Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1870-04-22

The Rev. W. T. Clark, Pennsylvania
paints dismal picture of the 'Mora
Situation" of Northern Society. To enable
our readers to Judge for themselves we
quote, without comment, the following
passage:
s"The reaction of the war on the taste,
| habits, ambitions and morals of our people
has proved damaging. The order of things
has been broken up. The leaders of other
days has been left behind, if not forgot
ten. Glasses are dissolved. Ideas and
usages which had become familiar are
thrown aside. New men, new customs,
new notions are in the ascendant. The
low have been lifted up. Followers
have become leaders. Beggars of yester-
day are millionaires to day, and set the
fashion for whoever is foolish enough
to follow their lead. To get money,
and to spend it in luxury, display,
of the day. Such an intense and
insane rush and struggle for wealth,
such ruinous extravaganza of expendi-
ture, such q delirium for the huttering
fripperies of fashion this country has
never witnessed before. And, alas, not
only taste, refinement, purity and plety
have suffered unspeakable detriment and
dimiDution, but even honesty-the only
firm basis of commercial prosperity, the
only sure support Of social order, the es-
sential condition of Individual and nation
al well-being-h3s given way before the
steady sapping and mining of immortal
customs and the fatal strain of false am
bition. Speculation-the popular name
for gambling on the street and at the
boards is trenching in on the line Of le-
gitimate business and eating out the heart
of honorable enterprise. Frauds and viii
lanies deserving the severest punishment
are perpetrated almost openly and con-
fessed without shame. Scarcely an article
Of food but is nauseOus with adultera-
tons. Coffee is made Of stale ship bread
and oil nuts, milk is thick with disease,
and wine is a compound Of drugs and dam
nation.
"Our streets and public places are full
of temperance, and not only do young
men and old fall before it by the hundred,
but even boys and women wear lis fire
blush on their cheeks, and reel and totter
under its influence on the sidewalk
Gambling is a business carried on less
publicly, butscarcely less extensively than
many honorable avOcatIOns, and the gam
blcrs include every class, from the boy OF
fifteen to the roue OF sixty. Indeed, every
vice on the black catalogue OF transgression
has more than doubled a volume and in
victims within dozen years, and our
young men, the pride and hope of the
ton, fall before the subtle destroyers
faster than they fell during the Southern
campaigns. Marriages are diminishing.
Homes are breaking up. Amusements are
vitiated with vulgarity. Echoes of pre-
family fill the air. The streets are mined
with pitfalls of vice, and crimes are SO fre
quent that they have ceased to shock or
even to startle rs indeed, we expect an
account of a wholesale robbery, divorce
case and murder as spice for our breakfast
Many Of our judges seem to imagine that
it is their business to protect criminals from
justice, and prosecute prosecutors and pun
ish witnesses until they are afraid to testify
in court. Many of our cities are at the mer-
cy of banditti who plumber by ordinance
and pick pockets by tax. The Lobby is the
most powerful branch of the Legislature,
and almost any measure can be moneyed
into law. Half Of the revenue officers are
suspected of peculation, and it is estima
ted that u single interest defrauded the
out of million dollars last
year. The Governor of the leading State
in the Union was unquestionably elected
by fraudulent votes, and the 'repeaters'
drop through the rents III our rotten courts
like canary seed through a coal sieve"