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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
CRI
S
AGAINST
CRIMINALS
AN ADDRESS
Delivered before the State Bar Association of New York,
January 21, 1890.
BY
COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL
Price Threepence.
Xonbon :
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,.
28 Stonecutter Street, E.U.
1890.
�LONDON
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. KOOTK,
28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALSIn this brief address, the object is to suggest, there
being no time to present arguments at length. The
subject has been chosen for the reason that it is one
that should interest the legal profession, because that
profession to a certain extent controls and shapes the
legislation of our country, and fixes definitely the scope
and meaning of all laws.
Lawyers ought to be foremost in legislative and
judicial reform, and of all men they should understand
the philosophy of mind, the causes of human action,,
and the real science of government.
It has been said that the three pests of a com
munity are—A. priest without charity, a doctor w ithout
knowledge, and a lawyer without a sense of justice.
I.
All nations seem to have had supreme confidence in
the deterrent power of threatened and inflicted pain.
They have regarded punishment as the shortest road to
reformation. Imprisonment, torture, death, consti
tuted a trinity under whose protection society might
feel secure.
In addition to these, nations have relied on confisca
tion and degradation, on maimings,whippings, brandings
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Grimes against Criminals.
and" exposures to pubic ridicule and contempt. Con
nected with the court of justice was the chamber of
torture. The ingenuity of man was exhausted in the
construction of instruments that would surely reach the
most sensitive nerve. All this was done in the interest
of civilisation for the protection of virtue, and the
well-being of States. Curiously enough, the fact is
that, no matter how severe the punishments were, the
crimes increased.
It was found that the penalty of death made little
difference. Thieves and highwaymen, heretics and
blasphemers, went on their way. It was then thought
necessaiy to add to this penalty of death, and conse
quently, the convicted were tortured in every conceivable
way before execution. They were broken on the wheel—
their joints dislocated on the rack. They were suspended
by their legs and arms, while immense weights were
placed upon their breasts. Their flesh was burned and
torn with hot irons. They were roasted at slow fires.
They were buried alive—given to wild beasts—molten
lead was poured in their ears—their eye-lids were cut off
and the wretches placed with their faces toward the
sun—others were securely bound, so that they could
move neither hand nor foot, and over their stomachs
were placed inverted bowls ; under these bowls rats
were confined; on top of the bowls were heaped coals
of fire, so that the rats in their efforts to escape would
gnaw into the bowels of the victims. They were staked
out on the sands of the s^a, to be drowned by the
slowly rising tide—and every means, by which human
nature can be overcome slowly, painfully and terribly,
were conceived and carried into execution. And yet
the number of so-called criminals increased.
For petty offences men were degraded—given to the
�Crimes against Criminals.
5
mercy of the rabble. Their ears were cut off, their
nostrils slit, their foreheads branded. They were tied
to the tails of carts and flogged from one town to
another. And yet, in spite of all, the poor wretches
obstinately refused to become good and useful citizens.
Degradation has been thoroughly tried, with its
mannings and brandings, and the result was that these
who inflicted the punishments became as degraded as
their victims.
Only a few years ago there were more than two
hundred offences in Great Britain punishable by death.
The gallows-tree bore fruit through all the year, and
the hangman was the busiest official in the kingdom—
but the criminals increased.
Crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes
were committed to prevent crimes. The world has been
filled with prisons and dungeons, with chains and whips,
with crosses and gibbets, with thumb-screws and racks,
with hangmen and headsmen—and yet these frightful
means and instrumentalities and crimes have accom
plished little for the preservation of property or life.
It is safe to say that governments have committed far
more crimes than they have prevented.
Why is it that men will suffer and risk so much for
the sake of stealing ? Why will they accept degrada
tion and punishment and infamy as their portion ?
Some will answer this question by an appeal to the
dogma of original sin ; others by saying that millions
of men and women are under the control of fiends,
that they are actually possessed by devils ; and others
will declare that all these people act from choice—that
they are possessed of free wills, of intelligence—that
they know and appreciate consequences, and that, in
spite of all, they deliberately prefer a life of crime.
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Crimes against Criminals.
II.
Have we not advanced far enough intellectually to
deny the existence of chance ? Are we not satisfied
now that back of every act and thought and dream
and fancy is an efficient cause ? Is anything, or can
anything, be produced that is not necessarily produced ?
Can the fatherless and motherless exist ? Is there not
a connection between all events, and is not every act
related to all other acts ? Is it not possible, is it not
probable, is it not true, that the actions of all men are
determined by countless causes over which they have
no positive control ?
Certain it is that men do not prefer unhappiness to
joy. It can hardly ‘be said that man intends per
manently to injure himself, and that he does what he
does in order that he may live a life of misery. On
the other hand, we must take it for granted that man
endeavors to better his own condition, and seeks,
although by mistaken ways, his. own well-being. The
poorest man would like to be rich—the sick desire
health—and no sane man wishes to win the contempt
and hatred of his fellow-men. Every human being
prefers liberty to imprisonment.
