a great city is a great sore—a sore which never can be cured.
the greater the city, the greater the sore.
it necessarily follows that new york, being the greatest city in the union, is the vilest sore on our body politic.
if any one doubts it, let him live in new york awhile and keep his eyes and ears open.
the trouble about great cities is not that they have any impetus or influence especially their own, but that every one, from the vilest all the way up to the best, is compelled by circumstances of city life to often conduct his own daily walk and conversation on lines which are not entirely natural, and which never can be made so.
it would be useless to deny that in every large city may be found a number of the best men and women that humanity has been able to evolve. in the great cities are found many of our wisest statesmen, our greatest theologians, our best business men, and a host of lesser, but perhaps not less important individuals, whose influence{482} for good upon the world is known and recognized everywhere. nevertheless, these are exceptions to the rule. they are not what they are because of the city; they are in the city simply because it gives them a better centre and starting-place for whatever work may be incumbent upon them.
the first deadening influence of the city is that no one knows any one else. of course every one has some acquaintances, and some people are said to be in the best society and to know everybody, but “everybody” is a relative term, and it never means as much in the largest city as it does in a village of a thousand people. the postman knows everybody by name, and so does the tax-collector and the man who brings you your gas bill, but individual acquaintance—the touch of elbow—the touch of nature that makes the world akin, must not be looked for in any large city in the union, least of all in new york, which in spite of two hundred and fifty years of existence, is still so new comparatively that almost all of its prominent citizens were born somewhere else. the names of prominent americans who reside in new york will naturally occur to any one, yet it is quite safe to say that not one of these gentlemen know by sight and name, let alone by personal acquaintance, more than one person in five who reside within a two-minute walk of his house.
an ex-cabinet officer, a gentleman whose varied{483} abilities have made him known throughout the civilized world, was once asked who was his neighbor on the right. the houses of the two men touched each other, as two houses must, in the city of new york, but the wise and largely acquainted gentleman was obliged to say that he did not know. when the questioner informed him that the person occupying the adjoining house was a notorious thief for whom the police had been long in search, he was astonished and shocked. nevertheless, when he a few months afterward had his house robbed and drove about violently in a cab in search of the police captain of his precinct, it took him an hour to discover that the said police official resided next door to him on the left. afterward he was teased about his lack of knowledge of his neighbors, and he admitted frankly that, although he was a man without “airs,” and had always made it a custom to fraternize freely with his fellow-men, he knew but two individuals who resided on the same block with himself, and one of these was his own grocer, who occupied a store on the corner.
“if this is so with the green tree, what must it be with the dry?” men whose sole business is to earn their daily living are glad to find a decent roof over their heads anywhere in a large city and drop into the best place they can find, regardless of who may be their neighbors, and utterly unable to devote any time to their neighbors,{484} even should they be fortunate enough to become acquainted with them. neighborhood feeling and sentiment, which is of incalculable benefit in all communities not thickly settled, has no influence whatever in a large city. a man may not only live in a house between two people of whom he knows nothing, but the great value of ground in the city of new york and the limited area has compelled the erection of a number of buildings known as “flat” and “apartment” and “tenement” houses, and very few men know the people who live under the same roof with themselves.
an amusing story is told of a couple of editors, who were questioned about each other and each replied that he had not the honor of the other’s acquaintance. the answer seemed to puzzle those who heard it, and the subsequent remarks elicited a demand for an explanation, when it was learned that these two men, members of the same profession, and both entirely reputable citizens, had been residing in the same building for six months; but as one was at home only by daylight, and the other only at night, they had never chanced to meet under their own roof.
