The true explanation of this unsatisfactory state of things is not
far to seek. It is almost entirely to be attributed to the growing
tendency of the community to become concentrated in large cities. A
highly concentrated population fosters lawless and immoral instincts
in such a multitude of ways that it is only an expression of literal
exactitude to call the great cities of today the nurseries of modern
crime. Statistics of all kinds show this, but it can easily be
ascertained without the aid of any figures. The aggregation of large
multitudes within a very limited area must increase the chances of
conflict, and consequently multiply the occasions for crime.
A population in this crowded condition has also to be restrained and
regulated at every turn by a huge network of laws, and as every new
law forbids something which was permitted before, a multiplication of
laws is inevitably followed by an increase of crime.
The prevention of crime should be the great object with the
philanthropist. The obvious remedy is, if possible, to aid the
individual in overcoming the temptation to evil or to crime. The
remedy must be general, gradual, and constant. It consists in
religious, moral, intellectual, and industrial education of the
children, especially of the poor and unfortunate and the weakling
classes. The most certain preventive is the early incarnation of good
habits in children, which, becoming part and parcel of their nervous
organization, are an unconscious force when passion, perplexity,
or temptation tend to make them lose self-control. Little can be
expected from palliative remedies for social diseases so long as this
educational remedy is not thoroughly carried out.