Are the brains of criminals exactly like the brains
of honest men ? Have criminals the same ambitions,
the same standards of happiness or of well-being ? If
a difference exists in brain, will that in part account for
the difference in character? Is there anything in
heredity 1 Are vices as carefully transmitted by
Nature as virtues ? Does each man in some degree
bear burdens imposed by ancestors'? We know that
diseases of flesh and blood are transmitted—that the
child is the heir of physical deformity. Are diseases
�Crimes against Criminals.
7
of the brain—are deformities of the soul, of the mind,
also transmitted ?
We not only admit, but we assert, that in the physical
world there are causes and effects. We insist that
there is and can be no effect without an efficient cause.
When anything happens in that world, we are satisfied
that it was naturally and necessarily produced. The
causes may be obscure, but we as implicitly believe in
their existence as when we know positively what they
are. In the physical world we have taken the ground
that there is nothing miraculous—that everything is
natural—and if we cannot explain it, we account for
our inability to explain, by our own ignorance. Is it not
possible, is it not probable, that what is true in the
physical world is equally true in the realm of mind—in
that strange world of passion and desire ? Is it possible
that thoughts, or desires, or passions are the children
of chance, born of nothing ? Can we conceive of
Nothing as a force, or as a cause ? If, then, there is
behind every thought and desire and passion an efficient
cause, we can, in part at least, account for the actions
of men.
A certain man under certain conditions acts in a
certain way. There are certain temptations that he,
with his brain, with his experience, with his intelligence,
with his surroundings, cannot withstand. He is irre
sistibly led to do, or impelled to do, certain things; and
there are other things that he cannot do. If we change
the conditions of this man, his actions will be changed.
Develop his mind, give him new subjects of thought,
and you change the man; and the man being changed,
it follows as a necessity that his conduct will be
different.
In civilised countries the struggle for existence is
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severe—the competition far sharper than in savage
lands. The consequence is that there are many
failures. These failures lack, it may be, opportunity,
or brain, or moral force, or industry, or something
without which, under the circumstances, success is
impossible. Certain lines of conduct are called legal,
and certain others criminal, and the men who fail in
one line may be driven to the other. How do we know
that it is possible for all people to be honest ? Are we
certain that all people can tell the truth 1 Is it possible
for all men to be generous, or candid, or courageous ?
I am perfectly satisfied that there are millions of
people incapable of committing certain crimes, and it
may be true that there are millions of others incapable
of practising certain virtues. We do not blame a man
because he is not a sculptor, a poet, a painter, or a
statesman. We say he has not the genius. Are we
certain that it does not require genius to be good ?
Where is the man with intelligence enough to take into
consideration the circumstances of each individual
case ? Who has the mental balance with which to
weigh the forces of heredity, of want, of temptation—
and who can analyse with certainty the mysterious
motions of the brain ?
Where and what are the
sources of vice and virtue ? In what obscure and
shadowy recesses of the brain are passions born ? And
what is it that for the moment destroys the sense of
right and wrong ? Who knows to what extent reason
becomes the prisoner of passion—of some strange and
wild desire, the seeds of which were sown, it may be,
thousands of years ago in the breast of some savage ?
To what extent do antecedents and surroundings affect
the moral sense ?
Is it not possible that the tyranny of governments,
�Crimes against Criminals.
9
the injustice of nations, the fierceness of what is called
the law, produce in the individual a tendency in the
same direction 1 Is it not true that the citizen is apt
to imitate his nation ? Society degrades its enemies—
the individual seeks to degrade his. Society plunders
its enemies, and now and then a citizen has the desire
to plunder his. Society kills its enemies, and possibly
sows in the heart of some citizen the seeds of murder.
III.
Is it not true that the criminal is a natural product,
and that society unconsciously produces these children
of vice ? Can we not safely take another step, and say
that the criminal is a victim, as the diseased and insane
and deformed are victims ? We do not think of punish
ing a man because he is afflicted with disease—our
desire is to find a cure. We send him, not to the peni
tentiary, but to the hospital, to an asylum. We do this
because we recognise the fact that disease is naturally
produced—that it is inherited from parents, or the
result of unconscious negligence, or it may be of reck
lessness—but instead of punishing, we pity. If Lhere are
diseases of the mind, of the brain, as there are diseases
of the body ; and if these diseases of the mind, these
deformities of the brain, produce, and necessarily pro
duce, what we call vice, why should we punish the
criminal, and pity those who are physically diseased 1
Socrates, in some respects at least one of the wisest
of men, said: “ It is strange that you should not be
angry when you meet a man with an ill-conditioned
body, and yet be vexed when you encounter one with
an ill-conditioned soul.”