of course, if such ignorance may come in the ordinary course of events regarding entirely respectable people, cities must form an admirable hiding-place for disreputable and dangerous characters of all sorts. the time was when a{485} man detected in crime thought it advisable to run away from a large city. but nowadays he knows better. he stays as near home as possible, knowing that there are numberless opportunities for keeping himself entirely out of sight and out of mind of every one who ever knew him. defaulters who have a great deal of money in their pockets, and also those who have none at all, occasionally find it desirable to go to canada or europe, but the rogue who has two or three thousand dollars to spare knows perfectly well that by keeping in-doors in new york he can absolutely escape detection. the police may know him by sight, but the keepers of boarding-houses do not, neither do their servants; and so long as he will remain in his room, have his meals sent to him, and take his exercise and outings only after dark in such disguise as any one can improvise at very short notice, he is entirely safe from detection. one of the bank defaulters who ranks as one of the most successful in the annals of such crime in the city of new york, was looked for in canada and all over europe for eight months, and finally by accident was discovered in a boarding-house only two squares away from his original place of residence.
criminals when not actually plying their vocation generally go to large cities, for two reasons; first, to spend their ill-gotten gains in pleasure,{486} and secondly, that as a rule cities are the best hiding-places.
for the same reason that causes desperate criminals to hide in the larger cities, all persons who have in their lives any features which they wish to conceal, find the cities preferable places of residence. one man of large property and some national prominence died a few years ago in the city in which he had been doing business for thirty years, and after he died it was discovered that he had nine wives living, from no one of whom had he ever separated through the formality of a divorce. each of these nine women imagined herself his one and only wife. any man, who has formed an undesirable alliance in business or in love or otherwise, knows that with very little trouble he can hide all traces of his mischief by going to a large city to live.
an inevitable consequence is that the number of able but undesirable characters who exist in the cities, having left other places for the good of those who are left behind, have a depressing influence upon the moral atmosphere of other classes of residents. men meet men whom they never saw before, and whom they are obliged to judge entirely by appearance and professions. it is the same in business as it is in society. not a year passes in which some adventurer does not impose himself for a time upon the best society of new york and of other cities. and{487} although it would seem that his antecedents might easily be discovered upon the basis of such information as he may feel obliged to give about himself, the fact remains that society is “taken in” quite as often as banks and business men and private individuals. several years ago a notorious scamp, who had been in several state-prisons, came to new york, organized a business firm, took a large store, was discovered in the course of time to be carrying on operations closely akin to stealing, and when his record was thoroughly searched and sifted by the police, it was discovered that his victims were principally the largest wholesale establishments in the city of new york—establishments which employed a number of men for the sole purpose of investigating the character and resources of any one applying to them for credit or for any business relations beyond ordinary purchases for cash.
these smart scamps, who are a hundred times as numerous as the newspaper disclosures would lead the public to imagine, have a terribly demoralizing influence upon the young men who flock to the city from all parts of the rural districts as well as upon those who are brought up in the city. to see a rascal succeed has a bad effect upon any one. even the most righteous man will mournfully quote from scripture that “the wicked shall flourish as the green bay tree;” that “their eyes stand out with fatness;{488} they have more than heart can wish,” where the respectable man has to lie awake nights to devise ways and means of paying his coal-bill and avoiding trouble with his landlord. business enterprises containing any amount of promise are organized, forced upon the public by smart schemers of whom no one knows anything, and all of them succeed in obtaining a great deal of money. when discovery comes, as of course it must come sooner or later, the villain never makes restitution to any extent and is never adequately punished for his crime. so, the citizen who pretends to be respectable, but always has an eye out for the main chance, is moved by such examples to see whether he cannot do something sharp himself, and get away before the crash comes.
society in large cities is said to be exclusive. it must be, for its own protection. it cannot possibly be too exclusive. people with and without letters of introduction succeed in forming acquaintances, becoming part of one or another social set, even get into the churches, open bank accounts, go into business, and a year or two afterward are discovered to have antecedents which would make a person of ordinary respectability hold up his hands in horror. such occurrences have been so common, and the individuals concerned have so often been not only men but women, that the exclusiveness of city society{489} extends even to the churches and school-rooms. the half-grown child attending a public or private school is warned against making any acquaintances whatever except with the children of families whom its parents already know. the member of a church may have a stranger shown into his pew again and again on sundays, and extend to him the courtesy of an open prayer-book or hymnal, but in self-defence he is compelled to stop at that. the cordiality, freedom of speech, and general recognition, which is the custom in small towns and in rural districts throughout the world, is denied the prudent inhabitant of a city, no matter how hearty his inclination may be to extend a welcoming hand to every one whom he may meet. young men entering society, young women seen for the first time in some social circle, are at first regarded very much as a stranger entering a mining town in the west, where it is supposed no one goes unless he has good reason to get away from his original home.
