THE The Inagahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1877.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 7, 25 April 1877, Page 2

THE The Inagahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1877.

A few days since two children, named Alfred and Jessie Lewis, were taken before the Resident Magistrate at Dunedin upon a charge of having " no lawful* visible means of support." Both children were of tender age, and their tale was a - pitiful one— they were homeless, and had been deserted by their parents. The Magistrate, M* Watt, expressed sympathy for the friendless waifs, but regretted bis inability to deal with them, for some reason which is. not stated, and the children were consequently turned upon the streets of Dunedin. Whether as a coincident or emergent from the ease just referred to, the New. Zealand Herald subsequently published an article upon the hereditary transmission of criminal tendencies. The article in question, after speaking of the almost certainty of the children of criminals following a lawless life, proceeds to argue the matter out upon very instructive, data. The. writer proceeds : " Leading jurists and other social observers, having opportunities of ascer<taining the facts, ha*ge, also come to a similar conclusion, borne out by criminal statistics and the experience of prison life and records,. The instance adduced by Dr J.. Harris, of New York, at one. of the meetings of the State Charities Aid Asaooiation, is undoubtedly a most complete and convincing proof of the accuracy of this, view. As perhaps the outcome of Dr Harris' close and exhaustive investigation :ny»y be unknown to many, we. reproduce the startling issue, whiob reads a serious lesson to society. This ia the case of a female child named "Margaret,"* born in a county on the upper Hudson, a district in New York State, which for many years bad attained an unenviable notoriety for the extraordinary great proportion of crime and poverty to the population* This, Dr Harris bad observed, stood in the proportion of one criminal or pauper 'to every ten inhabitants of the district. With the seal of a, scientific man, he proceeded to make laborious genealogical in» vestigations, extending over seventy years, the results of which were of a nature fitted to surprise erery thinker. This " Maggie," aa the waif was called, seventy years ago, waa a vagrant child, wandering; about the locality, where there was no almshouse, and wbere she lived on the occasional help of tbe charitable, but never, received any education, and | never had a home. Dr Harris** report narrates tbat she gave birth, to ohildren, who became ' paupers like herself ; : they increased and multiplied until, at the year specified (1875) nine hundred descendants of the friendless woman can be traced. What waa the fate of tbese, dea.i pendants of this prolific progenitor of this large contingent to. the colossal army of modern criminals, is thus set forth :— Of this immense progeny extending through six. generations, two hundred of the more vigorous are recorded as criminals, and a large number as idiots, lunatics,, prostitutes, and drunkards. In one single generation there were twenty children, three of whom died yonng, and the balance survived to maturity ; but nine were sent to State prisons for aggregate terms of fifty yeara, and the rest were oonstant inmates of the penitentaries, gaols, and almshouses." The question oi criminal ; entailment, which our contemporary here touches upon, is by no means a new one. Many years ago a vigorous controversy upon the same subject was carried on in America. The. discussion arose upon the presentation to the Legislature of the report already referred to. In that report the facts which our contemporary has cited were fully set forth, and to meet which two, courses were recommended by the framers— to sever the links inthe chain of such entailed evils, and to. instruct, train, and save all the children, or in other words to place tbe most hardened class of crimals in imprisonment for life, and thereby remove the possibility of ■perpetuation. This theory or sugges-

tion, however, found many opponents, and amongst others the advocates of a form of individual punishment upon the worst classes of male offenders, which, while equally effective in scouring the object sought, was and prohably will still continue to be regarded as abhorrent to our notions of civilisation. That the criminal and pamper class is An hereditary caste particularly in respeot to large cities abundant evidence has been shown, but how best to direct its perverted force into nseful channels is one of the great social problems which time, or, possibly, a great change in our notions of humantarianism, can alone solve. " The quickest way to oivilise a man is to civilise his grandmother " is a saying attributed to Victor Hugo, and there can be no question that, at least in this partionlar aspect of the question, as the source so will be the stream. The influence of education is unquestionably a powerful agent in the way of reforming the young, but it ia after all a matter of very Uttle doubt that even education and moral discipline itself loses hal. its efficacy upon children who have been dragged up in an atmosphere of vice and crime. Careful training may work a lasting impression in some cases, hut if the law of criminal entailment is to go for anything, there must still remain the imminent risk that lit may serve only to. elevate a vicious and" incorrigible progeny from an unI skilled to a skilled degree of crime. [The subject is, however, one of so ! wide a range that there is little need oi here pursuing it further, but there is little donbt that time wili eventually bring with it necessities before the sternness of ! which, in dealing with the question, both fanciful sentiment and the prejudice of the ti,me alike will have to yield.