We know that there are deformed bodies, and we
are equally certain that there are deformed minds.
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Orimes against Oriminals.
Of course, society has the right. to protect itself, no
mattei' whether the persons who attack its well-being
are responsible or not, no matter whether they are sick
in mind, or deformed in brain. The right of selfdefence exists, not only in the individual, but in society.
The great question is, How shall this right of selfdefence be exercised ? What spirit shall be in the
nation, or in society—the spirit of revenge, a desire to
degrade and punish and destroy, or, a spirit born of the
recognition of the fact that criminals are victims ?
The world has thoroughly tried confiscation, degra
dation, imprisonment, torture and death, and thus far
the world has failed. In this connection I call your
attention to the following statistics gathered in our
own country :
In 1850 we had 23,000,000 of people, and between
six and seven thousand prisoners.
In 1860—31,000,000 of people, and 19,000 prisoners.
In 1870—38,000,000 of people, and 32,000 prisoners.
In 1880—50,000,000 of people, and 58,000 prisoners.
It may be curious to note the relation between in
sanity, pauperism and crime :
In 1850 there were 15,000 insane; in 1860, 24,000;
in 1870, 37,000; in 1880, 91,000.
In the light of these statistics we are not succeeding
in doing away with crime.
There were in 1880,
58,000 prisoners, and in the same year 57,000 home
less children, and 66,000 paupers in almshouses.
Is it possible that we must go to the same causes for
these effects?
IV.
There is no reformation in degradation. To mutilate
a criminal is to say to all the world that he is a criminal,
�Crimes against Criminals.
11
and to render his reformation substantially impossible.
Whoever is degraded by society becomes its enemy.
The seeds of malice are sown in his heart, and to the
day of his death he will hate the hand that sowed the
seeds.
There is also another side to this question. A punish
ment that degrades the punished will degrade the man
who inflicts the punishment, and will degrade the
government that procures the infliction. The whipping
post pollutes, not only the whipped, but the whippet,
and not only the whipper, but the community at large.
Wherever its shadow falls it degrades.
If, then, there is no reforming power in degradation
—no deterrent power—for the reason that the degrada
tion of the criminal degrades the community, and in this
way produces more criminals, then the next question is,
Whether there is any reforming power in torture ? The
trouble with this is, that it hardens and degrades to the
last degree the ministers of the law. Those who are
not affected by the agonies of the bad will in a little
time care nothing for the sufferings of the good. There
seems to be a little of the wild beast in men—a some
thing that is fascinated by suffering, and that delights
in inflicting pain. When a government tortures, it is
in the same state of mind that the criminal was when
he committed his crime. It requires as much malice in
those who execute the law to torture a criminal, as it
did in the criminal to torture and kill his victim. The
one was a crime by a person, the other by a nation.
There is something in injustice, in cruelty, that tends
to defeat itself. There were never as many traitors in
in England as when the traitor was drawn and quar
tered—when he was tortured in every possible way—
when his limbs, tom and bleeding, were given to the
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fury of mobs or exhibited pierced by pikes or hung in
chains. These frightful punishments produced intense
hatred of the government, and traitors continued to
increase until they became powerful enough to decide
what treason was and who the traitors were, and to
inflict the same torments on others.
Think for a moment of what man has suffered in the
cause of crime. Think of the millions that have been
imprisoned, impoverished, and degraded because they
were thieves and forgers, swindlers, and cheats. Think
for a moment of what they have endured—of the
difficulties under which they have pursued their calling,
and it will be exceedingly hard to believe that they
were sane and natural people, possessed of good brains,
of minds well poised, and that they did what they did
from a choice unaffected by heredity and the countless
circumstances that tend to determine the conduct of
human beings.
The other day I was asked these questions :—“ Has
there been as much heroism displayed for the right as
for the wrong ? Has virtue had as many martyrs as
vice ?”
For hundreds of years the world has endeavored to
destroy the good by force. The expression of honest
thought was regarded as the greatest of crimes. Dun
geons were filled by the noblest and the best, and the
blood of the bravest was shed by the sword or con
sumed by flame. It was impossible to destroy the
longing in the heart of man for liberty and truth. Is
it not possible that brute force and cruelty and revenge,
imprisonment, torture, and death are as impotent to do
away with vice as to destroy virtue ?
In our country there has been for many years a
growing feeling that convicts should neither be
�Grimes against Criminals.
13
degraded nor tortured. It was provided in the Con
stitution of the United States that “ cruel and unusual
punishments should not be inflicted.”
Benjamin
Franklin took great interest in the treatment of
prisoners, being a thorough believer in the reforming
influence of justice, having no confidence whatever in
punishment for punishment’s sake.
To me it has always been a mystery how the average
man, knowing something of the weakness of human
nature, something of the temptations to which he him
self has been exposed—remembering the evil of his
life, the things he would have done had there been
opportunity, had he absolutely known that discovery
would be impossible—should have feelings of hatred
toward the imprisoned.
