The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-07-08
BALTIMORE.
THURSDAY, JULY s, 1858.

tainly not pleasant occupation. To be forever
chroncling, day after day, fresh instances of wrong
and outrage-to be under the disagreeable necessi-
ty of constantly calling public attention to the Gull
pabe neglect of the constituted authorities to take
any adequate steps for the prevention of crime and
the repression of violence-and to have sometimes
superadded the painful duty of exposing to merited
obloquy their actual sympathy with criminals and
completely in crime, is at best a wearisome task,
and perhaps, thRkless one. Gladly would we
exchange sometin' the language of censure and
reproach for that Use and commentator.
Gladly would we tui1 00rrowfu spectacle
of broken laws and deb. to the con-
temptation of a brighter side Q. 'ture, and
forgetting all that is actually tram. "ound
us, dream pleasant visions of another ans
state of society, and of far different ordvA
things In our fancy we might present to our
readers and ourselves, picture Of a well-ordered
commonwealth-with whose smiling borders
Just and benevolent government should everywhere
dH'use the blessings of peace and quietness-where
faithful administration of the laws should secure
to every citizen the undisturbed enjoyment of his
political rights and afford absolute protection both
to person and property-where the magistrate
should not bear the sword in vain, and the law
should prove a wholesome terror to evil-doers-
where men in Office should inspire respect not less
by the purity of their lives, than by the dignity of
their staton-and where the public authorities
should be prompt to prevent, and sure to punish
every infracon of private right, or violation of
public duty.
Alas we cannot so easily close our eyes to the
hard conditions and sad realities of the life we
live If those realities fail to correspond with the
ideal sketch we have drawn, we must remember
that our business is with the Real and not with the
Ideal. If the present state of society, in Balti-
more be the reverse of all that we have
Just pictured, we must recolect that our
duty is to describe things as they are with u.s.
and not as they might be in Utopia. To edit
Il Police Gazette or Il CriminGG Cdlenddr is certain
ly not what we desire; but if "Murders'' and
'Outrages,' and ''Rots'' and Desperate ARRAYS"
daily redden with their sanguinary details the
columns of this journal, it is because such events
are now grown to be the commonest occurrences of
life and because the very air we breathe is thick
with crime. In recording such deeds of violence
we but fulfil our vocation as journalists
and we should be untrue to our calling did we
abate one solitary horror of them ALL in the phast-
ly picture of the times, which it is our duty not
our pleasure, to hold up to public view. If the
reflection in the mirror be thought hideous, our
readers should remember that the object reflected
is anything but comely. Yet as we have said in
the face of all the crimes and disorders that make
life in Baltimore, at this time solemn thing,
we are not without the consciousness that matters
might be worse, and may be better. Shall they
be worse before they grow better, or have they
gone far enough already to justify and require re-
NEEDY? The Vision which we have dreamed, of a
well-ordered State, was not all dream. Such a
commonwealth as we have imagined. is not alb
solutely Utopian. There are living examples in
abundance, aye, in this country, of States and
cities, and communities that are free from any and
all OF the evils under which we suffer;-where
life and property are safe-where the laws
are obeyed, or if defed, are enforced
and if violated, are avenged-where armed ruff
fanism does not triumph over public order and
private right, and where the officers of the law
are not in league with the law-brealers Boston
at the North, and Charleston at the South, we be-
ieve to be, in the main, well-governed cities as
Massachusetts among the Free, and South Caro-
lima among the Slave, are certainly well-governed
States. Why should not Baltimore be like Boston
and Charleston, rather than like Rome and Con-
stantlnople? Why may not the lives and property
OF citizens he as safe here as there? Let but the
respectable and conservative classes in the State
the men of education and the men of substance
join together, without distinction of politics or
party, in q combined movement in favor of Munich
pal Reform, and the regeneration of our city will
be accomplished. Through the criminal and
fatal apathy Of the better portion of Society, the
professional, mercantile and Industrial classes. or
ganized rufianism has been suffered to rule in orr
city, uncurbed and unchecked for years past and at
length to substitute the government of the car
tridge-box for that of the ballot-box and the SOW
ereignty OF the bullet for that of the ballot There
needs but the honest conviction of the necessity of
Reform, in the minds of the thinking men of the
community, and willing heart to cooperate in the
great work of Reform in the breasts of the good
men of the community, to put an end to all this
Have the men to whom we appeal arrived at this
conviction, and are they ready for such co-opera
ton? Do they require further outrages and more
bloodshed in order to convince them of the utter
worhessness of all existing pledges for the proec-
ton either OF person or property, and the necessity
of providing additional guarantees for both? If
so-how long will they wait? VIII it be until the
armed Agrarianism, which, in South Baltimore
has already dictated to the ship-carpenters the terms
on which it will condescend to accept of Wages
without Work, emboldened by mpunity, shall
cross the water, and invade with equal insolence
the workshops and manufactures on this side of
the Basin; or will it be until in their own persons
they have been made to feel the brutal violence of
which they have as yet only read in the papers,
as having been inflicted upon Others?