Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

And now began all the sweet, old-fashioned, foolish tumult of which bards and romancers weave their webs; the trembling and fear and joy and jealousy which Carpeggio had read of, but thought impossible in this century of sham excitements and masqueraded lives. He thought that she looked much more beautiful in her gray cloak and drooping black hat; but still “Kate” in any dress was a vision of heaven rather than a common mortal. As she came into the room, she looked anxiously around and saw him at once. She had expected to meet him here, then—both were conscious of it in that one look, and it seemed as if this blissful understanding between them were enough. The youth turned to do his duty by his employer’s three daughters and all the rest of his acquaintances, to whom, in the character of a “dancing man” as well as a good match, he was interesting; he spun off little courteous speeches, not untrue but commonplace, until he felt that he had satisfied natural expectations, and then he allowed himself a respite and gazed at the marquis’ youngest daughter. Towards supper time Carpeggio’s employer, proud of the great man’s courteous notice of him, suddenly bethought himself that an “Italian nobleman” in his wake might make the marquis respect his all-powerful purse the more, so he introduced his young overseer to the marquis with a flourish very unpleasant to the former and rather amusing to the latter. Emilio was struck with dumbness or confusion; his new acquaintance took compassion on him and led him up to his daughters, whose eyes had been for some time fixed upon him with breathless interest. As he shook hands with them the second time he was in an awkward bewilderment whether or no to allude to their former meeting; in fact, his usual indifference was wholly upset. Lady Katharine was equally silent; whether she shared his embarrassment he could not tell; but the other, Lady Anne, skilfully and with a latent, suppressed gleam of mischief in her eye, talked so as to cover his confusion and clear away the thorns that seemed to grow up between him and her sister. At last he had the courage to ask each of the girls for a dance, and this, together with a word in the cloak-room as he escorted them to their carriage, and the certainty of meeting them again at the military ball next night, was all that happened to feed the flame of a feeling he knew to be already beyond the bounds of reason.

Yet he did nothing to check this feeling; are not all lovers fatalists for the time being? Of course it was hopeless, insane, impossible—he could see it with the eyes of the world; but he also knew that it was true love, the ideal and pure love of Arcadia, the one thing which, whether realized or not, lifts men above conventional life and turns gold to dross. He also fancied that this love might be returned, and did not care to inquire further just now, when to be blind to details was to be happy. Besides, these were the first girls he had seen that had not lost their naturalness, and he wanted to watch and see if they could keep it in the atmosphere in which they lived. This was not quite an excuse; for the young cynic had really got to be a sharp observer of human nature, and had, like most such observers when young, hastily concocted one or two theories which he was now becoming anxious to test.

Nothing happened at the military ball more than the most uninterested spectator might see at any ball; and yet much happened, for Carpeggio met Kate and danced with her, and both, as if by mutual understanding, were very silent. Her sister, however, made up for this by chattering in the most meaningly meaningless way, and delighting the lovers by her tacit abetment of anything they might choose to think, say, or do. After these balls there was for a long time no more opportunity for meetings, and Emilio chafed against his fate, using the leisure time he had before spent in study for long walks to the marquis’ house—that is, as near as he dared go without danger of trespassing. Once or twice he was lucky enough to meet the girls on the highroad outside the park, and this he enjoyed indeed; the progress was quicker, though as silent as in the ball-room. Then once he met them out driving with their father, and on another occasion came upon them at a neighboring squire’s, where they were on a state visit. But all this made little outward difference, though he felt as if he no longer needed anything but a solemn pledge to change the inner certainty into an acknowledged fact. Lady Anne was evidently a thorough partisan, and her sister’s silence and looks told him all he wanted to know; yet he refrained from saying the word, and knew that she understood why he did so. The fact was, he trusted to Providence and his own power of shaping any opportunity sent him. The whole thing seemed to him wonderful and mysterious; and as it had begun, so doubtless would it be guided to a happy end.

One day his employer told him with much importance that he was going to bring a “very distinguished” party to see the mine, and afterwards to go through the works and see the melted ore pouring out from the furnaces, “as that always amused young people so.” The marquis was coming with his daughters and his only son from Eton, and a young friend, a cousin of his, Lord Ashley; then he would have one or two of the “best people” from the immediate neighborhood, and his own daughters, besides the son of a friend out in Australia, a Mr. Lawrence, whom Carpeggio had heard rumor speak of as a not unwelcome son-in-law in the eyes of the rich mine-owner. He wondered whether Lord Ashley might be destined by her father as a suitor for Kate; but the elder daughter would be more likely to be thought of first, besides being the prettier.