Is it possible that the average man assaults the
criminal in a spirit of self-defence ? Does he wish to
convince his neighbors that the evil thought and impulse
were never in his mind ? Are his words a shield that
he uses to protect himself from suspicion ? For my
part, 1 sympathise sincerely with all failures, with the
victims of society, with those who have fallen, with the
imprisoned, with the hopeless, with those who have
been stained by verdicts of guilty, and with those who,
in the moment of passion, have destroyed, as with a
blow, the future of their lives.
How perilous, after all, is the state of man. It is
the work of a life to build a great and splendid cha
racter. It is the work of a moment to destroy it
utterly, from turret to foundation stone. How cruel
hypocrisy is !
V.
Is there any remedy î Can anything be done for
the reformation of the criminal ?
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Crimes against Criminals.
He should be treated with kindness. Every right
should be given him, consistent with the safety of
society. He should neither be degraded nor robbed.
The State should set the highest and noblest example.
The powerful should never be cruel, and in the breast
of the supreme there should be no desire for revenge.
A man in a moment of want steals the property of
another, and he is sent to the penitentiary—first, as it
is claimed, for the purpose of deterring others ; and,
secondly, of reforming him. The circumstances of each
individual case are rarely inquired into. Investigation
stops when the simple fact of the larceny has been
ascertained.' No distinctions are made, except as
between first and subsequent offences. Nothing is
allowed for surroundings.
All will admit that the industrious must be protected.
In this world it is necessary to work. Labor is the
foundation of all prosperity. Larceny is the enemy of
industry. Society has the right to protect itself. The
question is, Has it the right to punish ?—has it the
right to degrade ?—or should it endeavor to reform the
convict ?
A man is taken to the penitentiary. He is clad in the
garments of a convict. He is degraded—he loses his name
—he is designated by a number. He is no longer treated
as a human being—he becomes the slave of the State.
Nothing is done for his improvement—nothing for his
reformation. He is driven like a beast of burden ;
robbed of his laboi’; leased, it may be, by the State to
a contractor, who gets out of his hands, out of his
muscles, out of his poor brain, all the toil that he can.
He is not allowed to speak with a fellow-prisoner. A.t
night he is alone in his cell. The relations that should
exist between men are destroyed. He is a convict.
�Crimes against Criminals.
15
He is no longer worthy to associate even with’ his
keepers. The jailor is immensely his superior, and the
man who turns the key upon him at night regards him
self, in comparison, as a model of honesty, of virtue
and manhood. The convict is pavement, on which
those who watch him walk. He remains for the time
of his sentence, and when that expires he goes forth a
branded man. He is given money enough to pay his
fare back to the place from whence he came.
What is the condition of this man? Can he get
employment ? Not if he honestly states who he is and
where he has been. The first thing he does is to deny
his personality, to assume a name. He endeavors by
telling falsehoods to lay the foundation for future good
conduct. The average man does not wish to employ
an ex-convict, because the average man has no con
fidence in the reforming power of the penitentiary. He
believes that the convict who comes out is worse than
the convict who went in. He knows that in the peni
tentiary the heart of this man has been hardened—
that he has been subjected to the torture of perpetual
humiliation—that he has been treated like a ferocious
beast; and so he believes that this ex-convict has in his
heart hatred for society, that he feels he has been
degraded and robbed. Under these circumstances,
what avenue is open to the ex-convict
If he changes
his name, there will be some detective, some officer of
the law, some meddlesome wretch, who will betray his
secret. He is then discharged. He seeks employment
again, and he must seek it by again telling what is not
true. He is again detected, and again discharged.
And finally he becomes convinced that he cannot live
as an honest man. He naturally drifts back into the
society of those who have had a like experience; and
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Crimes against Criminals.
the result is that in a little while he again stands in
the dock, charged with the commission of another crime.
Again he is sent to the penitentiary—and this is the
end. He feels that his day is done, that the future has
only degradation for him.
The men in the penitentaries do not work for them
selves. Their labor belongs to others. They have no
interest in their toil—no reason for doing the best they
can—and the result is that the product of their labor is
poor. This product comes in competition with the
work of mechanics, honest men, who have families to
support, and the cry is that convict labor takes the
bread from the mouths of virtuous people.
VI.
Why should the State take without compensation
the labor of these men; and why should they, after
having been imprisoned for years, be turned out with
out the means of support ? Would it not be far better,
far more economical, to pay these men for their labor,
to lay aside their earnings from day to day, from month
to month, and from year to year—to put this money
at interest, so that when the convict is released after
five years of imprisonment he will have several hundred
dollars of his own—not merely money enough to pay
his way back to the place from which he was sent, but
enough to make it possible for him to commence a busi
on his own occount, enough to keep the wolf of crime
from the door of his heart ?
