594 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



our land are due in a good degree to the swift changes in the material 

 condition of our country. An increase of our numbers of more than 

 1,000,000 each year, of more than 2,500 each day, of more than 100 

 each hour, explains many of the causes of our overburdened system 

 of penal laws. Framed for a different state of society, our pei-plexities 

 are increased by the fact that more than one-quarter of this daily addi- 

 tion to our population is made up of those who come from other coun- 

 tries strangers to our customs and laws, and in many instances ignorant 

 of our language. History gives no account of such a vast increase of 

 the numbers of any country by constant peaceful action. Conquest 

 rarely makes as many prisoners of war as we make captives to the 

 peaceful advantages of our continent. They bring us wealth and 

 power. They also bring us many problems to solve. British laws 

 deal with British subjects. French courts decide upon the guilt or 

 innocence of Frenchmen. Germany keeps by its usages and customs 

 the ideas of right; and wrong in the minds of the Teutonic race. But 

 we in America have to deal with and act upon all nationalities, all 

 phases of civilization. While these facts palliate the defects of our 

 penal laws and their administration, they certainly make more clear 

 and urgent the duty that we keep pace with the swift changes going 

 on around us. More than this, it enables us to take the lead in the 

 great work of reform as we deal with more plastic materials than are 

 found in the fixed conditions of older nations. Here, too, we have a 

 broader field filled with men of varied jdiases and aspects of different 

 civilization, in which we can study the wants and the weaknesses, the 

 virtues and the vices, of the human race. For a series of years nearly 

 300,000 immigrants are annually landed at the harbor of New York. 

 Disorder and crime are always active along the line of march of great 

 armies. I believe there is no instance in history of a movement of the 

 human race so vast and long continued. I am glad to state a fact which 

 in some degree palliates the disgrace which attaches to the administra- 

 tion of justice and the conduct of public affairs in that great city, but 

 I should fall short of telling the truth if I did not also say that the dis- 

 credit of that great city mainly springs from the sad fact that its men 

 of wealth as a body lack that genuine self-respect which leads to a faith- 

 ful, high-minded performance of the duties each citizen owes to the 

 public. Is there any other basis upon which we can found this great 

 work of patriotism and philanthropy than the one contemplated by 

 this Association ? It may at first view seem to be limited to a small 

 class, but it opens up into a broad field of unpartisan, unsectarian labor. 

 The objects we have in view, although they make our prisons their 

 starting-point, are so wide in their bearing that they brought together 

 at the London International Association, in the interests of our common 

 humanity, men of the best minds of most countries of Europe and 

 America. These, in spite of the differences of religion, language, and 

 form of civilization, could act in accord in devising measures to lift up 



