Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1846-12-03
Parents Department,
The following truthful and impressive article we
copy from the Obern Evangelist Parents will dc
we'll to read and ponder it. Ed.
0 AbSalOm Ny Son, NY Son.

well 10 READ anu pOnuer IT. ED
0 AbSalum, My Son. My Son,
Suppose we had twenty or thirty years ago
gone through the land and visited every house
We should have seen countless infants sleeping
in their cradles smiling in their mothers arms
or altering their natural infant cry, exciting ten
der interest or compass ion in the hearers and be-
holders.
We should have seen countless little boys and
girs-som too small to do aught but play, 9th
ers reading or engaged in some innocent happy
employment We should have seen them differ
emily managed ard of different characters.
Years have passed, and the infants and little
boys and girls have grown to be men and women.
Let us see where they are,
We visit the houses again which we visited
years ago. The former infants and children
are blessed be God, many Of them the respect
able fathers and mothers now. AT the evening
hour, we hear the psces of many Of them lifted
to God in family prayer. But many call not up
on God. We End many in the work-shops--in
The stores-on the farms, respectable, grave cit
'zens. We hear many of them from the pull
pit, from the professors chair, from the Judges
bench and at the bar. We find them, too, as
physicians in the chambers of the sick. Some
Of them we hear of as editors of influential pa
pers, and others as occupying the high places of
The State. Some Of the little girls we find pre-
siding over celebrated seminaries at Troy Mount
Holyoke, Ipswich, New Haven, and in many
a., r. ,,,1 n,
quiry we learn that others have crossed the
oceau-waye to teach the gospel to the benighted
pagans. And countless muItitudes are seen in
spheres of honorable usefulness, little observed
by men, but we'll known to God
But our visits are not completed
As we pass through the land we alight at
Sing-Sug What have we herel We see
huge edlhce of massive stone, and high massive
stone walls enclosing it. The windows arc fur
nished with strong iron bars-the gates and
doors arc OF massive iron. 1t is States Pris-
on. We 90 in an what do VIC find but hundreds
of the smiling infants who years before were
the pride and joy of their parents hearts All
day they toll in dismal compulsory siIence-and
at night they are shut up IN lonely cells They
are to spend years in this gloomy place. We
alight at Auburn-we pass to Moyamensing-
we visit Columbus-and we find hundreds on
hundreds in each gloomy prison of the smiling
infants who years before delighted our eyes
Yes, and there are women among them.
In some Of the solitary cells we find poor
wretchcs who have imbued their hands in blood
and soon they arc to die fearful death of
awful ignominy.
What is that crowd! They surround poor
manacled creature who seems dressed in grave
clothes-a white cap on his head-he stands
pale, trembling, with rope around his neck
We examine his face-we ask his name. 1t is
one Of the smiling infants or the playful boys we
saw with pleasing hope thirty years ago
We leave the awful scene. We 90 to New
York We hear talk Of the Five Points We
90 to inspect the place. Here are hundreds and
thousands Of laggard wretched females, the
curse of God written on their loreheads Their
faces are bloated with strong drink or emaciated
with disease-and thick red paint strives to con-
cea the ravages of midnight revels of drunken
ness and lust. Their mouths are full of oaths
and blasphemies and unspeakable obscenties.-
Shame has left them forever-or they try to
hide the remnants of it under horrid brazen-
faced impudence In few days they rot and
fill dogs grave.
But who are these poor wretches-thesc worse
than devils in womanS form! Alas, they are
many Of them the sweet infants, the precious
babes, the dear little innocent girls, we saw in
the soft cradles of happy homes in the loving
arms Of virtuous mothers, playing in innocent
glee under the delighted eyes of fond fathers
But time would fail me to trace the history of
the infants we met with in our visits years ago.
But. my dear readers, let me tell you that often
when look at my dear little circle of babes
ask myself shall any of my dear boys ever oc-
cupy the lonely cell Of a pententiary-or die a
felon's death! Shall any of my daughters live
the life or die the death of harot! Such
questions make me solemn; for l know that
from families as respected as mine, statcs-prsons
and brothels are in part supplied with miserable
occupants year by year Yes, an army of such
wreches are now on their march to those
wreched quarters.
7 In New York alone near twenty thousand ev-
cry five years crowd into the the places render.
ed vacant by loahsome death. Philadelphia,
Boston, New Orleans, to say nothing of smaller
cities and towns, receive their proportional! quo
tas And how many go to fill up the wasting