injure a respectable citizen there is complaint. The culprit is at first frightened, but having done the thing he tries to make the most of it, especially if he sees his companions rather admire his temerity. He boasts of his daring and excites emulation. One tries to outdo another; other “corners” hear about and imitate the desperadoes; the newspapers take the matter up; and the place is in a state of terror. There is reason for the terror, too; for in the process unoffending and peaceful citizens have suffered serious injury. The professional criminal, who is quick to take advantage of any chance, hangs on to the tails of the foolish lads, and under cover of their depredations helps himself to what he can get. Anything that gathers a crowd helps him, but he knows better than to commit assaults of this purposeless kind himself. He has no objection to rob the assaulted or the threatened and terrorised parties, however, provided he can conceal himself. If he can get any of the lads who began the proceedings to assist him, good and well; but in that case they may find they have started on a new and criminal career. The loose cohesion between the mischievous and the criminal elements in the crowd becomes organised; and by this time there is a general demand on the part of the citizens that somebody should be punished. Then the examples begin.

But the very fact that the outrages have been advertised, while it causes their imitation at first, makes parents and employers enquire into the conduct of their sons and their workers. The lads are kept in at night, or they are otherwise separated from each other. When the association begins to break up the process is not long before it is complete. Everyone who leaves it is suspected of being a possible informer, and the dread of they know not what—the most powerful kind of fear—invades their minds. The conduct that seemed so laudable is now given up and the epidemic dies out. To send one of the offenders to prison is simply to make him a martyr in the eyes of his associates, who know that he is no worse than they were and who sympathise with rather than abhor him. The real deterrent is the action of the parents and employers who know the lads. They neither want to get into trouble at home nor to lose their jobs. Those who are sent to prison have often little to do with the matter, and their exemplary punishment has less. Real hooliganism—the existence of young professional thieves who are in the habit of committing brutal assaults and inflicting injuries recklessly on their victims—is rare in Glasgow.