Suppose the convict comes out with five hundred
dollars. This would be to most of that class a fortune.
It would form a breast-work, a fortress, behind
which the man could fight temptation. This would
give him food and raiment, enable him to go to some
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17
other State or country where he could redeem himself.
If this were done, thousands of convicts would feel under
immense obligation to the government. They would
thihk of the penitentiary as the place in which they
were saved—in which they were redeemed—and they
would feel that the verdict of guilty rescued them
from the abyss of crime. Under these circumstances,
the law would appear benificent, and the heart of the
poor convict, instead of being filled with malice, would
overflow with gratitude. He would see the propriety
of the course pursued by the government. He would
recognise and feel and experience the benefits of this
course, and the result would be good, not only to him,
but to the nation as well.
If the convict worked for himself, he would do the
best he could, and the wares produced in the peni
tentiary would not cheapen the labor of other men.
VII.
There are, however, men who pursue crime as a
vocation—as a profession—men who have been convicted
again and again, and who still persist in using the
liberty of intervals to prey upon the rights of others.
What shall be done with these men and women ?
Put one thousand hardened thieves on an island—
compel them to produce what they eat and use—and I
am almost certain that a large majority would be
opposed to theft. Those who worked would not permit
those w’ho did not to steal the result of their labor. In
other words, self-preservation would be the dominant
idea, and these men would instantly look upon the idlers
as the enemies of their society.
Such a community would be self-supporting. Let
women of the same class be put by themselves. Keep
�Crimes against Criminals.
the sexes absolutely apart. Those who are beyond the
power of reformation should not have the liberty to
reproduce themselves. Those who cannot be reached
by kindness—by justice—those who under no circum
stances are willing to do their share, should be separated.
They should dwell apart, and dying, should leave no
heirs.
What shall be done with the slayers of their fellow
men—with murderers ? Shall the nation take life?
It has been contended that the death penalty deters
others that it has far more terror than imprisonment
for life. What is the effect of the example set by a
nation ? Is not the tendency to harden and degrade
not only those who inflict and those who witness, but
the entire community as well ?
A few years ago a man was hanged in Alexandria
(Virginia). One who witnessed the execution, on that
very day, murdered a pedlar in the Smithsonian grounds
at Washington. He was tried and executed, and one
who witnessed his hanging went home, and on the same
day murdered his wife.
The tendency of the extreme penalty is to prevent
conviction. In the presence of death it is easy for a
jury to find a doubt. Technicalities become important,
and absurdities, touched with mercy, have the appear
ance for a moment of being natural and logical. Honest
and conscientious men dread a final and irrevocable
step. If the penalty were imprisonment for life, the
jury would feel that if any mistake were made it could
be rectified; but where the penalty is death a mistake
is fatal. A conscientious man takes into consideration
the defects of human nature—the uncertainty of tes
timony, and the countless shadows that dim and darken
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19.
the understanding, and refuses to find a verdict that, if
wrong, cannot be righted.
The death penalty, inflicted by the government, is a
perpetual excuse for mobs.
The greatest danger in a Republic is a mob, and as
long as States inflict the penalty of death mobs will
follow the example. If the State does not consider
life sacred, the mob, with ready rope, will strangle the
suspected. The mob will say : “ The only difference
is in the trial; the State does the same—we know the
man is guilty—why should time be wasted in techni
calities ?” In other words, why may not the mob do
quickly that which the State does slowly?
Every execution tends to harden the public heart—
tends to lessen the sacredness of human life. In many
States of this Union the mob is supreme. For certain
offences the mob is expected to lynch the supposed
criminal. It is the duty of every citizen—and as it
seems to me, especially of every lawyer—to do what he
can to destroy the mob spirit. One would think that
men would be afraid to commit any crime in a com
munity where the mob is in the ascendency, and yet,
such are the contradictions and subtleties of human
nature, that it is exactly the opposite. And there is
another thing in this connection—the men who con
stitute the mob are, as a rule, among the worst, the
lowest and the most depraved.
A few years ago, in Illinois, a man escaped from jail,
and, in escaping, shot the sheriff. He was pursued,
overtaken—lynched. The man who put the rope
around his neck was then out on bail, having been
indicted for an assault to murder. And after the poor
wretch was dead, another man climbed the tree from
which he dangled and, in derision, put a cigar in the
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mouth of the dead; and this man was on bail, havinw
been indicted for larceny.
°
Those who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their
fellow-men for having committed crimes, are, for the
most part, at heart, criminals themselves.
As long as nations meet on the fields of war—as long
as they sustain the relations of savages to each other—
as long as they put the laurel and the oak on the brows
of those who kill—just so long will citizens resort to
violence, and the quarrels of individuals be settled by
dagger and revolver.
J
VIII.