nowhere in the world are there more charitable hearts with plenty of money behind them than in large cities, yet nowhere else is there more suffering. your next-door neighbor may be starving to death and you not know anything about it. you know nothing of his comings and nothing of his goings; he knows nothing of you, and if he has any spirit whatever, and any{490} respect for himself, he would rather apply to the police or to the authorities in charge of the poor than to the people living nearest to him. whenever the newspapers of a city make some startling disclosure of destitution and suffering a number of purses open instantly, and frequently some of the sufferers have received gifts from their own landlords, who actually did not know of the name and existence of the tenant. a judge of the supreme court of the city of new york has long been known as a frequent and prompt visitor in person to all individuals reported as in destitute condition and deserving of immediate assistance, yet he said once to his own pastor, and to his own physician also, who chanced to be present, that the great sorrow of his life was, that he was utterly incapacitated by the conditions of city life from discovering for himself the whereabouts of individuals whom he would gladly assist with his pocket and his counsel.
as nobody knows anybody in the large cities, what is called the floating population have everything their own way, each one for himself. business wrongs that would not be tolerated for an instant in a smaller community are perpetrated with entire impunity in the large cities. the poorer classes have no strong friend or acquaintance to complain to. were they in a smaller place they would know some one; probably they would know everybody of any consequence, and{491} also be known, and could quickly bring public sentiment to their aid, but in a large city there is no such opportunity. the only hope of the oppressed is in the courts, which always are overcrowded with business, and can give very little time to any one, and in the press, which is also overcrowded with work, and should not be charged with this sort of responsibility.
temptation will exist wherever humanity is found, but for a concentration of all temptations, graded to suit all capacities of human weakness, the great city stands pre-eminent. there is no vice that cannot be committed in it—committed with reasonable assurance that it will not be discovered. a man whose habits are apparently correct, who has no known vices, whose daily manner with his fellow-men seems all that it should be, may with entire safety change his manner at night, and re-enact the drama of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde. it is worse than that. he not only may, but in a great many instances he does. any man whose business compels him to know a number of persons by sight, and whose hours of duty keep him out-of-doors in the “wee sma’ hours,” occasionally sees things which stagger him. he sees citizens of good repute in company which any village loafer would be ashamed to be seen in by his own acquaintances. he sees policemen taking charge of men who by daylight the police of their own locality regard{492} with extreme respect. he sees the high and the low mingle on the same level, and from their manners he would not be able to know one from the other. newspapers are sometimes blamed for publishing sensational stories, which reminds me of a remark once made by the famous parson brownlow, of east tennessee. he was called to account one day for using profane language, he being a minister of the gospel. “if you knew,” said he, “how many cuss words i hold in, you would not blame me for the few i let out.” if the newspapers were to print all the sensational stories which come to them they would have to double the size of their sheets, and still they would have no room for any decent news whatever.
