TRITE CHECKS ON THE POISONINGS.
Niain R hanging nor pardoning prevents the constant reappear- ance of the domestic poisoners—now in Lancashire, now in Essex, now in Oxford. Jealousy, aberrant love, revenge, thirst of lucre, find their easy access to gratification through the venomous drugs of the chemist's shop. Although the criminal courts continue to expose the practice, there is too much reason to believe that it ex- tends much beyond the places laid bare by casual discovery. Some awful facts are within the knowledge of those who are acquainted with the Factory Districts. A collector will call at the house of a working man, and will be told by the wife that there is no money for laini—" But," she will add, 'we have a child in two burial- clubs." A couple will die suddenly, say of typhus, and some neighbours will benevolently and speculatively take charge of the children—who are immediately entered in burial-clubs. Such things do happen, and they indicate a state of society more hor- ribly depraved than that which the stiletto overawes. Niain R hanging nor pardoning prevents the constant reappear- ance of the domestic poisoners—now in Lancashire, now in Essex, now in Oxford. Jealousy, aberrant love, revenge, thirst of lucre, find their easy access to gratification through the venomous drugs of the chemist's shop. Although the criminal courts continue to expose the practice, there is too much reason to believe that it ex- tends much beyond the places laid bare by casual discovery. Some awful facts are within the knowledge of those who are acquainted with the Factory Districts. A collector will call at the house of a working man, and will be told by the wife that there is no money for laini—" But," she will add, 'we have a child in two burial- clubs." A couple will die suddenly, say of typhus, and some neighbours will benevolently and speculatively take charge of the children—who are immediately entered in burial-clubs. Such things do happen, and they indicate a state of society more hor- ribly depraved than that which the stiletto overawes.
Stop 'the sale of poisons, cries the scientific reformer. That might save some individuals from crime; but we do not see how it can be effeetuaL Prevent the sale of arsenic, for which, it is said, otherdrags can be substituted in manufaatures ; but how will you prevent the sale of sulphuric acid, with which a ruffian has tried to murder his wife this week? how prevent the sale of other drugs for which we cannot find substitutes as articles of manufacture? In feet, all crimes of the furtive kind cannot be followed into thoir concealment by preventive justice.
You must then seek other checks. Education, cries the modern reformer. Very good; education is broadly proved to be effectual in checking crime, by the fact that crime of the destructive kind diminishes in proportion to the increase of information. But " education " of the mere reading and writing order will never reach the mass of the people. Whoever may learn to read and write, the readers will always be few, the reflective thinkers fewer. You see it even among the educated" classes : in those classes it is the few that read and reflect, and it is in social intercourse that the effective "information" which they collect is diffused among the non-reading and non-reflecting many. That is the way inwhich their heads and hearts are touched.
But there are no such means of reaching the mass of the igno- rant. The strongly-marked separation of classes according to the several "ranks" of society increases the difficulty. Yet if you would make that ignorant mass aware, not only that a certain crime is -wrong---not merely that "murder will out," but that the singu- larly ingenious precautions which every miming' supposes to af- ford Mai an absolute shield against protection, are not singular at all, but are precisely of the End that have yielded to detection times out of number,—if you would make the many know not merely the nature of their crime but also its bearings,—if, in short, you would -enlighten their understanding to see the foolishness of crime, and-to know :what human. happiness consists in beyond the hare gratification of animal propensity,—if you would awaken love of others in the heart, you must carry the informing and awakening
knowledge to the ignorant by the living voice. This, we say, is a function which can be performed by one class specially educated and appointed for such purposes—it is possible to the religious minister. To perform this function effectively, it would not be necessary that the sermon should be entirely divorced from doctrinal exposition; but we appeal to the testimony of those ministers, of whatever sect, who have tried, in whatever degree, to render themselves the prac- tical guides of their flock in the ethics of daily life, to say whether their doing so has not attracted more to hear theirministratians and rendered those ministrations more impressive and effectual. More come, all are more impressed, and they carry away practical rules which better illustrate the broad principles of faith. Here then is a body of men, who, by the application of means already at their disposal, and still more if they were to cultivate a yet closer-con- versation with their neighbours—the conversation not of teaching, for that goes little way, but of companionship, whose sympathies soften the heart to receive the impress which the minister is to give—maycarry enlightenment to the heads and hearts of the many. Having such authority and such opportunity, let the Christian minister, of whatever sect, charge himself with the responsibility of aiding to root out this murderous depravity which is extending in some districts of the island.
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