The day came, and with it the party, who arrived in the afternoon, picnicked in the adjoining woods, and then sauntered over to the shaft, where Emilio met them. Kate wore the same gray-water proof, and, as he took her hand to help her into the basket, he gave it the slightest pressure, with a look that spoke volumes. She was almost as grave as himself. I cannot describe all that went on during the inspection, which to all, save Mr. Lawrence and the marquis, was a pleasure party in disguise; for the former knew something of the subject from Australian experiences, and the latter was considering the question of renting, or himself working, a mine lately found on his own property. Technical questions, explanations, and discussions, between these two visitors and the owner and overseer took up the time, while the young ladies, Lord Ashley, and the jolly Eton boy, who was a counterpart of his livelier sister, laughed and joked like a mixed school in play-time. Carpeggio, however, kept his eye on Kate the whole time, and was comforted; for there was no fear of that nature being spoiled, though he thought with sorrow that it might be bruised and crushed. Suddenly, in the midst of a discussion, his ear caught an unaccustomed sound, and he turned pale for a moment, then bent forward composedly and whispered in his employer’s ear. The latter, after an almost imperceptible start, said briskly to his guests: “As it is near the hour for the furnaces to show off at their best, I think we had better be moving,” and led the way rather quickly to the shaft. Carpeggio contrived to get near Kate, whose silence showed how glad she was of the companionship, but he was preoccupied and anxious and spoke a few words absently. A loud noise was heard, seemingly not far away, and the visitors asked, “What is that?” while the master hurriedly said, “Oh! it is only a blast, but we must not be late for the furnaces; come,” and tried to marshal his guests closely together. Instinctively they obeyed and hurried forward; the marquis looked round for his children. Anne and the boy were near him, but Kate not to be seen. There was a corner to be turned, and she was just behind it, when another noise overhead was heard and Carpeggio rushed like the wind from behind the angle, carrying the girl in his arms. It was the work of a second; for as he set her on her feet by her father’s side, and almost against the basket, down came a huge fragment and all but blocked up the gallery behind them, falling on the spot where she might have been had she lingered another moment. Whether or not she had heard his passionate whisper, “My own,” as he gathered her suddenly in his arms and took that breathless rush, he could hardly tell, for she was dazed and half-unconscious when he set her down again. Her father thanked him by an emphatic shake of the hand and a look he treasured up in his soul; but there was no time for more, as the basket was hastily loaded with the girls and drawn up. As the signal came down that they were safe, the owner’s tongue was loosed, and he explained rapidly that something had happened on the second level (they were on the third) and shaken the rock below; he trusted nothing more would happen, but he must beg his guests to visit the works alone, as he must stop to see to the damage.

“No,” said the overseer, “think of your daughters’ anxiety, my dear sir; there is probably nothing very serious, and it is nearly time for the men to come up. I shall do very well alone.”

The marquis looked at him admiringly; he could not advise him to leave without doing his duty, yet he felt suddenly loath to have anything happen to the preserver of his daughter. After a short altercation the master consented to go up, provided Carpeggio would send for him, if necessary; and the basket came down again. As they reached the next level, where the overseer got out, they heard uncomfortable rumblings at intervals; and when they got out at the mouth of the shaft, where they met a good many of the men who had come up by another opening, they were very unlike a gala party. Kate was still there; they had wanted her, said the girls, to go in and rest in a cottage near by, but she insisted on waiting; and when she saw all but Carpeggio she only turned away in a hopeless, silent way that concerned her sister, who alone knew the cause. Anne immediately put questions that brought out the facts of the case; and as their host tried hard to put the party at their ease again by hastening to the furnaces under the sheds, she whispered: “Kate, do keep up, or there will be such a fuss.”

“Never fear,” said the girl; “and try and make them stay till we hear what has happened, Anne; I do not want to go home without knowing.”

It was nervous work for the master and the men who were tending the molten ore to conceal their anxiety. The beautiful white iron, flowing like etherealized lava, rushing out from the dark, oven-like furnaces and spreading into the little canals made ready for it, gave one a better idea of pure light than anything could do. The heat was intense, and the men opened the doors with immense long poles tipped with iron; the gradual darkening of the evening threw shadows about the place, and the streams of living light, that looked as the atmosphere of God’s throne might look, settled into their moulds, hardening and darkening into long, heavy, unlovely bars. A suppressed excitement was at work; groups of men came up every minute with contradictory reports as to the accident; women and children met them with wild questions or equally wild recognition; and the master repeatedly sent messages to the mouth of the shaft. At last, throwing by all pretence, he begged his guests to wait for news, and with Lawrence went back to the mine. More men were coming up—the last but five, he was told—and Mr. Carpeggio had said he thought he and his four mates could do all that was needed and come up before any mischief happened to them. The soil was loosening under the action of water, and to save the ore accumulated below, and which could not be hauled up in time, they had built a sort of wall across the gallery as well as the circumstances and the time would allow; Mr. Carpeggio had sent the men away as fast as he could spare them, and kept only four with him to finish, which was the most dangerous part of the business, as the water threatened them more and more.

“He sent all the married men up first, and asked the rest to volunteer as to who among them should stay, as he only wanted four,” said one of the men; “and I thought they would all have insisted upon staying, but he grew angry and said there was no time; so they agreed to draw lots.”

