208 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



of nonsense talked respecting the setting up of a 

 school or schools for the purpose of ^ teaching 

 humanity to babes from their cradles." We have 

 already seen, and it can be seen at any time by 

 all those who wish or who dare to look the fact 

 in the face, that, by the statistics of the police, 

 crime of all sorts has increased (an increase far 

 beyond that which the growth of the population 

 would account for) hand in hand with ''■ better 

 education," as it is the cant to call it, and with 

 the acquisition of letters — an acquisition, when 

 attained, not always well du^ected. 



The old proYcrb, that '^a little learning is a 

 dangerous thing," has shown its truth of late, and 

 we see hour by hour that the mistaken leniency, 

 and the mischievous timidity, which veils or 

 shirks the execution of the murderer from the 

 eyes of creatures of his own class, has made the 

 annals of our criminal courts in town and country 

 so rife with crime, and so little feared. 



To attempt to teach a baby not to kill a fly, 

 or a newly-breeched boy not to beat a frog to 

 death, nor to make a ^^blue-bottle" perform its 

 so-called exercise with the hair of a tooth-brush 

 in its agonized ^'feelers" or ^4iands," and a pin 



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