If we are to change the conduct of men, we must
change their conditions. Extreme poverty and crime
go hand in hand. Destitution multiplies temptations
and destroys the finer feelings. The bodies and souls
of men are apt to be clad in like garments. If the
body is covered with rags, the soul is generally in the
same condition. Self-respect is gone—the man looks
down—he has neither hope nor courage. He becomes
sinister—he envies the prosperous, hates the fortunate,,
and despises himself.
As long as children are raised in the tenement and
gutter, the prisons will be full. The gulf between the
rich and the poor will grow wider and wider. One will
depend on cunning, the other on force. It is a great
question whether those who live in luxury can afford to
allow others to exist in want. The value of property
depends, not on the prosperity of the few, but on the
prosperity of a very large majority. Life and property
must be secuie, or that subtle thing called 44 value 31
takes its leave. The poverty of the many is a per
petual menace. If we expect a prosperous and peaceful
�Crimes against Criminals.
21
country, the citizens must have homes. The more
homes, the more patriots, the more virtue, and the more
security for all that gives worth to life.
We need not repeat the failures of the old world.
To divide lands among successful generals, or among
favorites of the crown, to give vast estates for services
rendered in war, is no worse than to allow men of great
wealth to purchase and hold large tracts of land. The
result is precisely the same—that is to say, a nation
composed of a few landlords and of many tenants—the
tenants resorting from time to time to mob violence,
and the landlords depending upon a standing army.
The property of no man, however, should be taken for
either private or public use without just compensation
and in accordance with law. There is in the State
what is known as the right of eminent domain. The
State reserves to itself the power to take the land of
any private citizen foi’ a public use, paying to that
private citizen a just compensation to be legally ascer
tained. When a corporation wishes to build a railway,
it exercises this right of eminent domain, and where
the owner of land refuses to sell a right of way or land
for the establishment of stations or shops, and the cor
poration proceeds to condemn the land to ascertain its
value, and when the amount thus ascertained is paid,
the property vests in the corporation. This power is
exercised because in the estimation of the people the
construction of a railway is a public good.
I believe that this power should be exercised in
another direction. It would be well, as it seems to me,
for the Legislature to fix the amount of land that a
private citizen may own, that will not be subject to be
taken for the use of which I am about to speak. The
amount to be thus held will depend upon many local
�Crimes against Criminals.
circumstances, to be decided by each State for itself.
Let me suppose that the amount of land that may be
held for a farmer for cultivation has been fixed at 160
ames and suppose that A has several thousand acres.
B wishes to buy 160 acres or less of this land, for the
purpose of making himself a home. A refuses to sell.
JSTow, I believe that the law should be so that B can
invoke this right of eminent domain, and file his peti
tion, have the case brought before a jury, or before
■commissioners, who shall hear the evidence and deter
mine the value, and on payment of the amount the
land shall belong to B.
I would extend the same law to lots and houses in
cities and villages—the object being to fill our country
with the owners of homes, so that every child shall
have a fireside, every father and mother a roof, pro
vided they have the intelligence, the energy and the
industry to acquire the necessary means.
Tenements and flats and rented land are, in my
judgment, the enemies of civilisation. They make the
rich richer, and the poor poorer. They put a few in
palaces, but they put many in prisons.
I would go a step further than this. I would exempt
homes of a certain value not only from levy and sale,
but from every kind of taxation, State and National—
so that these poor people would feel that they were
in partnership with Nature—that some of the land was
absolutely theirs, and that no one could drive them
from their home—so that mothers could feel secure.
If the home increased in value, and exceeded the limit,
then taxes could be paid on the excess; and if the home
was sold, I would have the money realised exempt for
a certain time in order that the family should have the
privilege of buying another home.
�Crimes against Criminals.
23
The home, after all, is the unit of civilisation, of
good government; and to secure homes for a great
majority of our citizens, would be to lay the founda
tion of our government deeper and broader and stronger
than that of any nation that has existed among men.
IX.
No one places a higher value upon the free school
than I do; and no one takes greater pride in the pros
perity of our colleges and universities. But at the same
time, much that is called education simply unfits men
successfully to fight the battle of life. Thousands to-day
are studying things that will be of little importance
to them or to others. Much valuable time is wasted
in studying languages that long ago were dead, and
histories in which there is no truth.
There was an idea in the olden time—and it is not
yet dead—that whoever was educated ought not to
work; that he should use his head and not his hands.
Graduates were ashamed to be found engaged in manual
labor, in ploughing fields, in sowing or gathering grain.
To this manly kind of independence they preferred the
garret and the precarious existence of an unappreciated
poet, borrowing their money from their friends, and
their ideas from the dead. The educated regarded the
useful as degrading—they were willing tc stain their
souls to keep their hands white.
The object of all education should be to increase the
usefulness of man—usefulness to himself and others.
