NATURAL SELECTION AND CRIME. 44 5 



under which they were brought into the world. For this pur- 

 pose industrial schools, in all lines of work, should be estab- 

 lished. The crying need in all trades to-day is for boys who will 

 industrially continue their apprentice term. During this time 

 the boy must be induced to live at home, caring to live there 

 from the attractiveness of the surroundings. Music, lectures, 

 thanksgiving dinners, flowers, etc. the outflow of compassionate 

 impulses, which make certain penal institutions so alluring to 

 many criminals will find a better destiny in making pleasanter 

 the lives of deserving tenement dwellers. Cooking schools, train- 

 ing schools for nurses and servants, should be instituted for the 

 girls. With such co-operating appliances, our charity committees, 

 instead of the often despairing tramps through noisome regions, 

 to be deceived by the wary, or horrified at the treachery and lies 

 of others, will have a keen stimulus to seek out the deserving 

 poor ; to find those that are willing to work, knowing that, when 

 once rescued and placed on firm ground, they are to remain there 

 in many cases self-supporting. The response to appeals for aid 

 will be more prompt and bountiful when it is known that worthy 

 ones only are to be helped. The cost of such a project will be 

 great. If private munificence will not do it, cities may. 



In Boston, museums of art and of natural history, though 

 free to the public, are, nevertheless, sustained by private help. 

 In New York the State and city are repeatedly called upon 

 for contributions to similar institutions. What municipality 

 of any intelligence has hestitated to spend millions for pure 

 water-supply and sewer system, after it has been clearly demon- 

 strated that local cesspools menace the health of the commu- 

 nity by vitiating the local water-supply ? It is possible that, 

 when a community fully realizes the moral pollution that comes 

 from the slums, an agitation may result that shall lead a city 

 to construct tenement-houses as it now does its school-houses.* 

 The question is sure to arise, What shall be done with the 

 incompetent, though not necessarily vicious or intemperate ? 

 They must not be allowed to starve, surely not ; but it is to be 

 observed that, when such incompetents tumble overboard, they 

 make strenuous efforts to save themselves, and if caught in a 

 burning building they appear active, even boisterous, in their 

 attempts to escape. The simplest manual labor is within their 

 power, and for this they should be paid ; their chances for qual- 

 ity of food, quantity of tobacco, etc., should depend upon their 

 efforts to help themselves. If they will not work, and insist upon 

 being vagabonds, they come under cognizance of the law, and 



* The pauper, the imbecile, the lunatic, and in some cities those afflicted in other ways, 

 are provided for in appropriate public institutions. 