Another quarter of an hour’s suspense, and then a low, muttering sound that spread horror among the whispering multitude gathered at the mouth of the shaft. Some men went down to the first level, and soon came up with blank faces and whispered to the master: no sound but that of water was to be heard below, and fears for the safety of the workers were too confidently expressed. Nothing remained but to give orders for affording relief; the only comfort was that there had been no sign of the air becoming vitiated. Here the master’s experience was at fault, and he had to rely on that of some of the older men. “If Carpeggio had been here, he would have got the men out in two hours,” he asserted confidently; “but he must go and get himself mewed up there, and leave me no one to direct things—though I believe he can get himself out as quick as any of us can dig him out,” he said, with a half-laugh; and one of the men whispered to his neighbor:

“I do not wonder he sets such store by him; I had rather be down there myself than have him killed.”

At last it became certain, by signs which this faithful chronicler is not competent to explain technically, that the five men had been cut off behind a mass of rock and ore, and that it would take two days or more to get them out. Work was vigorously begun at once; relays of men went down to search, by making calls and rapping on the echoing walls, in which direction lay the least impenetrable of the obstacles between them and the sufferers; the pumps were set going and every one worked with a will. The news was received by the party at the works in a silence that marked their interest well, and the young men eagerly asked their host if they could be made of any service personally, while the marquis offered to send down some of his men to help, if more were wanted, and promised to send all he and his daughters could think of as useful to the imprisoned men when they should be brought out of their dangerous predicament. But as this accident refers only, so far as our tale is concerned, to the links between Emilio and Kate, we must pass over the hourly exciting work, the reports, the surmises, the visits and inspections of newspaper men and others, the telegrams and sympathy of people in high places, the details which accompany all such accidents, and which it takes a skilled hand to describe in words that would only make the expert laugh at the ambitious story-teller. Space also, and mercy on the feelings of practised novel-readers, make us hesitate to do more than hint at the state of mind of the girl whose dream of love and happiness hung in the balance for nearly five days. Only her sister guessed the whole, and skilfully managed to shield her from inconvenient notice and inquiry; and, indeed, the excitement of the time helped her in her work. The fifth day, towards evening, a messenger on horseback brought word of the safety of the men—all but one, who had died of exhaustion and hunger. Carpeggio and the rest had narrowly escaped drowning as well as starvation, but had nevertheless managed to help on his deliverers by working on his own side of the bed of earth and clearing away no small part (considering his disadvantages) of the embankment. The men had declared that but for him and his indomitable spirit, their suspense, and even their danger, would have increased tenfold; and, besides, he had contrived, by his efforts previous to the final falling in of earth and rushing in of water, to save a large portion of valuable ore which must otherwise have been either lost or much spoilt. He had been taken to his employer’s house, where the greatest care was bestowed on him, and the other men to their respective homes. The marquis resolved to go over the next day and inquire after him, and showed the greatest interest and anxiety about him; but Lady Anne shook her head as she said to her sister:

“He will do anything, Kate, for Mr. Carpeggio” (the young man had tacitly dropped his proper title for the time being), “except the one thing you want; and you know that, with me, the wish is far from being father to the thought in this matter.”

There was nothing to do but to wait, and then came the overseer’s recovery and first visit to the house of his love as a cherished guest, his silent look of longing and uncertainty, the gradual and still silent knitting together of a new and happier understanding than before, and finally the offer of the father to make him manager and part owner of the new mine on his own estate. The ownership he at once refused; but, as he could well manage the overseeing of the marquis’ colliery without prejudice to his first employer’s interests, he joyfully accepted the first part of the proposal. Then a cottage was pressed upon him, and this also he accepted, provided it was understood to form part of his salary. The old man was both pleased and nettled at his stiff independence; but when Anne reminded him that the circumstances of the case made this the only proper course, he forgot his vexation and heartily praised the manliness of his new _employé_.