Every human being should be taught that his first duty
is to take care of himself, and that to be self-respecting
he must be self-supporting. To live on the labor of
others, either by force which enslaves, or by cunning
�24
Grimes against Criminals.
which robs, or by borrowing or begging, is wholly dis
honorable. Every man should be taught some useful
art. His hands should be educated as well as his head.
He should be taught to deal with things as they are—
with life as it is. This would give a feeling of inde
pendence, which is the firmest foundation of honor, of
character. Every man knowing that he is useful,
admires himself.
Tn all the schools children should be taught to work
in wood and iron, to understand the construction and
use of machinery, to become acquainted with the great
forces that man is using to do his work. The present
system of education teaches names, not things. It is
as though we should spend years in learning the names
of cards, without playing a game.
In this way boys would learn their aptitudes—would
ascertain what they were fitted for—what they could
do. It would not be a guess, or an experiment, but a
demonstration.
Education should increase a boy’s
chances for getting a living. The real good of it is to
get food and roof and raiment, opportunity to develop
the mind and the body and live a full and ample life.
The more real education, the less crime—and the
more homes, the fewer prisons.
X.
The fear of punishment may deter some, the fear of
exposure others ; but there is no real reforming power
in fear or punishment. Men cannot be tortured into
greatness, into goodness. All this, as I said before,
has been thoroughly tried. The idea that punishment
was the only relief, found its - limit, its infinite, in the
old doctrine of eternal pain; but the believers in that
�Crimes against Criminals.
25
dogma stated distinctly that the victims never would
be, and never could be, reformed.
As men become civilised, they become capable of
greater pain and of greater joy. To the extent that
the average man is capable of enjoying or suffering to
that extent he has sympathy with others. The average
man, the more enlightened he becomes, the more apt
he is to put himself in the place of another. He
thinks of his prisoner, of his employee, of his tenant—
and he even thinks beyond these : he thinks of the
community at large. As man becomes civilised he
takes more and more into consideration circumstances
and conditions. He gradually loses faith in the old
ideas and theories that every man can do as he wills,
and in the place of the word “ wills,” he puts the word
“ must.” The time comes to the intelligent man when
in the place of punishments he thinks of consequences,
results—that is to say, not something inflicted by some
other power, but something necessarily growing' out of
whatisdone. The clearer men perceive the consequences
of actions, the better they will be. Behind conse
quences we place no personal will, and consequently do
not regard them as inflictions or punishments. Conse
quences, no matter how severe they may be, create in
the mind no feeling of resentment, no desire for
revenge. We do not feel bitterly toward the fire
because it burns, or the frost that freezes, or the flood
that overwhelms, or the sea that drowns—because we
attribute to these things no motives, good or bad. So,
when through the development of the intellect man
perceives not only the nature but the absolute certainty
of consequences, he refrains from certain actions, and
this may be called reformation through the intellect—
and surely there is no better reformation than this.
�Crimes against Criminals.
Some may be, and probably millions have been reformed
through kindness, through gratitude—made better in
the sunlight of charity. In the atmosphere of kind
ness the seeds of virtue burst into bud and flower.
Cruelty, tyranny, brute force, do not and can not
by any possibility better the heart of man. He who is
forced upon his knees has the attitude, but never the
feeling, of prayer.
I am satisfied that the discipline of the average
piison haidens and degrades. It is for the most part
a perpetual exhibition of arbitrary power. There is
really no appeal. The cries of the convict are not
heard beyond the walls. The protests die in cells, and
the poor prisoner feels that the last tie between him
and his fellow-men has been broken. He is kept in
ignorance of the outer world. The prison is a cemetery,
and his cell is a grave.
In many of the penitentaries there are instruments
of torture, and now and then a convict is murdered.
Inspections and investigations go for naught, because
the testimony of a convict goes for naught. He is
generally prevented by fear from telling his wrongs;
but if he speaks, he is not believed—he is regarded as
less than a human being, and so the imprisoned remain
without remedy. When the visitors are gone, the
conxict who has spoken is prevented from speaking1
again.
Every manly feeling, every effort towards real
reformation, is trampled under foot, so that when the
convict’s time is out there is little left on which to
build. He has been humiliated to the last degree, and
his spirit has so long been bent by authority and fear
that even the desire to stand erect has almost faded
from the mind. The keepers feel that they are
�Crimes against Criminals.
27
safe, because no matter what they do, the convict
when released will not tell the story of his wrongs,
for if he conceals his shame, he must also hide their
guilt.
Every penitentiary should be a real reformatory.
That should be the principal object for the establish
ment of the prison. The men in charge should be of
the kindest and noblest. They should be filled with
divine enthusiasm for humanity, and every means
should be taken to convince the prisoner that his good
is sought—that nothing is done for revenge—nothing
for a display of power, and nothing for the gratification
of malice. He should feel that the warden is his
unselfish friend. When a convict is charged with a
violation of the rules—with insubordination, or with
any offence, there should be an investigation in due and
proper form, giving the convict an opportunity to be
heard. He should not be for one moment the victim
of an irresponsible power. He would then feel that he
had some rights, and that some little of the human
remained in him still. They should be taught things
of value—-instructed by competent men. Pains should
be taken, not to punish, not to degrade, but to benefit
and ennoble.