i repeat it, great cities are great sores, and it is to the interest of every one that they should in some way be extracted from the body politic and be allowed and compelled to maintain a separate existence. i know that the parallel is not exact, but such things have been done in some cases. the city is a millstone about the neck of the state in almost all cases. whatever may be the political preference of the reader, he must admit the fact that the single city of new york politically dominates the state, although containing only about one-fourth of the population, and that the expressed will and intention of a large majority of the voters of the state outside the metropolis{493} is steadily neutralized by a great majority composed principally of ignorant persons who infest a great city. the evil has impressed itself strongly upon the minds of publicists and journalists of all degrees to such an extent that the suggestion has often been made that the city should be allowed a separate organization by and in itself, somewhat analogous to the position once held by the free cities of germany. in such case, whatever may be the ultimate political results, the fact would remain that each portion of the divided community would have its own will distinctly expressed, whereas at present one neutralizes the other. new york has been making the attempt for years by a series of special governments by commission, the origin being in special enactments by the legislature at albany. the results have not been successful, but the trouble was not lack of principle in the enactments, but in the individuals selected to carry on the experiment. the suggestion however continues to be made. similar plans have been mentioned regarding some other large cities of the united states. and it is not impossible that all of them may be granted “home rule” in the strictest sense, and that the states at large will thus escape the city rule to which at present they are being subjected.{494}
the darker side.
what already has been said about the evils of city life and influence may seem bad enough, but there is another side that is worse. crime and license affect the human mind strongly when brought before it as the cause of a large amount of irregularity, but the public heart is more quickly and firmly impressed by the knowledge of suffering.
the amount of suffering that exists in all large cities merely through enforced conditions of life passes power of expression. no one has ever yet been able to do the subject justice. many who have worked among the poor have lost life and hope, and mind itself, in contemplation of the suffering and sorrow which they have witnessed and been unable to relieve. to attempt to care for the poor of a large city affects one very much like an effort to pour water into a sieve; the demand is continual, yet nothing seems to be effected.
almost everywhere outside of the cities it is assumed at the beginning that those who suffer through their poverty in large cities are either indolent or vicious. a more cruel mistake could not possibly be made. there are many idlers in any large city, as a matter of course, but the great majority of the people work hard to keep soul and body together. the largest gathering{495} of idlers that any occurrence can bring together does not equal in numbers the procession which one may see in five minutes’ time on any thoroughfare during regular hours of going to work or returning home.
a full half of the population of the largest city in the union reside in tenement houses. the tenement house at best is unfit for human residence if the people who inhabit it expect to enjoy good health, and if the children who are part of almost every family are expected to grow and develop properly in body and soul. yet the bald fact is that more than half a million of the inhabitants of this country live on several square miles of land in one single city. land is costly, builders’ work is expensive; the cheapest-built houses cost a great deal of money, and consequently the space in them must be divided and subdivided with great skill and detail if the poorer classes are to find habitation at all.
almost all of this half million people are honest, hard workers. the heads of families are among the first to go to work in the morning and among the last to go to their homes at night. they are those who work for the smallest wages and do the hardest work. they and their families need just as much food to support life as any of the well-to-do portion of the population. but in any large city the necessities of life are costly, and they are particularly so in our largest city.{496} the wages of an ordinary mechanic or workingman will barely pay the rent of the cheapest apartment and buy food for five people. clothing must be left to chance, luxury must be unthought-of, and the only possible relaxation is that to be found in the streets or at places where entertainment is free.
more heroism is displayed in some of these humble homes than ever was witnessed on any battle-field of which the world has knowledge. the wolf at the door is a thousand times worse foe than the enemy on the frontier. the soldier always has glory to look to in case he dies. the suffering laborer dies, if die he must, in abject misery at the thought of his family’s future. whatever his health, however numerous his discomforts, however small his pay, he must work and go on working, or his family must starve. he has no friends who are rich or influential; if he had, he would not be a poor working-man; his only friends are those of his own kind, and while almost any of them would in time of necessity share their last loaf with him, there are times when the most friendly of them have no loaf to share. a day or two of sickness of the head of the family imposes a stern chase which lasts long and costs frightfully. the death of a member of their family means absolute ruin. this would seem bad enough, but there is worse behind it. the necessity of sending the remains of the loved one to the burial ground of the paupers is one of the terrible experiences which are very common in large cities. some of them cannot afford even the small time necessary to do that much; so, with many tears and prayers, perhaps sometimes with many curses upon the hard luck to which fate or fortune has reduced them, the remains are quietly carried to the river-side at night and there dropped from sight, though not from memory. a few years ago a newspaper attaché, attending one of the large excursions given by charitable persons to children of the poor, overheard a mother and daughter talking about a sick babe which the daughter was to carry on board the boat. the mother could not go. she had to work or the family must starve. she took her child in her arms, again and again kissed it, cried over it, and then began a skilful conversation with her daughter leading up to the possibility and advisability, in case of death during the trip, of dropping the little darling’s remains overboard, saying that the deep, clean sea was a cleaner burial place than the dark ground in the cemetery. the child listened with wondering face and finally agreed with her mother. as for the reporter, he was so horrified that he was utterly unfit for work for a year after, although he imagined himself hardened to scenes of suffering.