Carpeggio was often at the house, and in fact grew to be as familiar a presence there as that of the inmates themselves, and still the silent bond went on, seemingly no nearer an outward solution, though the marquis’ favor visibly increased. The colliery prospered and brought in money, and the overseer carefully put by his salary and studied hard at night, till his name got to be first known, then respected, in the scientific world; and one day an official intimation was made to him that the third place on a mining survey expedition to South America was at his disposal. He had written to Schlichter constantly, and at last had made a clean breast of what he called his unspoken but not the less sealed engagement. The two girls had gone through two London seasons; Lord Ashley and Mr. Lawrence had become brothers-in-law by each marrying one of the trio who had so long expected to make a conquest of the overseer himself; and Carpeggio had enough to buy a large share in the concern of either of his two employers. Such was the state of affairs when the proposal of an American trip was made to him; if the survey was satisfactory, and a company formed in consequence, he would be out at least three years, with the chance of a permanent settlement as director of the works and sharer in the company. Both pecuniarily and scientifically a career was open to him, while at home there was success in all but love—nearly as certain. Schlichter strongly advised him to go; the marquis himself saw the thing as a thorough Englishman, and was willing to lose his right-hand man, as he called him, for the sake of this opening; Carpeggio saw the alluring chance of travel, adventure, the prestige of his possible return in a different character, the enlarged field which he could not help looking on as more tempting than success—equally solid, perhaps, but more humdrum—at his very elbow, and the glorious southern climate, like to, and yet more radiant than, the old home one to which he had been used as a boy among the vineyards of Umbria. He knew that Kate would follow him there gladly, as she would had he gone to the North Pole; but there was _the_ intangible yet terribly real barrier. In everything but the weighty affair of mating he was held as Kate’s equal, and the equal of all whom he met at the marquis’ house; even in London, where he had once stayed with them a week, and gone into that society which was “their world,” he had been received in a way unexceptionally satisfactory; he was put on more than an equal footing with young Englishmen of good standing, but he knew that he shared with them the cruel, tacit exclusion from competition for first-class prizes. He was good enough to dance with, ride with, flirt with, and escort to her carriage the daughter of a duke; so were the many young fellows who made the bulk of the young society of the day; but there were preserves within preserves. The second sons, the young lawyers, the men in “marching” regiments, the naval cadets, the government clerks, and even the sons of admirals, clergymen, and men who had made their mark in the literary and scientific as well as the social world—all these were tacitly, courteously, but inexorably tabooed as regards marriage with their partners, friends, and entertainers. In fact, society had bound these youths over to “keep the peace,” while it encouraged every intimacy that was likely to lead to a breach of it. Carpeggio had lived long enough in England to be quite aware of this and to “know his own place” in the world; but he trusted to time and Kate’s faithfulness. He at last made up his mind to go to South America, and that without saying anything that would weigh Kate down with the knowledge of a secret to be withheld from her father; but he had likewise made up his mind to speak to the marquis on his return. He would be true to his employer, but could not afford to be false to himself; his own rights as a man were as present to his mind as the position and prejudices which he appreciated and tolerated in the person of a man so thoroughly gentlemanlike as his patron; and this compromise of a three years’ absence and silence seemed to him to honorably fulfil all the expectations that could be formed of him. He said good-by to the girls together in their father’s library, and the old man blessed him and bade him Godspeed in the heartiest fashion, almost with tears in his eyes; but of more tender and definite speech there was none. Who is there, however, but knows the delicate, intangible farewell, the firm promise conveyed by a pressure of the hand, and one long, frank, brave look, and all that true love knows how to say without breaking any other allegiance and without incurring the blame of secrecy?

So Emilio Carpeggio went and prospered, while Kate remained a beauty and a moderate heiress (she had half of her mother’s small fortune), courted and loved, and going through the weary old treadmill of London seasons and country “parties.” People wondered why she did not marry. Her sister did, and made a love-match, though there was no violent obstacle in the way, and the lover was perfectly acceptable as to station and fortune. She was lucky, also, in loving a man who had some brains to boast of. This unknown brother-in-law in after-times became a powerful lever in favor of Carpeggio’s suit; but long before the young engineer came back the kind, tender-hearted old marquis had found out his daughter’s secret, and after some time overcame his natural prejudices, and as generously agreed to Kate’s hopes as he had before vigorously opposed them. And yet all this was done while hardly a word was spoken; for if any courtship was emphatically a silent one, it was this. Everything came to be tacitly understood, and a few hand-pressures, a kiss, a smile, or a long look expressed the changes and chances of this simple love-story. At the end of three years the young man came home on a holiday, which he meant to employ in determining his fate. He had promised the new company to go back permanently and take charge of their interests as a resident, and many of the native members had shown themselves willing and eager to make him a countryman and a son-in-law. He went home, and saw the marquis the first evening of his stay, two hours after he got off the train. To his surprise, he found his request granted before he made it and his road made plain before him. The old man did not even ask him not to return to America. It is of little use to descant on his meeting with Kate and on his (literally) first spoken words of love. They told each other the truth—that is, that the moment they met in the mine, five years before, was the beginning of their love. They were married with all the pretty pastoral-feudal accessories of a country wedding in England, and spent their honeymoon in the old tower of Carpeggio, where the bride explored the library-room with great curiosity, and was charmed with the old-fashioned figures of the principal people of the town, whom she entertained in what was now again her husband’s own house.