We know, if we know anything, that men in the
penitentaries are not altogether bad, and that many out
are not altogether good ; and we feel that in the brain
and heart of all there are seeds of good and bad. We
know, too, that the best are liable to fall, and it maybe
that the worst, under certain conditions, may be
capable of grand and heroic deeds. Of one thing we
may be as assured—and that is, that criminals will
never be reformed by being robbed, humiliated, and
degraded.
�28
Grimes against Criminals.
Ignorance, filth and poverty are the missionaries of
crime. As long as dishonorable success outranks
honest effort—as long as society bows and cringes
before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough
to fill the jails.
XI.
All the penalties, all the punishments, are inflicted
under a belief that man can do right under all circum
stances—that his conduct is absolutely under his con
trol, and that his will is a pilot that can, in spite of
winds and tides, reach any port desired. All this is, in
my judgment, a mistake. It is a denial of the integrity
of nature. It is based upon the supernatural and
miraculous, and as long as this mistake remains the
cornerstone of criminal jurisprudence, reformation will
be impossible.
We must take into consideration the nature of man
—the facts of mind—the power of temptation—the
limitations of the intellect—the force of habit—the
result of heredity—the power of passion—the domina
tion of want—the diseases of the brain—the tyranny
of appetite—the cruelty of conditions—the results of
association—the effects of poverty and wealth, of help
lessness and power.
Until these subtle things are understood—until we
know that man in spite all, can certainly pursue the
highway of the right, society should not impoverish and
degrade, should not chain and kill, those who, after all,
may be the helpless victims of unknown causes that are
deaf and blind.
We know something of ourselves—of the average
man—of his thoughts, passions, fears, and aspirations—
something of his sorrows and his joys, his weak-
�Crimes against Criminals.
29
ness, his liability to fall — something of what he
resists—the struggles, the victories, and the failures of
his life. We know something of the tides and cur
rents of the mysterious sea—something of the circuits
of the wayward winds—-but we do not know where the
wild storms are born that wreck and rend. Neither do
we know in what strange realm the mists and clouds
are formed that dim and darken all the heaven of the
mind, nor from whence comes the tempest of the brain
in which the will to do, sudden as the lightning’s flash,
seizes and holds the man until the dreadful deed is done
that leaves a curse upon the soul.
We do not know. Our ignorance should make us
hesitate. Our weakness should make us merciful.
I cannot more fittingly close this address than by
quoting the prayer of the Buddhist:—“ I pray thee to
have pity on the vicious—thou hast already had pity on
the virtuous by making them so.’'’
���WORKS BY COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL
■------------------ o------------------ -
s. d.
MISTAKES OF MOSES
...
...
...10
Superior edition, in cloth ...
...
... j g
Only Complete Edition published in England.
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT
...
...0
Five Hours’ Speech at theTrial of C. B.
Reynolds for Blasphemy.
0
REPLY TO GLADSTONE
...
...
With a Biography by J. M. Wheeler.
FAITH AND FACT.
GOD AND MAN.
0
4
Reply to Cardinal Manning
ROME OR REASON ?
...
0
4
0
2
Reply to Rev. Dr. Field
...
Second Reply to Dr. Field
THE DYING CREED
...
0 2
...
...
...
0 2
THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH
...
....
o 2
THE LIMITS OF TOLERATION
...
...
A Discussion with Hon. F. D. Ooudert an 1
Gov. S. L. Woodford.
0 2
ART AND MORALITY
...
DO I BLASPHEME?
...
...
THE CLERGY AND COMMON SENSE
THE GREAT MISTAKE
LIVE TOPICS
...
2
0
..02
0
\ ...
...
...
...
2
0 1
0 x
...
...
... 0 1
... 0 x
MYTH AND MIRACLE
REAL BLASPHEMY
...
...
SOCIAL SALVATION
...
...
...
0 2
...
...
...
...
0 2
0 2
...
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE ...
GOD AND THE STATE
...
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
...
...
0
2
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC?
Part II.
...
0
2
Progressive Publishing Co., 28 Stonecutter Street. E.O.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Crimes against criminals : an address, delivered before the State Bar Association of New York, January 21, 1890
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1896]
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 29 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: "Works by Colonel R.G. Ingersoll" listed on back cover. No. 13b in Stein checklist. Printed by G.W. Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Progressive Publishing Company
Date
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1890
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N329
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Crime
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Crimes against criminals : an address, delivered before the State Bar Association of New York, January 21, 1890), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Crime and Punishment
Criminal Law
Criminals-United States
NSS
Prison Reform