MEIOtillLLliSKAR ' 

 THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



AUGUST, 1892. 



NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 



By Pkof. EDWARD S. MORSE. 



" Find out what the law of God is with regard to a man ; make that your human law, 

 or I say it will be ill with you, and not well ! If you love your thief or murderer, if Nature 

 and eternal Fact love him, then do as you are now doing. But if Nature and Fact do not 

 love him ? If they have set inexorable penalties upon him, and planted natural wrath 

 against him in every god-created human heart then I advise you, cease, and change your 

 hand." Carlyle. 



THE appearance of General Booth's work, entitled In Darkest 

 England, was followed by a deluge of opinions, articles, and 

 reviews on crime, vagabondage, tenement-houses, slums, etc. 

 The serious spirit of these utterances showed an earnest awaken- 

 ing of the public mind in regard to the ominous character of the 

 submerged classes.* To meet this baleful increase of vagabond- 

 age and crime we have had, first, punitive measures, even to 

 mutilation, with no effect whatever, except perhaps as a deter- 

 rent to a few of the many thousands implicated ; next, indiscrimi- 

 nate charity public and private still active in all but a few 

 enlightened cities, with the effect of causing an alarming increase 

 in the number of paupers and tramps; later, organized relief, 

 which, being selective in a measure, results in some good being 

 accomplished ; and, finally, the Salvation Army, with rank and 

 file mostly filled from the very classes demanding relief and 

 reform. It would be strange indeed if such an organized force 

 should not leave its impress on the chaotic material of the slums. 

 That a great deal of temporary good, at least, is being accom- 

 plished by this organization there can be no doubt. 



* Concerning General Booth's scheme, we commend a very just and temperate article in 

 Blackwood's Magazine for January, 1891, entitled The Problem of the Slums. 

 vol. xxi. 33 