Signor Salviani had built a pretty, villa-like hotel half a mile further, and was as proud on the day when his young master again took possession of the old tower as the bridegroom himself. From there Carpeggio went to his German friends, presented the famous Schlichter to his wife, and got his rough and fatherly congratulations on his choice, his perseverance, and his success. In three months the young couple set sail for their new home, where Carpeggio had sent the last orders needed to set up quickly the nest he had half-prepared already in anticipation of his visit to England. When they arrived, Kate found a lovely, fragile-looking, cool house, half-southern, half-northern, covered with vines which the natives still looked upon with distrust, but beautiful and luxuriant beyond measure (this was the oldest part of the house, the original lodge which the overseer had lived in when he first came), some rooms with white tile floors, and some partially covered with fancy mats of grass, while one or two rejoiced in small Turkey rugs, suggestive of home, yet not oppressively hot to look at. All his wife’s tastes had been remembered and gratified, and Carpeggio was rewarded by her telling him that if she had built and furnished the house herself, she could not have satisfied her own liking so thoroughly as he had done. One room was fitted up as their _den_ (or, as the world called it, the library), and was as much as possible the exact counterpart of the room in Torre Carpeggio where the books and curiosities had been found. Of course the collection had been carefully transferred here. Years afterwards this place was the rallying-point of English and American society; travellers came to see it and its owners; its hospitality was the most perfect, generous, and delicate for a hundred miles around; no jealousies arose between its household and those of the natives; the mining company prospered, Carpeggio grew to be an authority even in German scientific circles, and a sort of paradise was once more realized. True, this kind of thing only happens once or twice in a century; but then it really does, so it is pardonable for a story-teller to choose the thousand-and-first couple for the hero and heroine of his tale.

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CRIMINALS AND THEIR TREATMENT.[8]

The judicious management of the criminal classes is a question which has long occupied the serious consideration of legislators and social reformers throughout the civilized world; and though much of what has been said and written on the matter is visionary and based on imperfect data, the agitation of the question cannot but be productive of advantageous results. In pagan times penal laws were enacted chiefly with a view to the punishment of crime, and but little account was taken of the criminal. The Julian law and the Justinian Code and Pandects inherited this cruel and unchristian character, which attached itself to them for centuries even after the birth of our Saviour. The influence of Christianity was long powerless to mitigate the horrors of barbarous legislation. In vain did the bishops of the church protest against the atrocities which were everywhere practised on prisoners. So far from listening to these humane appeals, hard-hearted rulers exhausted their ingenuity in devising new modes of penal torture, while for the wretched culprit not a pitiful word went forth from royal or baronial legislative halls. Among the Romans treason was punished by crucifixion, the most cruel of deaths. The parricide was cast into the sea enclosed in a sack, with a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey as companions. The incendiary, by a sort of poetic retribution, was cast into the flames, while the perjurer was flung from the heights of Tarpeia’s rock. But the treatment of prisoners for debt was still more barbarous and quite out of proportion to the magnitude of the offence. The unfortunate being who could not meet the demands of his creditors was compelled to languish in a filthy dungeon for sixty days, during which time he was fed upon twelve ounces of rice daily and had to drag a fifteen-pound chain at every step. If, at the expiration of that time, the claim against him was still unsatisfied, he was delivered over to his obstinate and unrelenting creditors to be torn limb from limb as a symbol of the partition of his goods.

The severity of these provisions was somewhat softened in later times, but throughout the middle ages, and, indeed, down to the latter half of the eighteenth century, the same fierce and Draconian spirit pervaded all laws having reference to the punishment of crime. Vast numbers of prisoners, without distinction of age, sex, rank, or character of crime, used to be huddled together in wretched pens, where they rotted to death amid blasphemous and despairing shrieks. Spiritual comfort and advice were withheld from them; for it was a feature of these miserable laws to pursue their victims beyond the grave by a clause which stipulated that they should die “without benefit of clergy.”

Individual efforts here and there were not wanting to alleviate the sufferings of prisoners, and many a bright page of the martyrology grows brighter still with a recital of the noble sacrifices made by the saints of the church to ameliorate the condition of captives. St. Vincent de Paul, a voluntary inmate of the _bagnes_ of Paris, teaching and encouraging his fellow-prisoners, was the prototype of Goldsmith’s kind-hearted Dr. Primrose, with the exception that the saint outdid in reality what the poet’s fancy merely pictured. Other saints, when prevented from offering relief at home, sold themselves into foreign servitude; and we read of their noble efforts to render at least endurable the acute sufferings of captives in Barbary, Tripoli, and Tunis.

But these spasmodic and unsystematic endeavors to better the condition of criminals were attended with no lasting good, and not till the serious labors of the noble Howard invited attention to the importance of the matter was public attention fully awakened. His visits to the prisons of the Continent of Europe, and his frequent appeals to the governments to introduce much-needed reforms and to redress palpable wrongs, enlisted the active sympathies of the wise and good. Then for the first time the doctrine which Montesquieu and Beccaria had so often admirably set forth in their writings was adopted in practice, and legislators and governments assumed as the basis of prison reform the principle that all punishment out of proportion to the crime is a wrong inflicted on the criminal. Advances at first were exceedingly slow, but the true impetus to prison reform was given and a new and higher social lode was struck.

