iminals are of three
classes: First, those who direct crime, the capitalists in crime, who
are rarely arrested, who seldom commit any crime, but inspire men to
crime in various ways. These are intelligent and have to be educated to
some extent. They profit by crime and take slight risks.
Second, those who commit heroic crimes and find some satisfaction in the
skill and daring required. Safe-breaking, train robbery, and some types
of burglary require men of ability and pluck, and those who do these
things have a species of pride in it.
Third, those who commit weak and imbecile crimes, which mark the doer as
a sneak and a coward. These men rob hen roosts, waylay helpless women
and old men, steal clothing in hallways, and burn buildings. They are
always cowardly about everything they do, and never have the pluck to
steal chickens even until they are half drunk. They often commit murder,
but only when they are detected in some sneaking crime and shoot because
they are too cowardly to face their discoverer.
Now the Jukes were almost never of the first or second class. They could
not be criminals that required capital, brains, education or nerve. Even
the kind of pauperism and crime in which they indulged was particularly
disgraceful. This is inevitably true of all classes of people who
combine idleness, ignorance, and vulgarity. They are not even
respectable among criminals and paupers.
There is an honorable pauperism. It is no disgrace to be poor or to be
in a poorhouse if there is a good reason for it. One may be manly in
poverty. But the Jukes were never manly or honorable paupers, they were
weaklings among paupers.
They were a great expense to the state, costing in crime and pauperism
more than $1,250,000. Taken as a whole, they not only did not contribute
to the world's prosperity, but they cost more than $1,000 a piece,
including all men, women, and children, for pauperism and crime.
Those who worked did the lowest kind of service and received the
smallest wages. Only twenty of the 1,200 learned a trade, and ten of
those learned it in the state prison. Even they were not regularly
employed. Men who work regularly even at unskilled labor are generally
honest men and provide for the family. A habit of irregular work is a
species of mental or moral weakness, or both. A man or woman who will
not stick to a job is morally certain to be a pauper or a criminal.
One great benefit of going to school, especially of
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