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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.