In a large proportion of cases, crime and pauperism have nothing to do
with heredity; but are the consequence, partly, of circumstances
and, partly, of the possession of qualities, which, under different
conditions of life, might have excited esteem and even admiration.
It was a shrewd man of the world who, in discussing sewage problems,
remarked that dirt is riches in the wrong; place; and that sound
aphorism has moral applications. The benevolence and open-handed
generosity which adorn a rich man may make a pauper of a poor one; the
energy and courage to which the successful soldier owes his rise, the
cool and daring subtlety to which the great financier owes his fortune,
may very easily, under unfavourable conditions, lead their possessors to
the gallows, or to the hulks. Moreover, it is fairly probable that the
children of a "failure" will receive from their other parent just that
little modification of character which makes all the difference. I
sometimes wonder whether people, who talk so freely about extirpating
the unfit, ever dispassionately consider their own history. Surely, one
must be very "fit" indeed not to know of an occasion, or perhaps two, in
one's life, when it would have been only too easy to qualify for a place
among the "unfit."