Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1858-11-29


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OK our first page 10 day will lie found an ar
eticle on the subject of prostitution, taken from
2 the Philadelphia Eoening journal, and publish
ed by request. While the subject is thus be-
fore our readers, we may say that we very much
doubt the efficacy of all such maudlin moraliz-
ing over this subject as the article quoted, which
is more of an affected straining after the
hideous than it is an ineligible picture. Every
body knows that this has been the besetting sin
of the human race, ever since tho first family
diverged on the plains of Palestine. The book
of Genesis does not progress through six chap
tiers until we are told that the thoughts ! mems
hearts were only evil continually. When there
were no cities or towns or large communities
before the food, we have reason to suppose that
this bane of all society eliminated in unen-
durable magnitude in the sight of Heaven
After the food we know that it iid-and on the
plains of Shinar fire and birthstone rained from
heaven upon the devoted heads of the incestu-
Gus Sodomites whose very name now stands as
a synonyme of bestial lust. Everywhere
throughout the earth, in all ages, among all PEG.
pie, this evil counts its votaries and its victims.
Itproceeds from the very constitution of hui
manity itseR, and It's vain as vain can be to
think that it can ever be extirpated. When it
does not exist publicly it does privately. Cities,
towns, villages and country suffer alike in their
ratio ofpopulation. This has always been So
1t is no worse nowadays, in all probability,
than it ever was. There is, in spite of all jere-
niads, in all likelihood, more morality, more
chastity abroad on the earth than there ever
was before. The facility for discovering the
exact proportion of the evil were much greater
nowadays than it ever was before, as the pub
lication of the book in question, ITSELF shows
and the fact that so much of it is brought to
light through the police reports of the daily
press tends to the belief that the evil is greatly
on the increase. No doubt, like all other evils,
it keeps up a relative proportion to the increase
of population-but it is just as great mis-
take for theorists and moralists nowadays, to
suppose that this generation is depraved above
all its predecessors as it was for those of old to
conclude, that "they upon whom the tower of
Sloan fell were sinners above all that dwelt in
Jerusalem.
Aside from the book allueded to, the subject for
good while back, has been engaging the active
attention of phianthropic. people and benevo-
lent and religious societies in the greater and
smaller cities.
The pulpit has recognized it rs specific sin,
toward which the direct antagonism of truth is
directed, and the appeals of mercy, too, nre elo-
quenty and forcibly portrayed The press is
deyOting liberal space to the discussion of this
social cyl and is aFsfsy PeHSi REg P BSnEs
to the agencies which beget and sustain the So
4 cal pollution. Organizations are springing into
vital existence which promise to lay hold even
upon the victims of the vice, and whisper words
that shall guide them back to virtue and society.
Females have taken hold of this retaining fea-
ture in the work of reform, and we are happy
to notice that they have made their organiza-
tons very successful in many instances. An as
ISOLATION of this kind in Philadelphia is doing
81 large amount of good. They have reclaimed
hundreds from the ways of prostitution and
turned their footsteps into brighter paths
They find nearly two.thirds of all the girls who
are reclaimed from this vice to be orphans who
T have gone down in early years to the haunts of
misery, because there was no restraining power
to hold them back.
IT is now pretty well settled that Letcher-