Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/676

 adding complications to the history and the frequent mysteries of crime. What is that which we call "esprit de corps," the "spirit of the age," and other similar intangible somethings, which we know exist, but which it is difficult to embody in anything more material than a phrase? What these expressions indicate simply is, that certain numbers, greater or smaller, are prepared to imitate each other, whether it be in a crusade to the Holy Sepulchre, a Flagellant procession, or a modern strike of Crispins or engineers.

Imitative crimes are often motiveless in the ordinary meaning of the word, while numerically they really exceed all others; and it is somewhat curious that this feature of criminality has been so slightly noticed by statisticians and others concerned in the eradication of crime. Other causes of crime are certainly more obvious, for they lie upon the surface—ignorance, poverty, intemperance, the desire to live beyond one's legitimate means, unrestrained passions of all kinds: these are of course the leaders and pioneers of the great criminal army; but the rank and file are mainly made up of imitators, who do as they see others do with whom they associate. Take as an illustration the "great strike" of the railway employees some two years since, in the States of Pennsylvania and New York and elsewhere, and separate if you can the number of individuals who acted from conviction and deliberate intention—with what we might call a reason—however misguided, and the number who burned, hacked, and hewed simply because others were devastating and destroying. Could all of the mere imitators have been eliminated from those mobs it would scarcely have required military force to have dealt with the remainder, the few active, intelligent leaders of that violent mode of argument.

It will probably be admitted, in most cases of mob violence, that the mass of intimidators are ignorant, unreasoning followers, who, if they think at all, only reflect to the extent of supposing that the presence of numbers will suffice to conceal their individual share of the crime; but possibly some of our readers may not be so ready to admit that the faculty of imitation works quite as potentially in secret, where to aid it come various suggestive faculties, such as emulation, vanity, imagination, contrivance, secretiveness, hope, despair, and various other emotions. The concealed imitator broods unobserved of his fellows, and acts only when he deems himself safe from interruption.

The history of the world is full of crimes and follies committed under the influence of the imitative instinct. In many cases so devoid of thought are the actors in these scenes as scarcely to bring them under the judgment of responsible human beings. It is in fact no easy task to draw with any degree of accuracy the dividing line between folly and crime, especially when the exalted sentiments of patriotism or the fanaticism induced by the misapplication of religious dogma, or fervent appeals to the emotions, are the basis of certain wild proceedings; engaged in by assemblies of the intensely nervous, led by knaves