The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-27

efforts are likely to be neutralized by the
scenes which the rising generation may be-
hold on their way home They hear, for in
stance, of man who has contrived to seize
the control of great enterprise in which
large amount Of capital was invested, be-
longing to persons who are, many OF them,
in straitened circumstances. His name is
associated with all sorts of trickery and
double-dealing. 1t might be supposed, there
fore, that he would be looked upon as
social pariab and that no respectable
person would have anything to do
with him. But the youth who is
fresh from hearing that "honesty is
the best policy" and other old-fashioned
truths, finds it hard to reconcile these lessons
with the everyday incidents of life: The
man who has gone upon the principle that
dishonesty is the best policy fourishes like
the green bay tree. He drives out behind a
four-in-hand. He issues invitations to par
ties and finds plenty of people willing
enough to accept them. There was q time
when, if well-known man dared to appear
in public theatre or concert room in CON-
pany with dissolute women he would have
been hissed. Now we are more tolerant. 1t
seems safe for anybody to defy public
opinion. Our daughters are confronted
wherever they go with prohigacy in its vilest
form, and our sons are placed in the way of
seeing that to all appearance nothing pays so
we'll as swindling
Until the public take this matter into their
own hands it is hopeless to look for much
improvement. At present the man who
goes Haunting about the streets at the ex-
pense of honest people is thought to be rather
an amusing person. His career of villainy is
deemed to be good joke. Newspapers make
a sort Of pet of him, and he surrounds him
self with agents who are ever ready to do
any dirty work he may have occasion for.
He finds that almost everything yields to the
power of money. He can be called by any
title he likes, SO long as he will spend his
money freely. And these sort Of men always
comply with that condition. What costs
them no effort to obtain they
The money which is rightfully the
lessness, and in every kind of vicious indul-
gence. After long course of that behavior
they become popular. They are called by
their Christian names, and even decent women
look upon them as only 'little eccentric"
1t is the public who are to blame for most of
these excesses. When a well-known man
dares to show himself in public theatre with
notoriously abandoned women, he ought to be
Missed out of the place. Until that explosion
has taken place once or twice, we may expect
to see that the scenes which disgraced Long
Branch this summer, and are likely to scan
dalze New York this winter, will inevitably
be continued. The depravity of the young is
already subject of alarm to all who go
about the world with their eyes open. What
is it likely to become when the present era
of Righteousness has lasted a little while
longer-when men of notoriously bad char
acter are allowed to force themselves into a
conspicuous place in the social world? All
society will feel the pernicious influence of
what is row going on. Half-a-dozen men, in
league with each other and banded against
the public are doing as they please with New
York. Is it not nearly time that the public en-
deavored to protect themselves against these
outrages?