the wildest imagination cannot possibly exceed{498} some actual facts of tenement-house life. the story has been told again and again, until there is no novelty in it, of families crowded together so closely that all the decencies of life were forgotten, because it was impossible to observe them, of bad associations formed, of children wilting and weakening unto death because the air they breathed was unfit to support life, of food purchased at cheaper and cheaper prices until that finally used was little better than poison to those who ate it, of poverty induced by payments deferred, of the wretchedness and semi-starvation that exist through some of the long strikes of some of the laboring classes; but none of it fully equals the truth. there are happy, virtuous, well-fed, well-clothed families in tenement houses, and it is probably fair to say that these are perhaps in the majority, but the minority is so numerous that the heart is appalled at contemplating it. out of their wretched homes these people cannot go. there is no other place for them. while a man and his wife are young and before they have children, they may roam about if they choose as tramps in pleasant summer weather, until some happy chance finds work for one or the other in the rural districts. but once anchored in the city by a family of children, and the opportunities of the laboring man of small income to ever change his condition are almost nothing. some men say that the influence of{499} religion is declining. the strongest refutation, and an absolute one, of this statement is that the miserable people in large cities do not arise in frenzied mobs and destroy everything which they cannot steal. the long, patient and then despairing struggle against the inevitable is enough to reduce any man to frenzy, were it not, as longfellow says, that poverty
“crushes into dumb despair
one-half the human race.”
it nevertheless is true that as large a proportion of these people as of any other class in the city are religious by instinct, training and practice. the churches which they attend are more crowded on sundays than those of the better classes, and the painter who wishes to find models of patience and resignation and determination can find them better at the doors of these churches than anywhere else in the world.
still the misery goes on. it increases. the tenement-house population grows larger and larger every year. the accommodations become smaller because the tendency of the rents of such property is steadily upward. there is no way of escape. little by little the parents of the family of young children prevail upon themselves to allow children to help support the family. there is no cruelty about it in the intention of the parents. the children have little enough to{500} interest them. their parents are too busy to talk with them or answer any of their questions. during the day the children are in the way, and to the father and mother comes the suggestion that if the entire family were at work together there might be a closer family life. the children are quite willing to take part in whatever their parents are doing. indeed, it is hard to keep them from doing so. so the transition for children from utter indolence to child labor is very short and easy.
there are a great many businesses in a large city in which children may help their parents. among these, the most prominent probably will be found among the clothing manufacturers and the makers of that much-abused article, the tenement-house cigar. it isn’t necessary for the reader to be frightened at the idea that cigars are made in tenement-houses, because a respectable man or woman with their children are less likely to have any habits or surroundings which will make the tobacco leaf deleterious than the workman in any famous factory in havana. there are diseases among the operatives in cuban cigar factories of which the less said the better. whatever other ailments there may be in tenement-house life, these particular diseases are not to be found there. nevertheless the idea of a man and woman and several children working ten or twelve or fourteen hours a day in a room{501} ten feet square with a lot of decaying vegetable matter—which is exactly what leaf tobacco in the course of manufacture really is—to pollute the atmosphere about them, is not a pleasant thing. tobacco has powerful medicinal qualities, most of which are of a poisonous nature. a small amount of nicotine, the essential principle of tobacco, has been powerfully effective either as a narcotic, or stimulant, or a germicide. the effect upon persons who handle it incessantly during a full half of every day can consequently be imagined. every one in the room becomes irritable unless the food supply is abundant and carefully selected; every one finally becomes extremely nervous. men and women do not well endure the life of tobacco manufacturers. to children the constant handling of the leaf is frequently poisonous. nevertheless, a certain amount of money ought to be earned every day by the family; the father and mother are not able to do it; the children help; the family earnings are as much for the child’s sake as for the parents, and so the work goes on.
