HOMICIDE
441
HOMICIDE
be permanent or temporary, according to the period
of time that the inmates are permitted to spend in
them; but the general character of all the persons to
whom they give shelter is defectiveness and, as a rule,
inability to pay for their own support. A working-
girls' home, or a workingmen's home, is a misnomer,
since these places are merely a special kind of hotel
or boarding-house.
The first homes of which we have any knowledge were included in the xenodochia, or hospitals, that arose under the auspices of the Church during the reign of Constantine the Great. These institutions gave shelter not only to the sick, strangers, and travel- lers, but to widows, foundlings, and the homeless generally. Within a short time after their origin, there was at least one hospital in every episcopal city, and they were not unknown in the smaller towns and even in the country places. The monastic hospitals had departments for the care of the blind, the deaf, and the insane. It was not until the twelfth century that distinct homes for defectives became of any im- portance. The first of these were the leper-houses. (See Leprosy.) For a long time after that date the majority of homeless defectivos were still cared for in some department of or in connexion with the hospitals. Indeed, the monastic hospitals and the municipal hospitals were the centres for the relief of all forms of distress during the later Middle Ages and down to the time of the Reformation. Their rich endowments formed the principal means of carrying on so many forms of charitable activity that are now taken care of by many different agencies. Among the decrees of the Council of Trent for the regulation and reformation of the system of poor-relief, we find several with special application to hospitals. In France no separate homes for defectives came into existence until the time of Louis XIV. This monarch founded several institutions in Paris and in some of the other large cities of his kingdom for the special care of the poor, foundlings, and other helpless classes. The magnificent work of St. Vincent de Paul naturally comes to mind here. In Germany defectives con- tinued generally to be cared for in connexion with the hospitals until the middle of the eighteenth century. The same general condition prevailed long after the Reformation in Italy and Spain. At present there are homes under Catholic auspices for the care of all kinds of defectives in every country of Christendom. Most of them are in charge of religious communities, chiefly communities of women. The Little Sisters of the Poor and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd are merely two conspicuous examples of religious commu- nities that manage institutional homes. In the United States, and in most of the countries of Europe, are to be foimd homes for the various forms of depend- ency, under the management of the public authorities. The system of almshouses, or workhouses, in the British Isles and in Germany affords tyijical instances. According to the volume of the United States Census on "Benevolent Institutions", the total number of homes (excluding insane asylums) in that country at the end of the year 190-1 was 2392, of which 254 were public, 1264 private, and 874 ecclesiastical. The whole number of inmates was 212,782.
The question of the precise value of homes is so com- plex that it easily gives rise to a great variety of opin- ion. Extremists condemn them utterly or approve the principle of them without qualification. Proba- bly the truth lies somewhere near the middle. An institutional home is obviously of great benefit to all persons who cannot obtain proper care elsewhere. It can supply all the purely physical comforts of the natural home, and thus meet the basic human needs. If it is properly managed it is capable of providing some resemblance to the conditions of family life, by fostering a bond of affection and a consciousness of community of interests. Obviously, however, this
basis can never fully take the jilace of community of
blood. Most of the varietl and rich relationships of
the natural home and the natural family are im-
possible even in the iileally managed institution. The
very size of the group in the latter is a serious obstacle
to anything like the care and affection that is within
the reach of the individual in a family. Moreover,
the physical and mental inconveniences of following
a imiform routine of daily life can rarely become a
matter of intlifference to the individual, and not in-
frequently will more than offset the more fundamental
material comforts. Then there is always a lack of
opportunity for that individual self-direction which
is an essential part of normal education and self-de-
velopment. This criticism applies more particularly
to homes for children. On the other hand, life in an
institutional home is often preferable to life in a
family on the boarding-out plan. This is due to the
absence of even that imitation of the paternal or ma-
ternal attitude which the former aims to provide.
The person who is boarding a defective fellow-being
is under a strong temptation to see in their mutual
relationship only a business arrangement. Finally,
it must be noted that institutional homes in charge
of religious communities ought to be, and usually are,
better substitutes on their human side for the natural
home than those which are under the direction of
secular persons. The directors of the latter cannot
have, as a rule, the motive or the capacity for an equal
degree of personal kindness and affection. Unfortu-
nately, however, our Catholic homes are not infre-
quently inferior in the matter of material equipments
and comforts. (See Foundling Asylums; Good
Shepherd, Sisters op the; Orphanages; Poor,
Little Sisters of the.)
Baluffi, The Charily of the Church a Proof of Her Divinity, tr. Garg.^n (Dublin. 1885) ; Henderson, Modern Methods of Charity (New York, 1904); Ratzinger, Armenpflege (Freiburg, 1884).
John A. Ryan.
Homicide (Lat. homo, man; and ccedere, to slay) signifies, in general, the killing of a human being. In practice, however, the word has come to mean the un- just taking away of human life, perpetrated by one distinct from the victim and acting in a private rapac- ity. For the purposes of this article, therefore, ac- count is not taken of suicide, nor of the carrying out of the penalty of death by due process of law. (See Punishment, Capital.) The direct killing of an in- nocent person is, of course, to be reckoned among the most grievous of sins. It is said to happen directly when the death of the person is viewed either as an end attractive in itself, or at any rate is chosen as a. means to an end. The malice discernible in the sin is primarily chargeable to the violation of the supreme ownership of God over the lives of His creatures. It arises as well from the manifest outrage upon one of the most conspicuous and cherished rights enjoyed by man, namely the right to life. For the scope con- templated here, a person is regarded as innocent so long as he has not by any responsible act brought any hurt to the community or to an individual comparable with the loss of life. Homicide is said to be indirect when it is no part of the agent's plan to bring about the death which occurs, so that this latter is not in- tended as an end nor is it selected as a means to fur- ther any purpose. In this hypothesis it is, at most, permitted on account of a reason commensurate with so great an evil as is the destruction of human life. Thus, for instance, a military commander may_ train his guns upon a fortified place, even though in the bombardment which follows he knows perfectly well that many non-combatants will perish. The suffi- cient cause in the case is consideration of the highest public good to be subserved by the defeat of the en- emy. When, however, the untoward death of a per- son is the outcome of an action which is prohibited
