Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/615

Rh the fallen and to spread the principles of morality and justice among the peoples of the world. It is found that true statesmanship, like true religion, begins with visiting the prisoners and helping the poor. It is certain that in our own country Edward Livingston, the public man who ranks high in European regard for intellectual ability, gained his position by his great work on the penal laws of Louisiana. When it was the fashion in the scientific world to hold that men and animals were dwarfed on this continent, this work was brought forward by our friends in Europe as a proof that statesmanship was full-grown here. It is a remarkable fact that an able foreign writer selected the Louisiana code and the proclamation of General Jackson against the doctrine of secession as the two ablest productions of the American mind, not knowing that they both came from the same pen. An exposition of Mr. Livingston's system has lately been published in France by M. Charles Lucas, a member of the Institute, and formerly president of the Council of Inspectors of the Penal Institutions of that country. M. Lucas is a distinguished writer and leader in the work of criminal reform. He belongs to that body of large-minded, philanthropic men, who seek to benefit humanity by wise systems of legislation. A certain breadth and reach of mind seem to mark those men who have entered upon the study of penal laws and the reformation of criminals. While there is much to condemn in our system of laws and in their administration, there is much to admire in the practical workings of many of our prisons. In some respects we are in advance of other people. Much has been done in many of our States to improve the condition of our criminals, and much more to rescue the young from vice and destruction. I should be glad to speak of the instances of ability and self-devotion shown by men who have charge of public or private charities established for the reformation of offenders. They would lend a weight to my argument which my reasoning cannot give, but I must leave these things to be brought out by the discussions of this congress. I only seek to show the ends at which it aims; I only seek to make for it the sympathy and support of the public in its efforts to combine and organize the forces of those who, in different parts of our country, are working in this field of philanthropic and patriotic labor. Crime has its origin in the passions which live in every breast, and the weakness which marks every character in its nature. It concerns each of us, as clearly as the common liability to fall prematurely before disease and death. No man can know human nature, no man can be a great teacher to his fellow-men, no man can frame laws wisely and well, who has not studied character in convict-life. There he can best see the lights and shadows of our natures, see in the strongest contrasts what is good and what is bad. The prisons, to which all vice tends, are the points from which the reform can be best urged which seeks to find out where vice begins. Starting from the sad ends of crime and running back along the tracks, it is seen that