While John Howard was yet engaged in the effort to solve the problem he had set before himself, a new science was springing into existence which was to lend to his labors the full promise of success. The value of statistics was but little understood and appreciated till the latter portion of the last century, and so imperfect in this respect had been the records of town, provincial, and national communities that history has keenly felt the loss of this important adjunct to her labors, and has been compelled to grope in darkness because the light of statistical information could not be had. Since this century set in, however, statistics have risen to the dignity of a science, and the truly valuable information they afford, the floods of light they have shed on all social matters, the service they have lent to medical science, to hygiene, to sanitary reforms, and above all to the prevalence of crime with its grades and surroundings, fully attest the sufficiency of its title.

Through statistics, then, we are placed in possession of the facts relating to crime and criminals, and facts alone can give the color of reason and good sense to all measures of reform, to all projects looking to the suppression of crime and the elevation of the criminal classes. Statisticians, therefore, whatever may be their theories, whatever their pet views about crime and criminals, deserve well of the community; for without their close and painstaking work the most ingenious theorist and the best-inclined philanthropist would be utterly at sea; for as Phidias could not have chiselled his unrivalled Zeus without the marble, neither can the most zealous reformer advance a foot without clear and well-tabulated statistics.

For this reason we bid especial welcome to the interesting monogram of Mr. Dugdale, which is a monument of patient and laborious exploration in a field of limited extent. It is evident that he did not set about his work in a _dilettante_ spirit, but spared no effort and avoided no inconvenience—and his inconveniences must have been many—to ascertain the utmost minutiæ bearing on his topic. He has not contented himself with adhering to the methods of inquiry usually in vogue, but has added to the law of averages, which ordinary statistics supply, individual environments and histories which may be considered causative of general results, and as such are the key to common statistics.

“Statistics,” he says, “cumulate facts which have some prominent
feature in common into categories that only display their static
conditions or their relative proportions to other facts. Its
reasoning on these is largely inferential. To be made complete
it must be complemented by a parallel study of individual
careers, tracing, link by link, the essential and the accidental
elements of social movement which result in the sequence of
social phenomena, the distribution of social growth and decay,
and the tendency and direction of social differentiation. To
socio-statics must be allied socio-dynamics. Among the notable
objections to pure statistics in the present connection is the
danger of mistaking coincidences for correlations and the
grouping of causes which are not distributive.”

Thus, Mr. Dugdale recognizes as underlying the testimony of mere figures a variety of factors essentially modifying the inferences which the former, exclusively viewed, would justify us in drawing, and endeavors to catch the ever-shifting influences of individual temperament, age, and environment. Heredity and sex, being fixed, are covered by the ordinary methods of statistical compilation. But as environment is the most potent of the varying factors which determine a career of honesty or crime, so heredity may be regarded among the fixed causes as the most contributive of effect in the same direction. “Heredity and environment, then, are the parallels between which the whole question of crime and its treatment stretches, and the objective point is to determine how much of crime results from heredity, how much from environment.” It is to the solution of this rather complicated problem that Mr. Dugdale addresses himself; and when we say it is complicated we do not exaggerate, so that we may be pardoned if, at times, in the course of the sinuous meanderings the question must necessarily take, we find ourselves at variance with some of his conclusions. Heredity is of two sorts: 1, that which results from cognate traits transmitted by both parents; and, 2, that which exhibits the modification dependent on the infusion of strange blood. This distinction is important as bearing on the question of heredity in its tendency to perpetuate propensities. If consanguineous unions intensify and transmit types of character with any degree of constancy and uniformity, we are justified in conceding that heredity is a criminal factor quite independent of environments, and that its relation to the solution of the problem why crime is so prevalent cannot be ignored. Now, the test furnished by the infusion of strange blood will enable us to judge whether constancy and uniformity of types are confined to consanguineous unions or not; for if, the environments remaining the same, a change of type is induced by non-consanguinity, then to the admixture of fresh blood alone can we attribute change of type, and so we must again admit the importance of heredity in the study of the case, but only to the extent and within the limits we shall hereafter point out. Mr. Dugdale is of opinion that both heredity and environment play a very important part in the career of the criminal, and it is with the design of sustaining his opinion that he has given us the history of the “Jukes.” Before we deal further with his conclusions we will here present a brief summary of the facts as related by him.

