The miners' express. (Dubuque, Iowa) 1849-1854, 1853-03-16
t1jetklq Crprtss.
WEDNESDAY MoRNISG.....MAHc lo
-------- -
HOME MISSIONARIES NEEDED.

WEDNESDAY MoRNISG,....MAHcn lG
| HOME MISSIONARIES NEEDED.
| A writer in the New York Courier and En-
qnrer," after having visited few, of the ,e,
thousand haunts of vice, destituticn and m iser,
in the city OF New York, relates some of hi
discoveries in the following extract -
We could tell Of one room, l2 fee, by 70 il
which were five resident families, comprisin,
% persons of both sexes, and all ages, with on !
two beds, without partition or screen, or chair
or table, and all dependent for their miserable
support upon the sale of chips, CLEANED from
the streets. at four cents a basket-of another
still mere destitute, inhabited by amac, woman
two little girls, and boy, who were supported
by permitting the room TO be used as a rendez-
vous BIZ the Abandoned women of the Street
Of another, an attic room seven feet by five con-
timing scarcely an article Of furniture, but ID
in which lay fine looking man in a raging fey.
er, without medicine ar drink, or suitable food,
his toll worn wife engaged in cleaning dirt from
the flaor, and his little child sleeping on bun
die of rags in the corner-of another, of the
same dimensions, in which we found, seated on
low boxes, around candle placed on keg, a
woman and her oldest daughter 1.-THE latter girl
Of fifteen, and, as we told, prostitnte) sew.
ing on shirts, for the making of which they
were paid four cents piece, and even at that
price out of which they had 10 support two small
children, they could not get supply ofwork
-of another of about the same size, occupied
by street rag picker and his family, the income
of whose industry was eight dollars a month
of another, scarcely larger, into which we were
drawn by the terrific screams Of a drunken man
i. g.. s:aIa
ture Understanding, warmed only by tin
pail of lighted charcoal, placed in the middle OF
the room, over which bent blind man, endeav-
oring to warm himself; around him three or
four men swearing and quareling in the corner,
on the floor, woman, who had died the day
previous, Of disease; and in another, two or
three children sleeping on pile Of rags; lin
this room we may say that its occupants were
colored people, and from them but few days
previous had been taken and adapted by one of
the benevolent citizens, beautiful little white
girl, four or five years Of age, whose father was
dead, and whose mother was at Blackwell's Is
land } another from which not long since TWEEN
ty persons sick with fever were taken to the
Hospital, and every individual of them died
But, why extend the catalogue? Or why at
tempt to the Imagination by words hideous
sgualor and the deadly effuvia, the dim undrain-
, sarways decayed with age, reeking with filth
and overrun with vernin, the rotted fours, cei-
ling begrimed, crumbling, OF ten too low to
permit you to stand upright, and windows suff
ed wiihsrags, or whyto portray the gnann shiy
ering form and wild ghaslly faces in these black
and seething abodes wherein from cellar to gar
ret. ~
ALL hfe dies, death lives and nature breeds
Perverse, all mons.rous, all gousy things
Abomnahle, unu,terable s<s.st
What a field is here opened for the home
the display Of that christian
charity which relieves and consoles the poor
Almost daily are the benevolent of the country
called upon to contribute for the benefit of for
eign Missionaries, while in our own country and
under our own observation, squalid poverty, des-
titution, misery, vice and rags, stalk abroad at
noon day. The ignorant and poverty stricken
Of foreign lands, excite our deepest solicitude,
and draw from US proiuse ,bpnYses, while thou
sands in our eastern cities and scattered the
over, sanity connected for ought we
know, are ekirg out miserable existence in ig
norance, poverty and shame. Our charities are
frequently bestowed where our sympathies are
the least required, while they are withheld
where they would accomplish noble reforma
lions and save valuable lives. {" Distance lends
to the scene," and it is too much
The case, that the greater the distance from US,
Of any object that cxcites our solicitude, the
more ex,ravagantly do we regard it and the
greater sacrifices will we make to attain it -
Let countryman stride fleet horse and rush
down Main street, with hat and coat off, crying
to the top Of his voice, house on the hill in
flames, with man crying from the third story
window for help, and although the lutid flame
might rise to Heaven from half the buildings
in the city, and cries Of distress and death ring
from each Illuminated quarter, the half frantic
inhabitants would leave The hundreds to perish
lEat they might crafty their over-restless curl
Dsity and save the one man. Such is the en-
chantment which distance lends to the scene
is not alone in the charities we called
upon to bestow, that we see this disposition ex
empli6ed, bu, it is peculiar to almost every de-
partment of life, trade, and profession, as well
as parties and sects. Discover man, or fami
" in the East, t,who have their minds made up 10
migrate West, and they can present a better des-
criptive picture Of the West by far, than you
who have been reared in the country and taught
to regard it as superior to all others. They can
discourse most eloqsently upon the unsurpassed
bea Itics of climate, soil and scenery. Discov-
er man in the West, who has his mind made
up to migrate to California, and he can describe
with the utmost nonchalance the road to for
tune Ills information has been collected from
the newspapers and his mind seems to have re
tanned nothing but the most extravagant tales of
golden harvest. He notes with special care the
six ounces per dav, that Dancing Jack makes,
and the twenty three pound lump that black
Gumbo happened one day to stumble upon
but he gives no heed to the thousands, who
toll, sweat and suffer, for mere substance
The same extravaganza is perceptible in poll
tics The fanatic Abolitionst will force him
self into public audience and expos,ulate vc-
hemently about the wrongs, outrages and evils
of slavery, while perhaps his mex, door neigh
Dor, q free negro, is lying i'll: without crust of
bread to stay his stomach, or a friendly hand to
administer little cool water. The one, naked,
isolated case, Of foolish, rash, tyrannical Mas
ter, who abuses and beats his slave, is produced
and held up to public gaze, as an illustration Of
the evils of slavery In the eyes OF such, the
entire slave h'iding population of the south, is
mad, responsible for the outrages inflicted upon
the slave, by this one, rash, slave holder. The
same spirit is percep'be in our social relations;
and without disparaging the efforts of those,
who are zealausly and religiously engaged in
mitigating the evils of foreign infdelity, pow.
erty and crime, we shall be pardoned for urging
the improperly Of entirely overlooking the pov
erty and distress al home, in our eagernees and
zeal to relieve il abroad. There is broad fe!d
on this continent for the philanthropist TO roam