in the manufacture of clothing the details, so far as they affect human life, are not so injurious. but one commercial result is always perceptible in a short time. those operatives who can avail themselves of child labor are enabled to underbid their associates, who are also their competitors. consequently it is a very short time before the{502} income of the family is no larger than it already had been, while the number of persons occupied in earning it has doubled and perhaps trebled.
just think a moment what all this really implies. a number of people are excluded from all possibility of exercise or recreation and exciting themselves to the utmost to accomplish a given amount of work in a specified time. children are quicker than grown people to respond to any exciting influence, and the most enthusiastic workers in tenement-house rooms will always be found to be the children. sometimes this amuses the parents, occasionally it interests them, but more often it is extremely pathetic. to see a child at an early age absorbed in the details of the battle of life would horrify any one of us, yet 100,000 children of this kind can be found in the city of new york, and a large number of them can be found in any one of forty or fifty specified blocks.
there is only one end to this sort of thing. persistent stimulation and entire lack of recreation or exercise must have a debasing and dangerous effect upon any physique. much more must this be the case regarding children. boys and girls are not driven to work as they were in england forty or fifty years ago. they are not flogged if they do not accomplish a certain amount of work in a given time, as they used to be under the good old english customs. but they{503} are just as thoroughly destroyed, physically and mentally, as if they were under taskmasters who were not their own parents.
children in the country frequently work very hard. a farmer’s life is hard at best, and between necessity and sympathy his children early learn to take part in their father’s endeavors. they rise early in the morning and work perhaps quite late in the night, but they are in pure air even while they are at work. they have an abundance of food and they always see something before them, just as their parents do. perhaps it is that there is a war abroad and the price of wheat will probably go up a few cents a bushel. or a railroad is coming in the vicinity of the farm, and acres which have been devoted to common crops and pasture are expected suddenly to attain to the dignity of town lots. there are evening festivities in which all the children take part, and there is also the great and comforting and uplifting american sentiment that each one of them is as good as any one of their richest neighbors, and the fact that they may live in a poorly-built house and not wear quite as good clothes on sunday as some of their associates can always be overlooked in view of the possibilities of the near future. but before the children of the poor in the large cities there is no prospect whatever of advancement or pleasure or recreation. the old dull{504} grind goes on day by day. while every one is well and every one is at work, the family probably has enough to eat and has a roof over its head; and to that extent it can congratulate itself, for some of their acquaintances and neighbors are not so well off. but the first day that sickness comes into the family the entire aspect of things changes. the work must go on or there will be nothing to live on at the end of the week. the invalid may be put to bed in one of the little closets which are dignified by the name of rooms, but the adult members of the family must continue to work, and so must all who are old enough to assist. if there is a sewing-machine in the room it must go on clicking, no matter if some member of the family is dying. there is no lack of sympathy, no lack of affection, no lack of longing; but all these put together do not take the place of proper medical attendance, pure air and good food. if in any single town of the united states the death rate were as large as it is in the city of new york, the best citizens would pack up their things and run away, no matter at what cost. but new york can lose thirty or forty of every thousand of its inhabitants every year, and the only comment of those who know best about it is that it is a mercy of heaven that the loss is no greater.