The term “Jukes” is a sort of pseudonym very considerately intended to cloak the identity of members of the family who may now be engaged in honest pursuits. The family had its origin in the northern part of the State of New York, and has rendered the place notorious by the unbroken chain of crime which, link after link, binds the jail-bird of to-day with the jolly and easy-living “Max” of a century ago, who drank well, hunted well, and ended his days in the quiet enjoyment of animal peace. He certainly was more intent on hospitable cares and the gratification of his passing desires than on the welfare of his progeny; for no man ever left behind him a more serried array of criminal descendants whose name has become the synonym of every iniquity the tongue can utter or the mind conceive. This man had two sons, married to two out of six sisters whose reputation before marriage was bad. The eldest of the sisters is called “Ada Juke” for convenience’ sake, though in the county where the family lived her memory is unpleasantly embalmed as “Margaret, the mother of criminals.” Ada had given birth before her marriage to a male child, who was the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather of the distinctively criminal line of descendants. She afterwards married, and thus commingled in her person two generations exhibiting characteristics essentially peculiar to each, though they often bear leading features of resemblance. The sisters “Delia” and “Effie” married the two sons of Max, and in this way, though somewhat obscurely, Mr. Dugdale connects Max with the most criminal branch of the Jukes. We say somewhat obscurely; for the reader is first inclined to believe that Ada was married to one of Max’s sons, till on chart No. iv., page 49, he quite casually lights on the remark “Effie Juke married X——, brother to the man who married Delia Juke, and son of Max.” While acknowledging the inherent difficulty of a lucid arrangement of facts so complicated and bearing such manifold relations, we believe that a little more fulness of statement would lead to at least an easier understanding of Mr. Dugdale’s work. “Effie” became, through her marriage with the second son of Max, the ancestress of one of the distinctively pauperized branches of the family. The progeny of Delia inclined more to crime, and Ada thus became the parent stem whence both the criminal and pauperized army of the “Jukes” mainly sprang; for it is a circumstance deserving notice that, whereas the offspring of “Ada” before marriage founded the criminal line of the family, her offspring after marriage inclined rather to pauperism than to crime. So likewise in the case of “Effie,” whose known offspring was the result of marriage; we find few criminals, but nearly all paupers, among her descendants.

In the first chart Mr. Dugdale exhibits a detailed history of the illegitimate posterity of “Ada” throughout seven generations. The first legitimate consanguineous union in the family took place between the illegitimate son of “Ada” and a daughter of “Bell,” from which six children resulted. The branch is considered illegitimate, as far as “Ada” is concerned, so that Mr. Dugdale sets down each collateral branch as either legitimate or illegitimate, according to the legitimacy or illegitimacy of that child of the five sisters which stands at the head of the list. Now, glancing along the column of the third generation, or that exhibiting the six legitimate children of the illegitimate son of “Ada” and a legitimate daughter of “Bell,” we find their history to be as follows: The first, a male, lived to the age of seventy-five; was a man of bad character, though inclined at times to be industrious, and depended on out-door relief for the last twenty years of his life. The sisters and brothers of this man strongly resembled him in character, being all noted for their longevity, their propensity to steal, and their habitual licentiousness. They were, moreover, exceedingly indolent, with one exception, and were a constant burden on the township. It is unnecessary to trace out the history of these or of their descendants, except to present a few typical cases which will enable us to understand the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Dugdale.

The first son of “Ada,” just mentioned, married a non-relative of bad repute, by whom he had nine children. This woman died of syphilis; and it is well to note at what an early period this poisonous strain showed itself in this the illegitimate branch of “Ada’s” descendants. These nine children surpassed their father, their uncles, and their aunts in criminal propensity. They were especially more violent, were frequently imprisoned for assault and battery, and, though no more licentious than their father, were especially addicted to licentiousness in its grosser forms. They inherited the constitutional disease of which their mother died, and with it the penalty of an early death, the oldest having died at the age of fifty-one and the youngest at twenty-four. It will be observed that they were not so constantly dependent on out-door relief as the generation immediately preceding them; this fact being attributable to the greater violence of their temper, which induced them to acquire by robbery and theft the means of livelihood, while the others preferred to beg. One aunt of these nine—viz., the second sister of their father and fourth from him in birth—never married, but had four children by a non-relative; and, for a purpose soon to be understood, we will compare their career with that of their nine cousins, who, it must be remembered, were born in wedlock. These four were illegitimate all the way back to their grandmother, “Ada”; and if there be any force in the statement that prolonged illegitimacy has an influence in the formation of character, we here have an opportunity of verifying it. The first of these, a male, was arrested at the age of ten; was arraigned for burglary soon after, but acquitted; was indicted for murder in 1870, and, though believed to be guilty, was again acquitted; was in the county jail in 1870, and in 1874 was depending upon out-door relief. The second, a female, began to lead a loose life at an early age, which rapidly developed into a criminal one. The third, a male, was guilty of nearly every known crime, and at last accounts was undergoing a term of twenty years’ imprisonment in Sing Sing for burglary in the first degree. The fourth, also a male, died at the age of nineteen, after having spent three and a half years in Albany penitentiary. Thus, though the record of the nine cousins is not very flattering, the vicious proclivities of these four illegitimates are manifestly more marked and decided.

