The jail and the penitentiary are not the first institutions planted by colonists in a new country, or by pioneers in a new state. These pioneers go to work to till the soil, to cut down the forests, to dig the ore; it is only when the owning class has been established and the exploiting class grows up, that the jail and the penitentiary become fixed institutions, to be used for holding people in their place. CHAPTER VIII THE PROPER TREATMENT OF CRIME Reason and judgment as well as an almost endless array of facts has proven that crime is not without its cause. In showing its cause, its cure has been made plain. If the minds and energies of men were directed toward curing crime instead of brutally assaulting the victims of society, some progress might be made. It is often difficult to trace results, because their relations are not always direct and plain. Even in the realm of physical facts it is always easy to stray from the straight path between cause and effect. When we observe the conduct of men and seek to find its cause the problem is still more complex. Each human being is an entity made up of all that is and of all that has gone before. It may not be possible to tell from whence he obtained every quirk or peculiarity of his brain, but one thing is sure, he did not form his own skull and could have but little part in arranging the brain cells within the bone. This portion came from his father, this his mother gave, this was bequeathed by a bloody ancestor who died long generations since; but all who went before did their part, and gave their little mite to make the composite brain that drives its possessor here and there. While the exact cause of any act may not be ascertained, still the general causes are beyond dispute. A stunted body means that either its owner or its ancestor has almost surely been starved and that want and hunger have left their traces on the brain. An inferior mind means some incapacity, disease or disadvantage, either in the individual or his ancestor, that has left him different from his fellow men. An unsymmetrical head may reach back to the early ape, and account for any possible seeming deficiency or peculiarity in the brain, which after all must be molded in the shape that the bone allows it to assume. Starved bodies can be cured by food. True, it may take more than one generation to cure them as it may have taken several to produce them, but, after all, they can be cured by food; and a rational humane world would commend itself more to thinking men and to the posterity which will judge us, by feeding these starved bodies rather than imprisoning them in pens. An inferior mind or an ill-shaped head can be reached in a generation or more by feeding the body that supports it, by treating it with tenderness, charity and kindness, rather than ruling it with hatred, bitterness and violence.