the customary way of city people, in avoiding{505} responsibility and deep thought on this subject, consists in saying that the people who live in this way are of low organizations any way, and that they can exist and flourish and grow fat amid surroundings which would kill any decent person. there is some truth in this so far as certain low organizations are concerned. unfortunately, however, there is no race, sex, nationality or creed among the very poor in the large city. all of them are people who either were born very poor or who, having been reduced to poverty, are endeavoring to make the best of their lot. there are americans of good name and good family now serving in the commoner mechanical capacities in the city of new york, and only a little while ago it was discovered that the wife of a gallant major-general, who served the united states faithfully during the late unpleasantness, was “living out” as a domestic servant. it is not a result of poverty, misfortune, sickness or anything of the kind. all those horrors are the results, first of all, of city life, of living where no one knows his own neighbors and where the person who falls into embarrassments or is overwhelmed by misfortune has no one to whom to turn, and takes to anything at short notice and in utter desperation, to keep the wolf from the door.
cities should be suppressed, but that is impossible. they should be properly policed by persons{506} competent to discover and report those most in need of assistance; but that also seems impossible. the only chance left seems to be that the larger the city the greater shall be the missionary work done in it by all denominations. when jesus was alive and was anxious to secure the attention of the people, he did not bemoan their sad condition, but on one occasion, when some thousands of them followed him, he himself supplied them with food. the servant is not greater than the master, and religious people, regardless of differences of creed, can find no better work in large cities than to search out the needy and endeavor to lift their feet out of the mire and put them in a dry place, to quote from the inspired psalmist in one of his most eloquent passages.
one good and pressing reason—though a selfish one—for closer and more sympathetic attention to the poor of large cities, is that the great mass of criminals come from the poorer classes, and that when criminals are once made it is hard to unmake them. the famous inspector byrne, of new york, the man most feared by wrongdoers everywhere, spends annually a great deal of his hard-earned money in trying to persuade criminals not to drop back into their old ways, but he believes that he only retards their return to crime—not that he effects any reformations. the following words from a man{507} of his stern experience and sympathetic nature are terrible in their warning against neglect of the class from which most criminals spring:
“my personal opinion is that it is utterly impossible to reform criminals. there are certain fancy measures pursued in this city for the reformation of criminals, but they are all bosh; they do not reform the outlaws. to some extent such efforts are made for the purpose of public notoriety. i know people in this city who claim that they want to reform thieves. they get hold of notorious scoundrels when they come out of state-prison, and so long as the thief is a good ‘star-actor,’ and goes from place to place and tells all sorts of things that are villanous and bad about himself (no matter whether they be lies or the truth), he is lauded around by these people as a great attraction. the moment he discontinues that kind of performance they throw him out in the street because he is of no use to them; he doesn’t ‘draw.’
“so far as the efforts of religious people are concerned in this matter of criminal reformation, i say that their efforts are laudable. they certainly mean well. they devote time and money to the work; but they have no practical experience with criminals, and their efforts count for very little. it is sometimes claimed that, under the influence of prayers and preaching, the criminal’s heart is touched, he sees the error of his{508} ways, he is converted; i do not believe it. as the word ‘reformation’ is ordinarily used, i know there is no such experience among thieves.”
it will not do to dispose of the subject by saying that there must be criminals in the world, and that we pay policemen to take care of them. no police force can entirely suppress crime; there are too many evil-doers to be watched, and each has his own style. inspector williams, of new york, an officer almost as widely known as inspector byrne, and who has had charge of the most dangerous precincts in the city, wrote recently:
“the general public, who look upon criminals as a class by themselves, are apt to think that one criminal is very much like another. this is not a fact. i have been a policeman for nearly a quarter of a century, and i have never seen two criminals who were very nearly alike in character. a siamese-twinship in the annals of crime is unknown. when we enter the criminal world and seek to deal with its members from any point of view, we must look upon them individually, not collectively.”
all of which means that the only way to lessen the number of criminals is to see to it that wretchedness of the masses of population in our large cities shall not be allowed to send new recruits to the ranks.