If we now turn to the chart exhibiting the posterity of the legitimate children of Ada Juke, we will find an order of things entirely different. The husband of “Ada” was lazy, while her paramour, on the contrary, was always industrious. Syphilis likewise showed itself at a still earlier period than in the illegitimate branch; for whereas this disease first appeared in the generation of the illegitimate line, Ada’s first child by marriage became a victim to it at an early age, and her two legitimate daughters are set down as harlots at an equally early age. Ada’s first child, a son, married after the poisoned taint had got into his blood, and transmitted the loathsome heritage to his eight children. The immediate descendants of these eight were for the most part blind, idiotic, and impotent, and those who were not so became the progenitors of a line of syphilitics down to the sixth generation. Moreover, the intermarriages between cousins were much more frequent along this line than in the illegitimate branch. It is a noteworthy fact that in this chart one of the “Juke” blood is, for the first and only time, set down as being a Catholic—the only time, indeed, that reference is made to the question of religion. Mr. Dugdale allows us to infer from this exceptional allusion that he found but one Catholic in this edifying family. We would recommend this fact to the consideration of our rural friends who think that chiefly in the metropolis abound the criminals, _quorum pars maxima_ they believe to be Catholics. The first time these unco-pious people had the fierce light that beats upon a town turned upon themselves, the spectacle thus revealed is not over-pleasant. This _en passant_. Were we to examine the other statistical exhibits of Mr. Dugdale, we would find pretty nearly the same result made clear. Without, therefore, entering into details that are painful in character and difficult to keep constantly in view, we will give a summary of the conclusions which the detailment of facts seems to justify:

1. The lines of intermarriage of the Juke blood show a minimum of crime.

2. In the main, crime begins in the progeny where the Juke blood has married into X—— (non-Juke blood).

3. The illegitimate branches have chiefly married into X——.

4. The illegitimate branches produced a preponderance of crime.

5. The intermarried branches show a preponderance of pauperism.

6. The intermarried branches show a preponderance of females.

7. The illegitimate branches produced a preponderance of males.

8. The apparent anomaly presents itself that the illegitimate criminal branches show collateral branches which are honest and industrious.

We here find a most curious and interesting history and an epitome of conclusions which challenges serious consideration. That the family of the “Jukes” was more vicious than their neighbors whose surroundings were similar cannot be disputed, and the question arises, What was there peculiar and exceptional in their case that made the fact to be such? The habits of life of the immediate descendants of Max were bad in the extreme, but partly forced upon them by environments. These people dwelt in mud-built cabins, with but one apartment, which served all the purpose of a tenement. Here they slept and ate, and of course privacy was rendered entirely impossible. Decency and modesty were out of the question, and the anomaly of whole families utterly bereft of all regard for domestic morals began to exhibit itself. We will now lay down a fundamental principle, by the light of which we hope to be able to solve the knotty question of this intense perversity of a series of blood-related generations, and Mr. Dugdale himself will furnish the proofs.

Early impurity beyond all other causes warps the moral sense, blunts the delicacy of womanly modesty, dims the perception of the difference between right and wrong—in a word, is quickest to sear the conscience. Crimes of violence, crimes of any sort, which are not traceable to this origin are outbursts of momentary distemper; but impurity of the sort mentioned lays the foundation of an habitual aptitude to commit the worst crimes, as though the tendency to do so were inborn and natural. Let us examine the facts as exhibited in the history of the Jukes family. Throughout the six generations studied by Mr. Dugdale he found 162 marriageable women, including, as facts required him to do, some of very tender years. Of these 84 had lapsed from virtue at some time or other. This is an enormous percentage compared with the police returns of our most crowded seaboard cities. Among the Jukes women 52.40 per cent. were fallen women. In New York, London, Paris, and Liverpool the highest calculation does not exceed 1.80. If such was the moral _status_ of the female portion of the family, it is not difficult to conceive what a low ebb morals among the males must have reached. The more closely we look into the facts recorded by Mr. Dugdale, the more irresistible becomes the conclusion that these moral pariahs yielded themselves up without restraint to every excess from the moment sexual life dawned upon them, and blushed not to commit crimes which do not bear mention. In the record of their lives we meet at every line expressions which brand these people as the modern representatives of the wicked ones who 3,700 years ago shrivelled in the fire of God’s anger on the plains of the Dead Sea. Indeed, the fact that the infamous practices which made the “Jukes” family notorious are the beginning of an utter loss of conscience has been long recognized by Catholic theologians, who, while admitting that loss of faith is a more serious loss than that of purity, contend that the latter is more degrading, more profoundly disturbs the moral nature of man, and speedily blinds him to the perception of every virtue. Many more facts might be adduced in support of this proposition, both from the pages of Mr. Dugdale and the various reports of our reformatory and punitive institutions, but what has been said will no doubt be deemed sufficient.

If, then, it be admitted that a corrupt life begun in early youth and continued for a long time is the broadest highroad to crime, it is interesting to enquire how far so-called criminal heredity is influenced by the transmission of impure propensities. It has become the fashion of late days to allow to hereditary influence a vast importance in the discussion and management of crime, so that there is danger even that the criminal will be led to look upon himself as naturally, and consequently unavoidably, vicious, and that society ought not to visit upon him the penalty of his misdeeds any more than it should punish the freaks of a madman. Dr. Henry Maudsley, in his recent work entitled _Responsibility in Mental Disease_, holds language startling enough to make every inmate of Sing Sing to-day regard himself as one against whom the grossest injustice had been done. He says: